"I took the cub to the pens," Gareth said, "and I fed it, and I watched it grow. It grew fast, my lord. In two years it grew taller than any lion I have ever kept, and stronger, and its coat grew blacker with each passing season, until it was black as the night sky, and its eyes glowed like coals in the dark. I fed it meat every day, and I cleaned its pen, and I spoke to it as I worked, and it learned my smell and my step, and it suffered me to come near it, though it never once let me touch it."
A murmur ran through the crowd at that, for every man in the arena knew that Gareth could lay a hand on any beast in the pens, and to hear that the black lion had never suffered his touch was a strange thing.
"It was never tamed," Gareth said, and his voice was firm. "I will say it plainly before this crowd. In two years it never took meat from a hand. It never came when called. It never slept except facing the gate that leads toward the hills, as if it were waiting for the road home. I left its meat at a distance and stepped back, and it ate only when it was alone. It was wild on the day it came, and it is wild today, and no man in this arena has ever made it otherwise."
King Aldous leaned forward in his seat, and his eyes narrowed. "And yet today," the king said, "it lies down beside a boy, and it licks his arm, and it will not harm him. How do you answer that, keeper?"
Gareth looked down at the lion again, and the lion looked up at him, and then it lowered its head and rested it once more on its paws beside Corin's feet. "I answer it this way, my lord," Gareth said. "That cub came to us with a rope mark on its leg, and this boy carries a scar on his arm, and the boy says the scar was made by the cub's claw on the day he cut it free. The two wounds were made on the same day, in the same hills, by the same snare. I cannot say how a beast remembers, but I can say what I saw with my own eyes. When the gate opened today, that lion ran at the boy as it has run at every man sent into this sand. And then it stopped. It turned from the boy's throat to the boy's arm, and it knew the smell of him, and it did what it has never done for any man in two years. A beast does not do that for a stranger, my lord. It does it for one it knows."
Osric rose from his seat then, his brown robes rustling, his face flushed, and his smooth voice rang out across the arena. "My lord, this is folly," Osric said. "Gareth is a low man who shovels dung in the pens, and his words are worth nothing. A beast knows nothing. It is a dumb creature, and it licked the boy's arm because the salt of his sweat pleased it, and nothing more. Shall the king of this land set aside law and justice for the fancy of a beast keeper?"
Gareth did not raise his voice, and he did not look at Osric. He kept his eyes on the king, and he spoke as steadily as before. "I have fed that lion for two years, my lord," Gareth said, "and in two years it never once showed softness to any man. It never lay down beside a man. It never licked a man's hand. It never spared anything it could kill. Today it did all of those things, before the eyes of this whole crowd. I have told you what I know, and I have told it truly, and I will say no more."
The crowd murmured at his words, and men in the high seats turned to one another and spoke in low voices, and some nodded, and some shook their heads, and all waited to see what the king would do. Osric opened his mouth to speak again, but the king raised one hand, and Osric fell silent, and the hush returned, deep and expectant, and all eyes turned to Bram, who had risen slowly from his seat with his gold staff in his hands.
Bram leaned forward on his gold staff, and his white beard stirred in the warm wind, and his old voice carried clearly through the hush. "Keeper," Bram said, "in all your years among the beasts, have you ever seen a lion spare a man it was sent to kill?"
"Never, holy father," Gareth said. "Not once."
"And have you ever seen a lion lie down beside a child and rest its head at his feet?" Bram asked.
"Never," Gareth said again. "Not in all my years."
Bram nodded slowly, and he looked at the king, and then at the crowd, and his face was grave. "Then what we have seen today is a sign," Bram said, "and a sign is not to be cast aside lightly."
King Aldous sat back in his seat, and his face was dark with thought, and the crowd held its breath. The king looked at Corin, small and barefoot in the sand, and at the lion lying beside him, and at Gareth standing dusty and plain before the platform, and at Osric, whose hands were clenched tight in his robes. Then the king turned to the steward who stood at his right hand, a tall quiet man who kept the keys of the king's hall, and the king spoke in a voice that every ear in the arena could hear.
"Go to the king's hall," King Aldous said, "and go to the rooms of Osric, my counselor, and search every chest and every cupboard there. Look for the gold cup that was taken from my table. Look well, and bring me what you find, and do not return with empty hands and empty words."
Osric cried out that it was an insult, and that no man had ever searched the rooms of a counselor of the king, and that his honor would not bear it. The king did not answer him. He raised one hand, and the steward bowed his head and went at once through the gate toward the king's hall, with two guards walking behind him, and the arena fell silent once more, and every eye in the crowd watched the gate through which the steward had gone, and waited to see what he would bring back.
