Marriage To The Lord

I fight the word 'marriage' inside of my mind, I fight it all I can! I look across and see a lord trying to make me something other then human, and I want to tell him to go away! But he smiles at me as though I am the world of his heart, and I can only grow pale as frosted snow! How dare he look at me that way! How dare he sign a letter to grant my family treasure so I can be his sport! I feel disgusted but not as disgusted as the knights behind his lords spine. They look at me with all the evil their eyes can carry, and I know they are baming me before i even nod to allow for a crown to be placed upon my head! They are blaming me for a war unfought, for a debt unpaid, for a stone that remains unbroken. They are already blaming me for loss before the marriage has been completed and all I want to to is scream 'I never wanted this!'

I clasp my fingers to pray but all they do is shake - I can't control it, they shake, and so does my temper as my cheeks burn. I cause a fire that melts the ice on the walls, and in a bout I grow weakened from the distress; but I am passed a cup that helps to warm my insides and calm my mind, and I sit drinking until a cheer breaks the silence. The cheer comes from the lord and my family, the knights however only smile slightly.

"Done!" tells my new husband before he seals the parchment and gives it to my father. "Good dead!" he declares.

"And here is your wife;" tells my father before he places a hand on my spine.

My hairs raise and my skin trembles, I am amazed I can smile through the blur of the moment. I drink on the warm wine I have been given - it tastes of blood, evil bood that fills me with red enough to brighten my face and rouge my lips. I want to scream I have been poisoned, but I have been only been given the Lords blood to drink.

"And I wondering drink!" declares my father whose face has become like mine, illuminate and beautiful.

"That drink has been made for me!" declares the Lord before he too takes a taste.

For a moment the world is beautiful as all come close to take a cup of wine inside of their mouths. For the whole night everyone is pretty and smiling like rich snobs; by morning I have become overwhelmed enough to say 'I am in love with you Lord'. But of course there is no real love inside of my heart - the moment that has passed has been a trance and a delusion which fast fades as the pine cones are brought to me to be painted. I paint the pine-cones with less love, and for a whole day I suffer as I paint the pine-cones - one bundle after another! By the end of the next day my fingers are dry and I need to nurse them with oil and cotton cloth. The trance has ended, I am no longer in love.

I lie to the Lord as we express written vows, I lie to the preacher and all the men and women gathered all around. I have cast myself to the devil as I lie to allow for the marriage to continue on, and inside of their minds all hiss at me - they know I have decieved them before I have even given myself to them and to the Lord. However no one utters a word, the screaming silence lingers as the marriage progresses, and soon we are holding hands and welcoming each other with dry words of fondness - my heart almost breaks!

The comes the night and its feasting - an endless tasting of flesh and blood! The meat is pile high on the dishes and the wine is passed by the jug - there is eating and cheer, but not much bauty, not as the first time I had tastd the Lord's wine. I look to the Lord and shiver - I shrink with my eyes cast onto his image, and as he looks at me I almost kill myself! I have married a king!

The bed chamer is cold at night as i share my first embrace with the Lord to which i am married - he is not like the only boys i had grown up with in our palace, he is broader, larger, taller, heavier, mightier, and warmer, then any other! I carry on pain as I suffer through a fast union and it leaves me screaming out o my mouth and inside my body! Whatever has been fed to me grows up fast at an unnatural rate, and by morning I am carrying what I fear to be a demon!

"That is my son!" tells the Lord befor he offers a cold peck with iced lips. "You are now my queen!" he adds before he leaves me alone.

I cry for months - the child inside of me is unnatural and I know it! I can't even stand, and many doctors and wise men are sent forth to treat me; but they cannot cure the pain of child-birth, and for another two months I cry as my womb dribbles blood which the knights around me are only too eager to lick up if they were offered the chance! I sleep many nights with cannibles close, and then one morning my body splits in half and my child is torn from me.

"A prince!" the knights cry as they wrap my child in cloth woven with gold thread. "Let us drink!" they cheer.

I am left to drown in my sorrows once again - without a child inside of me my body feels dead, and for a week I fall into a slumber from which I cannot wake. However then I am awakened and when i am I am given my child - he is heavy as I hold him, but as he looks at me I fall in love.

For years I walk with my child, I teach him lessons, and I play with him. We dine for hours enjoying our every moment, but then the knights come into my dorm and take hime away!

"Where is my child to be taken?" I asked while dazed and confused, as shock destroys the peace I have spent years in.

"To the training yard!" tells one knight before the gather leaves.

I cry as I am left alone - a swift parting has left me hurt!

in mistake I show my depression and the Lord hits me when he returns home from an excusion. He has been gone for years and I have never missed him once, and I wish him gone as a smack tears my cheek apart and spills my blood.

"My blood on earth? I curse to you!" I cry as the Lord stares at me with horrible vacant eyes.

He has aged a century in his excursion and I wish to call out deciet! Fast aging comes from unnatural activities and he has to swear against our marriage to conduct such an evil. But he is not seen as evil, only good, even as he pours salt on my wound he is seen as the Lord, and I am forced to kiss his hand so unholy before telling him the lie that i am not a traitor to our love.

