Osric bowed again, and he spoke of the trial by lion, and he said it was the old law, and he said it had been used for thieves since the days of the king's father, and he said the crowd must gather in the arena and watch, so that all would know what became of those who stole from the king. His voice was soft, and his words were careful, and he smiled a little as he spoke, as if he were doing the king a service. The king listened, and he nodded slowly, and he pronounced the sentence in a voice that filled the hall. The boy would face the black lion in the arena when the sun stood high on the third day, and the gods would judge him, and the whole kingdom would see it.
Isolde had followed the guards back to the hall, and she had waited outside the great doors, and when the sentence was pronounced, she pushed her way inside, and she stood before the king with her shawl clutched tight about her shoulders, and she spoke in her plain and steady voice, the voice of a woman who had woven cloth for the village all her life and had never once asked the king for anything. She said her son was innocent, and she said he had been with her at dusk, and she said he had never stolen anything in his life, and she begged the king to believe her. The king looked at her, and for a moment his face softened, and then Osric spoke again, and he said a mother would say anything for her son, and he said the trial would prove the truth, and the king's face hardened again, and he ordered the guards to take the boy away.
That night, Isolde sat with Corin in the small stone room where the guards had shut him, and she held his hands in hers, and she told him to be brave, and she told him to be still before the lion, and she told him that a beast could smell fear, and that he must not run, and he must not cry out. She mended his torn tunic by the light of a small lamp, and her needle moved steadily, and her hands did not shake, though her eyes were wet. As she sewed, she spoke of the day she had stitched his arm, when the blood had run down to his wrist and he had not cried once, though he was only seven years old. She said the scar upon his arm was a mark of kindness, for he had earned it by freeing a living thing, and she said that kindness was never forgotten by the gods, and that it would be remembered when it mattered most. Corin listened, and he thought of the small black cub in the hills, and of its eyes when it looked back at him before it ran away into the trees, and he held his mother's hand a little tighter, and he felt a small hope rise in his chest for the first time since the guards had taken him. She prayed to the gods in a low voice, and she asked them to watch over her son, and she asked them to remember that he was only a boy, and that he had done no wrong. Corin listened, and he nodded, and he thought of the hills, and he thought of the goats, and he thought of the small black cub he had freed from the snare two years before, and he wondered if the lion in the arena could be the same beast, grown great and terrible, and he wondered if it would remember him.
When the morning of the third day came, the guards led Corin out of the stone room, and they walked him along the long road to the arena, and the sun was already high, and the crowd was already gathering in the stone seats. Isolde walked behind them for as far as the guards would allow, and then she stopped, and she watched her son walk on alone toward the great gate, and she pressed her shawl to her mouth to keep from crying out. Corin walked with his head up, and his hands were bound no longer, and his tunic was mended, and the long stitched scar upon his forearm showed pale against his skin in the sunlight. He did not run. He did not cry out. He walked through the gate and out onto the sand, and the crowd fell silent, and the king took his seat upon the platform, and the trial began.
The black lion finished licking the scar and lifted its great head, and for a moment it looked down at the boy lying in the sand, and then it moved. It turned in a slow circle, its heavy paws pressing into the warm sand, and it lowered its body, folding its forelegs beneath its chest, and it lay down beside Corin, so close that the boy could feel the heat of its body and the slow rise and fall of its breath. Its head came to rest near his shoulder, its glowing eyes half closed, and its long tail lay still upon the sand. It did not growl. It did not bare its teeth. It lay as a great dog might lie beside a child it loved, and the whole arena watched, and no one in all that crowd made a sound.
Corin did not move. He lay face down in the sand with his cheek pressed against the warm ground, and his heart beat so hard that he thought the lion must feel it through the sand. He had waited for the teeth. He had waited for the weight of the great paws and the hot breath and the end of everything. Instead there was only warmth beside him and the slow sound of breathing, and the smell of dust and sun baked stone and the musky smell of the beast. He opened one eye, and he saw the black fur close beside his face, and he saw the great paw resting on the sand no more than a hand span from his own small hand, and he did not understand what was happening. He thought that perhaps he was already dead and this was what dying felt like, quiet and warm, and then he heard the murmur begin, and he knew he was still alive.
The murmur began low in the stone seats, like wind moving through dry grass, and it grew. It rose from the benches where the crowd sat, from the men and the women and the children who had come to watch a boy die, and it spread from row to row until the whole arena hummed with it. People leaned forward and whispered to their neighbors. People pointed. People shook their heads.