The steward went swiftly along the long road from the arena to the king's hall, with two guards walking behind him, and the dust rose from the road under their feet, and the sun beat down on the white walls of the hall. The steward was a tall quiet man, gray haired, who had kept the keys of the king's hall for twenty years, and he had searched many rooms in his life, but he had never searched the rooms of a counselor of the king, and his face was set and grave as he walked. The guards said nothing, and the steward said nothing, and the three men went through the great door of the hall and up the stone stair to the upper floor where the counselors kept their rooms.
The hall stood white in the sun, with tall columns at its door and banners of purple hanging from its high windows, and inside the air was cool and still after the heat of the road. The steward had walked these passages for twenty years, and he knew every door and every stair, and he knew that the rooms of a counselor were not to be entered lightly, and yet the king had spoken, and the king's word was law, and the steward would do as he was told, though his hands were cold as he turned the key in the first lock.
Osric's rooms lay at the end of the passage, three rooms in a row, with heavy wooden doors and iron locks, and the steward took the great ring of keys from his belt and found the key that opened them. The first room was a sitting room, with a long table and high backed chairs and shelves of scrolls, and the steward looked behind every shelf and under every cushion, and found nothing but dust.
He ran his hand along the shelves and felt for any hollow place in the wood, and he lifted the scrolls one by one, and he looked under the table, and he found nothing, and the guards watched him work, and the room grew quiet again as he moved on to the next door. The second room was a bedchamber, with a wide bed and a washstand and a wardrobe of dark wood, and the steward opened the wardrobe and looked through the folded robes, and found nothing but cloth and a pair of fine boots.
He opened the washstand and looked inside, and he lifted the mattress at one corner, and he looked behind the bed, and he found nothing but dust and a single lost button, and he straightened and wiped his hands on his tunic, and went on to the last room at the end of the passage, where the great chest stood. Then he came to the third room, a small store room at the very end of the passage, and there, at the foot of the wall, stood a great chest of dark oak, bound with iron bands, and locked with a heavy iron lock.
The steward tried the keys on his ring, one after another, and none of them would turn the lock. He looked at the chest for a long moment, and then he turned to the guards, and one of them took a short iron bar from his belt and set it under the lid, and leaned on it with all his weight, and the wood groaned, and the lock held. He leaned again, harder, and there was a sharp crack, and the iron lock broke away from the wood, and the lid of the chest rose on its hinges.
The steward stood over the open chest and did not reach in at once, for his heart was beating hard, and he knew that whatever lay inside would change the day, and perhaps change the king's hall itself. The guards watched him in silence, and the small room was still, and the dust moved in the light from the high window, and at last the steward drew a slow breath and reached in with both hands.
Inside the chest there were folded robes of fine cloth, and a small coffer of polished wood, and a bundle of soft linen, and beneath the linen, wrapped in a cloth of dark blue, there was a shape that caught the light. The steward reached in with both hands and lifted it out, and unwrapped the cloth, and there in his hands lay the gold cup of the king. It was heavy and bright, and its bowl was deep and round, and around its rim ran the mark of the king, a small crown cut into the gold, and the stem was worked with fine lines, and the foot was broad and steady. There could be no mistake. Every man in the king's hall knew that cup, for it had stood on the king's table at every feast for as long as any man could remember, and no other cup in the land was its like.
The steward turned it slowly in his hands, and the gold caught the light from the high window, and the small crown cut into the rim shone clear, and the steward knew that no smith in the village could have made such a cup, and that only the king's own goldsmith had the skill for it, and his hands trembled as he held it, for he knew the weight of what he carried.
The steward stood still for a moment with the cup in his hands, and his face went pale, for he knew what it meant. The cup had not been taken by a goatherd's boy from the village. It had been hidden here, in the rooms of Osric, locked away in a chest at the end of the passage, wrapped in cloth and buried under linen. The steward wrapped the cup again in its cloth, and held it close against his chest, and nodded to the guards, and the three men went back down the stone stair and out through the great door of the hall, and along the long road toward the arena, and the sun was still high, and the dust rose under their feet as before.
The guards walked close behind him, and their hands rested on the hilts of their swords, and none of the three men spoke, for each knew that the cup in the steward's hands would change the day, and the road seemed longer on the way back than it had seemed on the way there, and the arena rose before them, white and vast in the sun, and the sound of the waiting crowd reached them before they reached the gate.
