The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [51]
“And then my son found himself without any way to help his family live. He would take no food, though I put it in his mouth myself. He spat it out and said that it was not right for him to take what he could not earn.
“His wounds were not bandaged well. They were not cut cleanly. And soon they began to fester. His eyes went bright with fever, and he no longer spoke the language of humans at all. He raved in the words of all the animals he had ever known, and always he begged for the same thing: his death.
“I tried to keep him close to me, but in the end he broke free. He was still strong then, with the muscles of youth that had not yet wasted away. He ran to the animals he had always loved. I do not know what became of him, but he never returned.
“The king who made these laws killed him as surely as he signed that law.”
I am a murderer, Richon thought. What must Chala think of him now?
But telling the people his identity and allowing himself to be punished would not bring back this man’s son. All he could do now was to ensure more men’s sons did not die, either because of their magic or because of the war at the border. And he could work to become a king this town deserved.
He stared at Chala and tried to read her expression. He would not try to keep her with him if she wished to go. He could not see what she was feeling. It was so strange, since when she had been a hound she had showed every fleeting emotion clearly on her face. Now that she was human, she hid it all.
But it was the kingdom he would focus on now, and not let himself be distracted by selfish needs.
A young man came down the street as the man finished speaking. The first man waved him over, and said, “He wants to hear your story, too, no doubt. Tell him about your father. What the king’s laws did to him.”
The young man looked at Richon, eyebrows raised, as if to be sure Richon wanted to hear it, after all.
Richon nodded. Hearing it was the least he could do.
“Please tell me,” he said.
And the young man did.
“My father survived the first year of the new laws without being caught. He learned to be cautious. He only showed his magic when there were no strangers about in the village. He did not use it beyond the borders of the village, either, because there were too often soldiers there, protecting the king’s own animals for his hunt. All animals belonged to the king, it seemed. As all people belonged to him. And all magic.
“But then the rewards were announced. A dozen gold coins for each man who was betrayed to the king’s men. They came through each year. The first year no one in the village betrayed another. But the second year it had been a bad harvest. Too many of us had been afraid of the king’s law against magic. We had not asked the beetles and worms to irrigate the ground for us. We had not called to the birds to keep from our fields.
“And so we were starving, all of us, when the news of the rewards came. My father, as well as many others, was betrayed that year. Those who betrayed them were equally betrayed, for they received no payment at all in return for their loss of honor.
“When the day of the executions came, they were forced to speak their accusations aloud before all in the village, and to watch as the sentence was carried out against those to whom they had meant no harm.
“We all watched as they died, and perhaps the king expected that there would be yet more deaths, that we would turn against those in our village who had turned against us. But we saw the true enemy, and it was not those who had spoken out in their need. It was the king.”
Richon clenched his fists and told himself he was not yet done. There was more pain here for him to share.
Finally a girl came, no more than eight years old. She spoke with a lisp, and her voice was so childlike that Richon was chilled to hear it speak with such anger. She said:
“My