Page 165 of Given to the Black King

Good. Let the correct story travel.

We plant the saplings ourselves.

Tam arrives from the kitchens with hot cider, a basket of bread, and the opening verse of the goat-and-tax-collector song before Orrick sends him back for cups. He has become a household fixture.

At least, I plant the saplings. Torgan follows me from hole to hole and corrects the soldiers’ depth measurements.

“They grew in southern soil,” I tell him. “They know how to be trees.”

“They do not know frost.”

“They will learn.”

“The third one leans.”

“The third one is alive. Living things lean.”

He adjusts the stake anyway.

Maren kneels at the last hole beside me, blue coat folded back from the mud.

“The eastern courts are asking about the bite,” she says quietly.

“They should ask him.”

“They are afraid to.”

“Sensible.”

“They want to know whether the stories are true. That he waited while it hurt.”

I press soil around the roots.

Across the court, Torgan turns his head.

He hears us. Of course he does.

“Yes,” I say. “He waited.”

Maren glances toward him.

“For how long?”

“Long enough.”

“And he truly could not take it?”

“He could have taken a bite. It would have destroyed what the bite was meant to make.” I wipe soil from my hands. “So he did not.”

Maren is quiet.

“The coast used to say the danger was that he took whatever he wanted.”

“They misunderstood him.”

“What should I tell the council?”

I look at my husband.