The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [46]
And he was glad of it.
They had walked nearly to the end of the marketplace when Richon saw a wagon full of books.
His heart began to skip and he hurried closer. He knew those books. They were from his father’s library.
The one on the far left was the book on training horses that his father had tried so hard to get him to read. Not that he had offered him bribes for it. His father would never do that. He felt that reading and the knowledge that came from it must be its own reward. He would only show the book to Richon and mention that he had read it when he was a boy, that he had enjoyed it very much.
Then his father might cautiously mention that he had noticed how interested Richon was in horses. He would ask if Richon knew how it was that a young horse was taught to answer to a particular command, or if he knew why a horse should never be allowed to drink its fill after a hard ride.
Richon had been interested in horses as he had been in no other animals. Other animals reminded him of animal magic that he did not have, but when he looked at a horse he thought only of the way it ate up the ground, the feel of air rushing through his hair, and the undeniable excitement of riding up so high.
But to learn about caring for a horse—he thought that was a duty for others.
His father had never forced the matter and Richon had never opened the book. He had not thought about it once in his three years as king. But now he itched for it. He felt that his horses had deserved more from him, but only now was he able to give it. If he had the book.
Underneath the first one, a little to the left, there was also his father’s favorite novel, though King Seltar had not liked to admit that he read such things. In fact, the king had hidden this volume under his own pillow. Richon had found it there and stolen it away, to see if it could be as deliciously sinful as his father seemed to think. He had read more than a hundred pages into it before giving up.
It was only now, looking at the book, that Richon wondered if his father had planted the book under his pillow on purpose to tempt Richon. It had been a young boy’s book, of impossible adventures in other lands, and new friends met along the way. But perhaps it was also his father’s favorite book from when he was a boy.
Richon saw book after book that he remembered from his father’s library. For a moment he felt dizzy, swaying, and imagined the library around him once more as it had been on that last day he had seen it, after his father’s death.
His father had labored all his life to collect them in one place, and Richon had cared for nothing but his own feeling of inadequacy at the sight of them.
They were his books no longer.
Richon turned and recognized the man he had sold the books to at the palace. This man had paid in good faith. Richon had no right to demand them back, even as king. He would have to leave them here, and hope that the books went to those who would love them.
But suddenly the man’s eyes widened in terror, and he put his hands to his head, falling to the ground in prostration.
“Forgive me, forgive me, Your Majesty,” he begged.
Somehow, despite his disguise of filth and a growing beard, the man had recognized the king. And perhaps he remembered that Richon was known for his temper and his whims.
But the man then said, “Do not hurt me with your magic!”
And that surprised Richon.
The man must have heard some garbled version of the story of King Richon being turned into a bear. Otherwise there was no reason for any of his subjects to think that Richon had the least acquaintance with magic.
Richon knelt beside the man. “Stand up,” he said.
The man stood slowly, trembling.
“King Richon,” he got out at last. “Do you wish to have a particular book back? Or—more than one?” He waved at them. “Take as many as you wish, Your Majesty.”
The fear in the man’s eyes made Richon see himself again as the selfish, spiteful boy king that his people had always feared.
Well, that must change.
Suddenly the man’s name came into Richon’s head.
“I want