The duke was worn out. All this walking was exhausting. He sat on a park bench while his companions went down the hill looking for a shop to purchase some food.
A young woman passed him and sat down at the picnic table across the dirt path. She pulled from her bag a biscuit which she began to eat.
The duke called over to her, “Give me a biscuit.”
He offered no pleasantries, no polite greeting, no polite asking, just ‘give me’.
Her head jerked up. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. Finally she said, “How is it that you, a man unknown to me and of a different people, ask me for a biscuit?”
He smiled at her. At that instant he knew exactly who she was, a disgraced princess from a neighboring kingdom. He replied, “If you knew the person asking you for a biscuit, you would have asked him instead for something you need desperately, because he has the means to give you what you need most.”
The pauses in their conversation were long and palpable. She studied his face, his clothing, his dusty shoes. Finally she spoke again, “Sir, I can see that you have nothing. You are alone. Do you have something more than the baker in the town who gave me these biscuits?”
“When you eat a biscuit,” he replied, “it sustains for a time. You have other needs as well. What I have is a forever resource.”
“Okay,” she replied, “I’ll take the bait. Give me some of whatever it is you have.”
“Call your husband and come back to me,” he said.
“I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
His mouth curved into a slight smile as he chuckled. “I know that. You have struggled in that area of your life. You’ve left your husband and the man you are with now is not your husband.”
Her eyes widened. She had been found out. She couldn’t identify the flurry of feelings causing her heart to race. Was it panic? Happiness at no longer having to hide? Fear of consequences?
“I am the Duke,” he said. “I know your whole story. Words of accusation on a sheet of paper only tell a small part of who you are. I will keep you safe.”
This is my response to today’s MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie & #Wordle where the challenge is to weave a bunch of prompt words into a post. Today’s words are: biscuit, passed, duke, found, slight, princess, curved, sheet, alone, downhill, happy, companion.
Some Bible stories haunt me. I’ve spent years thinking about the man who tells Jesus, “Sir, I have no one,” in response to Jesus asking him if he wants to be healed. (John 5)
Lately the woman at the well has been haunting my thoughts. (John 4) This is a (sort-of) retelling of that story.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 