Her eyes were like nothing I had ever seen. Oddly shaped and almost black. She was deliciously scented. Her appearance took us all quite unaware. She said to me, Are you the Roland of whom so many sing? I remember one of the babies crying. She told us she came as an envoy from her father. She kept glancing at me as she spoke to my uncle. Medordo squeezed my hand. I looked back at him and he smiled.

Gisela, tell the steward we'll be having a guest for dinner. The cooks should give us something special! My uncle loved to throw parties. Any excuse. It didn't matter. Here was one plopped in his lap.

She talked with my uncle of trade; spices and gold. She talked with Astolpho of arms. She was delightfully well-schooled.

After dinner she served me tea, after the fashion of her people. Her hands were so delicate and small. It frightened me a little. They moved like doves under the lamplight: pale and astonishing. She touched my arm. She smiled.

Her teeth are so white. So clean. What do they taste of? The tea is delicious. Her teeth and hands are so right. So happy. They gnaw at my stomach and catch in my throat. So right. So beautiful. Medordo asks me, More quail's eggs? I tell him no. Mother Mary forgive me for her teeth but they are so white I must find the taste of them and the skin of her throat to taste so smooth and glorious. She pours me more tea. Delicious, this tea steeped from her. We're alone in the hall... where is everyone? Astolpho...? Her hair is as black as a cave and her skin is so yellow like the saffron cakes sold at market, saffron and violets, she would crumble in my mouth, wouldn't she? Yes, my spit would dissolve her as she ran down my throat to live in my belly. Spitted in my belly she laughs, I laugh with her, her hair is in my mouth, she bites me bites my tongue.

What is she doing? Why is she biting me? Blood salts my mouth. Her tongue is a spear in my throat as I swallow the world away in the down of belly and her white, white teeth. Oh, for the burying, bury me oh Earth! Oh, mother, take me to arms and heart, in this one. With her saffron and black! Yes! The joy of her hands her hair her teeth!

What?! Why is she...

Medordo! Go away, boy. Take your fawning and your delicacy out of here. I have no time for your eyes now! Go! Lord Jesus, forgive me my... No! Where is she going? Where is she going?! I am the Roland. She must stay. I am the Roland she must take the bread my body, the bread of my heart! These words sound inside me like a child after milk, please, you cannot go away from me. I run after her, I run like the deer of my pulse, where is she? Please mother Mary Jesus lord just a glimpse, please, I am so sorry for my weakness, my sin, but don't you see that this woman, this woman with the saffron and hands can heal me, make the bread of my body whole for you. Whole for your teeth. Please...

The woods slap me like mothers. I stumble in the foreign displacement of forest, night and stone. I am the Roland, I am flint, and bone and wood charred mean, the spear of Christ, who am I to follow this woman's smell, the smell of the gates of Zion and the garden's breezes; sweet water and saffron shade.

Who is she to run from me. The woods! The trees are the fingers of the world, they roll me like dimpled dough. They glow, green, and alive with the night. They are the cage around the garden, they must go! Durendal! Together, we fell them like flesh, fell them for her scent. She is close! The moon moans me her voyages! The forest yields its ciphers. Her voice! Yes! She is here, she at last is mine...

She...

Medordo...?

She...

GET OFF HER!

Get away, you filthy little boy how dare you lay your squalid figures on her body is the garden of the world her teeth are only for me. I will split you like Durendal!