When a man sees a woman worthy of love

And with a pleasing figure

He immediately begins to desire her in his heart

And the more he thinks about her

The more he burns with love

Until she fills his mind forever.

From a Latin treatise called De Arte Honesti Amandi (On the Art of Honorable Loving) by Andreas Capellanus, late twelth century AD.

     That wiry one.  She had no more heft than a willow sprig but she shrugged off the hand of the guard who was helping her off the boat and spit in his face when he took hold of her breast, thumb and forefinger set to twist the nipple showing through the linen stained wet from the bilge.  And she waited for the blow, head high, shoulders thrown back to ease the bite of the twine on her wrists.  But the lout caught Senechal's stare and suddenly knew better.  She heard his cussing, took in the hoots and the laughs of the dockside crowd.  On her toes, legs tense under the wet cloth, she stood shivering, itching for a pointless run, a doe ready to bolt into the path of a flying arrow.  Nearby, chains rang on stone beneath a string of slaves.  She closed her eyes and raised her face to the midday sun.  In the arching of her spine and the parting of her lips there was the hint of a stirring.  A prayer perhaps, a surge of longing at the memory of a father's helping hand, a cry for a lover's kisses, a wish for the slashing of a blade to put an end to her nightmare.  A wild one. She could bring passion to the devil's bed.

                 * * *

     Cursed be the day that peace came to the Kingdom.  Garrisons settled in boredom at frontier outposts and vultures left the plains to search for carrion on the wolves' mountain trails.  Knights headed home with burdened pack horses straggling behind war mounts.  Wending their way from aeries to keeps and from burgs to abbeys, Senechal and his King heard from fealty many affirmations of dutiful love.  Occasionally a lady-in-waiting, often overripe, still held the King's gaze before bowing her head to her missal at vespers, but the end of the killings appeared to have clamped a rule of virtue on the castles of the land.  With the promise of stability forged in blood-soaked alliances there was no longer a need to rush a daughter, or a spouse into a royal tryst to secure spoils, or spare a life.

     Thus the King and Senechal grew to miss their nights at the remote houses where the random ways of the war had taken them.  Massive doors would shut muting the howls of the hounds caged in the commons.  Smells of roasting game rose from the kitchens.  Seas of faces turned in the smoky haze of the torches as they strode into the great halls.  There would be ripples of whispers ahead of the clatter of their spurs, mouths agape in awe, pinched smiles on clerics' mugs, wretches on their knees, the raised fists of comrades-in-arms, the monks' tonsures on bowed heads.  And there, a pretty hand pulling at a curl, or clutching a cross in a cleavage.  Senechal, who is she? Pages would scurry, a muted chatter rose about the belle, her coiffe nodded an ascent.  Shoulders hunched in anger and shame, a man walked away.

     Not just the King's pleasures but his safety were Senechal's concern.  His instructions were plain.  He alone was to usher his charges into the royal lodgings.  Logs would blaze in a fireplace, tapestries loomed above candle flames dancing over an escritoire.  Seated in white robes edged in gold the monarch would be melting wax over scarlet ribbons.  War plans?  A letter to the Queen? The seal on the gold ring pressed deep into the wax.  A scent of myrrh rose from a vessel near an alcove, the drapes pulled back to show a lynx coverlet.  Soft, white fur against the dark of the oak.  Door shut, candlelight steady, Senechal would whisper to the belle.  Your coat, Madame.  And there Madame would be.  In her chemise.  Nothing else.

     Nothing that could hide the kind of weapon he once felt at the waist of a Moor's daughter.  Hidden in the ferret that lined the seams of her cloak, it was a stiletto more than a dagger, a six-inch blade sharp as razor and topped with leather wrap for a handle.  He held the weapon for his King to see and lowered it to the assassin's throat, but the monarch raised his hand and spoke in her language.  To Senechal's ear the tone of the exchange was of curses and taunts alternating with the cadences of reasonable argument.  Wisdom did prevail.  From the moans that rose above the lynx furs he assumed that there had been no further antagonism behind the lowered drapes.  The logs had turned to cinders and the candles long gone out when bleary-eyed Senechal handed the Moor's daughter her cloak.

     As they went into the chill of the stone-floored corridors she pointed to her belly and said alien, friendly words which he understood quite well.   When he returned her to the care of an old woman waiting in her rooms, Senechal bowed deeply in recognition of another powerful alliance, one certainly dark and void of sacred blessing, but uniquely strong nevertheless.  An alliance that would span their years.  She, the youthful and vigorous carrier of royal seed, he, the grizzled, faithful bearer of a ruler's trust earned in shared blood at many battles.  It was but a few days before the King took to slicing the ribbons of his mail with Toledo steel topped with leather.  He kept the nasty little weapon in his saddlebag with his writing things.  Wrapped in a silk chemise.

