When Gwen arrived on the continent of Sim, she’d been bursting with a mixture of wild excitement and hope. Her plan seemed easy enough. How difficult could farming be? And besides, the government back home had promised arable land and pleasant weather.
Her first hint of what lay ahead came when some neighbours arrived from down the lane to welcome her to the neighbourhood*. No sooner had they helped themselves to some of the contents of her pantry, then they started talking about the weather, pointing out the nip in the air. A gentleman by the name of Talin who worked in the castle kitchens saw how this talk upset her, and attempted to cheer her up with a joke. She did not take kindly to it and politely asked them all to leave – she had work to do.
Gwen started to work the land the best she knew how, beginning with a small vegetable patch outside her front door, but it was a laborious process and far more time-consuming than she’d first anticipated. One day, while she was at the end of the lot collecting the mail, a handsome stranger came by. They struck up a conversation. His name was Waylon and he was a valet de chambre to the duke**. He came past the house quite often, and they would write to each other. Gwen sensed romance in their future, yet Waylon would make no move to confirm his feelings. At one stage she took his hand but he snatched it back and told her she was being improper.
The days grew colder and Gwen ran out of food. Her crops were yet to ripen and she had no choice but to find work at the local tavern as a wench.
This shamed her greatly as it was, but then Waylon came in one night with some other staff from the castle and saw her there. She thought she would die of shame.
Life was difficult, but it wasn’t all bad. Talin, the gentleman who worked in the castle kitchens, would write to her often, sharing tales from the duke’s household, and one of the women who’d worked beside Gwen at the tavern, would often stop by after her shifts.
Gwen took the meager earnings from the tavern and bought herself food and an easel, thinking that perhaps she could paint some of the views from her clifftop cottage (where the wind constantly howled) and sell them for coin. She was, after all, living at the dawn of the renaissance. Her work was scorned and this embarrassed her further [she lost a ton of aspiration points for selling a bad work of art].
She was under the impression that she was just scraping by, when the tax man showed up. She had paid her taxes, but had done so too late. He took some of her furniture as payment; a blow it would be difficult to recover from.
She was standing in her vegetable garden weeping, when Talin happened to pass by.
He ran up to her and took her in his arms. He had a solution to her financial troubles. They could wed. He had some money saved, enough to fix up the house. She protested that that wasn’t a good enough reason for marriage and that she would not want to make her burdens his. But he would have none of it. He was in love with her, he said. Had been since they’d first met (why did she think he kept writing to her?). She realised that she was in fact very fond of him as well. They agreed to wed within the month.
Snow began to fall on the eve of their wedding and by the time the dawn came a thick, white, blanket covered everything. The couple were not deterred however, with Talin joking that it was a white wedding indeed.
They had just said their vows when who should show up but Waylon. He felt betrayed by Gwen. How could she marry someone else when he had such feelings for her?
Gwen was angry, for how was she to know? She had not seen him at all since he’d caught her working in the tavern. He had spurned her affections almost entirely. The two fought [she actually attacked him and they had it out physically with Talin being rather concerned for her safety, but somehow that doesn’t really fit with the story of a medieval woman] and Gwen ended up paying him to leave them alone. “Alright, I’ll leave you alone,” he said, “for now” and he left them to enjoy the rest of their wedding. They did not have cake or champagne or music, but somehow their small ceremony was a “roof raiser” (perhaps the fight had something to do with it?) and the guests all left very happy.
Gwen was more upset than she let on about what had happened with Waylon. She secretly cried to herself about it, but she put those feelings aside so she could settle into married life with Talin.
(Waylon would return every day for months afterwards to steal their newspaper, but they never caught him.)
[“And what is a newspaper anyway?” ask the medieval Sims in confusion]
Click here to start at the beginning
*I hit a problem with illustrations here because random townies are dressed in modern clothes so appologies for the text-heaviness of this installment.
** Actually he was a “host” but since restaurants don’t exist and he doesn’t work at the local tavern, for the purposes of this story he can work at the castle.
Custom content
Tavern is part of the Duchy Township from Shadows of Gwrych Medieval Neighborhood by StephSim
Tavern uniforms from sunni9676’s Taverns & Alehouses NPC replacement pack
Tax man‘s uniform from sunni9676’s commoners NPC replacement pack
Gwen’s clothing
Peasant dress: Peasant Dress from All About Style
Tavern dress: From sunni9676’s Taverns & Alehouses NPC replacement pack
Wedding dress: Antique Cream Linen Chemise by Aligeth
Veil: Top piece is Cream Veil from All About Style with mesh by Rosesims (Accessories page 4), bottom is Long Veil, also from All About Style.
Talin’s clothing
Green tunic: Medieval and Renaissance Doublets and Hose in Rugged Style by Aligeth
Wedding attire: Rococo for him by lidiqnata
My Legacy Sims Challenge 