Bride to Be (part nine)

Bride to Be (part nine)

Fire in the open court, logs arm’s length wide

After a day’s burning poled to embers furnace red

Men with plucked birds pierced on iron pikes

Walk out, lower these where slots

Are spaced in the squat stone wall that guards the pit

By this light Queen Tamarilde’s guest sees the ensign

Of some other arrived sans hurrah and trumpet

Nor yet, of armed escort, accompaniment

He sits at the banqueting table, the weathering years

Made smooth on his companion

Not wholly his mirror…for the emissary notes

the eyes and chin might be her hostess’s

The devices of the banners are gold

Stag’s heads on field of madder-rose

We shall dine, and Alderic himself, as you suspect

Will, if in age I sentimentalize, my wanderings correct

Of these two men the visitor prefers the sire

That they are converts of Rome makes neither

Worthy grace to a priestess of the old faith

Devilish lads are all, like any girl, she cares for

She eyes her choice with the challenge of it

But Alderic rises from the couch

His arm he offers to his queen

The younger woman takes the seat arranged her

Next the lovers’ mild-eyed, callow son

Bride to Be

Bride to Be (part ten)

The Leopard

(2020, Stephanie Foster)