Conquered, Part VIII
His head slumped low and he looked like a most unhappy man,
said, “My peoples’ laws forbid it, both of us would be hanged.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “I’ not talking laws of this earth,
I know that your masters think me of very little worth.
To all those outside of this keep, I’m just a hired maid,
but within all love and respect due to wives will be paid.
And you will swear this oath to me not by some human clod,
you will declare I am your wife before the very gods.
By both you gods and my own, I require this of you.”
He didn’t have to think, just said, “Then that’s what I will do.
I’ll find a lamb for the altar, declare a sacrifice—"
She held a hand up and said, “No, Geren, forebear the knife.
My gods, they have no need of blood, or deaths quite deserved,
in my people we’d pledge to them our souls and our honor.”
He looked at her for a moment, then just nodded sternly,
“I pledge to every god that’s know, that you are wife to me.”
She pressed her lips against his own, wrapped legs around his hips,
they tumbled back onto the bed, and got right down to it…
And then again, for two whole weeks, Geren did not emerge,
but when they did he marched right down to the great hall with her,
he had his servants gathered there, and declared, rather loud,
“This woman is a slave no more, she is one of you now.
She shall be paid for her labor, receive a salary,
tell all the people on my fief, from this day forth, she’s fee.”
Now all the servants rolled their eyes, these people were not dumb,
all noblemen has mistresses, and like them he had one.
Much better than a concubine with no say in her life,
most such slaves we’re never freed, so by her he now did right.
And way out here on the frontier nobody looked that close,
at court it was forbidden, but out here such things were known.
Sure, some folks talked about him, a peculiar man, they said,
sired a dozen bastards but never bothered to wed…
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