In the arena, the crowd waited, and the waiting was long. Corin stood in the sand with the black lion lying beside him, and the lion's eyes were half closed now, and its great sides rose and fell with slow breaths, and Corin kept one small hand resting lightly on the lion's mane, for it calmed him to feel its warmth. Tam sat in the crowd with his friends, and he could not sit still, and he kept rising to his feet to look toward the gate, and his friends pulled him down again, and he whispered to them that the steward would come back soon. Bram stood on the platform with his gold staff in both hands, and his white beard stirred in the wind, and his old eyes watched the gate without blinking. King Aldous sat in his high seat, and his face was hard, and he said nothing at all. Osric stood in his place in his brown robes, and his hands were clenched tight, and sweat stood on his brow, though the day was not so hot, and he kept looking toward the gate and then looking away, as if he feared what would come through it.
After a while Corin sat down slowly in the sand beside the lion, for his legs were tired from standing so long, and he leaned his back against the lion's warm side, and the lion did not stir, and the crowd gasped again to see it, and mothers in the high seats covered their mouths with their hands, and old men shook their heads in wonder.
At last the gate opened, and the steward came through it, with the two guards behind him, and in his hands, wrapped in dark blue cloth, he carried something heavy. The crowd rose to its feet as one man, and a great murmur ran through the stone seats, and every eye followed the steward as he crossed the sand to the platform.
Men in the high seats stood to see better, and boys climbed onto the stone benches, and the guards at the gates turned to watch, and the whole arena seemed to lean toward the platform, and the only sound was the steward's boots on the stone steps, and the soft breath of the crowd. He climbed the steps, and he came before the king, and he bowed his head, and he unwrapped the cloth, and he held out the gold cup in both hands, and the sun struck the gold and it blazed so bright that men in the crowd shielded their eyes.
A great roar went up from the crowd then, a roar of voices that rolled around the arena like thunder, for every man there knew the cup, and every man there knew where it had been found. King Aldous rose from his seat, and he took the cup in his own hands, and he turned it slowly, and he saw the small crown cut into the gold around the rim, and his face went dark with anger. He looked at the cup, and he looked at Osric, and he said nothing for a long moment, and the roar of the crowd died away, and the arena fell silent once more, and every eye in the place watched the king, and waited to hear what he would say.
Osric tried to speak, and his voice came out thin and shaking. "My lord," he said, "that cup is not mine. I know nothing of it. Some enemy has set it in my rooms to ruin me. I have served you faithfully for many years, and you know my loyalty. Do not let the word of a beast keeper and a goatherd's boy weigh more than the word of your own counselor."
Osric's voice shook as he spoke, and his smooth words came out in a rush, and his hands moved as if he would catch the king's sleeve, and the guards at the platform watched him, and the crowd listened, and some men in the high seats shook their heads, for they had seen Osric's face when the steward came through the gate, and they had seen the color leave it.
The king did not answer him. He held the cup high so that all could see it, and he looked out over the crowd, and then he looked down at Corin standing small in the sand, and at the black lion lying at the boy's feet, and at Gareth standing dusty and plain at the edge of the sand, and at Bram leaning on his gold staff, and his face was like stone. The gold cup gleamed in his hands, and the silence in the arena was so deep that men could hear the wind moving through the high arches, and the soft breath of the lion in the sand, and the beating of their own hearts, and all waited for the king to speak.
Corin looked up at the platform, and his heart beat fast, and he did not know what the king would do, but he knew that the cup had been found, and that the truth was now in the king's hands, and the lion beside him lifted its great head and looked toward the platform too, as if it also waited for the king's word.
The steward came back into the arena through the low door under the platform, and the whole crowd turned to look at him, because he carried something wrapped in dark cloth, and he carried it with both hands, the way a man carries a thing that matters more than his own life. He walked across the sand with slow careful steps, and the sand was still warm from the sun, and the black lion lay beside Corin in the middle of the arena, its great head resting on its paws, its eyes half closed, and the boy sat beside it with one hand resting lightly on its dark fur, and neither of them moved as the steward came near. King Aldous rose from his seat on the platform, and his purple robe fell in heavy folds around him, and the gold crown caught the light, and he leaned forward with both hands gripping the stone edge of the platform, and his voice came out loud and hard, so that every person in the arena heard it.
"Show me what you found," the king said, and the steward unwrapped the cloth, and the gold cup shone in the sunlight, bright and clean, with the king's own mark worked into the gold around the rim, a mark that every person in the hall knew by sight.
