Listen To Your Heart

Chapter 5

When the sun began to fade, the high tower of a village’s church rose between the treetops. Gilbert sighed in relief of its view and Elsie made them stop before the woods ended.

“What is it?” Gilbert asked.

“I’m trying to find the best way to walk into the village, so we don’t look very suspicious. It seems the inn is right on the main street, near the church. There aren’t many people around, most of them must be at the tournament, so it should be easy to get us a room and some food and ale,” Elsie replied. “If we come from the west, we can say we came from Penshaw and are heading to the tournament just like any other couple. We just need to be discreet.”

Gilbert let Elsie take the lead once again. They surrounded the small village still hiding in the woods until they reached the simple dirty road that came from the west. They got off their horses and entered the place on foot.

Just like Elsie had observed, the small town was almost deserted. There were only a handful of old people going back home and some children playing in the main street. Gilbert stayed as close as he could to Elsie. Although the only people around barely noticed them, he was still nervous, waiting for anyone recognize Elsie and take them back to Nevettia.

“Let me handle everything when we reach the inn,” he whispered to her.

“What?”

“It might be easier for them to recognize you. I’m just another face in the crowd and I never made any public appearances. Besides, these people aren’t used to see women handle money, especially if they are travelling with a man. They might suspect something.”

“Are you serious?”

“Elsie, you know the maps and I know the commoners, trust me on this one,” he tried not to start an argument with her about the role of women in society since he knew her claims and even though he agreed with her, a village wasn’t the place for that.

“Fine,” she frowned and passed him her money bag.

Gilbert took the lead for the first time and he felt good for being useful at least once. When they reached the inn, they led the horses to small stable at the back. Gilbert threw a silver coin to the skinny boy who was watching the stable to take care of their horses. He walked through the doors in front of Elsie, who was observing everything and everyone with careful eyes.

The inn was simple and dirty. There were only two tables occupied with sullen men, but no woman was in sight except for the waitress. Even the whores knew they would make more money at the tournament. The girl was just as skinny as the boy outside and the men on one of the tables were teasing her and she was clearly uncomfortable serving them their mugs of ale. As soon as they walked into the inn, all heads turned to them, and Elsie stood closer to Gilbert trying to hide her face.

The waitress used Gilbert and Elsie’s entrance as an excuse to step away from the men harassing her. She walked up to them and smiled shyly.

“Good evening. What can I get you?” she asked.

“Hello, I need a room for two for the night,” Gilbert said politely.

“Father!” the girl yelled to the door behind the bar. “Room rental!”

They heard heavy stomps coming from what they figured was the kitchen and in a minute a fat short bearded man came down the stairs.

“Hello there,” he said reaching out his hand to Gilbert. “I’m Bryant. What can I do for you lovebirds tonight?”

“Good evening, sir. We’d like a room for the night. We’ve been travelling from Penshaw and we are headed to Nevettia’s Summer Tournament,” Gilbert answered him.

“Oh, I see. Aren’t you a bit late? The tournament started yesterday,” Bryant questioned them.

“I’m afraid we are, indeed. But it took me a while to convince my father to let us go to see the fights,” Elsie interfered. “Besides, we are tired and want a good night sleep before spending the whole day at the tournament.”

“Very well, the room is three silver coins each of you. Will you want a meal as well?”

“Yes, please, and a jar of ale as well,” Gilbert answered.

“10 silver coins should cover everything. Follow me, I’ll show you your room,” Bryant climbed the stairs and Gilbert follow him with Elsie trailing behind them.

The second floor of the inn was just a long corridor with many doors. All of them were opened, which was just a reflection of how empty the village was. Bryant took Gilbert and Elsie to the third door at the right and let them into the room.

It was a simple chamber, with just a double bed made of straw where two feather pillows laid, a pot near the corner and a dirty mirror. The window was shut, but if anyone cared to look outside, they would see the plain view of the main street.

The innkeeper waited outside the door and Gilbert gave him the ten silver coins he charged. Gilbert closed the door behind him after Bryant left and Elsie set her package of belongings on the floor near the bed.

“What should we do first? Sleep or eat?” Gilbert asked her.

“I wish we could do both at the same time,” Elsie replied with a small laughter. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t think I can sleep with an empty belly, honestly,” he said.

“Let’s go, then.”

The couple headed back to the main room on the first floor and settled themselves on an empty table as far as they could from the other people. They wanted to keep as private as they could. The waitress didn’t take long to bring two mugs and the jar of ale they asked for.

“I’ll bring your meal in just a minute,” the girl said and left them alone.

Elsie was feeling a bit uneasy about staying in such plain sight, but they needed to get some sleep otherwise they would never reach Darkwell to get on board of a ship to Poisart. She just hoped the news of her disappearance didn’t reach far from Nevettia. The meal was placed at their table quite fast and they ate the pork stew like it was the last meal of their lives. The ale helped it all go down and they barely talked to each other while eating.