"What love?" I question inside of my mind as the Lord leaves me alone. "What love?" I mutter quietly, only the wind can hear me.

The following day a knight visits me as i wipe oil on my cut cheek. He bows as he enters and I say a cold hello.

"What business?" I ask, unable to mutter more then two words lest I break my tongue with one hard bite of my teeth.

"The wind has talked to me and I have heard your tale;" tells the knight. "You shall not lie to me, and I shall ask you only once 'why do you not love the Lord'?"

"I do!" I lie as I spit.

"Not!" charges the kight in a tone hot but a face rock still.

"I do;" I mutter as I shy away from the knight who looks mighty despite the fact that he is not more then a knight.

"I could hit you for being such a bad liar!" tells the knight as he circles me like a bird eyeing his prey. "What does your family make from this marriage?"

"Gold!" I tell the knight as I stand and move away. "Why are you being horrible to me? Am I not your Queen?" I ask.

"Not as a liar as you are!" tells the knight as he glares at me with spite and taunt.

"A liar as you are!" mutters the wind behind his head.

"What are you?" I ask as three knights form behind the one that dares challenge me with so much rude. "Get away, you are a witch!" I cry out.

"Not!" tell the knight as he smiles a cold smile. "Not as you are!" he adds.

I feel daunted as the three knights behind draw three silver swords whose bodies turn bright silver as though made from real steel.

"A witch as you are!" tells the knight before he lunches forth and chokes me of my breath with the tips of his fingers.

I wake up from my grave and grow scared - the room I am in is cold as a tomb! However it is not a tomb, it is a vault, and around me is a circle of nights amongst a circle of torches. I grow frighted that the knights plan to light me with the torches! But the torches I discover are fastened on the wall behind each shoulder and do not wish me any harm. It is the mocking of a jester that spears my breast. He flickers words that are splintered and hot,like fire being spit out from its ditch with kerosine. He taunts me with a mask that is malformed and mean, and for a moment I forget I am a Queen and not a little girl. A knife is drawn fron the Jesters pocket and it is passed to the knights who break the knife in portions so that everyone has a knife!

"That was the mother of all knives!" tells the Jester before he laughts in a mean way as the group gather close.

"What are all of you doing?" I ask as the knives are raised high.

"A savage!" cries the Jester before he flocks away as the knives sail down.

That knight my royal cloth is cut into pieces, and my morning I am once again heavy with another child!

The Lord looks at me as he holds a fire-brand inside of his hand. He wishes to brand me to remind me I am a Queen, however he does not brand my shoiulder only my stomach with the child sitting so comfortably inside.

"This bastard with serve as a knight as soon as he is born, and you are not to utter a cry as I cut his throat so that he may sit tall as a ghost amongst my band of knights!" tells the Lord who sweats.

As my skin is burned so is his hair - it turns ash and wilts as my body is mutilated! My gut is ripped apart, and the child is taken out of my soiled womb, before I am sewen back together. I scream, the child scream, and the smell of burning skin raises to the ceiling. It is a horrible nightmare as my new childs throat is cut so that his blood may strain his birth-blankets, and then eveil potion is passed around which poisons me and kills the cries of my child. I see my child's ghost rise like an adult before I faint. When I am woken it is with the cry of a bird which has flown through the window - it tells me I am dead, it is the smell of my own blood on my belly that remind me I am alive.

I am in sickness for months. My wounds infect and are treated over and again. I am fed wine and poison but nothing warms me - even the fire feels like ice even as my fingers are brought close until my nails are burnt from its touch. I hardly eat, I just wade in a pool of ache, and every night I cry as prayers from women are whispered to keep my brain alive. I blink at each day unable to believe that I will last another. It is only after much turmoil that I am at last fed medicine to ease me, and it is then I heal.

I am looked to as I enter a large room to sit on a throne beside my Lord. The knights and my grown second son stand on one side, the Lord and his fist child on the other - I want to smile, but I fall and sink to the floor. It is overwhelming, and the Jester taunts me in humiliation as I fail to make it to my seat. I am left on the floor as the gathering move on to eat - cushions are stuffed under me, but I cannot move. I feel dead, am dead in my heart, I can't even stand! I am crippled and the Jester dances on around me as he makes me the Queen of Shame.

"What Queen?" I asked inside of my mind. "I am naught but a girl;" I add.

But my crown heavy on my head tells a different truth and I am made a liar once again.

"Go away!" I tell the Jester with a wave of my hand, but my lips fail to move.

"Not under your command!" tells the Jester before he throws blood on my clothes.

It is not until many hours later my clothes are removed to be cleaned, and it is then I learn that I am still too weak to continue on as Queen.

"I should be dismembered!" I mutter to the Lord as he touches my belly and my wounds.

"Not until I am ready to eat you;" mutters the Lord before he uses magic inside of his blood to heal me and make me like new. "And I am not ready as yet;" he adds. "You shall remain my Queen;"

"Then you should remain my Lord;" I mutter as a person under a trance.

"Then you shall keep your new body;" tells the Lord. "And rest your soul;" he adds before he leaves me to rest through a night without pain or suffering.

And I sleep with a smile on my face, and by morning I am able to take a seat as Queen once again.