Kneel Before The Dragon Queen novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: March Law
Kerensa weds a stranger in the Ember Hall chapel, learns the March rule that the marriage is void unless it is consummated by dawn, and sees who the Regent picked as witness.
They married us in the Ember Hall chapel an hour before midnight.
The priest was half asleep, and the only light came from two candles and the cold glow of the Midwinter fires outside.
I wore my river-town grey and a spray of herbs still stuck to my sleeve.
Torin Bracken wore a cloak with snow melting on the shoulders.
He said his vows in a flat voice.
I said mine in the voice of a woman who had stopped being afraid years ago.
The Regent watched from a chair near the door, wrapped in a fur, coughing into a cloth.
Hadrian stood behind him with his hands folded.
He never looked at me once.
When the priest said we were bound, Torin took my hand and pressed a plain iron ring onto my finger.
His palm was rough and dry and warm.
"That's the March ring," he said quietly. "It's ugly. It was my mother's."
"It's fine," I said.
"It isn't. But it's iron, and iron keeps."
I almost smiled, and I hated that I almost did.
The Regent rose, leaning on a guard.
"A fine Midwinter match," Aldous said. "I wish you joy, Warden."
His voice dripped with it.
"There is one more matter," he said. "The March charter. You know the old rule better than I do."
Torin's face did not change.
"I know it," he said.
"Then say it to your bride. She will want to hear."
Torin turned to me.
"March law says a marriage only holds if it is consummated before dawn," he said. "With a witness outside the door to swear to it."
I stared at him.
"You didn't mention that in the hall," I said.
"You'd have said no."
"I'd have said no to hanging, too, if I'd had the choice."
"You did have the choice."
"You picked the worse of the two."
He held my eyes without apology.
"If we don't, the marriage is void by sunrise," he said. "You hang. I lose the March. That's the whole of the law."
It was the cruelest kind of law, built for a harsh country.
My uncle knew it, and he had waited until we were bound to remind us.
"I'll sleep on the floor," Torin said, low enough that only I could hear.
"I'll swear the witness a lie. We tell him whatever he wants to hear."
"A witness stands at the door and listens," I said. "He'll know."
"Then we do it."
He said it flatly, but a muscle jumped in his jaw.
"Or we don't," he said. "And you choose that too."
I looked at him, at the scar through his brow and the tired line of his shoulders.
Five years ago I would have said no on principle.
Five years ago I had a crown and a man who swore he would never leave my side.
Now I was a woman with fire in her palms and a husband I had met two hours ago.
"Why do you need a wife so badly?" I asked.
"The Regent wants the March back in the Crown's hands," he said. "A Warden with no wife is a Warden he can remove."
"And if I'd been a thief?"
"Then I'd have a thief for a wife, and my March."
"That's honest."
"It's all I have to offer you tonight."
"Who is the witness?" I asked.
The Regent smiled, and it made the blood in his teeth look black.
"I have picked someone who can be trusted to tell the truth," he said.
He turned his head.
"Marshal."
Hadrian stepped forward from the shadows by the door.
"I will do it, Your Grace," he said.
He looked at me then, finally, with the same pale blue eyes that had once woken me every morning in the royal bed.
They were empty.
"Wedding bells for the healer," he said. "I'll be listening."
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