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 or grains in it, he had her sent from the palace. Let her serve the peasants in the streets such fare, but not him.
“Soon the man was out of breath merely from reaching for his food and he demanded that his servants feed him. But they could not feed him fast enough.
“Then one of his servants, a wise old woman, spoke aloud the words that all had been thinking but had not dared to say. She had been his nurse since childhood, and his father’s nurse as well. Perhaps it was because she loved him more than the others or perhaps it was because she feared him less.
“‘There is no pleasure in wealth if poverty has never been felt,’ she said.
“And the man realized that she spoke the truth. He could not appreciate his rich food if he did not have the poor food, as well.”
Richon’s father held the book open and said, “Well? What is the lesson here?” For there was always a lesson in his books.
Richon creased his forehead and thought. “I must eat porridge so that I will enjoy rich food?” he asked.
His father nodded and closed the book.
Then, at last, he put an arm around Richon. “We love you. We want true happiness for you. That comes with self-discipline.”
“Yes, Father,” Richon had said. Because there was no other response.
Then King Seltar had let Richon go his way, which was most definitely out of the library.
Now Richon wished dearly that he had spent more time in his father’s library. Perhaps if he had he would have saved himself a great deal of sorrow.
But when he became king, the only thing he had seen the library useful for was to sell off its books for money to support his other habits, when the peasants had been taxed beyond their ability to pay more.
All those precious books of his father’s were dispersed to other places, perhaps to other kingdoms entirely.
And yet his father’s lessons were not the only ones he had ignored. He remembered his mother, Queen Nureen, beautiful on one side of her face but covered with a birth scar on the other. Yet she had never seemed self-conscious about it, had never turned her better side when speaking to others.
His mother had told him once, as she pointed to her scarred side, that it was her obligation to show to others her true face. And her true face had both sides.
“As all people have two sides,” she had said. “Even you, my little one.”
Now Richon was startled into wondering if she had had some magical foresight that had shown her that he would become a bear. He had not understood what she meant then. He was only a boy who loved his parents, who loved to be loved and petted and pampered.
But the tantrums—yes, his mother had had to deal with those. That had been the other side to her sunny boy.
Richon could still be embarrassed at the thought of those. Whenever he did not get what he wanted, he had thrown himself to the floor and shouted out threats against anyone in sight: servants, nobles, his own mother and father. He would tell them what he would do to them when he was king.
But his mother would put a finger to her lips and shake her head. And when that did not work, she would turn her back to him. She would motion to all others in the room that they should do the same.
Servants, all.
And no matter what he said or asked for, they would not respond to him until his mother had motioned that they could turn to face him once more. Which only happened when he had finished his screaming, and then his crying, and had turned at last to whispered pleas of forgiveness.
Then his mother would turn around and point to each person whom he had hurt, and he would hang his head and offer apology after apology, then wait humbly until each was accepted.
If only she had lived.
Perhaps she might have made something of him.
But she and his father had died in a carriage accident far from the palace. They had gone out to visit villages at the edges of the kingdom, a tour they took each year so that even those far villagers would feel a sense of belonging to the kingdom, and know that their king and queen thought of them.
He had been told of it by the lord chamberlain and the royal steward, and had never thought to ask them deeper questions about the incident—where his parents had been traveling, who their driver had been, if others had died. He had believed the two advisers his friends then and thought they would tell him all he needed to know.
Now he could see that they had never been his friends. They had told him whatever made him comfortable, even when he deserved no praise. They had never pointed out missteps or shortcomings, as Chala did, that he might better himself.
During the day, he and Chala marched on, sometimes with her in the lead, sometimes with him taking it. But not side by side, and the pace was always so fast that he did not have energy to spare for talking.
What would he talk about, anyway?
Did she want to know how he worried about his weaknesses? Did she care about the trials that lay ahead for him as king?
No, she expected him to go forward and face whatever came to him with courage and strength—two things that he had always lacked.
Except as a bear.