Bride to Be (part four)

Bride to Be 

(four)

But you say a riddle.

Well, I know but little, I am ashamed

I have seen twenty winters, nearly…and

My father and my brothers buried

Where I cannot pray upon their tomb

Lady Tamarilde, how…?

His ways grew with these falterings

Dear to me, confiding and unsure

But I repeated him again, how?

And then, abashed, though not at all

He said, I have not been counselled

Only since disgraced by my uncle

Have I heard, been told, a man takes back his own.

But I mean to do it, lady, I mean to. And—

So also do they say, a bad start makes a bad end.

And indeed, Daughter, I saw it

I asked him, is that city there you’ve marked

That the men of Rome call holy

That they claim enshrines a saint, of their gold and purple faith?

Vergrandis, have I got it right? Vergrandis.

You must tell me how it sits

On a hill? Upon the fertile river lands that flood in spring?

He stood then, with elation on his face

And stooped to me, and raised me, and kissed me

Well, I will propose a hunt…

Why will you not, I stopped him, ask that mendicant

Friar, who passes here

Whether a lady, whom you know, may not ride there

Under guardianship of an entourage, of her father’s knights

And seek audience of the bishop

And beg of him to teach her…?

Why his church did choose this site.

Bride to Be
Bride to Be (part five)

King of Chaos

(2018, Stephanie Foster)