By The Gods's Ears

Chapter 2-2

“Oh, blest be Mava’s many litters, I have it!”

Murielle and Emmeline awakened from their reveries and turned to Gilles. “Que?” they asked in unison.

Gilles raised his hands to the rafters with another shout, startling the two gray doves Murielle had been trying to shoo from the house for the past several days. “Oh, great thanks to you Lord Aufeese! Oh, thank you Mava’s golden son! You have saved this poor man’s daughter from a terrible fate!”

“Gilles!” Murielle cried, “Why in Mava’s name are you shouting so?”

“Because,” he exclaimed, staring though her with mad, distant eyes, “Lord Aufeese, the Golden Child, the god you mock, has blest me with his great knowledge! He has given me the answer to our dilemma!”

Emmeline gave her father a disdainful look which quickly turned hopeful. “He has?”

“Yes, my sweet girl he has,” he replied. He swept across the room to her and took her face gently into his hands. “He has indeed!”

Murielle looked at her husband and crossed her arms across her chest. Her expression was more doubtful than Emmeline’s. “S’il vous plait, what has your great golden god told you that we should do?”

Gilles turned on his heels to face his wife and jabbed his finger at her. “Lord Aufeese loves you despite your scoffing,” he said with a mad gleam in his eyes. He looked at her, but suddenly Murielle doubted that he saw her at all.

And why, she thought to herself with a sigh, if he loves me so much, does the great god himself not deliver the message to us in the flesh? It seemed to her that the solution to such a dire problem required a visit from the Golden Child himself. In all her life Murielle had never seen a single one of the gods. Of course, she had heard stories of people who had encounters with the gods. Even some of her childhood friends had claimed to have seen the gods. One friend had even boasted that she had personally spoken with a god. But they were children and what did they know? Murielle’s father was a knight, so her childhood home contained a perfunctory altar to the war god. As a little girl she had made up her mind to pray at that altar. Every day she tried to pray. She soon focused on one request to the war god: I wish to meet you. Every day she was disappointed when no answer came.

Then she met Gilles, the son of a freed serf, who prayed fervently to Lord Aufeese. Still harboring serious doubts, Murielle offered prayers to this god, thinking that perhaps she had offered her allegiance to the wrong god. She never saw him. Gilles had never seen him either. But he prayed nevertheless, and his faith grew stronger while hers withered and died and her heart grew colder.

Now what she wanted was for the great Golden Child of Mava to show himself. Enter through that door right now, she thought ruefully, and I will believe once and for all; I promise I will believe. In her mind’s eye she could see him burst into the room, smashing the door from its hinges. He would squeeze through the doorway and stand before them. The Lord Aufeese would not be able to straighten to his full height, for the low rafters would prevent it. Towering above them, nevertheless, he would spread his front paws wide as if to gather them all in a deep embrace. In a booming voice he would announce to them all, “I, the Lord Aufeese, am here! You are under my protection, and no harm may come to you!”

Murielle opened her eyes, and all she saw was Gilles’s beaming face and that mad gleam in his eyes. Her heart sank but not by much. Not to have faith in something means not to be disappointed when it does not come true. The gods were myth, fairy tales told to children.

Gilles was speaking again. “But we have little time. If it is to succeed, we must perform our task before the chariot of the sun has left the sky.”

“Well,” Murielle snorted.

Ignoring her, Gilles laid out the plan. Murielle slowly nodded her head as she took in what her husband was saying. She had never heard such a well-thought plan come from Gilles. Whatever madness had seized him, it was a clever madness.

Emmeline would have to run. She would set out alone to the east for Ocosse, travelling cross-country, avoiding the roads and anyone who might be looking for her. Once across the border, she was to find a tavern called The Wild Hare. The tavern was easy to find. It was located at the crossroads of the two major trade routes. Once there, she would wait for Gilles and Murielle to join her. In the meantime, Gilles would travel to Darloque and seek an audience with the Old King, supplicating for protection from the Prince’s lascivious intentions. By then the Prince would be on the way to their farm to collect Emmeline. Murielle was to stay behind and delay the Prince and then, after a sufficient amount of time, let it slip that Emmeline, refusing to be married to the Prince, had run away to the south. Gilles having convinced the Old King to help, would collect Murielle at their home and then follow Emmeline to Ocosse and The Wild Hare where they go into the protection of the Old King’s guard.

Murielle pondered what Gilles had just said. The plan was not perfect. Success depended largely upon the mercy and indeed, the availability, of the Old King. But certainly, when the Old King was presented with another story of his son’s misanthropy, he would intervene in their favor. The essence of the plan was good. Once Emmeline crossed the border into Ocosse, the Prince could not touch her without risking the peace that existed tentatively between the two kingdoms. At the very least, their ruse would allow Emmeline the time to get across the border. Murielle felt that the plan was good enough to work, but it needed one change to make it perfect.

“I should be the one to go to the Old King,” she said flatly. Gilles fixed her with that same distant look, seeing her, but not seeing her. “For he would hear the pleas of a woman sooner than he would hear them from a man.” Thus, it was well reasoned that Murielle should be the one to appeal to him.

Gilles agreed, but his nod of affirmation was slow and distracted. Emmeline would run to The Wild Hare, Murielle would travel to Darloque to petition the Old King, while Gilles would stay at the house and send the Prince in the wrong direction when he returned. As Gilles and Murielle moved to make preparations, Emmeline however, simply stood fixed on the floor staring blankly at them.

“Emmeline, we must pack you some food and water and then I will tell you how to get to The Wild Hare,” said Gilles mechanically as he turned toward the pantry.

