Eat the Poor

XXXI

We rode side-by-side, Philip's horse swishing tails with Brownie-Paulo, the wrath of the sun bearing down on us.

The grass grew tall and the hills grazed the sky, little round trees blotting the horizon like dashes of paint on a canvas. Along the path we passed a circle of barefoot boys. They tossed a crudely sewn ball between them, arms high in the air and laughing.

They were poor, dressed in rags, yet they cheered with every pass of the ball. Philip stopped to watch them, a curious light in his eyes, one hand loose on his horse's reins. One of the boys cried out as the ball rolled away. He chased after it, and suddenly he was standing before us, staring up in wonder.

Mud-stained trousers hung jagged at his mid-calves, strips of material dragging down to his ankles. His clothes looked too big for him, his father's perhaps, held up by a thick belt of rope.

"Horse!" he yelled, the ball suddenly forgotten, and ran to clutch a handful of Brownie-Paulo's mane.

Philip tensed as he approached. "Hello," he said awkwardly.

The lad seemed far more interested in Brownie-Paulo than either of us. He patted the horse's neck and gave a gasp of excitement as the stallion snorted at him. Slowly, the other boys emerged from the grass and gathered round, marveling at our horses.

"Have any of you shoes to wear?" Philip asked, staring at their dirty feet.

The first boy looked up, shook his head, and then some of the others followed suit, shaking theirs in solemn unison.

Philip looked about hopelessly for a moment, then reached down and slipped his foot from the stirrup to offer them his shoe.

One of the smallest boys took it, mouth agape as he ran his fingertip along the heel. An older boy snatched the shoe from him and laughed. "We can't wear these! How would we run?"

"What good's an old shoe anyhow?" another boy mused. "Can't eat it."

"They're encrusted with emeralds," Philip told them. His eyes lit up as if he were imparting vital knowledge. "Each button on my vest is pure gold."

The boy wrinkled his forehead and stared the King down. "I don't believe you," he said, while one of the younger boys ran and found a stick in the grass, and charged back hollering, "This is a robbery! Hand over the gold!"

And so Philip left his vest and both his shoes with the boys and we went on our way.

I told him stories of my childhood, mostly the scraps Westley and I had gotten into, and the girls Gale made a fool of himself chasing. Philip told me of his half-sisters, Anne and Iona and Isobel. Anne and Iona shared the striking flaxen locks of their mother, while Isobel was born with raven hair black as night.

His sisters, Philip told me, had never made good playmates, having been much older and more concerned with the prospect of courtships than playing outside. He spent most of his childhood in the company of adult courtiers, his nurse and governess, and of course, Beauregard.

Cold, stoic Beauregard, with no children of his own, whose idea of affection was a single pat on the shoulder.

Beauregard, who evidently could not understand a young boy's yearning for companionship, instead stressed an extensive education and hours of reading relieved by the occasional garden visit.

On Philip's rare days out of the castle, he accompanied his father on hunting trips. He never quite mastered the art of conversing, always saying too much or too little. As the years passed, his father grew feeble, preferring to stay home and indulge in copious feasts. And so the Prince was scarcely seen by the public, leading to whispers that he was a simpleton.