Kaldia's Budding Spring – Part Seven
The face of the woman called Nadje was somewhat familiar to me.
Upon attempting to drill further, she had initially responded with a blank expression, and had then adopted one more aligned with confusion. She had nevertheless offered me a bashful smile and ushered me into her home.
It was an odd feeling. Apart from the small children and region soldiers, there weren't many people who were willing to come into contact with me and not even wince.
"Just what happens to be the issue? Do you have some sort of business with me?"
"Yes, Nadje. About that…"
The Village Chief was decent enough to be the one to explain things to her. With him treading on glass, it only served to make me feel all the more awkward. Thanks to his input, however, it was much easier to evoke a change in Nadje's reactions as lent an ear.
When asked of her relationship with Gunther she grew a bit embarrassed, but was still frank in her admission that she pined after him while still being somewhat wary of me. But her somewhat calm demeanour disappeared the second the Village Chief decided to ask about the marriage registration, almost as if shattered.
"Eh… Mr. Gunther and I… Marriage? Huh… What?"
The wheels in her head seemed to stop turning about halfway through, and the Chief and I turned to look at each other. The girl herself was supposed to be at the very centre of the issue, but she didn't seem to have an inkling of what had happened. It was fairly obvious that there was no subterfuge mixed with her bewilderment.
… Which meant that the one we should be asking was probably her father.
The marriage laws of Arxia differed, depending on the region. The new laws passed down by Earl Terejia and I stated that the two parties to be wed were required to allow the village they willingly lived in to act as a sort of mediator, a place where they would whip up the marriage registration contract.
Both parties would sign said contract, and it would have to be submitted to the lord of the lands.
Before the laws were revised, however, any laws concerning matrimony had been based off of aristocratic conduct. The agreement needed for a marriage was not to be between the two parties concerned, but rather between the Lord and the acting father or guardian of the would-be bride.
"Village Chief, exactly who was the one to request the marriage registration?!"
"Come to think of it… It was Nadje's father. I… I'm truly sorry, I appear to have been lacking in my review…"
"Not at all. A parent can act as a default proxy for their child. There's no reason to fault you over what happened at the time of registration."
That really wasn't the core of the issue; that lay more in the fact that Nadje's name had been signed into the registry. If Nadje was really unaware, then that meant it had been forged… and that whoever forged it would have to be confronted by the law itself.
"Um… What… What should I do…?"