On the raised platform, Bram rose slowly from his seat. The old priest stood with his white beard falling over his chest and his white robes glowing in the sun, and he gripped his gold staff with both hands, and he looked down at the sand where the boy and the lion lay side by side. His face, which had been frozen in amazement, changed. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened, and then a look of awe came over him, the look of a man who has seen something he has prayed all his life to see. He raised his gold staff high, so that the sun caught it and it shone, and his voice rang out across the arena, strong and deep for a man of seventy one years.
"A sign!" Bram cried. "A sign from the gods! Behold what the gods have done before your eyes! A beast of the wild lies down beside a child, and no tooth has touched him, and no claw has marked him! When a lion spares a boy, the gods have spoken, and no man here may speak against them!"
The crowd heard him, and the murmur swelled into a roar of voices, and some of the people rose to their feet, and some of them clapped their hands, and some of them called out the name of the gods, and the sound rolled around the stone walls of the arena like a wave.
King Aldous sat stiff upon his throne, his purple robes spread around him, his gold crown bright in the sun, and his hands gripped the arms of his chair so hard that his knuckles showed white. His face had changed. The smile that had curved his lips when the lion first rushed out was gone, and in its place was a look of shock, and beneath the shock there was something else, something harder, a fear that the crowd could see on his face. He was a king who had ordered a boy thrown to a lion before all his people, and now the lion lay beside the boy, and the priest called it a sign from the gods, and the crowd was turning, and Aldous did not know what to do. He was afraid of looking weak before a crowd that had come to see him strong. He was afraid of the gods, and he was afraid of the people, and he was afraid of the black beast lying in the sand below him, and all three fears warred in his chest.
Beside the king, Osric sat very still. The counselor in brown robes had watched the lion rush out with a small smile on his face, and he had watched the boy fall with satisfaction, and now his face was pale, and his hands were clenched in his lap, and his lips were pressed together in a thin line. He leaned toward the king, and he spoke in a low voice, so low that only Aldous could hear him, and his words were smooth and quick, as smooth and quick as they always were when he needed to turn a bad moment to his own use.
"It is a trick, my king," Osric whispered. "The beast is sick, or it is tired from the heat, or the boy has fed it something to make it sleepy. A lion does not spare a child out of love. The trial is not finished. Let the guards drive the beast back to its cage and bring the boy forward, and let the judgment be carried out as it should be."
King Aldous did not answer him at once. He looked down at the sand, and he looked at the lion lying beside the boy, and he looked at Bram standing with his staff raised, and he looked at the crowd rising to its feet, and he felt the eyes of all his people upon him, waiting to see what their king would do. He sat in silence, and the silence stretched, and the murmur of the crowd grew louder, and Osric leaned closer, and his whisper grew more urgent.
"My king," Osric said, "the people will forget a dead boy by nightfall. They will not forget a king who lets a priest overrule him in his own arena. Do not let the old man speak for you."
But before Aldous could answer, Gareth moved. The arena keeper stood at the dark gate where the lion had come rushing out, and his hand rested on the bars, and his face was filled with wonder. Gareth had fed the black lion for two years. He had carried meat to its cage in the morning and in the evening. He had watched it pace and snarl and lash its tail at any man who came near. He knew the beast better than any man alive, and he had never seen it lie down beside a living thing, and he had never seen its eyes half close in peace. He stepped forward from the gate, and he raised one hand, and his voice carried across the sand, rough and honest.
"My king," Gareth called, "I have kept that beast for two years, and I tell you true, it has never done this. It has never lain down beside any living creature. It has never closed its eyes near a man. Whatever this boy is to that lion, it is no trick, and it is no sickness. I have seen the beast in every mood, and I have never seen this mood before."
The crowd heard him, and the murmur rose again, and people turned to look at the keeper, and some of them nodded, and some of them called out in agreement, and the sound of their voices filled the arena. Bram lowered his gold staff and pointed it toward the sand, toward the boy and the lion lying side by side, and his voice rose again, stronger than before.
"Do you hear your own keeper, my king?" Bram cried. "The man who feeds the beast tells you it has never done this! The gods have sent a sign, and the sign is plain for every eye to see! The lion remembers the boy! The beast knows him, and it will not harm him, and no man here may say otherwise!"
Corin, lying in the sand, heard the voices above him, and slowly, very slowly, he began to move. He lifted his head from the sand, and sand fell from his hair and from his cheek, and he looked at the great black head resting near his shoulder. The lion opened one glowing eye and looked back at him, and Corin saw no hunger in that eye, and no anger, and only a calm that he did not understand. His hand shook as he raised it, and he reached out, and he laid his palm gently upon the black fur of the lion's neck. The fur was coarse and warm beneath his fingers, and the great beast did not flinch, and it did not growl, and it only breathed, slow and deep, and its eye closed again, as if the touch of the small hand were a comfort to it.
