After the raven landed on the stone windowsill and dropped the hand in her lap, after she recognized it by the ring on the third finger, after she screamed and heard the sound in her own ears as though it had come from some other throat, after she collapsed to the floor, sliding from the chair by the window like a heavy fabric folding in on itself pulled by its own weight, after that she entered a convent that specialized in busywork for wrecked queens as was the custom in that time.

All of this is in an old poem which people with cell phones in their pockets still recite when drunk but history does not record — good old history with its soul of a capricious editor — just what the fuck prompted her to send ravens to the far battlefield when anyone could see that was never going to turn out well.