The Chronicles of Ursa

Part 2 Chapter 9

Fifteen years later

Reddyn had loved the tapestry until the day his lifeless mother was laid out it its foot. As child he'd fantasized beneath it for hours imagining himself the great bear-prince emblazoned on its surface, clutching his wooden sword and choreographing perilous battles, occasionally commandeering passerby to fill out the scenes. He'd had an idyllic, if isolated, childhood in the castle, raised to rule and taught to shoulder responsibility from birth. He knew one day he would be the only thing protecting the realm from the treachery of their neighbors. Beneath the ancient tapestry he imagined transforming into a great red bear, like the very first princes of the realm, and using his power to become a legendary champion, like his great-great-great-great grandfather.

Those sun-dappled afternoons felt like another lifetime. People moved around him in a blur, but all he could only stare at her bloodless face and the heavy gold coins weighing her eyes closed. He nodded and bowed without really hearing what anyone said; accepted heavy pats on the back and the occasional firm hand shake. His mourning clothes were starched stiff and crackled when his posture began to bow sometime in the early evening. He had a vague awareness of the sun slowly tracking across the greatroom, which is the only way he knew it must be near dinner. Usually his stomach ruled him – he was fifteen, after all – and he was the first to the table for every meal, and underfoot of Greta in the kitchen in between. She kept expecting him to sprout up wide and tall like his cousins considering how much he ate, but he took after his mother, who was slight.

Had been slight.

It took him a moment to register the heavy hand on his shoulder was Rahn.

"Come lad," rumbled the sword master, "you've done well."

Reddyn allowed Rahn to turn him away and lead him to the kitchens. There was a simple meal laid out on the battered wooden table, though the room was emptied of personnel. Rahn steered him to sit at the table and straddled the bench beside him.

"Eat," said Rahn.

Reddyn shoveled the food into his mouth automatically, tasting nothing, though Greta had made a point to give him his favorites: honeyed oat cakes, berries with clotted cream, a hunk of yellow cheese, and a fresh apple picked from his mother's orchard. He ate all of it and sat back, running his hands through dark, unruly hair. The food sat in his stomach like a stone.

"Feel better?" ask Rahn. Reddyn shrugged and stared at the table, listless. Rahn fought the urge to gather him up in his arms like he had when Reddyn was a child with a scraped knee; always the smallest one with the biggest heart, leaping directly into perils that children twice his size had no business facing.

Reddyn had just stood vigil for his mother Lani, taken quickly by a fever that his father the king now battled upstairs in the chamber he'd shared with his beloved wife. He was too ill to stand the vigil, so Reddyn had done it alone. Rahn still watched him anxiously for signs that he too would fall sick, but so far he saw no fever in the prince's face – only deep, numbing grief.

Rahn had lost his mother at thirteen; a late-in-life baby had quickened in her and died, taking her life with it. He understood the prince's grief, and feared it would soon be doubled if King Tollredd did not recover. It had been many years since such a fever swept through Ursa and many more since it penetrated the castle, and yet the queen lay dead and the king lay dying. Lani was famous for her visits to the kingdom's villages and the healers had blamed her travels – she must have touched someone who was ill, or breathed bad air. Eaten bad food. Used a dirty cup. And of course once the queen fell ill the king would follow; it was well known that they were inseparable and had been since the day they wed.