THE PRINCESS AND THE BEAR

I know you have seen the lions. Everywhere: by the doors, flanking the throne, roaring in
the pantry panels, spitting water under the eaves.
Have you ever wondered why the statue that crowns the city gates represents a bear?
Many years ago, in this very city, in the same palace of gray granite that stands behind the
crumbling walls of the king's garden, lived a princess. It happened so long ago that no one
remembers her name. She was just the princess. Today it is not in vogue to think that
princesses are beautiful, and to tell the truth they usually have the face of a horse and a
lanky physique. But in those days it was de rigueur for a princess to be captivating, at least
when she wore the most expensive clothes.
This princess, however, would have been beautiful even dressed as a beggar or a
shepherdess. She was beautiful when she was born. She beautified more as she grew
older.
And there was also a prince. He was not the brother. He was the son of the king of a
remote land, and the father of him the thirteenth second cousin of the princess's father.
The boy had been sent to our land to be educated, because the princess's father, King
Ethelred, was reputed to be a wise man and a prudent monarch.

And if the princess was wonderfully beautiful, so was the prince. He was one of those
children that every mother wants to hug, one of those children whose hair all men caress.
The prince and princess grew up together. They attended the palace tutors' classes
together, and when the princess was slow, the prince helped her, and when the prince
was slow, the princess helped him. They didn't keep secrets, but they had a million secrets
that they hid from the rest of the world: that where the bluebirds were nesting this year,
that if the cook wore such colored underwear, that if you crouched under the armory
stairs you would find a underground passageway leading to the cellar. And they wondered
which ancestor of the princess had used the passageway for her furtive libations.

Within a few years the princess was no longer a girl and the prince was no longer a boy,
and they fell in love. Immediately the million secrets were transformed into a single
secret, and they told that secret every time they looked at each other, and those who saw
them sighed: "Ah, who was a few years younger." Well, many people believe that love
belongs to the young; at some point in their life they stopped loving, and they believe it is
only because they have grown old.
One day the prince and princess decided to get married.
But that same morning the prince received a letter from the remote country where his
father lived. The letter announced that his father had died and that the boy was already a
man; and not just a man, but a king.
So the prince got up that morning, and the servants put away his favorite books in a
bundle, and his favorite clothes in a trunk, and trunk, bundle, and prince got into a
carriage with bright red wheels and gold tassels at the corners and the bottom. prince left.
The princess did not cry until he was out of sight. She then went into her room and cried
for a long time, and only her nurse came in to bring her food, talk to her and comfort her.
At last the talk made the princess smile, and in the evening she went to the study of her
father, who was sitting by the fire.
"He promised that he would write to me every day, and I must write to him every day
too," he said.

So he did, and so did the prince, and once a month he received a packet of thirty letters
and delivered to the messenger a packet of thirty highly scented letters.

And one day the Bear came to the palace. It was not a bear, but The Bear, with a capital
letter. He must have been about thirty-five, because his hair was still brown and his face
only had wrinkles around his eyes. But he was massive and wiry, with thick arms to lift a
horse, and thick legs to carry that horse a hundred miles. His eyes were deep and
glittering under his bushy brows, and the first time Nurse saw him she screamed and said:
"Gosh, it looks like a bear."

He arrived at the gate of the palace and the doorman refused to let him in, because he did
not have an appointment. But he scribbled a note on a piece of paper where he seemed to
have wrapped a sandwich for days, and the doorman—with great reservations—carried
the paper to the king.
The paper read: "If Boris and 5,000 were on the Rimperdell road, would you like to know
where they are going?"
King Ethelred wanted to know.
The gatekeeper led the stranger into the palace, and the king took him to his study and
they talked for many hours.
In the morning the king rose early and went to his cavalry captains and his foot captains,
and sent a lord to the knights and their squires, and by dawn Ethelred's little army was
assembled on the Rimperdell road. They marched three hours that morning, and they
came to a place and the brown-haired stranger spoke to the king and Ethelred ordered
the army to stop. They stopped, sending the infantry into the woods on one side of the
road, and the cavalry into the tall cornfields on the other side of the road, where they
dismounted. The king, the stranger, and the knights waited on the road.
Soon they caught a glimpse of dust in the distance, and the dust came closer, and they
saw that it was an army advancing down the road. And at the head of the army marched
King Boris of Rimperdell. Five thousand men followed him.
"Hail," King Ethelred greeted, quite upset, for King Boris's army had crossed the borders of
our country.
"Hail," said King Boris, rather annoyed, since no one was supposed to know of his arrival.
- What are you doing? King Ethelred asked.
"You're blocking the road," King Boris replied.
"It is my road," said King Ethelred.
"Not anymore," said King Boris.
"I and my knights say that this road belongs to me," declared King Ethelred.
King Boris looked at Ethelred's fifty knights and his five thousand men.
"I say you and your knights are dead men unless you stand aside."
"So you want a war with me?" asked King Ethelred.
- War? King Boris exclaimed. Can we call it war? It will be like squashing a filthy cockroach.
"I don't know how that is," said King Ethelred, "because in our kingdom we have never
had cockroaches." And he added, "Until now."