"There it is," Tam cried. "The cup was never stolen by Corin. There it is, in the steward's hands."
Osric stood beside the platform in his brown robes, and his face went pale, and then it went grey, and his hands, which had been folded neatly before him, began to shake, and he pressed them together hard to hide the shaking, and his mouth opened and closed, and no sound came out at first, and when his voice came it was thin and high, nothing like the smooth voice he had used that morning when he accused the boy.
"My lord," Osric said, and he took a step toward the platform, and his brown robes swirled around his ankles, and he raised one hand as if to reach for the cup, "that cup proves nothing. A thief could have hidden it anywhere. A boy could have hidden it in my rooms to blame me. The boy has friends in the village. Any one of them could have carried it into my house in the night."
King Aldous looked down at him, and the king's face was dark, and his eyes were narrow, and his jaw was set hard, and the silence that fell over the arena was deeper than any silence that had come before it, because every person there knew that the king was weighing what he had heard, and every person there knew that a king's anger, once turned, does not turn back.
"You told me the boy stole my cup," the king said, and his voice was low now, and the low voice was worse than the loud one, because it held no shouting in it, only a cold and steady weight. "You told me he took it from my hall in the night. You told me he sold it to a trader on the long road. You told me the lion would judge him, and you stood here and watched him walk into the sand alone. And now my steward finds my cup hidden in a chest in your own rooms, wrapped in cloth, buried under your winter cloaks. Tell me, Osric, how did my cup come to be in your chest?"
Osric opened his mouth, and closed it, and opened it again, and his eyes moved from the king to the cup to the crowd and back to the king, and sweat stood out on his forehead, and his hands twisted together in front of him, and he tried to find words, and the words would not come in the order he wanted them to come.
"My lord, I can explain," he said at last, and his voice shook, and he swallowed hard, and he tried to smooth his robes with shaking hands, as if neatness could save him. "The cup was brought to me. A man brought it to me in the night and asked me to keep it safe. I did not know whose it was. I meant to tell you. I meant to bring it to you this very morning, but the trial came first, and there was no time."
Bram rose slowly from his seat on the platform, and the old priest leaned on his gold staff, and his white beard moved in the warm wind, and his voice, when he spoke, was deep and slow, and it carried across the sand to the farthest seats, and every person in the arena stopped speaking to listen.
"A man brought it to you in the night," Bram said, "and you did not know whose it was, though the king's own mark is worked into the gold around the rim, a mark you have seen a hundred times in the king's hall. You kept it hidden under your winter cloaks. You said nothing. And this morning you accused a boy of nine years of stealing it, and you sent him to the lion. Tell us, Osric, who was this man who came in the night? Give us his name, and where he lives, and we will send for him."
Osric stared at the priest, and his mouth worked, and no name came, because there was no man, and every person in the arena could see that there was no man.
"Guards," the king said, and two guards stepped forward from the platform, tall men in leather and iron, with spears in their hands, and they moved to stand on either side of Osric, and their faces were hard and still, and they waited for the king's word. "Take him. Take him from my sight, and hold him in the cells under the hall until I have heard the whole truth from his own lips. He accused an innocent boy. He hid my cup in his own chest. He sent a child to die in the sand to cover his own theft. Take him."
The guards took Osric by the arms, and he twisted in their grip, and his brown robes tore at the shoulder as he pulled against them.
"My lord, I beg you," Osric cried, and his face was wet with tears, and his fine smooth voice was gone, and only fear was left in it. "I did not mean for the boy to die. I only wanted the cup. I only wanted the gold. I never thought the lion would spare him. Please, my lord, I have served you for twenty years. I have sat at your table. I have ridden beside you on the long road. Do not cast me aside for one mistake."
"You served yourself," King Aldous said, and his voice was cold, and he did not look away from Osric. "For twenty years you ate at my table and drank from my cup, and all that time you were the thief you named the boy to be. Take him away. I will hear no more from him today."
The guards led Osric away across the sand, and his feet dragged, and his robes trailed in the dust, and then the low door under the platform swallowed him, and he was gone.
King Aldous stood for a long moment looking at the low door where Osric had vanished, and then he turned, and he looked down at Corin, and his face changed, and he came down the stone steps from the platform, one step at a time, his purple robe brushing the steps, and he crossed the sand to where the boy sat, and he stopped a few paces from the lion, and the lion raised its great head and looked at him with its glowing eyes, and the beast only watched him, calm and still, its head resting near the boy's knee.
