Prompt: Tell us a tale of two souls who love each other despite the distance between them in the days before electronic communication. How do they overcome the obstacles while staying in love with each other?

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The king beheaded the buttery servant for bringing him an inferior ale during the great storm of 1152, so when Geoff the stable boy fell ill, Merik set out himself to fetch the ale. As a loyal subject, Merik did not question why his majesty required ale made four villages away. He saddled the horse, hooked up the cart, and set out before dawn on the journey that would take most of the day.  

Arabella estimated the stable boy was over an hour late.  He'd appeared sickly yesterday. Seven wooden rundlets, enough to satisfy the king's court for a day, sat waiting in front of her small ramshackle home. She crossed the road and sat amongst the daisies on the bank of the river that supplied fresh water for the ale she brewed. Taking off the leather scraps that were her shoes, she waded into the river. 

A sparkle caught her eye and she leaned down and plucked the shimmering stone from the riverbed. Twirling it in her calloused hands, she studied it in the sunlight before plopping it in her apron with the others. She laughed at her girlish behavior. Well, she was unmarried and with her mother long gone, there was no one to chide her. As an alewife, she was as unsuitable for marriage as was her mother.

Sweating, Merik pulled up to the cottage and unloaded seven empty rundlets. He looked around for their owner before reloading the full ones. And that's when he saw her. A woman with long golden hair and blue eyes, not young, but breathtakingly beautiful.  

"Geoff ill is he?" she asked. 

Merik nodded finding himself speechless. Arabella made her way up the steep embankment and stumbled. Without hesitation, he leapt to help her but lost his balance and tumbled down beside her. 

She smiled, "I'm alright, I manage out here quite fine on me own." 

Merik stared at her, tongue-tied and watched as Arabella pulled herself up. Again, she slipped spilling her colorful pebbles upon the ground, but this time it was she who blushed. Together they hurriedly gathered the pebbles and returned them to Arabella's pocket. Their fingers brushed. Shocked, they looked up and into each other's eyes. For a moment the world melted away beneath the midday sky. She breathed in his manly scent of leather and soap. Merik felt intoxicated by how she smelled of roses and bread.

"You're late," she said, breaking the spell. 

Merik looked up at the sun past its peak.  Remembering the last buttery servent's bloody head in a basket, they both raced back to the road. Arabella helped him secure the ale onto the rickety cart. Merik thrust a small pouch of coins into her hand, mounted his horse and turned the cart. His pulse hammered in his ears. Perspiration beaded on his forehead. 

Thirty yards down the dirt road he abruptly pulled his mount to a halt and jumped down. Running back up the road he grabbed a daisy that swayed lazily in the light breeze. He came to a halt where Arabella still stood rooted to the spot he had left her. Down on one knee, he offered her the pure white flower. 

"M'lady," he said, eyes cast to the ground. 

She took his gift and again their fingers touched before he sprang up, raced back to the horse, and was gone.

*  *  * 

Merik's heart leapt, when the stable boy pulled up to the buttery with the ale casks.  As the boy dismounted from his arduous ride, Merik felt around the ropes securing the casks near the spot where he had fastened one of the two flowers he stole from the gardens. The other lay already pressed for his daily gift later in the winter. His fingers grazed the small round pebble he sought. This one was red with gray speckles, he held it to his heart, brushed the smooth surface against his lips and placed it in a pouch he carried around his neck.

On a cold night six months later, a great storm pummeled the castle. As Merik lay down to sleep, the chamberlain summoned him to the king's quarters along with the priest. Merik walked with trepidation through the unfamiliar rooms of the king's chambers and knelt beside the bed awaiting his majesty's command.

"Bring me the alewife," croaked the king. Merik nodded glancing out the window at the driving snow, he swallowed dryly. 

Wearing all he owned, he went to the stables where the stable boy gave him the strongest of the king's horses to brave the journey. In the wee hours of the morning, he knocked, half frozen, on the alewife's door. 

Like Merik, she did not question the king's demand. They rode fast, pressed scandalously close together in the saddle. Neither noticed the biting wind.  As they arrived, the pink dawn reflected in the snow blanketing the castle. 

"I didn't know the castle is so beautiful," she gasped. 

"Ei, more so now," answered Merik holding her tight and breathing in the scent of her hair before reluctantly bringing the horse to a halt and helping her dismount.  A group of servants ushered them to the king's bedside. Arabella and Merik knelt beside the king. 

"M'lord, I bring you the alewife." 

The king turned his pale drawn face to look at Arabella. He sucked in a breath and let out a small cry. His attendants jumped to his side, but he held up his hand.

"You're not..." said the king after a long pause, "What is your name?" 

"Arabella, m'lord," she replied trembling, eyes cast toward the floor. 

The king sobbed. Again the attendants tried in vain to assist him.

"Your mother, Genevive?"

"Died thirty years ago, m'lord." 

"You never missed a delivery."

"No, m'lord." 

"Come," said the king. Arabella obeyed, looking up only when he grasped her chin in his dry wrinkled hand and tipped it up.

"She never told me," said the king in a whisper. "I owe my daughter a dowry, so she may properly wed. It is my dying wish." 

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A/N: Per Wikipedia, "Brewing ale in the Middle Ages was a local industry primarily pursued by women. Brewsters, or alewives , would brew in the home for both domestic consumption and small scale commercial sale. Brewsters provided a substantial supplemental income for families." Sometimes alewives were widowers or single women, some saw these women as more sinful.

The tun is a cask that has a capacity of 216 imperial gallons. A rundlet is 1/14 of a tun. There is some documentation that people drank 1-2 gallons of ale a day. A castle might have gone through about 80 gallons a day. Everyone drank ale in the middle ages, including children.

Per Wikpedia, "In the Middle Ages, a buttery was a storeroom for liquor, the name being derived from the Latin and French words for bottle or,  to put the word into its simpler form, a butt, that is, a cask . A butler , before he became able to take charge of the (other elements of the household) and the staff, would be in charge of the buttery. However, the origin of the word is extremely complex, and much that has been written on the subject is faulty."