The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [84]
“A woman is not a king,” said Chala stiffly.
Richon smiled. “Queen, then.”
Chala was quiet for a moment. “Are you asking me to marry you?” she said.
Now it was Richon’s turn to be quiet. Had it not been obvious to her before? “I do not mean to pressure you,” he said at last.
“But I was born a hound,” said Chala. “How would your kingdom—”
Richon put a hand over her mouth. Then, when she was silent, he removed it and kissed her. “You are a more human woman than any I have ever found. And I love you.”
Tears began to fall down her cheeks.
Richon gathered them one at a time into a cupped palm.
She smiled at last.
“Marry me and make me the happiest man in the world. And my kingdom be hanged if they don’t accept you as my queen. They can take us both or send us both on our way. They will survive without us, no doubt. And we will survive without them.”
“Truly?” asked Chala. “You would give up your kingdom for me? All these years you wanted nothing more than to be king again, to have another chance.”
Richon kissed her again, more desperately. “I have changed,” he said.
He convinced Chala eventually, with much kissing. Then there was more kissing and holding, just because there was nothing else he would rather do.
When it was much later in the day, Chala reminded him that he was a king, after all, and didn’t he have kingly things to do?
They rested that night in a small forest—hardly more than a few groves of trees next to each other. The following day they saw men from the army returning home all around them. It was difficult for Richon not to stop and greet them all personally. But if he stopped now they would swarm him, and he had no time for that now. So he kept his distance from them, and they were too interested in homecomings to seek him out.
On the third day, Richon and Chala reached the palace. There he spent a few days working in his mother’s garden, with Chala’s help.
After a week, men began to appear at the palace gates, those Richon remembered from the battlefield and others, asking for work to do. Women came and offered themselves as ladies-in-waiting for Chala. She would not be pampered as Richon would have been tempted to enjoy watching, but she did accept an offer for borrowed gowns. The one she had been wearing since the wild man had changed her was by now completely unsalvageable.
That evening, she took the old gown and put it in a bonfire in the courtyard, along with the broken furniture and reminders of the past that Richon did not wish to keep.
Richon thought she looked as perfect in the new gown as she had in the wild man’s, though he noticed both were shades of red. It was, indeed, the most flattering color to her. Had she become human enough to care about something as trivial as that?
“Well, your court will care about it, so I must care about it if I am to be a true queen to you,” said Chala when Richon asked her about it.
But he noticed her more than once looking at herself in a passing window, or in a stream. She did not have a mirror in her rooms, however. That much vanity was beyond her.
Richon found that the palace expenses were much decreased from the last time he had been king. The food, prepared by an army cook, was hearty but simple. Hunting parties went out—always without Richon—and brought back meat for those who would eat it. His mother’s garden was expanded to include several acres outside the palace.
There were not as many horses, and very little wine drinking or smoking. No balls or celebrations every other day, such as he had lived through before. Richon used the money to pay for reparations to those hurt in the past, and found himself sleeping better at night and feeling more clearheaded every day.
One of the first of those to return to the palace was Jonner, the merchant, who returned a wagonful of books in thanks for the king’s saving a cousin’s life in the battle. It was such a precious gift that