When they were about to finish, a new figure entered the inn. By the clothes of the man, he was a priest. Bryant ran into the room as soon as he saw the holy man in his establishment.

“Father Robert! Good evening, do you want to join us for a hot bowl of stew?” he said taking the priest’s hand to his mouth to kiss it.

“Just give me some ale tonight, Bryant. I just received bad news today and I don’t think there’s any food that will settle in my belly,” the priest answered and took a table near Gilbert and Elsie where they could hear everything that was being said.

“Stella!” Bryant called for the waitress. “Bring Father Robert a jar of ale. On the house, of course.”

“Thank you, my son,” the priest smiled sadly.

“Tell me, Father, what happened?” Bryant sat on the table with him.

“I’m doomed. Years of study and the archbishop will expel me from the church. How will I live? I’m doomed to be a beggar for the rest of my sinful life,” Father Robert whined.

“What do you mean by that, Father Robert? You are a holy man, I know so, no one lives by the church as you,” the innkeeper tried to cheer up the poor man in front of him while Stella brought him the ale.

“But I didn’t get my official nomination yet. I’m not done with my official duties to receive the cassock. I’m just a seminarian. And all because I won’t celebrate a single bloody wedding until tomorrow. I just received the letter. Archbishop Wulfric arrives tomorrow straight from the capitol to banish me.”

The priest drank a whole mug of wine so fast he even drooled on his beard. Gilbert had listened to the conversation when the craziest idea crossed his mind.

"Elsie, will you marry me?" he blurted.

"What?" Elsie almost choked on the ale.

"Marry me. Right now. The priest is already here, and he needs to celebrate a wedding. All we have to do is say the vows," he explained.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Never been so serious in my entire life," his eyes sparkled.

"Yes, I'll marry you," she smiled.

Gilbert smiled back at her and got up approaching the priest’s table.

“Hum… Excuse me, Father Robert. I believe I can help you,” he said.

“And how’s that, young man? Are you going to get married right now?” the priest answered sceptic.

“Actually, if you are free right now, yes,” Gilbert looked back at Elsie. “We’ll get married.”

“Are you sure? Fooling a priest is a serious sin, lad.”

“We are sure,” Elsie finally stood up next to Gilbert and confirmed.

“Oh my,” Father Robert got up quickly making a loud noise with his chair. “Alright, okay, please, come with me to the church, then. We just need a witness,” he turned to the innkeeper. “Bryant, will you be their witness?”

“Oh, I can’t leave the inn just like that, but I can spare you Stella,” Bryant answered and left after his daughter.

In a few minutes, Elsie and Gilbert were heading to the church, accompanied by the priest and Stella. Elsie could feel her heart beating fast out of anxiety. She was not only running away from everything and everyone she ever known, she was also marrying Gilbert. That was such a major step for her. She never liked the idea of marriage, but because it meant to be a man’s prisoner somehow, to maintain a household and have the children of someone she didn’t love. But with Gilbert, it was different, and she wasn’t feeling trapped just like she felt with Nycholas at the feast. She was feeling free to make her own choices.

The church seemed small and simple from outside, but once they got in, Elsie and Gilbert were impressed by the frescoes and golden statues all over the walls and ceiling. Father Robert asked for some time to get everything settled at the aisle.

“Are you really getting married in those clothes? With absolutely no family?” Stella questioned Elsie.

“Well, it’s a last-minute ceremony, there isn’t much time to think about clothes and family right now. And honestly, I don’t think it will matter,” she replied.

Stella kept quiet, but still thought that whenever she’d got married, she would want at least a white dress, flowers and people to celebrate with her. It was the least her father could do for her after she worked at his inn since she was a little girl.

Father Robert came back all dressed up and with a bible in hands.

“Alright, if you could both stand in front of the aisle,” he called Gilbert and Elsie, who took their places side by side in front of the priest. “Good, right there. And Stella, you can stay on either side, but here, closer.”

Stella stepped closer to Elsie and watched the priest as he read the passing in the bible. Soon, he let Gilbert and Elsie say their vows by improvise. Neither of them had great manners with words, but they sure meant every single love promises they made each other.

“I declare you husband and wife,” Father Robert finished the ceremony. “You may kiss your bride.”

Gilbert took Elsie’s face between his hands and kissed her softly.

"Congratulations and thank you, for helping me. I wish you everything good. God is a witness of your love and kindness to another. But before you go, I'm going to need your name to register the wedding,” the priest said, before they left.

Gilbert and Elsie exchanged a concerned look, but Gilbert managed to keep calm, cleared his throat and looked back at the priest.

