A Marriage to the Rope Maker's Daughter

Her father held her hand very delicately, as if he feared her fingers shattering into a million pieces. She worried that her little hands would press his gnarled fingers too hard and they would dissolve. Even then his hands rattled.

" 'm not 'fraid, sweetie. Neither sh'd ye be." He looked down at her with warm, if not worried eyes.

" 'm not afraid, Daddy. But where 're you goin'?"

Her father sighed, rubbing his leathered face tiredly as he searched the wall behind her for an answer. Finally, he smiled as his eyes found hers. "At dawn 'm gonna marry the rope maker's daughter"

She beamed, nearly jumping from the floor. "I've always want'd a mum." "What she like?"

He chewed his lip a little. "She's quite frightening, just like her father."

"Can I meet her?" She sat up a little, touching his face.

Her father shook his head sadly. "Not yet. I really wish I c'd bring ye to the weddin', but it's too scary fer little girls."

"But Daddy, 'm brave."

"Promise me ye won' go. Promise." His eyes searched hers this time, as if he were looking for an anchor.

_____________________________

Like many promises a little girl makes, she broke this one. She hardly slept that night, pacing around her room, eyeing the fort impatiently. Knowing her father, he would try to have an extravagant wedding. Usually that would mean renting the Governor's courtyard, but some reason her father and the governor didn't get along so well. He would have to have it at the fort, where the whole town could see.

She raced outside as the sun reluctantly rose over the eastern coast. Before that yellow coin finished rising over the water, the girl was hiding in the skirts of some woman in the crowd around the platform. She had a hard time spotting him, but she eventually found her father on top of the platform with a rope around his neck. The girl couldn't find a daughter anywhere on the platform, only the scary man in the black hood, and some sort of judge. Even the words of the man on the far end of the platform were hard to hear over the crowd's murmuring.

Yet the sound of trapdoor falling down cut right through.