the Anglophile monarch

“What is this?  Tying her hands to the ropes?  And Gaspar using his steed to haul her on her ‑‑ belly?”^[1]

“Yes, it is a unique diversion.  You will see.  We will ride behind.  ‑‑ Go!  A slow pace, Gaspar!”

“I see we are rounding this field ‑‑ which is rasping her teats, and her ‑‑ womanly gates.^[2]  Is there no danger of injury?  You should not risk such a valuable slave.”

“Fear not.  Gaspar and his boys ensure that no stones or nettles exist.  They inspect this ground daily.  The grass is of the softest.”

“Yes, it is lush and beautiful.  It’s a fine morning.  The cold dew is disappearing in the March sunlight . . . Tell me, how did you find this bint^[3]?”

“That is an oft told tale.”

“Yes, but I want to hear it from the King himself.”

“It was the hot July, that cursèd Lewina’s Day^[4].”

“I wonder why you continue that Saxon tradition^[5].”

“One must concede some things.  On occasion noblesse oblige has its purposes.  Remember we French are still of lesser numbers here.^[6]”

“The annual event does attract the common crowd.  It is a privilege for any of those Anglish wretches to be selected for the King’s Household.”

“Oui, oui, though it means we have to go to that stinking gully every year.”

“So this is who you selected?”

“It was two years past.  The vermin^[7] were pressing toward my carriage so fiercely that my guards had to clip them over the head to stay them from unwitting treason^[8].  However I saw one lovely maiden whose features were most arresting.”

“Her face, though a product of crude nature, is strikingly beautiful.”

“Yes.  Dressed in rags, shoeless, yet I could not deny her pleading eyes, bright and blue like the sky, rounded by wild hair the color of the sun.  Well did the Holy Father Gregory declare that some Angles look like Angels.^[9]

^[1]  Alysoun, her hands tied, is dragged prostrate behind Gaspar’s horse.

^[2]  Her nipples and her vulva are frictioned by the grass beneath.

^[3]  A rare use by these men of an Anglo-Saxon word.  Still sometimes heard, it is a vaguely contemptuous term for a silly, stupid or wanton young girl.

^[4]  July 24.  Lewina was an Anglo-Saxon saint whose feast day the King reluctantly observes.

^[5]  In the story it was an annual tradition for the King to visit the common peasantry and select one person to work in his household.

^[6]  The story is set ca. 1250 and even at that point the Normans were still greatly outnumbered by the Angles.  The King carries on this (Anglo-) Saxon tradition to placate them.

^[7]  The “Anglish”, desperate to be chosen.

^[8]  The crush of peasants desperate to get the King’s attention almost pushed his carriage over, a treasonous offense.

^[9]  The story, reported by Bede ca. 705, was that Pope Gregory was inspired to send missionaries to convert England when he witnessed fair-haired, blue-eyed Angle slave children being sold in Rome.  “They look like Angels.  I will turn those Angles into Angels.”