My eyes are blue. This disturbs my father immensely. As does my blonde hair. This was all my mother's doing. A glamour cast at birth. I still must maintain it; with cats and lotus. I have never had a monthly flow. My eyes are not, like my
father's, almond-
shaped; they are wide and round. My mother prefered the barbarian aesthetic.
I remember him telling me about Paris. My peacock had died earlier that day. I fed its remains to the coi in the garden pool. I made a point of displaying my cleavage to Sencho, my father's advisor as he came to fetch me to audience. I loved to watch his mouth work and his old eyes bug as he tried not to look!
There was a foreigner in my father's chamber. I murmured a warding as Sencho and I approached the visitor's broad back. His clothes were very handsome and cut in a way I had never seen before. I could smell the spices and salt on him even from the doorway. How intriguing! I could smell his traveling... almost hear the breezes that had whipped at his robes.
He looked very handsome from behind. He and my Father continued to talk - the warding worked - he had not heard us as we entered. I strained to catch their words. A young man, dark and beautiful, stood by them. He glanced at me.
Ah! Angelica. Beloved. How is it with thee?
The wind blows always at my back, so long as you, dear father, stand before me. Oh, really. What tripe. What an old goat. Absolutely no sense of humor.
The visitor turned. How disappointing. His front was in no way the equal of his back.
Angelica, this man has come a long way to meet with us...
Then father we must give him our time. Oh, vomitous! Another pathetic suitor who thinks that if he gives my idiot father a trade route somewhere, or some horrid beast from the africas that he can get his hands on me. Well, I've got...
Bring the food!
My father called for meat, quail eggs and wine and we sat down to talk.
The stranger waited beatifically. Finally, my father nodded assent.
My name is Mandricardo (does he scream when you pull him out of the ground?) and I am a sharif of Persia. I have come to ask a favor. A favor that only the greatest King of the Orient and his most beautiful of daughters can grant.
Oh, please.
But it is not only your beauty, which is unsurpassed even by the stars in Allah's heavens...
Poetry. How original.
...but your power as an enchantress, the news of which has carried even to my far lands, that has caused me to entreat you thus.
What is that in his teeth?
I have been sorely wronged. My honor and the honor of my family has been besmirched...
Besmirched?!?
My father was cowardly attacked by one who does not deserve to wear the livery of a knight. A European. The blade of my ancestors was taken... stolen from my father...
...stolen by this cowardly knight. I must recover my father's sword, Durendal, and avenge his murder.
But, why do you need our help? Surely...
Good question.
Because this knight is in league with unnatural forces. He is a paragon of evil. He is not human... he is like a mountain...
Hmmm...
Like murderous lightning... demons fight at his side. If he were a man there would be no question, but there is no natural force, man or beast, that can withstand him.
Sounds like somebody I need to meet...
The quail eggs arrived. Mandricardo popped one into his mouth.
What is his name?
He is called Roland. A Paladin in the army of Charlemagne of the Franks, he said through a mouthful of quail egg.