Medieval Information

During the Middle Ages, men sought ways to improve their ranking. The position most of them aspired was that of knighthood. Nevertheless, very few of them actually achieved it; and if the person wanting to be a knight was poor, then it'd be almost impossible.

There were exceptions, however. And this story goes back to the XIII century, in which castles dominated everything.

"Please, I don't want to do any more work."

"You have to, I'm sorry. If you don't work any more you will be dismissed, leaving you nothing."

"My parents will help me."

"They are doing as bad as you are. Look for yourself."

I am following the guard who pointed at two very ill-looking workers. I have not seen them for a long time, so my eyes are filling with happiness. But, before I could actually greet them, and after I hit myself with the floor; the guard, who was walking with me, hit me with such a devastating blow that I could hardly feel any more pain.

"This is my life" I am thinking. "I have no right to do anything." I am still thinking. I am not sure if I could feel any more pain. My thoughts are something like this:

"What's going on? Who hit me? Why did he hit me? Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing? I must stop asking myself silly questions. I know I can kill whoever did this to me." I realize I'm not as strong as I think I am. I am not going into a fight, specially with my weak status.

"What's the matter, young boy?" Said the guard.

"Why did you hit me?"

"Are you questioning me?"

"No sir."

"That better be it, because if you do it again; you'll wish you were never born. And thrust me, that machine in my house is really something that you don't want to see."

"I understand sir."

As I am turning down, another thought came to my mind.

"What if I just kill him and run away with everything I have? Faith can't be any worse than it is here. This is the place were God himself dared not to look into. God is not here."

The guard is walking away, laughing. I have so much anger accumulated that I can't just keep it anymore, and, with a supernatural strength and an anger which I didn't know existed in myself; I am running towards the guard. I turn to my left, there is a stick lying on the floor. I pick it up. The stick is very sharp. Looking at the conspicuous innuendo in my father's face and the disapproval eye's of my mother; I decide to do the only thing that I wouldn't do; I stab his back. He turns around in a second and looks at me with the eyes of Lucifer himself. I can see his red eyes gazing into mine as he is grabbing my arms with his amazing strength. Still, I am much stronger, and even though hurt, I stab him again in his stomach.

"Nooo!" I look back and there's my father. My mother is running right behind him. "Why did you do that, son?"

"Do you know what they can do to you for doing that?"

"I have no idea, and I don't want to find out. I'm going away."

"That's the only sane thing you can possibly do. But please, son, never come back. Follow me very fast, I have to show you something."

I am being led to my parent's house. The house, which I had only seen once or twice before, is very small. My father is grabbing a bag full of coins and says:

"Take this, now, go. Hastily. My neighbor has a horse which you can steal."

"Thanks, father."

"Now, go, hurry up. Before letting yourself be caught, kill yourself."

"I understand."

"And never come back."

I kiss my father and, as he said, I stole the horse which was next door. As I am making my way out, I hear a tumultuous uproar coming from the place I killed the guard. I am going full at full speed, on top of my stolen horse and a bag full of coins. Behind me, at least three or four nobles getting on their horses to pursue me.

I keep going and going. They seem to draw nearer, but, for my luck, they are out of water. surprisingly, I have a bottle of water with me. The nobles feared that by pursuing me any further, they could get lost; and consequently, die from thirst. The climate is very arid these days.

I can see a village a few miles away. As I am getting closer, the village seems to be more and more of my taste. It has water everywhere, kids are playing happily, and the women are beautiful. I am entering the village. I turn to my right and see an ugly old lady smiling at me. I'm discouraged, but still I go on. I reach the well, and drink so much water that everyone is looking at me. I was eagerly given the position of "that guy." I reach the store and buy some bread. I fear that they could be looking for me here. Nevertheless, another thought crosses my mind.

"What if I stay here? I mean, they won't think that I am this close to the actual village. They'll be looking for me as far as Great Britain, but still, I'll just be here."

I look to my left, and to my dismay, there's a beautiful lady; who must have been no more than 20 years old, coming towards me.

"Hi" I say.

She looked pretty shy, but still, she came to me.

"Hello, sir. My mother wonders if you have a place to stay tonight. We could rent you a room in our house if you want to."

I am looking at where she pointed and, logically, see the woman in the store looking at me.

