You show her compassion and listen to her story

“I am sorry, but I never knew… but now I would like to know more… I wish to know everything, ” you say.

Lisandra sniffles, even as she runs her thumb along the line of her jaw on an attempt to hold herself together. “There isn’t much more to tell,” she says, but you see in her eyes that there are. You move closer and place your royal hand on her thigh sex-stained thigh comfortingly. “I can tell there is… Your king wishes to know it all, everything if it is small.”

Lisandra tries to avoid your command but when she sees your determined eyes, she sighed in defeat. “If you really must know it all, I guess I should start off with how I met your father,” she says. “It is my eighteenth birthday, and the sun is at its highest peak, the air so hot the chickens are dead quiet. I have just been introduced to the man my father has arranged for me to marry. The man isn’t too much older than me, and he isn’t in bad shape, and his father has money. Girls around me all think I am lucky to marry him.Although no one really knows him, they more know his dad and just make assumptions about him.”

She pauses to wipe away another tear before continuing, “I have barely had time to introduce myself to him before your father comes storming in through the front door of my father’s small hut. He smelled of liquor and slapped a bag of gold on the table and declared that he wanted me."

The woman in front of you pauses as the pain of that day comes flooding back to her before she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath to steady herself.

“My father says no, which is the first time I have ever heard him say that to anyone. But your father isn't taking no for an answer. He didn't even blink as he calls in his guards and had them hold everyone down. My older brother and his pregnant wife, my father, my mother, my brother, the man I am supposed to marry are all thrown to the ground. Meanwhile, your father stripped my old clothes off of me. He takes me, right there, on the kitchen floor, with the others **** to watch. Afterwards, he picks up the bag of gold and throws it at my father’s feet, then tells his men to drag me out to the carriage.”

You keep your face blank, but there’s something boiling in your guts that tastes like bile and shame. “What happens to the man you are supposed to marry?” you ask, curious and concerned.

“For the sake of his own honor or something, he followed us as we ride down the path. He charged the carriage with his bare hands.”

She looks away in pain, so you ask, “So what happens to him?”

She gives you a hint of a painful smile, “The same thing that happens to anyone who isn’t armed and military-trained who attacks someone who is. Your father's guards cut him down before he got close to the carriage door.” Then she became silent as she stares at the fire.

Feeling a need to say something, you say, “I am sorry you have to watch the man who is to be your husband die.”

She gives you a single odd chuckle, before saying, “Don’t be sorry. I have never spoken to him before that day. The only reason I ever meet the man is because my father owed his father a great debt. A debt bigger than even what your father paid for me. So, when he died, I was sad but only for a few minutes. The only thing that truly hurts, and it hurts more than I ever think possible, is being ripped from my family.”

The words hang in the air between you, heavy and sour. You try to think of something to say, some clever or kingly phrase that could take away the taste. Instead, you ask, “How can you even look at my father after that?”

Lisandra let out a hollow laugh, devoid of emotion. ”Honestly, for some time I can’t.” She pauses to collect herself. “When I get to the palace, I try to run away twice. The first time, he catches me and locks me in a room for two days without food. The second time, he catches me, and he strips me and had me standing in his guard barracks as a form of twisted loyalty and will power tests for his men. Only when one finally broke down and tries to touch me when he thought no one is looking am I allowed to get dressed and return to my room.”

“I never know my dad can be so cruel.”

But she ignores you as she continues, “After that, I stop running away. With no other option, I learn to do what is expected. Of course, I still hated him… I hated the way he looks at me… I hated how he likes to call on me more than most… but I no longer disobey.”

She pauses again, “But after I start to interact with the other concubines… I start to learn what concubines are… at least what role concubines serve to the king.”

You mindlessly ask, “Concubines serve a role?”

She nods, “Yes, royal concubines are not just some pretty stranger girls for him to fuck. We are not just a pretty girl to fuck. If Kings want that, he can just pick a random girl off his capital streets and send her back when he is done. No, they keep concubines in their palace because Kings want someone who listens, who can keep a secret, who will stroke his hair and tell him he is right when he is at his lowest, someone to be a distraction, and someone on whom he can let his frustration out.”

She gives you a smile. “You see, your father is not a cruel man by nature. He does what he has to, although it takes me some time… I learn that too. You see, after I earn his trust he tells me things he never tells anyone, things that could have gotten him killed, or he uses me as a way to get his mind in the right place so he can make a decision. A decision that, if I aren't there to help him make, he might make differently."

You nod, as her explanation makes sense.

"You see, your father makes some of his most important decisions after using me, some of which I know if made differently could end with the village I grow up in and the family I am ripped from being destroyed. So yes, he rips me from my family, and yes, his actions likely cost me a family, but no, I don’t hate him for it. Because I still love the family he takes me from, and the family he uses me to protect.”

You hear the fire crackle as she goes silent at the end of her story. “You have done this country a great service.”

She smiles at you, “And if you’re half the man your father is, you will too.”

“Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

She holds her hand to her naked stomach. “You already have… All I can do is hope my fears are unfounded. Now to sleep, my King… This concubine has taken up too much of your time.”