“From the land where I was born, from the soil where my father’s fathers sprang, I now must go a wanderer, houseless, penniless. Woe to the wicked King!”
He knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, “I have sinned, I have sinned, I have grievously sinned.”
Next a young woman rose and spoke.
“I and these other women with me, we must fly from the land of our life and of our love. For the honor of no woman is safe in the reign of Robert the Bad, and the feet of good women go not in his halls. Woe to the wicked King!”
She knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, “I have sinned, I have sinned, I have grievously sinned.”
A young man rose and spoke.
“No youth with a clean spirit can live in peace in Sicily. Only the man who will sell his wife, the brother who will betray his sister, the lover who will surrender his sweetheart, may find favor with the tyrant. Woe to the wicked King!”
He knelt again.