A gasp went through the crowd, louder than any before, and then a cheer rose, ragged at first and then stronger, as people leaped to their feet and clapped and shouted. Tam jumped up and down on his bench, and he laughed, and he cried out Corin's name, and the people around him took up the cry, and soon the whole arena was calling the boy's name, and the sound of it rolled around the stone walls. Corin sat up in the sand, slowly, keeping one hand on the lion's neck, and he looked up at the platform, and he looked at the king, and he looked at the priest, and he did not know what would happen next, but he knew that he was still alive, and that the lion had chosen to lie beside him, and that the whole world had seen it.
King Aldous rose at last from his throne. He stood tall in his purple robes, and his gold crown caught the sun, and he raised one hand, and the crowd fell silent, waiting. His face was still pale, and his jaw was set, and his eyes were fixed upon the boy in the sand. He looked at Corin, and he looked at the lion, and he looked at Bram, and then he spoke, and his voice was low and hard, but it did not shake.
"Enough," the king said. "The beast lies down, and the priest calls it a sign, and the crowd calls the boy's name. So be it. The boy will stand before me, and he will answer my questions, and the truth will be found here, in the open, before all these people. Guards, bring the boy to the foot of the platform. And let no man touch the lion."
The guards moved forward slowly, their spears lowered, their eyes fixed upon the black lion, and they stopped a careful distance from the beast. Corin rose to his feet, his legs shaking beneath him, his rough tunic stained with sand, and he looked once more at the lion lying in the sand. The lion raised its head and watched him, and its tail moved once, slowly, upon the sand, and then it lowered its head again and closed its eyes. Corin turned toward the platform, and he walked across the sand on unsteady legs, toward the king who waited above him, and the whole arena watched him go, and no one spoke, and the silence was deeper than any silence that had come before.
Corin walked across the sand on unsteady legs, and the guards walked on either side of him, and their spears stayed lowered, and their eyes stayed fixed upon the black lion lying behind them. The sand was warm beneath his bare feet, and his rough tunic was stained with dust, and his hair was full of sand, and his hands shook at his sides. He had never stood so close to the king before. He had seen King Aldous only from far away, a bright figure in purple upon a high platform, and now the king stood above him, close enough for Corin to see the lines on his face and the cold light in his eyes. Corin stopped at the foot of the platform, and he looked up, and he waited, and the whole arena waited with him, and the silence pressed down upon the sand like a great weight.
King Aldous looked down at the boy, and for a long moment he said nothing. He studied Corin's face, and he studied the thin arms and the small hands, and he studied the rough tunic of a goatherd's son, and he tried to see in that small boy the thief that Osric had described to him. He could not see it. He saw only a child of nine years, dusty and frightened, standing alone before a king, and the sight troubled him more than he wanted it to. But a king could not show doubt before a crowd, and so Aldous kept his face hard, and he spoke, and his voice carried clearly across the silent arena.
"Boy," the king said, "tell me your name."
"Corin, my king," Corin answered, and his voice was small but steady, and it carried in the silence, and the people in the nearest rows leaned forward to hear him.
"Corin," the king repeated, and he looked at the boy's forearm, at the long stitched scar that ran along the skin, pale against the brown of the boy's arm. "Show me your arm."
Corin raised his arm, and he held it out, and the scar lay plain for all to see, a long pale line, stitched in his mother's neat stitches, running from his wrist toward his elbow. The crowd murmured at the sight of it, and Bram leaned forward upon his gold staff, and Osric's eyes narrowed, and King Aldous stared at the scar as if it were a riddle he could not solve.
"How did you get that scar, boy?" the king asked. "Tell me truly, before all these people. How did a goatherd's son come to bear a mark like that upon his arm?"
Corin swallowed, and he looked at the scar, and he looked at the black lion lying in the sand behind him, and he looked back up at the king, and he began to speak. His voice was quiet at first, but it grew stronger as he went on, because the story was true, and he had carried it in his heart for two years, and now at last someone was asking him to tell it.
"Two years ago, my king," Corin said, "I was herding my father's goats in the hills, in the high valley where the grass grows thick in summer. I heard a crying, a small thin crying, coming from the bushes near the stream. I followed the sound, and I found a black lion cub caught in a hunter's snare. The rope was tight around its leg, and it had pulled until its leg was raw, and it cried when it saw me, and it showed me its small teeth, but it was too weak to bite. I was afraid, my king. I will not lie about that. I was afraid, because even a cub has claws, and I was only seven years old. But the cub was hurt, and it was alone, and I could not leave it there to die."
