A HENRY STORY 2: Trials Of The Fallen Prince

VII. Beliefs

Hamnet gathered them together in the middle of the field and conducted a quick medical checkup. He bandaged every cut and bruise and made sure no one was seriously injured, then he told them to eat the starshade, to vaccinate against the plague.

"Why do we need it?" asked Gregor. "None of us has the plague."

"But we are all no doubt being exposed to it. In the cradle lies the cure," quoted Hamnet.

"In the . . . what now?"

Hamnet turned to Henry. "The Prophecy of Blood," he said. "You are not familiar with it?"

Henry shook his head.

"It says that in the cradle lies the cure, which is why they came here." In brief words, he explained what Gregor had told him about the Regalians' conclusions that the plague came from here. "That means the plague breeds here in the Vineyard," said Hamnet. "I do not know exactly where or how. But all of us have scrapes and wounds. Your feet, Gregor. These cuts from the vines." Hamnet turned Henry's arm around and revealed the cut where the vines had jabbed him. "If the plague germ floats in the air, grows on the plants, or sleeps dormant in this earth where we stand, be sure it will make its way into your blood as well."

At that point, nobody felt the need to argue.

It seemed as though he wouldn't need a vaccine from Regalia anymore, thought Henry as he stuffed a handful of starshade into his mouth.

After they had all eaten a fair amount, Hamnet instructed the group to start plucking. Gregor pulled a roll of something Henry didn't recognize out of his bag, but then he showed them that you could bundle the plants together with it. And so Henry pulled out Mys, and Gregor handed him the roll of what was apparently called "duct tape" to cut into usable stripes.

Initially, everyone except for Henry gathered the starshade from the field, but it soon became apparent that the humans would be most useful in taping bundles of leaves together. None of the other creatures had the hands to do it.

It didn't take long to realize that Boots and Hazard weren't much help with that, so they went back to picking plants. That was, Hazard did, while Boots sang some song relating to the alphabet, then chanted "Turn and turn and turn again" repeatedly while doing a spinning dance until she fell over with dizziness. Occasionally, she presented them with a few leaves, too. Aurora and Nike, who, with their injuries, were also fairly limited in what they could do, made sure she stayed safely in the field while Thanatos took to flying rounds over their heads to keep watch.

"It's a stanza from the prophecy," explained Gregor when Henry asked about Boots' rhyme. "Turn and turn and turn again / You see the what but not the when / Remedy and wrong entwine / And so they form a single vine."

"Charming," said Henry with a grin. He ended up sitting between Luxa and Gregor, handing them strips of tape, while they bundled the plants and gave them to Hamnet, who stacked them into a haystack of sorts.

When Hamnet was out of earshot, Gregor lowered the bundle of plants he had been holding. "So, that was some story Ripred told us about Hamnet."

"Yes, it explains a great deal about why he left," said Luxa, pensively twisting one flower between her fingers. "He was mad. But it does not explain why he did not come back to Regalia when his senses returned."

Everyone stilled when Hamnet approached to gather another load of bundles.

"Because they would have made him fight again, Luxa," said Gregor when he had moved away once more. "And he couldn't stand killing anymore."

Henry frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Hamnet told us that he wouldn't fight anymore," said Gregor. "At all. I don't think he even has a sword."