Medieval Romance
by Kwan Ann Tan
First published in Dark Horse Magazine in June 2021. Click the arrow (>) to learn more about this piece
This is a romance. A messenger rides against a backdrop of moonlit sand on an Arabian steed. The finest horses brought back from the Crusades as foals and broken in on British soil. Or would you prefer Anglo-Saxon? Maybe
this is an Anglo-Norman romance.
Who the fuck cares?
Because we are now headed to the castle, built on the backs of British stones, gilded with emeralds from India, rubies from Myanmar, a foreign enemy guarding against
more immediate enemies.
Anyway, we cross the drawbridge. We follow the messenger through halls draped with tapestries woven with silk
from Spain. Into the great hall, where the king
and all his merry knights are feasting.
There are enough spices in the stews, soups, roasts,
plundered, robbed, ripped,
from Malacca, the Maluku islands, Cathay.
Spices that their descendants,
five hundred years later, would choke on.
So much for tempering the humours. Anyway, the messenger calls them to war—the Pope, again. He has too many men who are restless, causing trouble in the capital.
The women pretend to cry but thank fuck for that because No men means no children, no children means no dying in childbirth despite the Trotula, even all the skill of Ibn Sina cannot change this fate. Across the sea, men bleed. Men die. They call it a crusade, they call this land holy. When they are tired they rake the land for treasure, gold, silk, spice. Souvenirs stained with salt tears, bled dry of lustre, of any kindness. When the Islamic princess boards a foreign ship,
she recoils from the hands of her white saviour,
says goodbye to the only home
she has ever known: this is not submission,
this is survival.
Kwan Ann Tan is a writer from Malaysia. Her work has previously been published in The Offing, Joyland Magazine, and Sine Theta Magazine, amongst others. You can find her at kwananntan.carrd.co or on Twitter: @KwanAnnTan.
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