The story of the mother I shall tell you first                          1

Who, long before the Holy Wars new of the Word’s curse.

She understood the treachery and knew of the preacher’s lie;

So this is the story that she told of how and why:                                       

“My husband,” she said “before he had deceased,                              5                                                                                                       

Had left lands of Calais, far from home, far from the East

To fight in the War of Hundred Years and fight for our pay;

But his head was of one the enemy put on display.

He also fought for his land, his honor, for mercy, for pride

But it was his family that made him the strongest. For one day we shall lay beside        10

Each other and cherish the love that we shared.

Although I never, not once, showed him emotions of being scared.

I knew he would leave and I knew it was near time

until they sent him off promptly to fight the common crime.

So the night before he left, we laid there in dismay                           15

Because I did not want him to leave me there alone and astray.

Since he was the one that initially doubted the church,

It was the truth of the bible that he so strongly searched.

He told me of a short parable, in the Bible it was not presented                                                        

Of what love truly was and how it was invented.                           20

“Darling,” he said, “My sweet love of life,

You know that our love is sharper than the Butcher’s knife.

Now it is the time when war separates us in two;

Even something so deathly can ever cut through

The love that I have promised and the love that I have vowed.      25

I know that you will be just fine and I will come home proud

And if I don’t and the war takes my life,

Stay ye so faithful, as a lover and a wife.

Take our children of nine and tell them I walk with God from Above

And tell them of the life for all of us I have dreamt of.                30

Maybe then, all nine will not be too blinded to see

The reality of who they are and the reality of who they can be.”

And with this promise, I wept in his arms

Because I knew of his physical quality, he will easily be harmed.

I knew that without his work, we will forever be in debt             35

And it was the safety of our children that we together fret.

But I did not let this certain quality put me in doubt

And it may be his body; however his love will never go out.

So then I asked him boldly what it may be

In the perfidy of the church that he does see.                             40

He stiffened quick and almost looked as if he wouldn’t tell

And inspected promptly around our dirty but homely cell.

He told me of a day he was hunting and, on accident, had shot down a raven

Sent from the war zone to the ecclesiastics’ haven.

Speaking then lightly, he whispered in my ear                           45

What the words said and how it appeared

“I found proof and I will take this letter to my grave

Of the church and King’s greed and money they crave.”

I read the letter carefully and read it once over

It spoke in clean spoof of the town’s Holy Clover.                  50

Then I read it again just to reassure my thoughts,

However his is what I read and this is what he fraught:

“With this war that I have quickly spawned,

I see money and profit as a friendly bond.

Again, with this war, we shall defeat the weak in class.          55

We will decrease to this population and lower it in mass.

With less people, comes less responsibility

And more money, money, money more for you and me”

So I tell you once and I will tell again

That the love of my children, my husband, and my God will forever reign.”          60