" Ah! Really?”
" Yes, father.”
" Do you think that would be right?”
" As you like.”
" Yes, of course, but what would you think if someone else was to take your place?”
" I would ask you not to do it.”
" Are you scared?”
" No " but his voice was weak and uncertain.
The king urged him: " Tell the truth.”
" Yes, father. I am very afraid of being alone in the tower especially at night.”
" And the lashes? Don't those scare you?”
" Even those, but I can deal with pain better. Loneliness in the dark makes me shudder.”
The king smiled sweetly.
" Do you sleep with your mother at night?”
" No, but Antonia is in the room next to mine and I know she will come right away if I call her.”
" Then no tower " the king decided "You will stay in your room; then I will instruct the teacher to whip you and the matter is closed.”
" Yes, father. But I would like to ask you a favor, if it's allowed, since I'm still indebted to you.”
" Let’s hear it.”
" Here it is: in the cypress grove in the morning the deer and the squirrels come, and I bring them food. If I can't get out anymore, how will they get by? Could you do it for me?”
" Do you think a king should do that? " asked his father, barely restraining himself from laughing.
" I don't know, now I am not sure of anything anymore. I'm sorry. But how will they get by?”
The little voice was very anxious, almost cracked by pain. Then the king decided to give in: " I will. But only if you come with me every morning and show me how it's done.”
"Father," cried the prince, almost weeping with joy.
" Do we agree?”
" Yes.”
" And I'll tell your teacher that he deserves me to punish him for all the nonsense he has been saying.”
" No, father. I want those lashes.”
" Do not insist again.”
" Only if you promise the ban is not abolished solely for me.”
" I promise, but get out of here quickly, before I get a chance to think it over and whip you myself.”
The prince quickly moved away and, shortly after, the king saw him scampering through the garden and playing with his hunting dogs, which he had freed and now jumped around him mad with joy, affected by his unbridled joy. They did somersaults and jumps and ran over the meadows and then, suddenly, they all ended headfirst in the tank of the sea nymphs.
The king laughed heartily, while his son and his favorite animals came dripping out and the prince, harshly rebuked by one of his advisers who happened to be passing by, replied with a burlesque grimace.
" Extraordinary " he thought " priceless, I've never seen anything like it in my whole life.”
But in the following days, even the teacher and the servants as well as the queen were amazed more than once and told themselves that they had never seen anything like it in their lives.
And it was not only about the food the king and his son brought together to the wild animals to amaze them; that was only the first of many novelties, one more unexpected than the other.
The king no longer claimed that the park and the garden be completely deserted when he went down in the morning. When he walked around with the prince at his side, radiant and talkative, who showed him his secrets and his discoveries, he often stopped to talk even with the gardener and the staff at work and they were astonished that he asked his son for his opinion and let him say whatever came to his mind.
Everyone in the castle loved that child and they were happy the king showed him so much affection and that, through him, he showed so much more humanity even towards others.
Sometimes the queen watched them from the window and had a mysterious smile that was full of meaning and, above all, of the hope that her son would one day be a good and just gentleman, as great as his father, although of a different kind of greatness. The prince knew by instinct when his mother was watching him. He would look up and when he caught her glancing, he secretly sent her an accomplice greeting.
One morning, when his father noticed him and asked him what he was doing, the child replied: “My mother was at the window and she smiled at me wondering if I was happy. I signaled her I was. “
“ How do you know what your mother meant?”
" Words are not needed for me to understand her. Is it not the same for you? " he then asked naively.
" Oh yes. Certainly.” The king cut him short; however he knew it was not true, that he couldn't be, because in reality he had never bothered to understand others even when they had tried to explain their feelings and their ideas to him; let alone if they did not speak!
On the other hand, there seemed to be no secret between his wife and his son and so he remained rather dumbfounded when he realized that not even the prince knew that the queen had a secret of her own, unknown to all.
When the king, who now took the prince with him everywhere, hunting and horseback riding, visiting the farms as in the council chamber when he gathered his collaborators (and often it happened that the child fell asleep in his place and he had to carry him in his room and never wanted others to do it for him), he decided to start arranging the library at the castle, as he had promised. The prince's tutor was taken by surprise. The king first made him understand that his son would then have free access to that room in the palace. The master didn't agree, but only his eyes of course betrayed his lack of consent: did the king pretend not to remember that he had given those orders himself years ago? He had obeyed then and would have done it now, but it did not seem natural and right that his lord put him in a difficult situation and belittled him in the eyes of his pupil.
" Life is not easy for a poor tutor " he sighed to himself, desolate, but determined to take back the reins of the situation as soon as the king returned to the city and everything reverted to its usual quiet.
The queen had asked the sovereign to be able to be with them when they reopened that room that had been closed for so long and he had naturally agreed, also because the prince had begun to hop around him all happy about that idea and would not leave him alone otherwise.
The key turned easily in the lock and anyone would have found that odd, but not the king, who never paid much attention to details.
But what appeared before his eyes where not details. The large windows were opened wide and the light of the late morning poured in, hot and overpowering to breathe life to that severe room.
There was no musty smell in there nor dust on the books or on the huge table almost totally covered with a large number of fascicles tied with blue and yellow bows, there were no cobwebs on the walls and on the oil lamps. Everything was in perfect order as if every day someone had taken care of cleaning and ventilating a room that, as far as he could remember, he hadn't attended for at least three or four years.
He looked questioningly at the teacher, but it was clear from his face that he knew nothing about it; and the little boy's face betrayed emotion and curiosity, nothing else. Moreover, it was unthinkable that a child could do this. How could this be explained?
He looked inquisitively at the queen who was beside him and she smiled at him with her usual somewhat cryptic expression.
"Was it you?" He asked her in a whisper, so she alone could hear him.
" Maybe " she nodded.
"So,