The Spine of the World

 

She came skipping down the lane, so much like a little girl, and yet so obviously a young woman. Shiny black hair bounced around her shoulders, and her green eyes flashed as brightly as the beaming smile upon her fair face.



She had just spoken to him, to Jaka Sculi, with his soulful blue eyes and his curly brown hair, one strand hanging across the bridge of his nose. And just speaking to him made her skip where she might have walked, made her forget the mud that crept in through the holes in her old shoes or the tasteless food she would find in her wooden bowl at her parents' table that night. None of that mattered, not the bugs, not the dirty water, nothing. She had spoken to Jaka, and that alone made her warm and tingly and scared and alive all at the same time.



It went as one of life's little unrealized ironies that the same spirit freed by her encounter with the brooding Jaka inspired the eyes of another to settle upon her happy form.



Lord Feringal Auck had found his heart fluttering at the sight of many different women over his twenty-four years, mostly merchant's daughters whose fathers were looking for another safe haven northwest of Luskan. The village was near to the most traveled pass through the Spine of the World where they might resupply and rest on the perilous journey to and from Ten-Towns in Icewind Dale.



Never before had Feringal Auck found his breathing so hard to steady that he was practically gasping for air as he hung from the window of his decorated carriage.



"Feri, the pines have begun sending their yellow dust throughout the winds," came the voice of Priscilla, Feringal's older sister. She, alone, called him Feri, to his everlasting irritation. "Do get inside the coach! The sneezing dust is thick about us. You know how terrible-"



The woman paused and studied her brother more intently, particularly the way he was gawking. "Feri?" she asked, sliding over in her seat, close beside him and grabbing his elbow and giving it a shake. "Feri?"



"Who is she?" the lord of Auckney asked, not even hearing his sister. "Who is that angelic creature, the avatar of the goddess of beauty, the image of man's purest desires, the embodiment of temptation?"



Priscilla shoved her brother aside and thrust her head out the carriage window. "What, that peasant girl?" she asked incredulously, a clear note of contempt sounding in her tone.



"I must know," Lord Feringal sang more than said. The side of his face sank against the edge of the carriage window, and his unblinking gaze locked on the skipping young woman. She slipped from his sight as the carriage sped around a bend in the curving road.



"Feri!" Priscilla scolded. She moved as if to slap her younger brother but held up short of the mark.



The lord of Auckney shook away his love-inspired lethargy long enough to eye his sister directly, even dangerously. "I shall know who she is," he insisted.



Priscilla Auck settled back in her seat and said no more, though she was truly taken aback by her younger brother's uncharacteristic show of emotion. Feringal had always been a gentle, quiet soul easily manipulated by his shrewish sister, fifteen years his senior. Now nearing her fortieth birthday, Priscilla had never married. In truth, she had never had any interest in a man beyond fulfilling her physical needs. Their mother had died giving birth to Feringal, their father passed on five years later, which left Priscilla, along with her father's counselor, Temigast, the stewardship of the fiefdom until Feringal grew old enough to rule. Priscilla had always enjoyed that arrangement, for even when Feringal had come of age, and even now, nearly a decade after that, her voice was substantial in the rulership of Auckney. She had never desired to bring another into the family, so she had assumed the same of Feri.



Scowling, Priscilla glanced back one last time in the general direction of the young lass, though they were far out of sight now. Their carriage rambled along the little stone bridge that arched into the sheltered bay toward the tiny isle where Castle Auck stood.



Like Auckney itself, a village of two hundred people that rarely showed up on any maps, the castle was of modest design. There were a dozen rooms for the family, and for Temigast, of course, and another five for the half-dozen servants and ten soldiers who served at the place. A pair of low and squat towers anchored the castle, barely topping fifteen feet, for the wind always blew strongly in Auckney. A common joke was, if the wind ever stopped blowing, all the villagers would fall over forward, so used were they to leaning as they walked.



"I should get out of the castle more often," Lord Feringal insisted as he and his sister moved through the foyer and into a sitting room, where old Steward Temigast sat painting another of his endless seascapes.



"To the village proper, you mean?" Priscilla said with obvious sarcasm. "Or to the outlying peat farms? Either way, it is all mud and stone and dirty."



"And in that mud, a jewel might shine all the brighter," the love-struck lord insisted with a deep sigh.



The steward cocked an eyebrow at the odd exchange and looked up from his painting. Temigast had lived in Waterdeep for most of his younger days, coming to Auckney as a middle-aged man some thirty years before. Worldly compared to the isolated Auckney citizens (including the ruling family), Temigast had had little trouble in endearing himself to the feudal lord, Tristan Auck, and in rising to the post of principal counselor, then steward. That worldliness served Temigast well now, for he recognized the motivation for Feringal's sigh and understood its implications.



