I hate this man. I hate everything about him, down to his favorite riding shoes. I smile in front of him and whisper about him with the other ladies, but that is only for appearances.

I hate this man. Not just for myself, but for the whole household. I do not deserve his kind of tyranny. I know his purpose, and it has nothing to do with me, as it should.

Socially inferior, I am, I know this and accept it. A man’s place is to protect his woman just as her place is to support him. This man protects me nor my children, albeit that they are not his own.

At first, I was glad of him, though the memory seems to me a tragic misunderstanding. I was young and newly widowed with two suckling babes, and he came to my aid. He did not have his own lands, a lesser son of poorer kin than my own, but he was a husband to protect me. Maybe I loved him then. I do not love him now.

I hate this man.

My daughter, to him, is not even worth marrying off. He wants to keep her around to serve him in his old age. My son he gives little attention to, and it is only the captain of our men-at-arms, an old friend of mine, who sees fit to teach him martial skills. I worried for my children and took them with me to every court event we were invited to. I hoped to get them noticed by someone so that they would not rot away in Niefel Keep. My daughter has caught the eye of a Wose lord as prospective bride for his son. My son is seen to be sickly, and has no prospects.

My husband, Lord a Neifel, is not only cruel to my children. The maids live in fear of him, as do most of the manservants. He is a harsh master, and gives no mercy. When I try to speak on the behalf of servants that have done me well in the past, he beats them all the harder for it, and me, too.

I said before that the captain if a friend of mine. When I was still at my father’s house, he was my guard, and has been loyal to me. Him I never speak for so that he will get the lightest punishments. In the end, he was the only one of my servants from before my second husband who stayed, aside from my personal maid, a woman so old she has decided that she has nothing else.

So you know that he beats me when I speak for the servants, but that is not his only excuse for my ill treatment. He is jealous of my attention, if nothing else. I cannot speak to any man without fear of bringing him down upon me. And he uses me. When he is angry he will many times use me, and that is pain you have never known; my mother’s line are of Mithann blood, proud and strong. If I had strength and courage enough to travel to my Gernum relatives, I would tell them of my dishonor, and their rage would fall hard upon my ‘husband.’ Alas, I have not that kind of courage or strength. He, too, has loyal servants more like mercenaries, and they watch me when he cannot.

I hate this man. Even after he is dead, I hate him.

It was a wonderful day when it happened, even though I am not entirely free of him. My captain came to me and said that he’d killed my husband’s manservant. I admit to being shocked, but my mother’s blood stirred within me, and I took up a blade and called for the man who had ruled me more than long enough.

I remember well the face of the man I hate when he saw me with the carving knife, my captain behind me with murder in his eyes. “Your man is dead,” I told him. “You can pay him for his troubles in Hell.”

He did not seem to comprehend such violent words from my mouth. I was able to cut his throat before he reacted.

His scream was pitiful, seeing I had freed his lifeblood and left him to writhe on the floor, grabbing at his neck, blood like thick red syrup. He rather looked like a chicken.

Before all the life was out of him, I wanted him to know some of the pain he had caused me. My captain said he wouldn’t feel it, but I didn’t care. He would comprehend that I was stabbing him repeatedly, and he would know how much I hated him, how much I would always hate him. I had had enough of his rule; I would let him hurt me and my children no more.

I cut his hands that grasped the crop that beat me, cut his legs which kicked my servants, and his lips which uttered such falsely charming words. I castrated him too, so that he would die without his manhood, the ultimate shame. And when I was done, I left the knife buried in his stomach that ate the food my first husband had worked to pay for in life. I had not really loved him before, but after the second husband, my first was a saint I would forever carry in my heart.

I knew that I saw a court for killing my husband. My Gernum relatives tried to argue my defense, that he had beaten me sorely, but in Torr that is no defense. Torric judges do not understand women. My relatives took my children with them to Mithannus, and they will be happy there.

I hate this man.

They took me to the chopping block.

I hate this man.

I hate this man.

AN: My first monologue, originaslly a project for class - I no longer remember the assignment. On Alder, there are many, many more women like this one, so I finally decided to give them a voice. (yes, this takes place on Alder)