As soon as the cheers subsidized, the official part was finally over. Stepping out of the church, rather than doing it in the usual way, I surprised everyone and caught Elia under her knees, instantly lifting her up in the cliche princess carry.

While it wasn"t anything much, I wanted to make sure that everyone would understand that not only was our marriage a deal, but it was backed by a relations.h.i.+p where a true love resided!

"Congratulations!"

Even while we were still pa.s.sing through the benches inside the church, the high n.o.bles were already shouting their words of encouragement, with their eyes already set on the grand feast that would follow the official ceremony. But there was still one minor element, that would end up as one of the most costly parts of the entire event!

As soon as we stepped out from the church, a pair of servants approached us while carrying a sizeable chest on their arms. Forced to place Elia back on the ground, I pretended that this didn"t pain me at all when I pulled out a key to the lock of the chest, before revealing its s.h.i.+ny content to the crowd.

This time, we would be subjected to travelling through the entire city and all the way to the feasting grounds outside the town walls, on foot! And to add the pain to the injury, every single step of ours had to be bough by throwing those hard-earned coins around, for the common folk to enjoy!

But there wasn"t any point in going against the tradition. Rather than treating it as a waste of money that could be so effectively used elsewhere, I decided to consider it an investment in my own prestige, that would take a huge hit if I were to refrain from doing so. In the end, all the money that I would just throw around today would sooner or later return to my coffers, but it didn"t change the fact that just throwing away days of my work still put a dent in the defences of my heart!

"Don"t worry dear, I will be sure to compensate you for all our losses during the night…"

As we marched through the decorated streets of the town, Elia used one of the moments when she was reaching for yet another handful of coins, to whisper those words right into my ear.

Just like it was a bridal privilege to look insane during the wedding, it was the groom"s both duty and once-in-lifetime opportunity to not only tear those clothes out of his new wife"s body but to make sure they would be unusable for the rest of her life!

Just thinking about what would happen during our first night as a married couple alleviated some of the pain from my heart, especially when I noticed a small, playful smirk on top of Elia"s lips.

Ever since our attempt to enjoy ourselves at the camp on the way to the Pilzno, there was only one time when we had the chance to embrace each other. As soon as the daily matters of preparing this grand day forced us into a frantic rush, not even a single night would see the both of us capable of exerting enough strength to even think about playing around. Yet according to the tradition, this would finally change during the first hours after the setting of the sun!

Thankfully, the feasting grounds where all sorts of tents, tables, and other necessary accommodations were prepared already few days in advance couldn"t be that far away from the city, otherwise, logistical aspect of moving all the necessary stuff between those two locations would make creating this place impossible. This was also my main idea of dealing with the problem of accommodation!

Instead of struggling to find a way to fit everyone in the very limited s.p.a.ce inside the town, I decided to turn the entire feast into an outdoor event, where there was way more than enough s.p.a.ce for everyone to comfortably spend the time!

As soon as we reached the feasting grounds, I lead Elia to our private tent, where with the help of various servants, we dropped the more formal parts of our clothes, leaving only the bare minimum that would be enough to s.h.i.+eld us from the cold while still accenting our position as the most important people in the entire place.

Sadly, while I still wanted to use this short time to spend some quality moments with my wife, we were quickly forced outside to attend the first pleasant part of the wedding - receiving gifts from all the guests!

Due to the fact that neither of us had any close family to invite, rather than organising everyone according to their familiarity with us, we simply went with sorting them out with their rank. Even though putting the rich before the poor could result in the later n.o.bles feeling bad for their gifts not reaching the grand level of what magnates could offer to us, rather than bothering with the feelings of those who couldn"t afford a proper gift, I decided it would be better to make them feel indebted to us for accepting their relatively inexpensive gifts.

"Congratulations on your marriage! I heard that you managed to deal with the problems you mentioned back at the camp…"

Starting with the governor himself, as he could not only flaunt his enormous wealth but also a mult.i.tude of his honourable t.i.tles and functions in the country, I also hoped to deal with the matter of Peter. Just like a thorn, his name was plaguing my head through the entire ceremony, making me worry whether the Governor would give the verdict I hoped he would.

"Sir, while I managed to deal with the troublemaker, I"m in no position to impose any punishment on him, so I decided to keep him locked up until your Governors.h.i.+p would arrive. I hope that in due time, I could ask for this single favour, to have your Governors.h.i.+p use your authority as the official of the Crown to impose proper punishments for the crimes he did!"