The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [35]
But Richon the human was also bright and exuberant as she had never seen the bear. It was infectious.
He still could not go long distances without a rest, but he told jokes along the way and laughed at himself more than anything.
Somewhere inside the bear there had always been this human boy, hidden. She could see him try to hide that even now, to put on that older, more sober self. Both sides annoyed her in their own way. But perhaps in time they would come together. That would be a thing to see indeed.
That would be a king who was worthy of the name.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Richon
FOLLOWING STREAMS AND a few trails, they reached the forest at the bottom of the first foothill in three days’ time. Each morning Richon woke and followed Chala to get some meat for breakfast. Each morning he ate it raw as she did, and wished that he could show no distaste, as she did. Everything had changed between them.
His old insecurities had returned to haunt him. He was useless as a king, and no better as a man. He could not believe that she felt anything but contempt for him. As a bear, he at least had been self-sufficient. More than that, he had been able to protect the hound against other animals that might have threatened her.
But now he felt as awkward as he had at fourteen, when he had first been made king and realized that he had come to his father’s height without his father’s wisdom. He had walked for many months with his shoulders rounded, trying to make himself less noticeable, less like his father, as small on the outside as he felt within.
But when his advisers, the lord chamberlain and the royal steward, told him that he looked like a criminal skulking through the palace, he had changed instantly. He had watched the wealthiest, vainest men at his court and copied the way they strutted.
He had felt no better about himself, but no one else had known.
Now he still did not know how to walk as a man. He could walk as a bear, but it was not at all the same.
In some way Richon felt as though the wild man had tricked him.
He had wanted to return to the past, yes. But not as the stupid boy who had pretended arrogance only because he had no other defense.
Two hundred years as a bear, and he had learned nothing that could be used in this other body?
Well, he was not here to make himself feel more like a man. He was here for the magic. And because he wanted to prove that he could be the king his father had meant for him to be, a man who thought of others before himself.
It had been a long time since Richon had allowed himself to think of his father. He had pushed unpleasant thoughts away, telling himself as a king that his father had known nothing, and then as a bear that there was no purpose in raking through the past.
He knew he was not a man of books as his father had been.
Richon remembered that whenever he had gone to his father for advice, the answer had always to be found in a book.
When Richon came to complain about the plain porridge that was served to him at breakfast each morning, his father had held up a finger.
“A moment. Let me think a moment,” he said.
Richon waited. And waited.
Then his father leaped to his feet, and ran his fingers from shelf to shelf in the enormous royal library where he spent so much of his time. He climbed atop the ladder, mumbling to himself in words that young Richon could not understand. At last he reached the book he wanted. He opened it lovingly, then blew the dust from the pages.
“My father read this to me when I was—” He looked to Richon. “Yes, perhaps your age. Perhaps younger. I should have read it to you before now.”
Then he patted the place at his side on the sedan, and Richon slipped into it.
His father read:
“Once there was a man who ate the best foods at every meal. Sweets and pastries. The richest meats, of every kind. Butters and oils for dipping, and to follow, unwatered wine.
“The man grew fatter each day, but what did he care? He was indulged at every meal and found pleasure in each moment that he ate. If a cook brought him a meal with vegetables