IN THE MONTHS following the wedding, peasants came to Richon from far and wide to ask for his wisdom. Others spoke to him of what reasonable taxes might be for the coming year. And many asked if they could send sons, daughters, or cousins to the palace to work.
This was the pleasant side of being king.
There was a far more unpleasant side.
Richon reserved the extreme penalty of execution for those who spread unmagic. There had been death enough in his kingdom already, but he had to send a clear message about not tolerating unmagic if he were to save the future.
Among the first to die was the man from the village with the alehouse who “trained” animals with unmagic. Chala had described him, and then made a positive identification at trial.
Richon told her repeatedly she need not come to the execution, but she insisted upon it.
“I have seen deaths before,” she told him.
“But not like this,” Richon insisted.
“No? King Helm executed five men while I was his daughter. And he made me come to see each of them. One was a man who did not know he was to be killed. His head was cut off in the midst of a polite conversation about music.” She held her lips tightly together when she was done speaking.
Richon thought perhaps she was right. It was not as if she were a sheltered noblewoman. She had seen many things as a hound, and then again when she had been in the body of a princess. And she had been with him at the battle. He did not think this would be worse.
The animal trainer went to his death quietly, and Richon wondered if he was too well acquainted with it by now to fight it. He seemed as empty of life and vigor as any of his animals.
Chala watched it all without any sign of emotion.
But afterward Richon found her weeping in their bedchamber.
“Can I do anything for you?” he asked.
She stared at him, her eyes red. “I understand now,” she said.
“Understand what?”
“Guilt,” said Chala. “Such a human thing.”
Richon nodded soberly.
“It does no good, for it changes nothing. But it is there all the same, reminding you that you might have done something different.”
“Not you, Chala,” said Richon. “You did all you could.”
Chala stared at him. “Are you trying to take away some of my humanness?” she asked.
Richon blanched. “No,” he said.
“Then leave me with my guilt.”
And he did, but never alone.
What surprised Richon most about being king again was the forest animals that came to consult with him.
A line of them, sometimes as long as the humans who came, would wait and speak to him and wait for him to translate for Chala, for it was her perspective they wished to know. They seemed to see her as their special queen.
Before the wedding and afterward, Richon went out and saw a group of swordsmen practicing in the courtyard. A few of them were soldiers, who used the swords as weapons and thought of death as they wielded them. Others held the swords as if they were artists. All of them were better than he was, so he asked if they would teach him.
He quickly grew stronger. He did not come to like the sword any better than before, however, and wondered if there were another battle, if he would do the same as before and simply turn into a bear.
Chala, however, had no such choice. She practiced sword fighting with him in the courtyard of the palace and Richon loved to watch her. It was as if she had gained back some of what she had lost in losing her magic: the ferociousness and focus that she had as a hound and the sheer grace of her movements.
Often there was quite a crowd to see Chala best Richon, as she did all too frequently. And Richon heard there were more than a few women who were asking to join his royal guard—or even the army. That was when he felt that his people had truly come to see Chala as he did, as one of them, but more.
It was on one of those sword-fighting mornings when a man galloped forward on a horse, dressed finely in livery, and announced himself as a servant to Lord Kaylar, who had once been one of Richon’s companions in drinking and hunting.
Richon had refused many other “friends” from the past who had written to ask for a return to the king’s favor. But when Richon opened Lord Kaylar’s letter, it was a challenge to a battle to the death, to prove who should be rightful king of Elolira.
“What shall I say to my lord, Kaylar?” asked the messenger.
Richon could not see how he could refuse a challenge from one of his own noblemen. “I accept,” he said.
“It is for you to choose the place and time,” said the messenger.
Richon nodded. “One week hence. In this courtyard. At noon.” The men around him cheered.
The messenger held himself very still.
“And the weapons?” asked Richon. That was Lord Kaylar’s choice.
“Magic,” said the messenger.
“Very well, then, magic it is,” said Richon. He had never seen a battle of magic before, though he had read of them in books that Jonner had recently shown him. It was an ancient tradition.
The messenger promptly mounted his horse and went galloping back in the direction from which he had come.
“Lord Kaylar?” asked Chala later, when the two of them were alone together.
“Yes,” said Richon. “Why?” She couldn’t know of the man, could she?
“He is the one,” said Chala.
“Which one?”
She only had to say one word. “Crown.”
Richon hissed, as the invitation suddenly made sense to him. Lord Kaylar had been the sort of man who attacked where he knew he would win. If he had been angry at Richon, he would attack him through his horse.
Poor Crown.
What did Lord Kaylar intend to do now? Richon suspected the man must have magic himself, but perhaps not much. In order to maim a horse as he did Crown, he could not feel much of the animal’s pain.
So why would he choose to battle with magic?
Did he think to prove that Richon did not have much of it, either? Or prove that Richon was a coward if he refused to kill a man with it?
Doubts tumbling in his mind, Richon did not sleep well for the next week. But when the day came, he was waiting in the courtyard as Lord Kaylar arrived, complete with his entourage. There was a banner-carrying young page at the front, in the bright colors of blue and gold that were Lord Kaylar’s. Then came the men-at-arms, who rode on warhorses. There were six of them.
Then Lord Kaylar himself, astride the largest horse of all. And after that, two carriages full of his wife and her ladies-in-waiting, who had come to watch the “sport” of seeing Lord Kaylar attempt to kill the king with his magic.
“My lord,” said Richon with a nod.
Lord Kaylar stared ahead coldly.
Then Richon put out his hands so that his own people would step back and give them space. When they were far enough away, he began to change into a bear.
He looked at Lord Kaylar. It seemed his magic was taking him much longer to use. Well, the bear would wait for it, then. He would not wish to be called unfair.
He stepped back.
And saw the man reach for a sword thrown toward him by one of his men.
The bear had no chance to see how an animal without a weapon would fare in a battle against a man with one. Chala raced between Lord Kaylar and Richon and struck Lord Kaylar through the heart with her own sword.
When he lay dead at Richon’s feet, she turned up to look at him.
“I think King Helm would be proud of his princess,” Richon said.
Chala stared at her bloodstained hands. “I think not. It is not what a princess would do.”
“Perhaps not. But shouldn’t a queen do all she can to defend her king—and her people?” Richon asked.
“I would never have done it as a hound,” Chala said. “I would have thought my strength would show your weakness.”
“Your strength is my strength,” said Richon. “And it always will be.”
“Thank you,” said Chala.
Lord Kaylar’s entourage left swiftly.
Afterward, the others in the courtyard lifted Chala to their shoulders and sang warrior songs to her.
They howled to the skies and Chala did not join in. She seemed very thoughtful.
That night she said to Richon, “I thought I had lost my pack. But I have found it again.”