The crowd listened, and the murmur died away, and even the guards stood still, and the only sound in the arena was the boy's voice and the slow breathing of the black lion in the sand. Corin went on, and his words came more easily now, as if the telling of it had loosened something in his chest.
"I cut the rope with my knife," Corin said. "It took a long time, because the rope was thick, and the cub thrashed and cried, and I had to hold it still with one hand while I cut with the other. When the rope gave way, the cub pulled free all at once, and its claw caught my arm as it leaped away, and it tore a long cut from my wrist toward my elbow. It bled a great deal, my king. I pressed my hand against it, and I walked home, and my mother stitched it with her needle and thread, and she bound it with clean cloth, and the cut healed, and the scar stayed. That is how I got the scar, my king. I have carried it for two years."
King Aldous listened, and his face did not change, but his hands, which had been clenched upon the arms of his chair, slowly loosened. He looked at the scar, and he looked at the black lion, and he looked at the boy, and he asked another question, and his voice was a little softer than before, though still hard.
"And the cub?" the king asked. "What became of the cub you freed?"
"I do not know, my king," Corin answered. "It ran into the bushes, and I never saw it again. I looked for it in the hills for many days, and I called out for it, but it never came. My mother told me that wild things do not come back to thank a boy, and that I should forget it. But I did not forget it. I remembered its black fur, and its eyes, and the way it cried in the snare. I have remembered it for two years."
Osric stirred beside the king, and his face was pale, but his voice was smooth when he spoke, and he leaned forward, and he pointed one long finger at the boy. "My king," Osric said, "the boy tells a pretty tale, and a child can invent a pretty tale as easily as he can steal a cup. A scar from a claw could come from any beast in the hills. A dog could have done it. A wild cat could have done it. The boy saw a great black lion lie down beside him, and now he claims he knew it as a cub. It is a lie told to save his life, and nothing more."
Bram turned upon Osric, and the old priest's eyes flashed, and his gold staff struck the stone of the platform with a sharp crack. "Hold your tongue, counselor," Bram said, and his voice was like thunder in the silence. "You call the boy a liar, but the lion has already answered you. Did the beast lie down beside a dog? Did it lick the scar of a wild cat? It licked this boy's arm, and it lay down beside him, and all these people saw it with their own eyes. The gods do not lie through a beast, Osric, and no smooth words of yours will make them do so."
The crowd murmured in agreement, and some of the people called out, and some of them rose to their feet, and the sound of their voices rolled around the arena. King Aldous raised his hand, and the crowd fell silent again, and he looked at Osric, and his eyes were cold, and he spoke to the counselor in a voice that made Osric's face grow paler still.
"The priest speaks true," the king said. "The lion answered, and I saw it, and all these people saw it. But a king must hear all the truth, not only the truth that pleases him. So I will ask the boy one more question, and then I will decide what is to be done."
King Aldous turned back to Corin, and he leaned forward upon his throne, and his eyes were fixed upon the boy's face, and his voice was low and careful. "Boy," he said, "you were accused of stealing my gold cup from my hall. Did you steal it? Did your hands ever touch my gold cup? Tell me truly, for your life may rest upon your answer."
Corin did not look away. He stood straight in the sand, and he looked up at the king, and he answered clearly, so that every person in the arena could hear him. "No, my king," Corin said. "I never stole your gold cup. I never touched it. I had never been inside your hall before this morning. I was with my father's goats in the hills on the day the cup went missing, and my friend Tam was with me, and my mother saw us leave at dawn and saw us return at dusk. I am a goatherd's son, my king, and I have nothing to steal with and nowhere to hide what I stole. I did not take your cup."
From the crowd, Tam's voice rose, high and eager, and the boy called out, "It is true, my king! I was with Corin in the hills that day! We were together from dawn until dusk, and he never left my side!"
The guards near the crowd turned and looked at Tam, and the people around him murmured, and King Aldous heard the boy's words, and his brow furrowed, and he sat back upon his throne, and he was silent for a long time. He looked at Corin, and he looked at Osric, and he looked at the black lion lying in the sand, and he thought of the gold cup that had vanished from his hall, and he thought of the boy who had freed a cub in the hills, and he thought of the priest who called it a sign from the gods, and the thoughts warred in his mind. At last he spoke, and his voice was hard, but there was a new note in it, a note of doubt that had not been there before.