Emmeline gave no reply.

“Emmeline?” Murielle looked at her daughter as Gilles busied himself collecting food and placing it in a small piece of cloth.

“Emmeline?”

The girl began to shake her head. “Non, non, non, ce n’est possible.”

Murielle took her by the shoulders as if to shake her. “Emmeline, you must try to understand what trouble we have here. Please–”

“Non! No Mama,” she shouted, pulling back suddenly from her mother’s grasp. “You do not understand! I will not marry anyone!”

Emmeline paused briefly, then folded her arms emphatically across her chest as if the matter were settled. “And I will not run away.” Another brief pause then, “I am free; I am a slave to no man!”

Murielle had heard Gilles utter that phrase innumerable times in their marriage, but it shocked her to hear it come from her daughter, especially now.

Gilles dropped a small baguette which rolled across the floor and stopped at Murielle’s feet. She picked it up and brushed it off methodically as she spoke.

“You have no choice but to run,” she said, turning the bread over in her hands.

“Non, non,” the girl said less fiercely. She fell back into shaking her head weakly from side to side. “Non.”

Gilles came over from where he was packing supplies and took his daughter in his arms. She allowed him to embrace her but continued to shake her head against his chest.

“You must understand,” he said softly, the familiar warmth returning to his voice. He cupped his rough, calloused hand under her chin and gently tilted her face toward his own. “Lord Aufeese has shown me the way. You are in serious danger here, but the Golden Child has shown me what we must do to keep you safe.”

Emmeline pulled back from him a little. A look of deep stubbornness slowly set in the girl’s face like stone. It was a look that Gilles had seen many times in her mother’s face.

“Besides,” he said, smiling at her, “my father always told me that the greatest gift a free man possessed was the right to choose whether to stay and fight or to flee and fight another day.” Emmeline’s face brightened as he added, “And it is truly a wise man who can choose correctly.”

Gilles gently stroked the girl’s soft hair, his eyes locked into hers, her face open and completely absorbed in the words he spoke. Emmeline’s racing heart began to slow, and she grew calm as she stared into his eyes. She knew what she had to do. She still did not understand why the Prince was to be feared, but she knew that her father believed she was in danger. He believed she was in danger, and so she would do as he wished. Never mind that he claimed his idea came from the god of the harvest. If he believed that this plan of his would keep her from harm, then she would follow his word. She would follow the plan, and all would be well. She was sure enough of that now.

Emmeline pressed her head against his chest as her father’s strong arms pulled her into his embrace. She felt their strength, their solid farmer’s strength. These were the arms of a man who lived constantly in the life of honest manual labor. She inhaled his musky, sweaty smell. This was not the smell of a laborer but the comforting smell of love. The strong smell of her father comforted her in a way that nothing else could. He was the one person who always had time for her no matter how worn he might be from the day’s grueling work. He was a constant in her life, a steady rock, a bastion of protection.

Emmeline recalled the time he and her mother had taken her to the Temple of Aufeese for the very first time. The High Priest had been kind to her. He had been old, his face wrinkled but with smiling eyes set deep into those wrinkles. His hair had been long and graying. She thought that he was precisely what a grandfather should look like. He spoke to her in soft, gentle tones like she imagined a grandfather should have. As he took her up to the altar and showed her the statue of the golden child, she listened to him, entranced by his voice. It was not so much the words he spoke as it was the tone of his voice which captured her attention. In fact, later, she could not remember a word he had said. She just remembered that gentle, soothing voice washing over her, taking her away. He had given her a candied fig, she recalled. With a great flourish he pulled it out from his robes and presented it to her. She knew that grandfathers were always supposed to have treats for their grandchildren. At that moment she wanted to stay right there with him forever. She wanted to climb into his lap, listen to his voice, and eat figs. She had held the sweet in her hand and looked into his eyes again. She felt safe.

This was how she felt about her father, but far more intensely. She longed for his security. Emmeline did not want this business with the Prince. She wanted to crawl into her father’s lap, listen to the sound of his voice, feel his strong farmer’s hands stroke her hair, and tell her that everything would be alright. More than that, she wanted him to make it right. She did not want to have to do anything except sit in his lap and let him make everything right. Is that so difficult? she thought. Why must I run when I should be able to sit in my father’s lap as he makes it alright? Certainly, her father had the power to do that. There was no need to involve the gods. There was no need to run away. If she could just sit in her father’s lap, listen to his voice, and feel his strong arms around her, then everything would be right.

But another voice was coming into Emmeline’s head–a stronger voice, a voice older and stranger. It was the voice of the adult she was becoming. Do not be silly, it said, that will not make this trouble go away. For deep in the center of her being she knew that her father was right. She knew she had to run. To stand and argue with the Prince was foolish. All those men–those ferocious looking men who rode with him–could seize her by force and take her away to only the gods knew where. To try and hide in her father’s arms was simply childish. He could not protect her from this by simply holding her in his lap–not now, not ever. It would indeed be wise for her to run to Ocosse. Still, she longed to curl up in a ball and wish the bad men away. But the ever more present adult voice–ever more annoyingly so–told her this was a wise plan. Yes indeed, it was the best course of action for her to follow to protect herself and the people she loved the most. Yes, it was indeed very wise. The older voice won out, and Emmeline looked up into her father’s eyes, those brilliant blue eyes that had been such a comfort to her all her years.

“Oui, Papa,” she said, “Yes, it is prudent sometimes to run. And now it is prudent for me to run.”

Gilles smiled broadly at her, his brilliant blue eyes welling with tears.

“And perhaps,” Emmeline added, “we will fight another day.”