"She was just a girl," Priscilla complained. "A child, and a dirty one at that." She looked to Temigast for support, seeing that he was intent upon their conversation. "Feringal is smitten, I fear," she explained. "And with a peasant. The lord of Auckney desires a dirty, smelly peasant girl."



"Indeed," replied Temigast, feigning horror. By his estimation, by the estimation of anyone who was not from Auckney, the "lord of Auckney" was barely above a peasant himself. There was history here: The castle had stood for more than six hundred years, built by the Dorgenasts who had ruled for the first two centuries. Then, through marriage, it had been assumed by the Aucks.



But what, really, were they ruling? Auckney was on the very fringe of the trade routes, south of the westernmost spur of the Spine of the World. Most merchant caravans traveling between Ten-Towns and Luskan avoided the place all together, many taking the more direct pass through the mountains many miles to the east. Even those who dared not brave the wilds of that unguarded pass crossed east of Auckney, through another pass that harbored the town of Hundelstone, which had six times the population of Auckney and many more valuable supplies and craftsmen.



Though a coastal village, Auckney was too far north for any shipping trade. Occasionally a ship-often a fisherman caught in a gale out of Fireshear to the south-would drift into the small harbor around Auckney, usually in need of repair. Some of those fishermen stayed on in the fiefdom, but the population here had remained fairly constant since the founding by the roguish Lord Dorgenast and his followers, refugees from a minor and failed power play among the secondary ruling families in Waterdeep. Now nearing two hundred, the population was as large as it had ever been (mostly because of an influx of gnomes from Hundelstone), and on many occasions it was less than half of that. Most of the villagers were related, usually in more ways than one, except, of course, for the Aucks, who usually took their brides or husbands from outside stock.



"Can't you find a suitable wife from among the well-bred families of Luskan?" Priscilla asked. "Or in a favorable deal with a wealthy merchant? We could well use a large dowery, after all."



"Wife?" Temigast said with a chuckle. "Aren't we being a bit premature?"



"Not at all," Lord Feringal insisted evenly. "I love her. I know that I do."



"Fool!" Priscilla wailed, but Temigast patted her shoulder to calm her, chuckling all the while.



"Of course you do, my lord," the steward said, "but the marriage of a nobleman is rarely about love, I fear. It is about station and alliance and wealth," Temigast gently explained.



Feringal's eyes widened. "I love her!" the young lord insisted.



"Then take her as a mistress," Temigast suggested reasonably. "A plaything. Surely a man of your great station is deserving of at least one of those."



Hardly able to speak past the welling lump in his throat, Feringal ground his heel into the stone floor and stormed off to his private room.



*****



"Did you kiss him?" Tori, the younger of the Ganderlay sisters, asked, giggling at the thought of it. Tori was only eleven, and just beginning to realize the differences between boys and girls, an education fast accelerating since Meralda, her older sister by six years, had taken a fancy to Jaka Sculi, with his delicate features and long eyelashes and brooding blue eyes.



"No, I surely did not," Meralda replied, brushing back her long black hair from her olive-skinned face, the face of beauty, the face that had unknowingly captured the heart of the lord of Auckney.



"But you wanted to," Tori teased, bursting into laughter, and Meralda joined her, as sure an admission as she could give.



"Oh, but I did," the older sister said.



"And you wanted to touch him," her young sister teased on. "Oh, to hug him and kiss him! Dear, sweet Jaka." Tori ended by making sloppy kissing noises and wrapping her arms about her chest, hands grabbing her shoulders as she turned about so that it looked as if someone was hugging her.



"You stop that!" Meralda said, slapping her sister across the back playfully.



"But you didn't even kiss him," Tori complained. "Why not, if you wanted to? Did he not want the same?"



"To make him want it all the more," the older girl explained. "To make him think about me all the time. To make him dream about me."



"But if you're wanting it-"



"I'm wanting more than that," Meralda explained, "and if I make him wait, I can make him beg. If I make him beg, I can get all that I want from him and more."



"What more?" Tori asked, obviously confused.



"To be his wife," Meralda stated without reservation.



Tori nearly swooned. She grabbed her straw pillow and whacked her sister over the head with it. "Oh, you'll never!" she cried. Too loudly.



The curtain to their bedroom pulled back, and their father, Dohni Ganderlay, a ruddy man with strong muscles from working the peat fields and skin browned from both sun and dirt, poked his head in.



