Jaka, too, thought this a terrible turn of events, but for a very different reason-at least he thought his anger had come from a different source, for he wasn't certain of the reason his mother and uncle were so upset by the news, and his expression clearly revealed that confusion.
"We've each our station," his uncle explained. "Clear lines, and not ones to be crossed."
"Lord Feringal brings dishonor to his family," said his mother.
"Meralda is a wonderful woman," Jaka argued before he could catch and hold the words secret.
"She's a peasant, as we all be," his mother was quick to explain. "We've our place, and Lord Feringal's got his. Oh, them folk will rejoice at the news, do not doubt, thinking to draw some of their own hope at Meralda's good fortunes, but they're not knowing the truth of it."
"What truth?"
"He'll use her to no good ends," foretold his mother. "He'll make himself the fool and the girl a tramp."
"And in the end, she'll be broken or dead, and Lord Feringal will have lost all favor with his peers," added his uncle. "Evil tiding."
"Why do you believe that she will succumb?" the young man asked, working hard to keep the desperation out of his tone.
His mother and uncle merely laughed at that question. Jaka understood their meaning all too clearly. Feringal was the lord of Auckney. How could Meralda refuse him?
It was more than poor, sensitive Jaka could take. He banged the table hard with his fist and slid his chair back. Rising fast to his feet, he matched the surprised stares of his mother and uncle with a glower of utter rage. With that Jaka turned on his heel and rushed out, slamming the door behind him.
Before he knew it he was running, his thoughts whirling. Jaka soon came to high ground, a small tumble of rocks just above the muddy field he had been working earlier that same day, a place affording him a splendid view of the sunset, as well as Meralda's house. In the distant southwest he saw the castle, and he pictured the magnificent coach making its deliberate way up the road to it with Meralda inside.
Jaka felt as if a heavy weight were pressing on his chest, as if all the limitations of his miserable existence had suddenly become tangible walls, closing, closing. For the last few years Jaka had gone to great lengths to acquire just the correct persona, the correct pose and the correct attitude, to turn the heart of any young lady. Now here came this foolish nobleman, this prettily painted and perfumed fop with no claim to reputation other than the station to which he had been born, to take all that Jaka had cultivated right out from under him.
Jaka, of course, didn't see things with quite that measure of clarity. To him it seemed a plain enough truth: a grave injustice played against him simply because of the station, or lack thereof, of his birth. Because these pitiful peasants of Auckney didn't know the truth of him, the greatness that lay within him hidden by the dirt of farm fields and peat bogs.
The distraught young man ran his hands through his brown locks and heaved a great sigh.
*****
"You best get it all cleaned, because you're not knowing what Lord Feringal will be seeing," Tori teased, and she ran a rough cloth across Meralda's back as her sister sat like a cat curled up in the steaming hot bath.
Meralda turned at the words and splashed water in Tori's face. The younger girl's giggles halted abruptly when she noted the grim expression on Meralda's face.
"I'm knowing what Lord Feringal will be seeing, all right," Meralda assured her sister. "If he's wanting his dress back, he'll have to be coming back to the house to get it."
"You'd refuse him?"
"I won't even kiss him," Meralda insisted, and she lifted a dripping fist into the air. "If he tries to kiss me, I'll-"
"You'll play the part of a lady," came the voice of her father, Both girls looked to the curtain to see the man enter the room, "Leave," he instructed Tori. The girl knew that tone well enough to obey without question.
Dohni Ganderlay stayed at the door a moment longer to make sure that too-curious Tori had, indeed, scooted far away, then he moved to the side of the tub and handed Meralda a soft cloth to dry herself. They lived in a small house where modesty was pointless, so Meralda was not the least bit embarrassed as she stepped from her bath, though she draped the cloth about her before she sat on a nearby stool.
"You're not happy about the turn of events," Dohni observed.
Meralda's lips grew thin, and she leaned over to splash a nervous hand in the cold bath water.
"You don't like Lord Feringal?"
"I don't know him," the young woman retorted, "and he's not knowing me. Not at all!"
"But he's wanting to," Dohni argued. "You should take that as the highest compliment."
"And taking a compliment means giving in to the one complimenting?" Meralda asked with biting sarcasm. "I've no choice in the matter? Lord Feringal's wanting you, so off you go?"
Her nervous splashing of water turned angry, and she accidently sent a small wave washing over Dohni Ganderlay. The young woman understood that it was not the wetness, but the attitude, that provoked his unexpectedly violent reaction. He caught her wrist in his strong hand and tugged it back, turning Meralda toward him.
"No," he answered bluntly. "You've no choice. Feringal is the lord of Auckney, a man of great means, a man who can lift us from the dirt."
"Maybe I'd rather be dirty," Meralda started to say, but Dohni Ganderlay cut her short.
"A man who can heal your mother."
He could not have stunned her more with the effect of those seven words than if he had curled his great fist into a tight ball and punched Meralda hard in the face. She stared at her father incredulously, at the desperate, almost wild, expression on his normally stoic face, and she was afraid, truly afraid.
"You've no choice," he said again, his voice a forced monotone. "Your ma's got the wilting and won't likely see the next turn of spring. You'll go to Lord Feringal and play the part of a lady. You'll laugh at his wit, and you'll praise his greatness. This you'll do for your ma," he finished simply, his voice full of defeat. As he turned away and rose Meralda caught a glint of moisture rimming his eye, and she understood.
Knowing how truly horrible this was for her father did help the young woman prepare for the night, helped greatly to cope with this seemingly cruel twist that fate had thrown before her.
*****
The sun was down, and the sky was turning dark blue. The coach passed below him on the way to Meralda's meager house. She stepped from the door, and even from this great distance Jaka could see how beautiful she appeared, like some shining jewel that mocked the darkness of twilight.
His jewel. The just reward for the beauty that was within him, not a bought present for the spoiled lord of Auckney.
He pictured Lord Feringal holding his hand out of the coach, touching her and fondling her as she stepped inside to join him. The image made him want to scream out at the injustice of it all. The coach rolled back down the road toward the distant castle with Meralda inside, just as he had envisioned earlier. Jaka could not have felt more robbed if Lord Feringal had reached into his pockets and taken his last coin.
He sat wallowing on the peat-dusted hill for a long, long while, running his hands through his hair repeatedly and cursing the inequities of this miserable life. So self-involved was he that he was taken completely by surprise by the midden sound of a young girl's voice.
"I knew you'd be about."
Jaka opened his dreamy, moist eyes to see Tori Ganderlay staring at him.
"I knew it," the girl teased.
"What do you know?"
"You heard about my sister's dinner and had to see for yourself," Tori reasoned. "And you're still waiting and watching."