Send her away

You pace around the lords bedroom. The walls and floor and roof are all made of grey stone. Its late at night but the room is well lit with many candles. There is a table with untouched food left by servants for the lord of the castle. You find ripe grapes and good cheese. A pitcher full of the castles best wine. There is a chest in the corner where your father kept his silver cups. But the most impressive furniture in the room is easily the lords bed in the center. The cot is made of well seasoned wood. The mattresses are thick and comfortable. There are also linen sheets and feather pillows and luxurious fur blankets. It was your fathers most prized possession but now its yours.

"I shall send you to the convent when you have finished mourning stepmother," you tell her your decision. A convent or a nunnery is a religious home for women who have dedicated their lives to prayer and meditation. The nuns there sleep on thin straw beds on cold stone floors and eat tasteless porridge and live without any luxury or comfort. Lady Alannah looks at you with pleading eyes: "I am too young to spend the rest of my life in a convent Osric. Please do not send me there." Your beautiful young stepmother has grown accustomed to the comforts of being lady of the castle and sleeping in the lords bed and wearing your mothers jewels. She doesn't want to leave this life to live a harsh life among bitter old crones in the convent.

"I can send you to live with your parents instead," you remark. Alannah is the younger daughter of an impoverished lord whose keep is in the green marshes. From what you understand your father had paid her father a good deal of money as bridal price in exchange for the hand and maidenhead of his nubile daughter. You have met Alannah's father Lord Marcher during the wedding and he seemed like a very greedy and avaricious man. He shall not be happy to see his daughter return to the keep as a penniless widow and since your father has already claimed her maidenhead she is no longer an attractive match for marriage either thus her life will be miserable if you send her home. "I do not want to be a burden to my father. I wish there was some way for me to stay here Osric," your stepmother moves closer to you. Even dressed in black mourning clothes Lady Alannah looks very sensuous. She has a shapely seductive figure. Her hair is midnight black and it flows over her shoulders. Her lips look like they were made for kissing. Your father was one lucky bastard to claim her virtue and have her in his bed every night for months.