Katey was anxious over the journey she was about to go on. In truth, she was not the adventurous type at all. There were so many things that could go wrong between here and her destination, and Katey had already considered all three thousand of them. She was frightened. She did not want to leave her home in Ireland, but her father had promised her to a man in Britain, who would be paying enough to run the land at least until her father’s nephew was old enough to take over. Until married, Katey was only a burden. Furthermore --- this man did not even arrive to her father’s home to take her there himself; he was sending a knight!
Though, she knew she should be grateful for any protection at all; her father knew how very fragile she was She had actually never met a real knight. The three or so men who worked for her father called themselves knights, but... well, they were stable boys in thin armor with polearms. She wondered what he might be like... She wondered if he would be old, pockmarked, with a grizzled beard and a mean sneer. He was probably intimidating enough to frighten away any danger at all.
She stood at the open window in the only tower of her family’s humble keep, looking down into the garden in front of their home, her hands clasped together in front of herself, over the cross worn beneath the fabric of her dress. Her father was down there, walking a horse out and standing beside it. Katey assumed that meant it was time. The knight should be arriving soon, and he would take her away to Britain, that strange and foreign place across the sea.
Katey stepped away from the morning light of the window and looked around the empty room... before giving a sigh and leaving the tower. She stopped to hug her mother farewell in the scullery; she promised she would return home to visit soon. It was not as tearful as she had imagined it may be; she always knew she would be married off at some point, even though her family wasn’t particularly wealthy at all. It had always been her fate.
Katey kissed her mother on the cheek and smiled with a nod, before she walked out of the home, her hands clasped modestly in front of herself, keeping her eyes down. Her father was speaking to the knight, his thick accent of the hills giving away that he was a man of the land, though somewhat educated.
“--- Aye, but this time o’ year, the seas’ll be a fine grand trip for ye, once ye get there. Ah, and here is Katherine, me daughter. Katherine, say hello. This is the man who’ll be keepin’ ye safe these comin’ weeks in y’ travels to y’ husband.”
Katey raised her eyes, finally setting sight on the knight who would be escorting her to a place that seemed halfway across the world. She offered a polite and hesitant smile, and spoke with an accent softer than her father’s.
“Hello, Sir Knight. I am Katherine, but please... call me Katey.”
@multistylemadness
