The King's Reward

Every day my kids ask me to tell them a scary story. I try to oblige. Sometimes they contribute a plot point, occasionally changing the whole direction of the tale.

Take, for example, the story of “The King’s Reward,” made up the other day while I was waiting with Jack for the school bus. It was whipped up to be a bloody tale of vengeance but with a six-year-old’s input, became something a little different.

Once upon a time there was a kingdom at war. It was a long and bloody fight and the king had sent many young men over to fight and die. The king’s birthday was coming, when he met personally with his subjects and received their gifts. One of the local men in the village had lost his only son in the war, and the king knew that the man hated him with all his heart, and would take any opportunity to kill him.

The day before his birthday, the man came before the king and said, “Your majesty, what can I give you for your birthday gift?”

The king knew that he was dealing with a man who was mad with grief. And he knew that whatever gift he asked for, the man would find a way to turn it into a weapon. After weighing the question carefully he finally thought of the most harmless thing imaginable.

“I would like a lamb.”

“I am sorry, your majesty,” the man replied. “I have no way of getting you a lamb on such short notice. But be sure that next year, on your birthday, I shall have one ready for you.”

That same night, the man stole into a nearby pasture and kidnapped a baby lamb. He took it down to the basement of his house and tied it up. He filed its teeth to points, and built its muscles until was impossibly strong. For an entire year, he fed it nothing bowls of his own blood, until it was snarling and hostile, so vicious that the man himself could only handle it with a stick and ropes.

Then, when a year was up, the man came back to the palace. He climbed the twelve flights of stairs to the throne room with a large box wrapped for the king. Though he had packed it in straw to muffle the noises, the snarling sounds coming from inside the box were indescribably horrible.

“Your majesty, I have brought your birthday gift,” the man said, and put the package down in front of the king’s throne.

As the king started to open the package --

At this point in the story, Jack interrupts: “Joe?” (Because he hasn’t called me Dad in years.)

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want the king to die.”

"What?"

"I want the king to live."

“Uh...Okay.”

--and as the king was still opening the package, he stopped and says to the man, “I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you. I know you hate me for your son’s death. I know you wish I was dead. I want you to know that I’m sorry. I lost my own son in the same war. Some part of you dies with him and never comes back. So even though I know I can never make it up to you, I wanted to let you know that I understand how it feels.”

Hearing this, the father had a change of heart. But it was too late. The king opened the package and the lamb jumped at his throat. It was only at the last second that the man managed to grab the lamb and pull it back. The lamb fell out through the open window, down twelve floors, and –

“Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want the lamb to die either.”

--and down through the air where it landed in the moat. As it tasted water for the first time in a year, the flavor of blood was washed from its tongue and it paddled back to shore, where the man was waiting for it, pick it up and carry it home.

“How’s that?”

Jack nods. “Good.”

And here comes the bus.