Ten Leagues Beneath Contempt

Awaking in a sweat
Forsaking pleasure for regret
Another night of blight had slowly passed
The morning skies once fresh and bright
Darkened down no near twilight
Once could smell the end of days were coming fast

Gilles wandered as in purgatory
Beyond the grave of his estate
Neither Heaven, Hell or peasantry
Were present save projected hatred

He knew suspicion, he felt derision
And grief like a sharpened stake
Pierce his heart, and now the start
Of his unknitting began to take

Vain glorious, a Lord, devout?
He thought his soul exempt
From guilt and doubt, there's no way out
Ten leagues beneath contempt

(He drank an ocean quoting Joan the maiden
A vampire's pious rant
His hot blood stank of devotion laden
With bias for love's covenant)

Awaking in a sweat
Forsaking pleasure for regret
His choired chapel sighed with his laments
As accusations reached a roar
Investigations breached the door
He put up nothing save his favours in defense

The Church stirred in its Roman lair
The grease had long been spent
Now all tongues spat at Tiffauges there
Ten leagues beneath contempt

Just one falter
One misplaced deed
And Gilles would be undone
As he teetered on the verge of defeat

Profaning God's altar
Bursting in on evening Mass
He threatened there to crucify the priest

Drunk on fiery wine
With the storm lashing behind
He then threw this Philistine
To his foulest dungeon

And money owed or not
The Priest released or left to rot
His blatant sacrilege begot
A war machine of papal Rome

They came for him in mourning splendour
With the blessing of the Saints
His fawning grin in sweet surrender
A lesson in enforced restraint

He knew suspicion, he felt derision
And fear like a sharpened stake
Pierce his heart, and now the start
Of his unknitting began to take

He thought courts bought with golden crowns
Rich Bishops he could tempt
But traitor's gate was sought and found
Ten leagues beneath contempt

Ten leagues beneath contempt