"Corin," the king said, and his voice was gentler now, and he spoke the boy's name as if it were a thing he had only just learned to say. "Stand up, boy. Stand up and look at me. You are free. Do you hear me? You are free. The cup was never stolen by you. The thief was in my own hall, eating at my own table, and I did not see it, and you have paid for my blindness with your fear. Stand up."
Corin stood up slowly, and his legs shook, and the sand fell from his rough tunic, and his small hands were dirty, and the long stitched scar on his forearm showed pale against his sun browned skin, and he looked up at the king, and his eyes were clear, and he did not look away, and the black lion stayed lying in the sand beside him, its great head low, its eyes half closed, as if it had finished its work and was content to rest.
"Thank you, my lord," Corin said, and his voice was small after the shouting and the crying, but it was steady, and it carried in the quiet of the arena, and the crowd heard it, and a murmur of approval ran through the seats, and men nodded, and women wiped their eyes, and Tam cheered from his seat, and his cheer was taken up by the boys around him, and the sound grew until the whole arena rang with it.
Isolde pushed her way through the crowd at the edge of the sand, and her plain dress was dusty from the road, and her hair had come loose from its braid, and her face was wet with tears, and she ran across the sand to her son, and she took him in her arms, and she held him tight, and she pressed her face to his hair, and she wept, and Corin held her back, and his small arms went around her neck, and he buried his face against her shoulder, and the black lion watched them, and its great tail moved once slowly across the sand, and then it lay still again, and the king watched the mother and the boy, and his face was quiet, and he turned to Bram, and the old priest leaned on his gold staff, and nodded slowly, as if to say that this was right, and that the day had ended as it should.
"You may take your son home," King Aldous said to Isolde, and his voice was low, and he spoke to her with a respect he had never shown her before, because she was only a weaver from the village, and now she stood before him as the mother of the boy the lion would not kill. "Take him home, and feed him, and let him rest. No man in my kingdom will call him a thief again. I give you my word on it, before this whole crowd, and before the gods."
Isolde looked up at the king through her tears, and she nodded, and she could not speak at first, and then she found her voice, and it was steady and plain, as it had always been.
"Thank you, my lord," she said. "Thank you for freeing him. Thank you for seeing the truth at last."
The king nodded, and he turned back toward the platform, and the crowd began to rise from their seats, and the arena filled with voices, and the day that had begun with a boy walking alone into the sand was ending with that same boy walking out of it in his mother's arms, alive and free, and the black lion lay in the sand behind them, watching them go, its glowing eyes following the boy until he reached the low door, and then it lowered its great head to its paws, and it waited, as if it knew that its own fate was still to be decided, and as if it trusted the boy who had once freed it from a snare in the hills to speak for it now.
The arena was quiet after Osric was gone, and the crowd sat in their stone seats and waited, because no one knew what would happen next, and every eye was on the black lion lying in the sand beside the boy. The lion had not moved since the guards led Osric away. Its great head rested on its paws, and its eyes were half closed, and its dark fur rose and fell with its slow breathing, and the afternoon sun lay warm across its back, and the sand around it was marked with the prints of its great paws. Corin stood beside his mother at the edge of the sand, and Isolde kept one arm around his shoulders, and she did not let go of him, and the boy looked back at the lion, and he did not speak, because he did not know what words would fit the moment, and because he was afraid that if he spoke the moment would break.
King Aldous stood on the stone steps of the platform, and he looked down at the lion for a long time, and his purple robe hung still around him, and the gold crown sat heavy on his head, and his face was quiet and thoughtful, and the anger that had filled it when he spoke to Osric was gone now, and what was left was the look of a man who had seen something he did not understand and was trying to understand it before he spoke. Bram stood beside him, leaning on his gold staff, and the old priest's white beard moved in the warm wind, and his eyes were fixed on the lion, and he said nothing, because he knew that this was the king's choice to make, and that no priest should make it for him.
At last the king spoke, and his voice was clear and steady, and it carried to every seat in the arena, and every person there heard it, and remembered it.
"The lion stays in my arena no longer," King Aldous said. "It came here as a cub, taken from the hills by my hunters, and it has lived behind iron bars for two years, and it has never been tamed, and it has never belonged to me. Today it showed me that it remembers kindness, and that it knows a friend from a foe better than some men who eat at my table. A beast that remembers is not a beast to be kept in a cage. I free it. Let the great gate be opened, and let it go back to the hills where it was born."