The carriage rumbled over the hard-packed dirt of the road. Jenevra, wrapped in her wool cloak, her feet tucked up underneath her since the warming stones had long since gone cold, looked out the curtain-covered window occasionally. She could only see the road and a little of the area beyond the road, where grass faded from green into brown.
Someone - a nearby lord who took his road-keeping duties seriously - had mended the road in the past, but the dirt and rocks that filled in the ruts wore away with every wheel that passed over it, especially as the ground grew colder, until he might as well have not bothered.
She would have liked to see more of where they were going, but one of her father’s guardsmen rode to the side of the carriage, always keeping approximately level with her. Another rode on the other side of the carriage, outside her mother’s window. On other occasions, she might have talked with them - she had always known the guards and they her - but her father and the captain of the guard considered this a dangerous area. The northern border lay a bare twenty miles away, and attacks were not uncommon. As well, the king’s law had only recently been reestablished in the area, and bandits roamed too freely in the woods nearby.
If she could look out the window properly, she would see her father riding in front of the wagon, his captain riding beside him. Other guards rode in front of and beside him, with outriders a mile ahead. Behind the carriage were wagons, one with the new members of her household - her companion, three maids, a confessor - and the other containing all her household goods, her linens and plate, her clothing, and in a hidden place, the portion of her dowry that came in gold, with more guards flanking and following the wagons.
A discreet throat-clearing reminded her to drop the curtain, and she did. The inside of the carriage bored her, though, as she had been in it for near a fortnight. The seats were hard, despite thin cushions, and she felt every bump in the road through them. The wood of the carriage had been polished to a high finish, so that she could rest her head against the side and feel only smoothness, but nothing decorated the ceiling or the sides, nothing drew her attention.
Nothing kept out the cold. The curtains on the windows kept the wind out, and they had warm stones in the morning when they set out, and blankets and cloaks aplenty. But by midday, she had chilled. It seemed too early in the year for this kind of cold; the late autumn harvests had not even been gathered in yet. At her home, she could still walk out to enjoy the last flowers. Here, frost coated the grass every morning.
Conversation had become scarce as the days wore on. Her mother, who she loved dearly, had been her only companion for the journey. They had played at cards a bit, and she had read the book her father had given her before leaving, but those had paled too, leaving her with too many hours to listen to horses’ hooves and wheels on the road and think. She tired of both.
Despite her mother’s disapproval, she drew the curtain aside again. Just beyond the guard, she could see the start of the great hills that lay just nearer the border. They were large, at least to her, though she’d been told that the mountains in the north were higher yet. She could just make out the outline of a keep, the square shape distinguishing it from the land around it. A long afternoon and evening to reach it, but they would reach it before moonrise.
They would be expected. Ravensmere Keep commanded a view of miles around, and their wagon train would have been spotted easily by now. Jenevra supposed that at some point, the keep would send out riders to guide them up the mountain to the gates.
She dropped the curtain again now that the endpoint of her journey sat in view and sank back into her cloak.
In the late spring, not long past her thirteenth birthday, the Northern invaders had been beat back from this land for the first time in decades. The victory, as the bard told it, had rested on a small and determined force led by a young knight whose father had been friends of long standing with the king. After the battle, the king had awarded this knight, Sir Conoc Torval, Ravensmere and the land around it. Sir Conoc would guard the border he had won.
Soon thereafter, her father, Lord Oswin had received a message under the king’s seal suggesting in strong terms that she be wed to this knight. She had not seen the letter herself - her father would not include a mere girl in such a discussion - but from her father’s temper over it, she could only conclude that the king’s suggestion had been tantamount to a decree.
Her father had never taken decrees well. Especially not from the king, to whom he was kin, albeit distantly. But royal decrees, howsoever unwelcome, could not be gainsaid, and so her father’s brother had spent the summer here, negotiating with Sir Conoc the terms of their betrothal, with their marriage to follow after she reached her sixteenth year.
She, along with her parents, now traveled to Ravensmere for the formal betrothal ceremony. They would then return home. She would remain, for the now as bride-to-be and in three years as bride in truth.
She would miss her home. Ravensmere might be a fine place, but it would take time before she could love it. In her heart, where no one knew her feelings, she wondered if she would ever come to love Conoc. As a husband, as a companion, as a lover, as anything... She knew it was not required for marriage, but she could not help but believe it would be a fine thing.
She heard voices outside, near the front of the procession. Though she could not make out words, the tone was friendly, and she presumed that this was some knight or other from Ravensmere. Indeed, after the voices ceased - at least to her ears - the carriage began moving upward, taking the hill road.
The bumps in the road grew worse. Whatever Sir Conoc did or did not do as Lord of Ravensmere, tending the road did not appear to have been one of those tasks. She supposed that he had other more urgent tasks to occupy his mind.
Her uncle Lewin, when he had returned from Ravensmere to Allandale to bring her father the marriage articles, had taken time to sit with her and tell her somewhat of her to-be-home. He had assured her that she could find nothing wanting in the land, that the small lake from which the keep took its name brought life aplenty to trees and plants. He did not speak as much on her new lord, other than to reassure her that he was a good man, one who took his duties seriously. And of the keep itself he had said even less.
She understood his reasons when they drew through the outer wall and into the courtyard.
The keep could not be described as lovely. The walls were barren, dark with the natural color of the stone. The outer wall stood strong, but the wooden gates born testimony to the fighting that had been done here. The courtyard, the same hard-packed dirt as the road, barely seemed to fit her father’s guards and the wagon, along with the few guards who belonged to Ravensmere.
The tall walls of the inner keep rose high above them, and Jenevra could see few windows to allow light inside. A place of war, and she shivered.
Few normal sounds greeted her ears. Some animals, horses in the stables, some others in proper enclosures, but not many. Men trained but made little noise. She had never heard her father’s castle so silent; hundreds of people lived there and no one could make that many people still. This silence felt empty.
She heard her father swing down from his horse - the otherwise placid gray jennet always tossed his head when her father dismounted, causing the harness to jingle - heard him offered a greeting by the man waiting for them on the steps, a man she had seen for only a moment when they came through the gates.
“My lord Earl,” Conoc said, “You are most welcome to Ravensmere.”
“Lord Conoc,” her father replied, “I have brought you your bride.”
The carriage door opened, and she blinked in the sudden light filling the space. For a moment, she could see little but her father’s hand, reaching in to hand her out. She took it and stepped out of the carriage into the courtyard of her new home.
Conoc looked at her, and for the space of a heartbeat, she looked at him. He stood on the steps into the keep, which added to his already considerable height. Black hair, cut short, shorter than the fashion at court, and dark blue eyes focused intensely on her. His face was narrow, with faint lines that made him look unyielding. He wore a mail shirt and a sword at his side, and both shirt and scabbard showed signs of use. He did not smile.
Her father let go her hand. “My daughter, Jenevra Louvet of Allandale.”
She curtseyed, aware of her appearance in that moment. She could not help that her kirtle had become travel-stained, or that her hair escaped the chaplet that held it away from her face and now wisps blew in the breeze. “My lord,” she murmured.
“My lady,” her replied, bowing in turn. Then he offered her his arm, so that she joined him on the step. Standing beside him, she could not but notice that he still stood tall above her. His hand under hers had the calluses of a swordsman, and his arm, despite the mail between them, held very firm.
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