"Tell your mother that I'd be delighted. I'll go there as soon as I have a walk with you."

"A walk? With me?"

"Yes. You can't believe in the situation I'm into, and still, I just want to talk to someone. Will you give me the honor of walking with me?"

"I don't know what to say."

"Just say yes."

"Yes."

"What's your name?"

"Katie, and you?"

"Just call me Rob."

We are walking, talking about endless subjects, and as the shadows increase dramatically in number; I decide that it is best for us to get back. I think to myself that I am very happy for having done what I did. I realize that I am not one bit sorrow for my actions.

We are both inside her mother's house, the store, in which our conversation went something like this:

"Where have you both been?"

"We were having a walk, mom. I had a delightful evening. Thanks."

"I had the best evening in my entire life."

The storekeeper is in the midst of a sudden consternation. I politely say "good night" and head for my room. I was stopped by the storekeeper, who said, "By any chance you haven't seen a 'Robert' right? A group of four or five men came looking for him. They said he killed someone."

"When did they come?"

"Just an hour ago. They said that they will come back later to check everything."

"When will they be back?"

"They just said later. Why are you so worried anyways? You suddenly turned pale."

"It's nothing. Robert is a friend of mine."

I head for my room. I am waiting. I hear no noise anymore coming from below. I open the door and head towards Katie's room. I knock her door, she opens it and looks at me with her beautiful green eyes. She looks shocked for seeing me there.

"What are you doing here, Rob?"

"I had to see you. Those guards your mom was talking about, they are coming for me. I was lucky not to be here when they came, but as your mother said, they are coming again."

"That's terrible. What did you do to have those guys chasing you?"

"Something I rather not talk about. I come to ask you a favor."

"A favor?"

"Yes. A favor."

"What favor?"

"I am leaving this town right now, but... since I saw you yesterday, I realized that I love you."

"What are you talking about?"

She grabbed my hand and took me inside her room.

"I said I love you. I'm madly in love with you. I can't possibly be away from you."

"But I can't go with you like that. My mother is here."

"Do it for me. We'll have so much more than you would ever have if you stayed. I know you don't like you mother anyways."

"That's true, but still I've lived here since I was born."

"That's no excuse. I know you're not happy here, and I'm not happy without you, so, please, come with me."

"I don't know."

"Well I know what's best for both of us. Come on before we wake your mother."

"I can't just abandon her. That's against everything she has ever taught me."

I grab her hands, gaze into her eyes, and kiss her.

"I had never kissed anyone before. I'm coming with you."

"I love you. Please get your stuff ready. I must find a horse for you."

I am leaving the house, looking all around to see if there is nobody suspicious (like the brother of the man I killed for example). I look all around me. The shadows can't let me see well. My eyes get used to the dark. I can see. I look around and I see my horse. I need another horse. I keep looking. I walk a bit and see a horse. I untie him and take him to the store. Katie is there already, waiting for me. I kiss her and tell her to get on the horse. She agrees and puts all her stuff in the back. We're ready.

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this."

"Me neither."

"Where did you get this horse? He seems familiar."

"Oh I borrowed it from your neighbor."

"You stole him?!"

"If you want to put it that way, yes."

"You can't go around stealing stuff!"

"I know, but for you, I'd do anything."

We are riding our horse into the wilderness. We keep riding for at least an hour. We reach another village, but I tell her that we must stick to the read. It's dawn already. We stop in a very small village. The village consists of three houses and a store. We go to the store.

"Please, give us water." I said.

"Here, it will be one copper coin."

"Also give us bread and fruits."

"It will be another copper coin."

"Food and water for our horses."

"Another copper coin."

"Will you stop saying that? I'll pay you. Now give us our damn food."

We are eating nicely. Katie tells me how much she enjoys being with me. I smile and tell her that I'm so happy for being with her. We both laugh because the storekeeper tripped on the floor. We finished our "meal" Before exiting the store, I look outside and see a guard that I had seen before. He is riding on his horse. He stops, puts a note on a tree and keeps riding. I tell Katie what happened and we both go to the tree. I see my name, Robert, a very bad drawing of myself and a bounty of 3 gold coins. The storekeeper sees the paper, and confused orders me to back off. I punch his face and take my three copper coins back.

