"Heart of the Crown" Chapter 95

[seymoure]

Chapter 95

Wallflower

Sandor couldn’t even guess how long he had sat in this big empty room.

Why he had been magically moved from one big empty room with all his friends, to this big empty room with no one but himself and the baby was beyond his understanding.

His body was wedged into the corner where he had slept. With the babe in his lap, he had not moved in several hours, so he forced his body to stand and walk back and forth across the room.

He let a tiny laugh escape as he noticed the tiny trench he had begun to wear in the hard earthen floor. He imagined it growing into a channel sometime before his final release from this place.

His arms were growing used to having the young king cradled constantly within them. He had not put the child down since he had appeared here. He had found himself able to eat, sleep and do other things with only a single limb.

Why could he not bring himself to put the child on the floor?

First and foremost, he knew that the infant could feel when he was not there. Even when others had held him, the baby did not eat as well afterward. Only when Sandor lived up to his charge completely was the king happy and secure enough to eat heartily. He was not going to do anything, even here, to undercut the security of the royal babe.

The other reason was a tale his grandmother had told him when he was small.

It was the tale of a great ape who ruled an entire island. The people of that island gave him a female to be his companion in the dark and lonely nights.

But while the simian journeyed to his mountaintop castle, everywhere they were beset with those who would kill his new love. First a giant reptile, then a snake, then a bird and finally the little person’s true love all attacked at anytime that the ape put the girl down. She was finally taken from him and though he quested after her, she was truly lost forever.

He would not let this happen to the little king.

When Sandor took a job he did it to the fullest of his heart. Even sitting here, alone and friendless, he did not lessen in his commitment.

The knock came to the iron door. That meant that food was about to be delivered.

He took a bottle from his coat and began to feed the king. The child would eat, and then he would eat.

That’s the way it should be.

© 2008 C. Wayne Owens
Chapter 96 is here.