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As was foreseen, a marriage ends the War,
although the peace will last no longer
than the union of the fated pair.
One is blood and iron and purpose;
the other: subtle, watchful, clever.
Magic wastes the flesh of those that use it.
Her mother’s fevered gaze beheld futures
where sometimes the truce endured,
glimpsing the man her daughter weds,
though afterwards, a darkness.
In armour and furs, their burly nobles
have come to judge her as they would horseflesh.
They think her plain and flat-chested,
but use coarser words than these
and do not guess she knows their speech.
"You do yourselves no honour speaking so,"
she cries. "Now wonder what else you let slip."
Some of them opposed the peace,
so belittling them was foolish,
but rage consumed her like a flame.
The husband chosen for her has been drilled
from childhood in close-quarter killing,
the work of mailed fists, spikes and blades.
That first night, her fingers are unsure
where armour ends and skin begins.
By tradition, their Ladies do nothing,
but she burnishes each piece of armour,
oils the squeal of a shoulder joint,
sits silent as he hones a sword.
A wild thing’s trust, earned slowly.
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Though the War has ended, these warriors
still prove themselves in bruising practise.
Unbuckling his breastplate, fresh blood
wells up. A lucky blow, he says,
fists clenching as she sews his flesh.
Forced into idleness while the wound heals,
he savours the calm surrounding her,
the songs that she sings to herself,
her slender hands always busy.
Why did they tell him she was plain?
But she dreams of wounds as red as mouths,
whose warnings always come too late for him
as guts spill steaming to the floor.
Some think the life of her husband
a small price to renew the War.
He lets her crop the tangles of his hair
as a proud hawk might tolerate her touch,
a fallen ringlet kept for when
a mirror shows the moon’s full face,
and her own blood flows darkly.
An unlucky lance splinters on his helm
and, in the blink of an eye, blinds him,
though he is saved from those who shun
the maimed and their ill-fortune.
Such luck took all her skill.
He cannot see how gaunt the magic left her,
how grey her hair, how guiltily she stares.
They warned her to beware of love.
May they find peace together now,
the witch-wife and the wounded knight.
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