“Finally safe!” Gilbert exclaimed when they were on the road again.

The unfitting phrase forced Alex to open his eyes and look at the guy in confusion.

Elsa noticed it and kissed his forehead saying, “Don’t worry dear. There are people protecting us now. Your father … he’ll be fine … I hope.”

Only during the following days Alex learned that the woods they so casually drove through were not only full of wildlife, but were packed with variety of predators. And while bobcats, mountain lions and bears usually didn’t attack larger caravans, a lone wagon was a completely different story. To not speak about large packs of wolves, two of which caravan guards fought off already during the first day.

In the carriage there were four more people present – two middle aged merchants, one of them accompanied by his wife and a youth around the age of twenty.

The road was long and they were almost guaranteed to spend the next month together cramped in this carriage, thus everyone quickly got acquainted and began to chat their time away. Of course, the ones who mostly spoke were the two merchants, but the rest were not too shy to encourage them. Even Elsa paused her prayers and listened to their stories with undisguised interest. For Alex, on the other hand, this was the most educational time since the moment he was born … well ... born once again.

After filtering out the bragging and the primitive jokes, Alex confirmed that the capital of this part of the world was called Serenity, the city they were currently going to. According to the merchants it was home to ‘many thousands’ of people who were led by his holiness pope Adolfs, who was also called by people ‘the hand of God’.

After hearing the pope’s name Alex finally understood where his parents got the idea for his own name, probably just like many other simple minded people in this world. Of course, that didn’t make the crime of naming someone ‘Alfons’ less heavy.

Obviously the whole country was under the rule of theocracy, but what surprised and somewhat worried Alex was that no one ever mentioned other countries at all. In the end he deducted that either this country occupied the whole continent or it was strictly forbidden to speak about this subject.

The latter option would not surprise him one bit. The people here knew how to keep their secrets – for example, Elsa and Gilbert behaved as if they didn’t have a miracle on their hands, while it was clearly expected for Alex to not begin to speak even though he was a newborn and should not be able to control himself.

‘What a weird world.’ Alex thought and went back to meditation.

He was already used to people around him talking, so it was not too hard to concentrate on cultivating the force of nature.

Days went by and the caravan moved forward. Roads towards the capital were of much higher quality and one couldn’t compare the carriage to the old wagon at all thus it was relatively comfortable. From time to time there were some wolf and bandit attacks, but the caravan guards expertly defended.

The stops at the small towns should’ve been the highlights of this trip, but for some reason Elsa refused to explore as if afraid to be left behind and chose to help out the two merchants instead. At first Alex looked forward to see the local trade customs, but it soon became boring – hunters brought pelts and exchanged those for weapons or tools. That was it. On rare occasions someone brought a rare gem or medicine plant that caused a larger commotion, but merchants in the caravan obviously had some kind of agreement and collectively ripped the poor local off.

After being cramped in the carriage for many days Alex had the urge to get up and go for a walk, or at least to crawl around, but his mother rarely let him out of her hands. Thus during the thirty odd days on the road he only saw trees, merchants and his mother’s tit.

Finally they arrived to the capital.

When the forests were replaced by wide fields, obviously used for agriculture, they were already covered in a thin layer of snow. To Alex’s big surprise merchants excitedly claimed to already be in Serenity although there was no city in sight, only scarce farmer villages.

It took them three more days to reach suburbs and only then Alex could agree they arrived at a city that actually looked more like a medieval town. Despite the recent light snow, streets were covered in mud and full of busy people running their daily errands.

A disgusting stench of a pig stall came from the wooden houses on both sides of the streets and Alex already began to question his idea to rush to the ‘civilization’ if it was on such level. Even if in the Stone village they lived in total poverty, at least it was clean.

Gilbert’s reaction was completely different. After saying goodbye to the caravan buddies, he took a deep breath and smiled the air in satisfaction.

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“Finally there!” He said. Even though he was also a villager and only a servant of the local priest, since he has been to capital before he obviously was now in charge, “Alright. I’ll take you two to the convent first. I Don’t know when the bishop will see us, but it’s fine to wait.”

Either he was too cheap or they were out of money, the rest of the road they covered on foot. Needless to say that two hours later they were not only tired, but also dirty all over, but Alex didn’t care.

Lying in his mother’s hands he speechlessly stared up at the towering spires of the countless churches built in beautiful white marble. The splendor that heart of Serenity had could easily leave Vatican in shame, in fact Alex felt as if the modern capital of Christianity was a poor village compared to what he currently saw.

