The enchantress had myriad guises. A favorite of hers
was a froth-topped blond with a bruised aspect
that made her look like a balding fruit-seller
gone bad along with his goods. Buyer beware.
The witch cum con man had seized a castle,
and like everything about her, it turned truth
on its head. The castle’s name was The Beautiful View.
It had a golden veneer, a shimmering quality
that pulled in travelers until they opened their eyes
to the ungodly sights and their ears to the cries.
It happened that the Janus-faced witch had an interest
in the orphan Alisander, a fresh knight questing
the killer of his father while carrying his bloodied shirt.
The orphan had great wounds of his own from battle.
The witch could heal him, but he had a price to pay:
He’d have to serve at the castle for a year and a day.
Alisander agreed—what young man wouldn’t?—
but when he was well and strong, the price was daunting.
He’d have to defend the castle, his yearlong prison,
and turn from avenging his own father’s death.
Then a damsel came to him. Be of good cheer,
she said. I can deliver you from here.
The woman was the rightful owner of the castle,
and she had a powerful uncle with hundreds of knights.
Her uncle despised the witch and the goings-on in the court.
It’s worse than you think, she told Alisander. She’d use you
for her pleasure, a corrupt queen of hearts.
Jesu, he said, I’d rather cut off my parts.
The damsel said she’d give her uncle the call
to clear the poxy playground. She had a plan.
She’d take Alisander’s horse and armor to the garden
and, before the assault, take him. There he’d stay.
Since he’d remain on the grounds of the castle, he’d both
be free of it and in its compass to keep his oath.
The woman’s uncle attacked, felling the walls
and setting wildfire through all the wretched ruins.
Alisander sheltered in the garden and stood guard
when the forces left. It was his demesne to protect,
as he had vowed, against any knights who passed
until his string of days had come to the last.
In defending that plot of ground, he gained repute
as a doughty knight, a champion among men.
Word of his audacity crossed the land, attracting
a duke, who was known to journey to Jerusalem, and his daughter,
Alice the Beautiful Pilgrim. This was the name
she was given after her father’s acclaim.
Alice publicly pledged herself to the man
who could overthrow the knight defending that garden,
Alisander the Orphan. But after one joust,
she was taken with Alisander himself, his force and flair.
She gulped in a breath and leapt from her place,
grabbed his bridle and cried, Show me your face!
He lifted his helmet, and she was overcome.
Sweet Jesu, she said, you’re my guy!
Pulling back, he said, You might do likewise.
When she unwound her wimple, her full features
came to light, and all Alisander could do
was stammer, breathless, I promise my heart to you.
If love burns, his breast was a conflagration,
and it consumed his senses. He continued defending
the garden in jousts, then glimpsed Alice again
trotting by and was so unstrung
he didn’t know if he was riding or walking,
eyes blinded, tongue tied beyond talking.
A false knight noticed Alisander’s besottedness,
dismounted and took the bridle of the numbskull’s horse.
He led the dazzled one in a winding way toward the border,
where he might cross out of the garden and break
his oath. Losing the jackstraw of honor in his heap
of passion meant there’d be nothing left to keep.
It was the woman of the castle who saw the danger.
She’d engineered Alisander’s freedom from the witch
and was watching in a pavilion outside castle grounds.
Now she saw he was desperate again.
She grabbed a sword and sprang onto a horse
and, reaching him, buffeted his head with all her force.
The blow brought him back to his own senses,
making the false knight flee and the damsel
duck into the pavilion for fear of a misunderstanding.
When his head had cleared of the fires of love
and of pain, he raged at himself, not at the one
whose willful charge had saved him from being undone.
Soon, Alisander and Alice could laugh at that scene,
a woman galloping down on him, waving a sword—
the absurdity of it, especially against their glamor and beauty.
And yet, if the better part of beauty is the heart’s,
the unsung woman—the one who did it all—
was a goddess answering their true hearts’ call.
The beautiful people had been lost, an orphan bent
on revenge and a pilgrim to the next big thing.
When their laughter fell to silence, they still
could hear the woman’s tracks, thundering toward love,
clean of the witch’s darkness.
Copyright © 2026 by Sam S. Dodd