Creusus's Arc

Chapter 43 of 43

The weeks after the proposal passed in small tasks. Creusus fitted a suit at the tailor's shop on the corner by the mill. Kallista sewed her own gown from bolts of white silk she found at the market. She would not let him see it until the day. He worked his shifts. He came home. He watched her circle the flower ring behind the innkeeper's wall each morning and cut a fresh stem for the table. The morning of the wedding came clear and warm. Creusus stood at the porch in his suit. The tie sat tight against his throat. His shoulders strained the seams. He pulled the collar with one finger and let it go. Malachai came out behind him and fixed the knot without a word. Deborah followed with a small bunch of white blooms she had cut from the ring garden. "She is ready," Deborah said. "She sent me to bring you." Creusus walked with them to the innkeeper's yard. Their friends from the mill stood in a loose circle around the flower ring. The yard master had come. The baker had come. The women from the weave house had come with their husbands. A fiddler he did not know tuned a string against his knee. Kallista stepped out from the inn door. The gown fell straight from one shoulder. The silk caught the sun the way water catches it. She had woven small white flowers into her dark hair. She held a stem of grapes in one hand, the way she had held them the first day he met her in the gardens at Embermere. He forgot the tight collar. He forgot the seams. She crossed the grass and stood with him inside the ring of blossoms. The innkeeper spoke the words. Creusus said yes when he was meant to say yes. Kallista said yes. He slid a plain iron ring onto her finger. She slid one onto his. His knuckles were bare and pale under it. He kissed her. The fiddler started up. The mill folk clapped and stamped. Deborah cried against Malachai's sleeve and Malachai held her steady and did not weep this time. They ate at a long table under the trees. Someone poured wine. Someone made a speech no one could hear over the laughing. Kallista pressed a grape between his teeth and he ate it from her fingers. Late in the afternoon he took her hand and walked her once around the ring of flowers with no words at all. When the sun bent low she leaned into his shoulder. "You are my husband," she said, testing it. "I am." She looked up at his face. "One day you will tell me the rest." "One day," he said. "Not today." She nodded and closed her eyes against his neck. He held her there while the fiddler played on.