"I'm Philip and my wife is Mary," he lied.

"Thank you, Philip. You may go if you want," the priest smiled looking like he had accepted the names.

Gilbert and Elsie left hand in hand followed by Stella. The adrenaline of getting married in the middle of nowhere, running away from Nevettia and hidden from everyone else, made them forget their tiredness and sleepiness. When they reached the inn once again, they were welcomed with warm congratulations from the innkeeper and once again the men in the inn stared at them. They went upstairs trying once again to avoid much commotion on their behalf. After everything, the last thing they wanted was to be paid attention to.

When they entered their room, Gilbert picked Elsie up bridal style and made his way to put her in bed.

“What was that, Gilbert?” she laughed at his goofy romantic way with her.

“You’re my wife now, I just thought that we could have a proper wedding night, with all that tradition requires,” he shrugged going back to the door to lock it.

“Never thought of you as a traditional kind of guy, but I like it, husband,” she laughed once again while he laid in bed with her.

“Anything for you, wife,” he pulled her closer to him and kissed her passionately.

“Well, I guess we should celebrate traditional style, then,” she gave into him, melting around his arms and between his kisses.

“I couldn’t agree more,” he smiled at her and traced her neck with the gentle pecks giving her a chill on the spine.

That night, they gave it all to each other with love and passion, never minding the circumstances they were in. Elsie had never been with a man, but her jitters were quickly thrown aside as Gilbert let her move on her own pace, respecting all her wishes in bed. Elsie responded to him with as much love as she could and by the end of the night, she fell asleep in his arms for the first time, feeling happier than she ever did.

The next morning, Gilbert woke up and looked at the small girl sleeping in his chest with her arms wrapped around him. He didn’t know how much they had slept, but it was definitely already morning by the light coming through the closed window cracks.

Gilbert kept looking at Elsie, thinking how it all felt like a dream to him. She was his wife now, that was official. She was his and he was hers. However, it didn’t take long for her to wake up as well.

“Good morning, m’lady,” he said kissing the top of her head.

“You don’t have to keep calling me that anymore, you know?” she answered with a sleepy voice.

“You are mine and you are a lady. I really don’t see the problem,” he said.

“You’re only half right,” she kissed him. “I am yours, for sure.”

“So am I. Does this mean you didn’t regret everything?”

“Definitely not.”

“What about last night? Was it good for you? Didn’t I hurt you or anything?” he asked a bit nervous.

“I was a bit apprehensive at the beginning, to be honest, and it did hurt at first,” she confessed, but quickly tried to explain everything else to him once he saw the frightening in his face. “But it was just for a while. After that, I felt so good, you were so good. I wish I made you feel as good as you made me, really.”

“You were perfect, don’t worry. I just didn’t want it to be a bad experience for you.”

“It wasn’t, I promise you,” she said and blurted the question that was surrounding her mind. “You seemed…Hum… you know, you seemed like you knew what you were doing, with your fingers and lips, so I was just wondering who she was, you know?”

“Who she was who, Elsie?”

“Oh, don’t you play me, Gilbert. I’m embarrassed enough to ask you this,” she blushed. “Who was the first girl you did it with?”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. It was a few years ago. Ury thought it was time that I became a man and he took me to the village outside the keep one night. He got me drunker than the usual and convinced me to go to bed with a girl at the inn we were in. It was horrible, really. I was drunk and didn’t last more than a few minutes. The next day I found out she was a w***e and it immediately made me think of my mother and how the men she had mistreated her. I got so sick and spent the rest of the day vomiting outside our cottage,” he told her.

“But there were others, weren’t there?” she kept asking.

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter anymore. And I promise you that since we got together there hasn’t been anyone else but you and there will never be,” he answered and kissed her.

At first, she felt bothered thinking about him with other girls, but she pushed those thoughts away from her mind. They were together now, and if he said he hadn’t been with anyone else, she believed him.

However, knowing that they already pushed their luck way too much by staying in bed longer than they should’ve had, Elsie got out of bed and encouraged Gilbert to do the same. They had to go back to the road as soon as they could. They both dressed up quickly but failed to listen to the noises coming from downstairs.

Elsie was picking up their things when the door was wildly opened, and three men entered the room holding up daggers and swords. They were the same men harassing Stella the night before and Elsie cursed herself for not paying better attention to them. Gilbert tried to fight the blond one, but the others held him to the ground and Elsie feared doing anything to cause Gilbert any harm.

Gilbert was tied with his hands on his back and a cloth around his mouth. Elsie tried bribing the men to free Gilbert, but she was also tied and pushed out of the room and down the stairs. In the main hall, Bryant was holding his daughter on a corner of the room. Elsie looked at them trying to plead for help, but neither of them moved in fear of the mercenaries.