"You should be long asleep," Dohni scolded.



The girls dived down as one, scooting under the coarse, straw-lined ticking and pulling it tight to their chins, giggling all the while.



"Now, I'll be having none of that silliness!" Dohni yelled, and he came at them hard, falling over them like a great hunting beast, a wrestling tussle that ended in a hug shared between the two girls and their beloved father.



"Now, get your rest, you two," Dohni said quietly a moment later. "Your ma's a bit under the stone, and your laughter is keeping her awake." He kissed them both and left. The girls, respectful of their father and concerned about their mother, who had indeed been feeling even worse than usual, settled down to their own private thoughts.



Meralda's admission was strange and frightening to Tori. But while she was uncertain about her sister getting married and moving out of the house, she was also very excited at the prospect of growing into a young woman like her sister.



Lying next to her sister, Meralda's mind raced with anticipation. She had kissed a boy before, several boys actually, but it had always been out of curiosity or on a dare from her friends. This was the first time she really wanted to kiss someone. And how she did want to kiss Jaka Sculi! To kiss him and to run her fingers through his curly brown hair and gently down his soft, hairless cheek, and to have his hands caressing her thick hair, her face . . .



Meralda fell asleep to warm dreams.



*****



In a much more comfortable bed in a room far less drafty not so many doors away, Lord Feringal nestled into his soft feather pillows. He longed to escape to dreams of holding the girl from the village, where he could throw off his suffocating station, where he could do as he pleased without interference from his sister or old Temigast.



He wanted to escape too much, perhaps, for Feringal found no rest in his huge, soft bed, and soon he had twisted and turned the feather ticking into knots about his legs. It was fortunate for him that he was hugging one of the pillows, for it was the only thing that broke his fall when he rolled right off the edge and onto the hard floor.



Feringal finally extricated himself from the bedding tangle, then paced about his room, scratching his head, his nerves more on edge than they'd ever been. What had this enchantress done to him?



"A cup of warm goat's milk," he muttered aloud, thinking that would calm him and afford him some sleep. Feringal slipped from his room and started along the narrow staircase. Halfway down he heard voices from below.



He paused, recognizing Priscilla's nasal tone, then a burst of laughter from his sister as well as from old, wheezing Temigast. Something struck Feringal as out of place, some sixth sense told him that he was the butt of that joke. He crept down more quietly, coming under the level of the first floor ceiling and ducking close in the shadows against the stone bannister.



There sat Priscilla upon the divan, knitting, with old Temigast in a straight-backed chair across from her, a decanter of whisky in hand.



"Oh, but I love her," Priscilla wailed, stopping her knitting to sweep one hand across her brow dramatically. "I cannot live without her!"



"Got along well enough for all these years," Temigast remarked, playing along.



"But I am tired, good steward," Priscilla replied, obviously mocking her brother. "What great effort is lovemaking alone!"



Temigast coughed in his drink, and Priscilla exploded with laughter.



Feringal could take no more. He swept down the stairs, full of anger. "Enough! Enough I say!" he roared. Startled, the two turned to him and bit their lips, though Priscilla could not hold back one last bubble of laughter.



Lord Feringal glowered at her, his fists clenched at his sides, as close to rage as either of them had ever seen the gentle-natured man. "How dare you?" he asked through gritted teeth and trembling lips. "To mock me so!"



"A bit of a jest, my lord," Temigast explained weakly to defuse the situation, "nothing more."



Feringal ignored the steward's explanation and turned his ire on his sister. "What do you know of love?" he screamed at Priscilla. "You have never had a lustful thought in your miserable life. You couldn't even imagine what it would be like to lay with a man, could you, dear sister?"



"You know less than you think," Priscilla shot back, tossing aside her knitting and starting to rise. Only Temigast's hand, grabbing hard at her knee, kept her in place. She calmed considerably at that, but the old man's expression was a clear reminder to watch her words carefully, to keep a certain secret between them.



"My dear Lord Feringal," the steward began quietly, "there is nothing wrong with your desires. Quite the contrary; I should consider them a healthy sign, if a bit late in coming. I don't doubt that your heart aches for this peasant girl, but I assure you there's nothing wrong with taking her as your mistress. Certainly there is precedent for such an act among the previous lords of Auckney, and of most kingdoms, I would say."



Feringal gave a long and profound sigh and shook his head as Temigast rambled on. "I love her," he insisted again. "Can't you understand that?"



"You don't even know her," Priscilla dared to interject. "She farms peat, no doubt, with dirty fingers."