"Steward," the king called, and the steward of the king's hall stepped forward from the platform, bowing low. "Go to the hall at once, and search the rooms of every man who had access to my cup, and leave no chest unopened and no corner unchecked. Bring me the truth of this theft, whatever it may be, and bring it to me here, before this crowd. And let the boy stand where he is, and let the lion lie where it lies, and let no man harm either of them until I have heard what you find."
The steward bowed again, and he turned, and he hurried away from the platform, his robes swishing, and the crowd watched him go, and the murmur rose again, and the people whispered to each other, and the whole arena waited. King Aldous sat back upon his throne, and he looked down at Corin standing in the sand, and he looked at the black lion lying behind the boy, its great head resting upon its paws, its glowing eyes half closed in the sun, and the king said nothing more. Corin stood in the sand with the dust upon his tunic and the scar upon his arm, and he waited, and the lion breathed slow and deep behind him, and the sun shone down upon the arena, and the silence held, and no one in all that crowd knew what the steward would find.
The king did not speak at once after the boy had finished telling his tale. King Aldous sat in his high seat with his purple robe bright in the sun and his gold crown heavy on his brow, and he looked down at the sand where Corin stood small and straight, and at the black lion lying at the boy's feet with its great head resting on its paws, and at the crowd that filled the stone seats in silence, and at Osric in his brown robes, whose face had gone pale. The king's hands gripped the arms of his seat. He had come to the arena that morning expecting to watch a thief die, and now the thief stood alive, and the lion would not kill him, and the whole arena had heard the boy speak of a cub in the hills two years ago. The king was proud, and he was quick to anger, and he was afraid of looking weak before a crowd, and for a long moment he did not know what to do. Then he lifted his voice so that all could hear it.
"Send for Gareth," the king said. "Bring me the keeper of the beasts, and let him speak before this crowd."
Two guards went at once toward the low gate that led to the pens behind the arena, and the crowd murmured while they waited, and Corin stood still in the sand with the lion beside him, and Bram leaned on his gold staff and watched the gate. The sun stood high and the sand shone white, and the air smelled of dust and sweat and the faint iron smell of the pens. After a short while the guards returned, and with them came Gareth, a broad man of forty five years, with dust on his boots and a worn leather apron over his tunic and old scars on his hands from years of feeding wild things. His hair was gray at the sides and his face was weathered by sun and wind, and he walked with the slow steady tread of a man who spent his days among beasts and had learned not to hurry. He came to the edge of the sand and bowed his head to the king, and waited.
Every man in the crowd knew Gareth by sight, for he was the one who fed the beasts and cleaned the pens and walked among creatures that other men feared, and his name was known in the market and in the taverns, though he seldom spoke there. The crowd leaned forward as he stood before the king, for his word would carry weight, and even Osric watched him with narrowed eyes, as if he feared what the keeper might say.
"Gareth," the king said, "you keep the beasts of this arena, and you know this black lion better than any man alive. Tell this crowd how it came to us, and tell it plainly, and leave nothing out."
Gareth drew a slow breath and looked at the lion lying in the sand, and the lion lifted its head and looked back at him with its glowing eyes, and Gareth nodded to it the way a man nods to an old companion. Then he turned to the king and spoke in a deep steady voice that carried well across the arena.
"Two years ago, at the end of summer," Gareth said, "the king's hunters came down from the hills with a wooden cage on a cart, and inside the cage there was a black cub, small and thin, with fur black as night and eyes that glowed even in daylight. It was no bigger than a large dog, and it was hungry, and it was afraid, and it spat and snarled at every hand that came near it. Around one foreleg there was a raw red mark where a rope had cut the skin, and the mark was fresh, no more than a day or two old."
The cub had come down the long road in that cage, and the cart had jolted over stones, and the cub had cried out in the night, and the hunters had covered the cage with a cloth to quiet it. When Gareth lifted the cloth and looked in, the cub shrank back into the far corner, and its eyes glowed in the dark of the cage, and its small paws pressed the straw, and it would not eat the meat he offered, not on that first day, nor on the second.
The crowd listened in silence, and Corin listened too, and his eyes widened, for he had not known what had become of the cub after he freed it, and now he was hearing its tale for the first time.
"The hunters told me how they found it," Gareth went on. "They had tracked it for three days through the high hills, and they found a snare rope cut clean through, lying in the grass where a hunter had set it, and they found the cub nearby, with the rope mark fresh on its leg. The snare had been cut by a knife, my lord, and not by teeth, for the cut was clean and straight. Some hand had freed that cub before the hunters came upon it."
Gareth paused and looked at Corin, and at the long stitched scar that ran along the boy's forearm, and then he looked back at the king.