Bride to Be (part seventeen)

Bride to Be

(seventeen)

And these were the old king’s decrees

That Alderic remained in duty a son

welcomed once; for license taken, not again

to touch the woman who in succession

stands, and must to a crowned head be wived

Ill, she drops below the cloth and vomits

Straightens, rinses her mouth with wine

of elders, feasting next her husband in sin

by any faith, uncouth Godolfo

Her father’s liegeman has raised a strong thatched house

Tamarilde to infect his hall and bed

with her stained, keening, angered love

for Alderic, only Alderic

He is too simple to be cruel, her father said

But cruel he were, daughter, I should not chide him

He stoops to take you for his bride

Father, I have been wed, I have tried the stones

in the fire’s embers…

We have nothing more, he said, striking her to the floor

To do with pagan tempters

Truth be, I could not learn from Beodathe

Did my child live or die

I bore others

Daughters both. I thought to plunge them in a well

to spare a woman’s fate; I did not…they were taken.

In time, Godolfo fell to dotage

In time, for the way to the spit of exiled land

My Alderic raised his stock upon

was short, I soon could pace my horse

to reach him in a day

Then, I began to stay

Bride to Be

Bride to Be (part eighteen)

(2022, Stephanie Foster)