     Senechal was not troubled by the duties which had earned him the sobriquet of 'Eunuch', an epithet that no one would have used in his or his King's presence and lived to boast about.  Trapped by the Church in matrimony to a barren Queen what else could a monarch do?  How could he further his lineage without the voiding of his vows by a greedy and evasive pope?  Petty intrigue, it all was.  So it made sense to spice the family trees of the land with bastards of royal blood.  They would be loyal subjects, eager for a recognition that hung on the words of two individuals, the King who planted the seed, Senechal who witnessed the deed.

Only God, Senechal, and a handful of scattered priests knew the whole of the truth.  On his knees in the dirt of some forlorn sanctuary, he did not consider his procuring of illicit couplings to be sinful enough to share with a foul-breathed confessor.  But, say on the eve of a battle, a wide-eyed good father might hear enough of Senechal's doings within the royal frolics to dry his mouth with Hail Marys and flatten his purse in hefty purchases of candle offerings before granting a reluctant absolution.  The flesh is weak.  Senechal relished the sight of women in light attire, backlit in fire glow.  Worse, with the monarch much absorbed in the affairs of the state, Senechal was at time unduly arduous in his searches for hidden weapons, even long after the objects of his majesty's favor were down to their chemise.  No sense in waiting for ink to dry, a stick of wax to soften.  The King would notice.  They exchanged glances, sly foxes licking their chops over partridge.  Occasionally, a long day's ride so exhausted the King that he sent away a lusting, breathless damsel after the briefest interlude on the lynx hides. Senechal would escort the belle to her rooms by way of his quarters.  All the King's bastards were not of royal blood.

                    * * *

     Almost home one brisk morning on the high road above the King's estates the royal entourage found itself engulfed in the stinking tide of a herd returning from its summer pastures.  Ceding the way to the pressing horde of bleating beasts urged on by the dogs, the King and Senechal took refuge on a rise under an apple tree.  Towering over the sheep the summits were already white with snow.  Hardly visible in the haze of the city below, plumes of smoke were rising from the chimneys of the palace.  Beyond the walls serfs toiled in orchards and fields like myriad ants at a relentless harvest.  No doubt the best had gone to the royal kitchen for the feast that would greet the monarch's return.  Troubadours might already be tuning their lutes, rehearsing songs of martial glory.  Courtiers would soon line up and outbid each other in obsequiousness.  At the elbow of a stern and haughty Queen and well informed of the expedition's gossip, the Cardinal would put on his best smirk of disapproval.  Eager for royal attention or, better, the nod that would challenge one to satisfy the master's appetites, the usual crowd of ladies-in-waiting and soubrettes would be licking the rouge on their lips.  With a sigh the King rested his eyes on the approaching shepherd, a lanky, strapping lad burned by the mountain sun, naked, save for a bundle and a coil of rope over a shoulder.  None too gently the youth was goading a beast with his staff.

     Senechal, said the King, when that fellow itches to bugger his sheep, does chance govern his choice, or does he feel desire for any particular ewe?

     His companion was thankful for the mouthful of apple that gave him time to consider his answer.  Though beyond Senechal's realm of experiences, the subject was known fodder for many jokes, but not a theme for scholarship.  In any case those in the know weren't telling.  The King's inquiry bred much thought.  In the heat of a summer thunderstorm, what could a boy do while huddled with his flock in the crowding of a meadow lean-to?  The consuming lust of youth could drive him to forget the rants of the priests and seek relief in the flesh of the nearest beast, one peacefully chewing its cuds one instant and, next, bleating and pushing against the immovable mass of the indifferent herd, its innards rammed by the youth's dong, its croup immobilized by fists grabbing at its wool, nails biting into its skin.  The ewe would kick, no doubt, so the next time the shepherd would know enough to hobble it.  The next time, that was the King's question wasn't it, the next time, which one of the sheep would the shepherd tie up?

     Chewing the last of his apple Senechal saw that the boy had risen from his bow and turned, one hand shading his eyes against the low sun, the sinewy darkness of his body harshly outlined against the undulating mass of the sheep, his slimness making more prominent a generous endowment of genitals.  Senechal saw what held the youth's glance.  Beyond the apple tree a ewe was leaping to the rise.  Ambling along, a dog was edging it in, driving it back to the flock.

     Sire, a fellow would choose the one that wants to run.  Suddenly breathless, Senechal thought of the wiry one.

NEXT, WAITING FOR THE SUMMONS OF THE KING