Yuliah flipped her veil over and shoved the maids away. She spun around and scanned the ground for the handkerchief. The gasps from the crowd and chatter did little to deter her.
"Oh, no! She turned back!" A woman with greying hair cried out. More voices chimed in. "She's just doomed her marriage! Turn back!" They scolded her.
There it was! She spotted it in the crowd of wedding patrons. Her face twisted up. "No! The Crimson Birds! They were getting trampled beneath the feet of two bold legged woman. She dashed for the handkerchief shoving bodies aside. When she reached the two women Yuliah snapped at them. "Move!"
Their mouths fell open stunned.
"I said, move!" Yuliah hissed, forgetting her manners.
Finally, it registered, and the two women stepped aside. She picked up her handkerchief just as two sets of hands closed in around her arms. The maids had found her and dragged Yuliah back toward the wedding chambers.
Liang finally stepped forward his face flushed and sweaty. "I'm here, Uncle. Something came up. One that I had to take care of quickly. You know how it is when you've had too many glasses of wine," he laughed jesting the crowd.
What a great pretender he was. Yuliah sneered, she had seen him earlier when he entered the cramped broom closet with that maid. It surprised her they were still alive, the cabinet could hold maybe a few tiny children but two adults? Huffing and puffing? With the little air to breathe in. It's too bad Liang didn't suffocate and die.
She had followed him hoping to make a scene and declare the wedding canceled, but when she approached — the loud moans and screams of the Maid instructing Liang to insert his fingers deeper into her stopped her completely.
It left Yuliah speechless and then the loud suckling noises afterward made her stomach churned. It's not a sight she wanted to remember forever if she could help it and ran back.
Liang pulled Yuliah into his arms and planted a second wet kiss of the night onto her veil, "Yes, please escort my lovely bride to our room."
Yuliah's face scrunched up thankful the veil blocked his lips from touching her. He also smelled of musk and stunk of the maids sweat. She shoved him back, but he tightened his hands around her.
"I'll see you in a bit he winked at her," causing the women in the crowd to gush.
Yuliah rolled her eyes. He was such a fake bastard. She kneed him in the groin but missed and nicked his thigh instead. Liang quickly released her. "Bastard." Yuliah cursed at him quietly.
Liang dragged her towards the table where the elders gathered. "Pay your respects and bow to my parents now." H demanded from Yuliah.
It was customary for a Bride to pay respect to her in-laws with a bow. Yuliah lightly nodded. She would not acknowledge them as her in-laws.
Madam Biah snickered, and Liang peered over at Yuliah. With one hand on the back of her neck and the other her head, he moved her like a puppet. Liang pushed her head down lower; then he bent it up and down until it satisfied him.
Swatting his hand away, she broke free and used the handkerchief to wipe her neck where his fingers dug in. Great! Now she had that woman's fluids on her neck too! As the maids helped her up and led her away to the wedding chambers, she shot Liang a hateful look.
The Northern Kingdom had strict traditions that people followed. One of them is that a woman must wear a veil on her wedding day. It represented a symbol of rebirth and removal of a woman's past. So she could begin a new life with the man who lifted her veil.
Yuliah had the choice of a body veil or a headpiece veil. She had chosen the headpiece veil, made of silk and adorned with shiny red pearls that hung over like a curtain, a color similar to that of the Crimson Birds she loved.
The man who lifted a woman's veil or consummated the union becomes her official husband. That was the way of the Northern Kingdom. It was a tradition that dated back to a time after the Fall of the First World. During a time when Clans butchered each other over woman because there were so few to marry. To appease the everyone, the Northern King created the exception and gave all an equal chance.
When the Maids walked Yuliah to her wedding chambers, they joked with one another.
"Be on the lookout for strange men," one maid teased. "They didn't get a handmaiden."
"Madam Biah said a handmaiden would not be needed because the Bride was so ugly, that only an idiot would try to run away with her," the second Maid turned her head towards Yuliah. "I told her I'd seen you and you were beautiful, but she insisted. Don't let that old witch get to you," the Maid reassured her.
Yuliah sighed. She knew the tradition. When a man failed to do either one of these things, the marriage would be invalid and the woman free to leave.
Why didn't she find herself a Man? If she had one he could Brideknap her, it used to happen all the time that's why they came up with the handmaiden role.
Most of Liang's cousins were the female version of him. It was probably better she did not have a handmaiden. They even wait inside the wedding chamber with the Bride until her husband arrived.
With the veil over her head, the maids lead Yuliah to the bed.
They giggled excitedly, "With Liang's vitality, we'll probably have little Lords running around here within a few years," she laughed.
Yuliah tumbled forward, at the Maids word. She could not imagine giving birth to Liang's bastards. The maids caught Yuliah and dragged her over to the bed. How did she know about Liang's vitality? She's probably one of his whores.
"Wait here for your handsome husband to come," she patted Yuliah's hand.
Yuliah's fingers locked around the maids hand, "Please don't leave me." She wasn't ready for this. She needed someone to stay just a little bit longer.
The maid laughed, "I cannot be here for your wedding night too! There's nothing to worry about Madam. Consummating your marriage is a rite of passage for all married woman." Then pulled Yuliah's hands away.
The Biah's didn't think it was necessary to have a handmaiden. They trusted in the power of their reputation, as Advisor to the King that no man would be brave enough to challenge them, they would be in for a pleasant surprise.
Meanwhile, Yuliah silently prayed to the Gods for a miracle and pulled out her handkerchief. When the door slammed shut she took out the small vile of poison.