"I can't believe you just did that."

"Me neither. Now, let's hit the road."

"But you said you saw the guard going on the road. It might be a trap."

"You're right. Let's go this other way."

I point at an old road. The road must be abandoned. I see a sign saying that it heads towards the mountains. I think it's a crazy idea. I like crazy ideas and tell her that we are going that way. She follows me. We reach an old cottage. It's abandoned. I tell her that we must explore it. She looks at me with a face of disagreement. I kiss her. She agrees.

"This place must be at least a hundred years old."

"I wonder why no one is here. It is so well conserved."

"You're right. Something's wrong."

"Nothing is wrong. Look, a plague must have killed everyone inside."

"So their corpses are still here? Is that what you mean?"

"I didn't mean to scare you, but this may very well be our home. Look at it this way, nobody will bother us. This is a mansion for the two of us."

"But there's dead people in here."

"We'll clean them up."

"We?"

"Okay, okay. I'll clean them up. I just want you to be happy, okay?"

I realize that the villa is in fact bigger than I thought at first. This is an awesome place to live in. I start exploring every room, and I, to my dismay, find no dead bodies.

"Where did the bodies go? Could they have just abandoned this place?"

"I hope that's the case. Look it's almost night. Where are we going to sleep?"

"That's a good question, seriously."

"I'll let you decide. Wherever you want."

"I say we sleep right here" Said Katie.

"Right here it is."

We go to our horses. She grabs my hand, and says, with a childish tone, a voice you can only hear in a small child; a tone of voice begging for protection, "I'm scared."

"There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll be with you, always."

"Will you?"

"Yeah, I will. Always."

We get some covers from our horses to make a bed right in the middle of the abandoned house. She insists on going to a corner because she doesn't like to be in the open. I agree. We are making our bed right behind a door and next to a wall. She is scared. I remind her that there is nothing to be afraid of. I put my arms around her neck and kiss her.

"Did I ever mention that I love you?" I said.

"I think you did."

"Can you hear that?"

"Yeah, ever since we arrived, I could hear that noise. What is it?"

"I think it's mice."

"Mice?"

"Yeah, mice. Here, give me your hand."

I grab her hand and put it next to the wall. She screams.

"I told you it was mice."

"Where the hell are we?!"

"It's abandoned. Mice are everywhere, even inside the walls."

"This is crazy, we should leave."

"Not really, this can be taken care of in a day. I'll do that too. Listen, I love you, and if I sense anything's wrong; we'll leave first thing tomorrow."

"But... where would we go?"

"Anywhere. With you, anywhere is good enough. Now, we should go to sleep there's plenty of work tomorrow."

"Can't we talk for a little while more? Listen, I came here with you because, among other things, I really like the way you speak."

"You should have said that before."

"I know. Now, considering that everything goes fine, what can we aspire to do here?"

"I already thought about that. Listen, after a few months; they won't be looking for me anymore. All the signs they have placed will be gone. We can make this our home, and, after a few months, we can do just about anything. We can probably have some farms, make slaves work for us... possibilities are endless; but I, for my part, will make sure this is the best house in a thousand miles."

"That's unbelievable."

"I know."

"There's another thing I've been thinking about..." She said.

"What's that?"

"Well... you remember that store keeper you punched, right?"

"Yeah, what about him?"

"Couldn't he just tell that he saw us coming this way?"

"I had forgotten about that guy! Yes, it's a possibility."

"But, if he does, which will very likely happen, they could easily come by following the road..."

"You're forgetting about something. After the main road, there are at least another hundred possible paths to take. The one we took is the hardest one. They'll never find us here."

"You sound like if you knew this place."

"As a matter of fact, when the lord; who runs the village from where I am from, found my family; we lived in this road. That's why I told you to stop in that village and not the other. That's why I knew how to get here."

"But then, that lord could easily think we're here."

"Unluckily for him, I am the only person that knows how to get here. You'll see, I didn't tell you this before, but this place is much older that I told you. It's 200 years old. It was believed that a plague killed everyone inside. Nobody has come here ever since. Everyone who knew about this place is either dead or doesn't remember how to get here."

"You're so full of surprises."

"I know."

"Please, tell me everything. I want to know all about you. You can thrust me."

We kept talking for many hours.

To be continued...