Feringal took a threatening step toward her, but Temigast, agile and quick for his age, moved between them and gently nudged the young man back into a chair. "I believe you, Feringal. You love her, and you wish to rescue her."



That caught Feringal by surprise. "Rescue?" he echoed blankly.



"Of course," reasoned Temigast. "You are the lord, the great man of Auckney, and you alone have the power to elevate this peasant girl from her station of misery."



Feringal held his perplexed pose for just a moment then said, "Yes, yes," with an exuberant nod of his head.



"I have seen it before," Temigast said, shaking his head. "It is a common disease among young lords, this need to save some peasant or another. It will pass, Lord Feringal, and rest assured that you may enjoy all the company you need of the girl."



"You cheapen my feelings," Feringal accused.



"I speak the truth," Temigast was quick to reply.



"No!" insisted Feringal. "What would you know of my feelings, old man? You could never have loved a woman to suggest such a thing. You can't know what burns within me."



That statement seemed to hit a nerve with the old steward, but for whatever reason Temigast quieted, and his lips got very thin. He moved back to his chair and settled uncomfortably, staring blankly at Feringal.



The young lord, more full of the fires of life than he had ever been, would not buckle to that imposing stare. "I'll not take her as a mistress," he said determinedly. "Never that. She is the woman I shall love forever, the woman I shall take as my wife, the lady of Castle Auck."



"Feri!" Priscilla screeched.



The young lord, determined not to buckle as usual to the desires of his overbearing sister, turned and stormed off, back to the sanctuary of his room. He took care not to run, as he usually did in confrontations with his shrewish sister, but rather, afforded himself a bit of dignity, a stern and regal air. He was a man now, he understood.



"He has gone mad," Priscilla said to Temigast when they heard Feringal's door close. "He saw this girl but once from afar."



If Temigast even heard her, he made no indication. Stubborn Priscilla slipped down from the divan to her knees and moved up before the seated man. "He saw her but once," she said again, forcing Temigast's attention.



"Sometimes that's all it takes," the steward quietly replied.



Priscilla quieted and stared hard at the old man whose bed she had secretly shared since the earliest days of her womanhood. For all their physical intimacy, though, Temigast had never shared his inner self with Priscilla except for one occasion, and only briefly, when he had spoken of his life in Waterdeep before venturing to Auckney. He had stopped the conversation quickly, but only after mentioning a woman's name. Priscilla had always wondered if that woman had meant more to Temigast than he let on. Now, she recognized that he had fallen under the spell of some memory, coaxed by her brother's proclamations of undying love.



The woman turned away from him, jealous anger burning within her, but, as always, she was fast to let it go, to remember her lot and her pleasures in life. Temigast's own past might have softened his resolve against Feringal running after this peasant girl, but Priscilla wasn't so ready to accept her brother's impetuous decision. She had been comfortable with the arrangement in Castle Auck for many years, and the last thing she wanted now was to have some peasant girl, and perhaps her smelly peasant family, moving in with them.



*****



Temigast retired soon after, refusing Priscilla's invitation to share her bed. The old man's thoughts slipped far back across the decades to a woman he had once known, a woman who had so stolen his heart and who, by dying so very young, had left a bitterness and cynicism locked within him to this very day.



Temigast hadn't recognized the depth of those feelings until he realized his own doubt and dismissal of Lord Feringal's obvious feelings. What an old wretch he believed himself at that moment.



He sat in a chair by the narrow window overlooking Auckney Harbor. The moon had long ago set, leaving the cold waters dark and showing dull Whitecaps under the starry sky. Temigast, like Priscilla, had never seen his young charge so animated and agitated, so full of fire and full of life. Feringal always had a dull humor about him, a sense of perpetual lethargy, but there had been nothing lethargic in the manner in which the young man had stormed down the stairs to proclaim his love for the peasant girl, nothing lethargic in the way in which Feringal had accosted his bullying older sister.



That image brought a smile to Temigast's face. Perhaps Castle Auck needed such fire now; perhaps it was time to shake the place and all the fiefdom about it. Maybe a bit of spirit from the lord of Auckney would elevate the often overlooked village to the status of its more notable neighbors, Hundelstone and Fireshear. Never before had the lord of Auckney married one of the peasants of the village. There were simply too few people in that pool, most from families who had been in the village for centuries, and the possibility of bringing so many of the serfs into the ruling family, however distantly, was a definite argument against letting Feringal have his way.



But the sheer energy the young lord had shown seemed as much an argument in favor of the union at that moment, and so he decided he would look into this matter very carefully, would find out who this peasant girl might be and see if something could be arranged.