Seventh Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

you’ll be the lady of!” as if they could catch the indecency in it like a fish.  
    As if, by pretending everything was perfectly normal, it would make things perfectly normal.
    “It won’t work,” she said to herself later, having a good sulk down at the unplowed end of the field. “It won’t change anything, pretending everything’s all normal.”
    They know that, said the voice in the back of her head, which usually sounded tired, and a bit exasperated. But what else can they do?
    “They don’t have to make me go! Lord Crevan said I had a choice!”
    Do you really think he meant that? asked the voice at the back of her head in a tone of mild inquiry.  
    She inhaled. She hadn’t thought—well, obviously she had thought, but most of her hadn’t—that the nobleman’s words might not quite be at face value.
    But of course they weren’t. It was like when the Viscount’s rent collector came around twice a year and said “Have you got twenty silver dirham, then?” It wasn’t really a question. It meant “You’d better have the money,” or a really good explanation, like a live badger currently sitting on the strongbox.
    You couldn’t not pay the rent. Her family had been millers since time out of mind, the mill itself had been constructed more generations ago than anybody knew, but they didn’t own the mill. The lord did. That was just the way it worked.
    And while Viscount Skeller was a pretty good lord, everyone said, and generally understanding about lean times, and held a fine feast for everyone twice a year, and didn’t hold with any indecent customs like riding off with young peasant lasses or hunting two-legged deer, he was still the lord.  
    Rhea wondered briefly if it would be any good appealing to the Viscount for help. She doubted it. Lord Crevan had asked for her, not ordered.
    Ah.  
    Her lips twisted, as she found the answer, like a terrier finding a rat. There it was. If her father went to the Viscount, Crevan could say, with perfect honesty, that he’d given her a choice, he’d asked her father for her hand, and not compelled her in any way, and he wouldn’t be lying, even if it wasn’t quite true.
    Peasants didn’t disobey nobles, even respectable peasants like the miller and the very lowest level of nobles, like Lord Crevan. They especially didn’t disobey nobles that were magicians.  
    You don’t know that. He said he was a sorcerer, but he hasn’t done anything…anything magicky. Well, other than the spark, and it might have been static. And being a magician doesn’t make you bad.
    He’s just a little… off somehow.  
    It could be anything.
    Well, it seemed that she would find out.

    She set out at dusk.  
    Her aunt looked her over and gave a single huff of approval. Her mother hugged her fiercely. “Be polite,” she said. “Be courteous. Be safe.” And then, her voice dropping to a whisper in Rhea’s ear—“Be careful.”
    She turned away quickly. It occurred to Rhea that her mother was crying, and that made her feel like crying herself.
    They tried to weave the net, but they can’t quite hide the fact that this is wrong, this is strange, this isn’t normal…
    “I’ll come with you as far as the spring,” said her father, picking up his walking stick.
    “Um,” said Rhea. “Okay. Thank you.”
    She looked back at the house, feeling like she should say something, or do something—but there was nothing to be done, and everything had been said already. She picked up one foot and put it in front of the other, and then did it again, and then her father was walking beside her, and she heard the door of the cottage close behind them.
    They walked in silence. The spring was only about half a mile away, not far, but the way seemed longer in the dark. Crickets chirped and buzzed in the hedgerows and bullfrogs croaked pitilessly in the shadows.  
    “I don’t like this,” said Rhea, when it seemed like the silence was filling up her throat, and she had to