The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [74]
The guard smiled and said, “Your head, eh? That it is.” He laughed, and Richon pretended to laugh with him.
After a moment, the guard opened the flap to the tent and called within.
Then the royal steward stepped out.
The man seemed so much smaller than Richon remembered, and his face was twisted with anger.
Would the royal steward recognize him, ragged and covered in battle muck as he was?
But he hardly looked at Richon at all. “Yes?” he asked in an annoyed tone.
Richon held the swords out. “For you,” he said roughly. “From the blacksmith in the village.”
“Ah, yes. He works very hard for me. Now.” The royal steward let out a tinkling laugh.
Once, Richon would have laughed along with him. Only a few weeks ago, as time flowed here. But Richon had changed.
“Well, you can go now. Hurry back to your safety, unless you want to stay here and show yourself a hero.”
As a young king, Richon knew he had been blind and foolish. But the royal steward had no such excuse.
“I will stay,” said Richon.
The royal steward snorted. “A hero, are you? Then stay you shall. Who am I to deny you your glory?” He nodded to the guard. “Take him to the food tent. And make sure he has a uniform. Must look right and proper for tomorrow.” Sotto voce, he added, “When he dies.”
Richon stiffened with anger.
It would take only one swipe of his bear’s claws to tear the royal steward into pieces. But Richon did not want the man to die that way. He had caused such misery to so many, Richon must wait until the battle was over and there was order once more. Then he could make his judgment of the royal steward public, so all would see that the king did not support such behavior any longer.
The guard led Richon to a row of fires over which large racks of lamb were being roasted.
The tantalizing smell of the roasted meat in the food tent blocked out the other terrible smells in the camp. But few of the men seemed to be eating heartily.
Richon saw husbands and fathers, brothers and sons. These were his people, whom he had never bothered to see before.
After a few minutes, the guard tugged Richon away. “Then come get your uniform, if you’re not hungry,” he said.
He walked Richon to a clearing very close to the pile of the dead.
Richon cringed, not just at the multitude of death, but at the lack of respect shown the bodies of men who had given their lives for the kingdom. He wished he could do something for them.
Ahead, a man poked his head out of a tent. He was balding, with a white mustache.
“A new uniform,” said the guard.
“What? I’ve got no new uniforms.” The man called out loudly. He was nearly deaf, it seemed.
“It will be new for him,” said the guard, smiling grimly.
He left Richon there to be outfitted in a uniform with a slice through the chest and a terrible bloodstain that ran down the tunic and the trousers.
Richon shivered at the sight.
“He don’t mind, you can be assured of that,” said the balding man.
Richon nodded to him and dressed, but wondered if he would use the sword issued to him. He had never been much of a swordsman.
At last, he stepped out of the tent and stared back out over the dead. He had marked the faces of all the animals who had died in the forest for his sake. He could do no less for his own men.
He stretched for the words his father had given in the funerals he had presided over at court. They had always seemed the same, at least to a bored child dressed in stuffy, formal clothes, who did not care who had died, but wished to get on with his games.
He was no longer that child.
And he no longer felt bored at these deaths.
He ached with the weight of them.
Through that dark night, he bent over each of the dead from that day, not yet piled up with the others. He touched a hand or brushed a cheek. He could not know their names or see their faces, but he could at least count them, as he had done with the animals who had died for him and given him what remained