Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Vosges
“We’ll have to find a place where you are safe here.” Ana tells Layla.
“I know my husband will be fine tomorrow when it’s a new day. He will say he is sorry and everything will be fine again.”
“No Layla.”
“Papa, I’m a married woman now. Hannah took me to the nuns because she isn’t a wife and doesn’t understand men.”
I argue, “She has the same brothers and father as you; surely her judgment of men is as worthy as yours. Has marriage only taught you pain and hurt?”
“Sometimes Will is nice to me, Papa. And as my family for example, only you and Haberd have wives, and neither of you manages them well.”
“’Manages?’ I’m pretty sure your mother won’t agree with you about that. But I can tell you, I do ‘manage’ creatures as you say– and it isn’t people. I manage mules, chickens, bees and critters, but not my wife. And with any living thing at all, even if it were only goats and mules, managing never requires fists or violence. A wife isn’t just some critter on a farm, a wife is a partner in the family. You know that, Layla. I mean, look at you! You share this man’s child!”
Now, here are her tears. “You don’t understand, Papa.” Now she takes her tears to make her plea to her mother.
Gaia, Brandell, Hannah and I come out of the creek cottage so Layla can talk alone with Ana. Hannah’s been listening to all this. “Papa, you aren’t very respectful of the choice for husband she has made.”
“How can I possibly respect a choice that puts the life of her and her baby in danger?”
Now I feel sorry, in a way, that Gaia and Brandell, an innocent and loving couple, has to see this problem right in the midst of their own dreams.
“Gaia, may you never have to discover this roughened side of Merovingian Gaul in this warring land where violence is perceived as a source of strength and love is a weakness.”
That was my attempt to apologize to Gaia for this whole brutish way of thinking that must seem so foreign to her. I fear Layla’s husband isn’t the only Gaulish oaf who would abuse animals then apply that same variety of violence to his wife.
“Papa Lazarus,” Gaia says, “this problem is far and wide. It isn’t just thugs, or oafish farmers of Gaul. I know of it also.”
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 