Mars and the Gorgon Continued

Mars and the Gorgon
Continued

One day, Danae went outside to pick some flowers still unaware that a child was inside her. She just happened to be by the small wood, when Mars came toward her as a dog. She pet him and decided to take him home as her pet. Now Mars was living in the same house as his former lover and for a while he abandoned his reckless and cruel nature and became as loyal as a dog.

Mars noticed Danae getting bigger and eating more. Her husband began to notice too and grew suspicious. The man had many secrets. He had special powers and could see things that other people could not. If people only knew, he would be brunt at the stake. He saw the baby inside his wife and could hear its heart beating.

  He wanted firm control over the household. He could not let his wife have the children of another man.  He questioned her about her pregnancy and when she did not answer, he took her and shook her around. Mars growled at him and grabbed hold of the husband’s long gown with his jaws.

“Back off beast!  This is our quarrel. you will be locked up along with my adulterous wife,”

 The man decided to let the government punish his wife. He dragged her to the royal court.

Queen Judith sat on her throne as the prisoners were dragged away. Her weak husband, Charles cowered in her presence. She was a very difficult woman. The mean alchemist threw his wife at the mercy of the court. Danae’s husband pointed to her and said to the king and queen.

“This woman is guilty of adultery and treason, I come here today to ask for a divorce and to ensure that she will be severely punished,”  

Judith looked at the dirty, beaten wife with a disgusted look, thinking of how much this woman looked like a prostitute. The queen had made up her mind.

“Very, well I sentence her guilty, and her punishment shall be the following. She shall spend 10 years in prison, but not before she spends a day in the Pit of Despair. My verdict is, final case closed.”

The solders dragged Danae off to the old churchyard, where a black dungeon was built among the graves. People called this ‘the Pit of Despair’. People would be put in this crude dark hole,where snakes, rats, and other vermin would bite chucks of bloody flesh from their rotting bones.