Of chiming bells in springtime

[ljuslek]

Bedecked in baubles and trinkets so laid Helm’s Rest that night in spring. The ground of its courtyard encircled by palisades wet so as to allow it shine in the pale light of moon and bonfire both. Strung up on strings hung now wet bundles of chaff, adorning the hamlet to mark an occasion. To speak of the fertility that the season brought, to speak of the occasion that drew ever nearer, but the dye used to colour the bundles slowly dripped off in face of the rain; leaving pools of red green and yellow to spread in the puddles below. In the distance the last of the night’s revellers could still be heard, singing, quarrelling and laughing by turns. For a fiveday the feast had gone on, and for a fiveday after the day that was cause for celebration would it continue - there was to be a wedding.

For close to a year had trade been slow along the offshoot of The Merchant’s Run that the fortified hamlet sat so proudly to guard, even before last spring’s rain saw the road swallowed neath a mudslide had it been so. Only the caravans who for one reason or another could not risk the busier and subsequently more dangerous main road opted to travel past Helm’s Rest - to seek succour, safety and a lightening of their load. But now only lone traders who carried all they had to sell upon their own backs or loaded onto a singular ox came its way, these unfortunates were more a burden than a boon. They struggled to pay for their way and their inventories carried little to interest or potential profit. So was the hardship of Helm’s Rest and the man who since birth had been destined to lord over it in practice if not by title. Luckily, a solution was close to hand. There was one resource that still stood to be exploited, even though coffers lay bare of coin - a daughter and her hand in marriage. At twenty-three winters and still without a husband there was no surprise that Aleira was spoken of in hushed tones as a spinster; a woman more interested in the drills of the militia her father had so reluctantly sent her to. No wonder she remained without a man or family to call her own, who could desire such a hoyden? What man might find her whims and her love for what lay outside the palisades pleasing enough to marry? No one, that was the common answer agreed upon by young and old gossips alike. Nothing but trouble, so led the assessment of most menfolk when the daughter of the hamlet’s most prominent man came up in conversation.

For those who held concerns other than those of the common peasant however, desire and compatibility played less a role in marriage than business and prestige. It was through that old truth of practicality and strategy in matters matrimonial that a deal had been struck between the spinster’s father and an associate in trade from the south. The coffers of one father would brim with coin from the dowry; trade would be allowed to flourish again as the road was cleared with the aid of gold and silver. The twice-widowed man on the other end of the deal would gain a third chance to carry on the name of his family.

But deals struck can be reneged upon, both by those who sign them and those who are reluctant party to them. Such was the case with Aleira - that her initial acceptance had been withdrawn. Her willingness forget her own dreams for the good of her father utterly waned in the light of fast approaching reality; two nights before the wedding was to be held her only recourse for backing out was enacted. To steal away was the only option, to disappear without trace. To trust in the skills she had been taught to survive. On light feet she sought the downstairs, were her studded leather jerkin, short blade and bow were kept. She felt more ready than ever before, her heartbeats wild and fast but her mind keen and apt. Though coincidence and fate is cruel more often than they are kind, so Aleira found out she stepped through the door of the stone building that stood as Helm’s Rest centrepiece; the gaze hers met were unmistakable. They were the blankly drunken eyes of the man she was to marry. No words were spoken at that surprise, not a sound was uttered; both knew what the other would do, both knew that this stroke of chance would carry with it consequence. Before even a moment had passed the man opened his mouth to cry out in rage, but his lips had not the time to part. For a sharp sting of pain spread from his abdomen to consume him a dagger and the trembling hand that guided the steel it’s cause. The blank and drunken eyes who had a moment ago been lit with rage were now sprung wide with surprise; and Aleira’s eyes mirrored his. It had been an action without thought or malice, the reflex of a woman cornered. But she could ill afford to let surprise linger as long as her regret would come to - before the man had even sunk to his knees she ran. Leaving the courtyard bedecked for revelry behind, just as she left all that she had known behind with it. In the distance, the revelries continued in light of bonfire and moonlight; the din of the festivities out of tune with the ragged breaths the groom to be drew where he lay. His blood commingling with mud and dyes of green, yellow and red.