The three men left the inn pushing the young couple outside and placing each of them on a different horse.

“We are going to be rich with the reward Lord Ricardus Asheye is going to give us for delivering back his daughter and her kidnapper,” said the bigger one with a nasty scar across his face. “Can you believe our luck?”

The other two laughed and they left following the road north, back to Nevettia. The three mercenaries had a slow pace and talked way too much on Elsie’s opinion. But it helped her figured out some information on them. The three of them were brothers. The blond one that Gilbert had attacked was called Rufus, he was the youngest of them all and he was bossed around by the other two. The one with a scar on his face was the eldest and the one in charge, his name was Bertram. The middle brother was the quiet one, he barely talked, but he had the best hunting skills of all the three.

They were heading north to the tournament, trying to make some money on bets and gambles, but when they were about to leave, they heard from a pretty lad on a fancy horse that he was looking for one of the Asheye’s girls and a man with her, who matched that exact same description of the couple that rented a room in the inn the night before. The leather saddle on the horses that Elsie and Gilbert left on the small stable had the Nevettia’s keep stamp, so to the mercenaries there were no doubts they had found a golden mine right on top of their heads.

They rode the whole day and Elsie continued shaking as her horse slowly followed the road in that rainy day. Her clothes were wet, and she didn’t have her cloak on. Her hands were still tied in her back, but at least Bertram had taken off the cloth in her mouth for her to drink water. Her horse followed right behind him, in front of everyone else, while Gilbert was the last one in line. From time to time, Elsie would turn around to look at him and make sure he was alright despite their situation. However, they also learned quickly that although Elsie was not to be harmed, they had no remorse in hitting Gilbert whenever the couple tried to communicate somehow. Gilbert already had a bleeding nose and bruises all over his stomach.

Elsie’s horse continued his pace, but her shivers got worse. Bertram looked back at her.

“Stop moving, girl. If you fall off the horse, I won't pick you up," he yelled at her.

"Give me something to warm up, then. I have no use to you if I'm dead!" she yelled back annoyed. "In fact, if I don't make it home alive, my father will chop off your head."

The man snorted and looked at his younger brother behind her.

"Jack, get the girl a cloak or a blanket," Bertram yelled.

"I am not her damn maid," Jack yelled back.

"You won't see any money if she's dead. So, for now, yes, you are her damn maid."

Jack got a blanket from a small bag and put it around her, without leaving his horse.

"Hey, Bertram, what's your bet on the boy?" Rufus asked from far behind the line. "I say hanging."

"Don't be stupid. Lord Ricardus loves his long sword. The boy will be decapitated," Bertram answered.

"I bet on losing his head as well," Jack replied.

"Gilbert won't be killed!" Elsie yelled at them.

"He kidnapped an Asheye of Nevettia. There is no other punishment than death on his case, little girl," Bertram answered her.

"He did not kidnap me," she said angrily.

"That's not what they say," Jack laughed and went back to his position behind her.

Elsie looked back trying to spot Gilbert, but the rain restrained her vision.

"How long is this going to take? Shouldn't we be there by now?" she asked Bertram.

"A couple of hours more. Now, stop talking, your voice is annoying," he replied.

Elsie shut her mouth, but her head was in full speed conceiving a plan to save Gilbert, no matter what, he was her husband now, for only a day, but still her husband. She knew her father would be mad at first, but she was sure she could make him listen and believe her. Her mother would be worse, of course, but thankfully she didn’t make the rules.

The night fell and the rain didn't stop, but in an hour or so, Elsie began to see small points of light not so far from them. She was almost there, but all she wanted to do was get Gilbert, heal his wounds and run away with him again.

Bertram sent Rufus ahead to announce their arrival when they could already see the castle. They also had to pass over the tents that were set for the tournament. When they crossed the field, Elsie noticed that there were much less people than when they left. Her absence must have killed off the hype and joy of the tournament.

Elsie’s heart began to race when they entered the gates of the place she called home. The two mercenaries still with them got off their horses and pulled Elsie and Gilbert from theirs. Bertram cut off the rope tying Elsie's hands with a dagger before they went in. However, Gilbert was kept tied. As soon as they began to walk, Elsie rushed to Gilbert's side, putting one of his arms on her shoulders and hugging him by the waist to help. Bertram tried to pull them apart, but Jack said they should let her once neither of the mercenaries wanted to carry Gilbert inside.

Before they entered the throne room where Lord Ricardus used to receive his guests, the guards asked Bertram and Jack to wait outside and Elsie entered the room with Gilbert. They found all the Asheyes there with their husbands or wives alongside Lord Sternlash and his wife and Nycholas.

"I won't let them hurt you," she whispered to Gilbert.

He just looked at her concerned, because he knew that each and every person in that room just wanted to jump on his throat.