While the city suburbs were covered in mud and stink, the center was so clean one had to use a magnifying glass to find a speck of dust. Obviously the people who set their foot here were only clergymen or aristocrats and all of them currently threw looks of disgust towards the country bumpkins who dared to step on their holy ground.

The man in dirty and torn robe and the woman dressed in a primitive and filthy pelt coat quickly caught attention of the guard patrol as well. Six men dressed in silvery armor that probably was more for show, holding long spears in their hands quickly surrounded the daring pair of peasants, most likely with intent to punish them. While Elsa continued to gape at the magnificence she had never seen in her life, Gilbert already expected such reaction and pulled out a scroll.

He waved it under the noses of one of the guards and said, “We are here on the orders of his excellency bishop Jorge Maria. I need to deliver this mother and child to the convent by his church.”

“Then why are you here?” One of the guards furrowed his brows and pointed his spear at Gilbert, “Saint Jorge Maria church is …”

“Calm down, Silas.” Another one, probably their commander interrupted him, “They are obviously lost. But since you know the way, you’ll be in charge to guide them. Understood?”

The guard grumbled in confirmation, probably cursing to himself, when the little child on woman’s arms suddenly put his little palms together and said with a serious expression, “Sorry for the inconvenience. Lord, guide us!”

Few spears fell on the ground from shock as the guards speechlessly stared at the baby who was basically a newborn. Truth to be told even Elsa and Gilbert were caught unprepared since they had not heard Alex speak for weeks.

“I … I guess we’ll all escort you.” The leader of the guards said, “Follow me!”

It was not hard for Alex to predict such reaction from people in a heavily religious society and after resolving the situation he ignored the rest and went back to his cultivation while his mother with a proud smile on her face followed the still confused guard squad.

They had to walk for almost half an hour until they arrived at a large, dark wooden gate also guarded by guards who looked similar to the ones who escorted them.

“Right, this is the place.” Gilbert sighed with relief since he was, in fact, lost earlier.

Seeing they were almost there, one of the escorting guards quickly gathered his courage and directly asked Alex, “Little one, could you please … bless me?”

At first others looked at him in confusion, but then their eyes lit up. Right! This kid was some kind of a holy baby! Even Alex was shocked, but he was not born for the first time and quickly recovered.

He put his palms together and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have the power. But you should pray to the Lord, he’ll guide you.”

The guard also put his palms together and even slightly bowed.

“Thank you! Lord, guide us!”

Under the shocked eyes of the guards at the gate, the rest of the squad followed his suit and prayed, “Lord, guide us!”

Alex found it hard to hold back laughter. Luckily all he had to do was to close his eyes and pretend to fall asleep and people left him alone. Elsa, on the other hand, proud like she was the Mother Mary herself strode towards the gate as if those guards had to know their place as well. Luckily Gilbert with the scroll in hand ran over first and the misunderstanding was avoided.

After learning their purpose, guards let the trio in and they were quickly settled in one of the guest rooms. While the main purpose of the convent was to house nuns, it also served as a hotel for those visiting the bishop and the nuns fulfilled the duties of the hotel staff.

Their room was quite primitive and only had a couple of beds, but the window was large enough and the lighting was sufficient. Of course, one couldn’t really expect anything else in a convent although Alex suspected there were some other ‘higher end’ rooms as well.

Everyone washed up and ate, but while Elsa and Alex turned to rest early, Gilbert after receiving a new, clean robe went to meet the bishop.

In the morning Alex found out that the bishop was not in Serenity and will return ‘any day’, thus they only had to wait. Contrary to his expectations, this didn’t surprise neither Gilbert nor nuns and they were allowed to stay for unlimited amount of time and free of charge.

Soon he learned that the people in this world lived according to the most sacred laws of ‘mañana’. If something didn’t happen today, it was likely it’ll happen tomorrow, if not – the day after or maybe some day later. No one was worried about any delays.

It took over two weeks for bishop to return and then three more days for Gilbert to pass over the message. And only on the next day after that Alex was granted an audience.

But it was not like he complained. While it was already winter outside, his room was warm and people left him alone – for some reason the information of him being ‘special’ also didn’t leak.

During these peaceful times he mostly cultivated the force of nature while the highlights of the day were when mother brought him outside ‘for a walk’ around the convent that was larger than their village despite being in the middle of the city and separated from the rest of the world with a tall stone wall. Unfortunately they didn’t go to the nearby church that was named after the bishop, but it was probably because his mother was too afraid to overstep some boundaries or break some rules. On few occasions Alex had an itch to talk to nuns to gain more information, but forced himself to hold back – there will be enough time for that later.