“Father, I hate him,” she said, pleading, “Please, don’t make me marry him!”
“Romilly,” said Mallina, “You will be Lady Scathfell! Why, he’s Heir to Scathfell, and perhaps even to Aldaran itself some day! Why, the folk of Aldaran were of the Hastur-kinfolk!”
The MacAran gestured the younger girl to silence.
“Romy,” he said gravely, “Marriage is not a matter of whim. I have chosen a good young man for you.”
“So young he is not,” she flared, “he has buried three wives, and all of them have died in childbirth!”
“That is because he married into Aldaran kindred,” her father said, “Any horse-breeder will tell you it is unwise to cross close kindred so often. You have no Aldaran blood and can probably give him healthy children.”
She thought of Darissa, not much older than herself, swollen and shapeless with bearing children. Would she be like that, and would those children have been fathered by Dom
Garris, with his whining voice and damp flabby hands? The thought made her flesh crawl.
“No more talk,” said her father firmly, “All silly girls think they know what man they want, but older heads must make the decision as it is best for their lives. I would not have you married before harvest time – I will not have my daughter hustled to marriage – but at the harvest you will marry Dom Garris, and that is all I have to say.”
“So while I thought you were having a sale of horses and hawks,” she said bitterly, “You were also making a sale of your daughters! Tell me, Father, did Dom Garris give a good price?”
She knew by the unlovely flush that spread over her father’s face that she had caught him on the raw. He said, “I’ll hear none of your impertinence, my pert young mistress!”
“I doubt it not,” she flung back at him, “You would rather trade in hawks and horses because they cannot talk back – and you can give them what fate you will!”
He opened his mouth to reply; then gave her a heavy glance.
“My lady,” he said to Luciella, “It is your task to bring my daughters under control; see to it, will you? I will dine with the steward; I’ll not have this brangling at my family table.” He rose and strode out of the room.
“Oh, Mother,” Romilly wailed, crumpling and throwing her head into Luciella’s lap, “Do I have to marry that- that-” words almost failed her, but finally she came out with, “that great slug? He is like something with a dozen legs that crawled out from under a piece of rotten wood!”
Luciella stroked her hair gently, puzzled. “There, there, child,” she murmured, “It will not be so bad as you think; why, didn’t you tell Dom Alderic that a horse should not be judged by his ugly coat? Dom Garris is a good and honorable man. Why, at your age, I had already my first child, and so had your own dear mother, Romy. There, there, don’t cry,” she added helplessly, and Romilly knew there was no help for it; Luciella would never defy her father. Nor could she. She was only a girl and there was no escape.
Alone in her room, or riding alone over the hills with Preciosa on her saddle, Romilly pondered what she could do. It seemed that she was trapped. She had never known her father to alter a judgment given – he would not hear of forgiveness for Ruyven, for instance – or to change his mind, once made up. He would not break his agreement with Dom Garris – or had it been made with Gareth of Scathfell himself? – though the heavens should fall. Her governess, her stepmother even, could sometimes be teased or argued out of a punishment or a judgment; in all the years of her life, her father had never been known to go back on what he had said, even when he knew it was wrong. Far and wide in the Kilghard Hills, the word of a MacAran was like the word of Hastur; as good as another man’s signed bond or sworn oath.