King Ethelred raised his arm and the infantry fired arrows and spears from the forest, and
many of Boris's men perished. And as soon as his troops were ready to fight the army of
the forest, the cavalry came out of the cornfield and attacked from the rear, and soon the
remnants of Boris's army surrendered and Boris, mortally wounded, was left lying on the
road.
"If you had won this battle," King Ethelred said, "what would you have done to me?"
King Boris caught his breath and replied:
— I would have had you beheaded.
Oh, we are very different. Well, I'll let you live.
But the stranger, who was standing next to King Ethelred, said:
No, King Ethelred, that is not in your power, for Boris is dying. And even if he didn't, I
would have killed him myself, for as long as a man like him lives no one will be safe in this
world.
Boris died, and was buried in the sand without a gravestone, and his men returned home
without his swords.
And King Ethelred was welcomed by crowds that celebrated the great victory and
shouted:
— Long live King Ethelred the Conqueror.

King Ethelred just smiled. He took the stranger to the palace, and gave him a room, and
made him chief adviser to the king, because the stranger had shown that he was wise and
loyal and loved the king more than the king himself, for the king would have let Boris live. .
Nobody knew what to call that man, because when some daring souls asked his name, he
frowned and said:
I will use whatever name you give me.

Many names were tried, like George and Fred and Rocky and Todd. But neither seemed
correct. For a long time everyone called him Sir, because when someone is so big and
strong and wise and serene you want to call him Lord and offer him the chair when he
walks into the room.
But after a while they all called him by the name the nurse had accidentally given him:
Bear. At first they called him that behind his back, but eventually someone got distracted
and called him that during the meal, and he smiled, and answered the name, and that's
what they all called him.

Except the princess. She didn't call him anything because she never spoke to him, and
when she talked about him she pursed her lips and called him That Man.

Well, the princess herself hated Bear.

She didn't hate him because she had done anything to him. Furthermore, she was sure
that he hadn't even noticed her. She didn't turn to look at her when he entered the room
like the other men. But she didn't hate him for it.
She hated him because she thought he was weakening his father.
King Ethelred was a great king, and his people loved him. He always stood tall in
ceremonies, and spent hours holding judgments with great wisdom. He spoke softly when
softness was required, and in a booming voice when it was necessary to be heard.
He was an imposing man and the princess was shocked at the way she treated Bear.

King Ethelred and Bear sat for hours in the king's study, every night when there was not a
great banquet or an ambassador. They drank large mugs of ale, but instead of asking a
servant to serve them, the king—to the princess's alarm—rose to pour from the barrel.
A king doing servant duties, and giving the jug to a commoner, a man whose name no one
knew!
The princess was a witness because she was in the king's study, listening and watching
without saying a word as they chatted. She sometimes spent her time combing the king's
long white hair. She would sometimes knit long woolen socks for her father to wear in
winter. She sometimes read, because her father believed that women should also learn to
read. But she always listened, and she got mad, and she hated Bear more and more.
King Ethelred and Bear did not talk much about matters of state. They talked about
hunting rabbits in the woods. Jokes were told about the lords and ladies of the realm, and
some jokes were quite bawdy. They were talking about what they should do about the
ugly carpet in the court room, as if Bear had a right to say something about the new
carpet.
And when they discussed matters of state, Bear treated King Ethelred as an equal. When
he had a disagreement with the king, he stood up saying, "No no no, you don't
understand." When he thought the king had said the right thing, he would pat his
shoulder and say, "You can still be a great king, Ethelred.
And sometimes King Ethelred would sigh and look into her face, and whisper a few words,
and look somber and weary. Then Bear would put his arm on his shoulder and gaze with
him into the fire, until the king sighed again, stood up grunting, and said, "It's time this old
man tucked his corpse under the sheets."
The next day the princess spoke angrily with the nurse, who never repeated the words of
the princess to anyone. The princess said: "That Man is hell-bent on turning my father into
a wimp. He is hell-bent on making a fool of him. That Man is making my father forget that
he is king." She then wrinkled her forehead and said: "That Man is a traitor."
She never mentioned a word to her father. If she had, he would have patted her on the
head saying, "Oh yes, it makes me forget I'm a king." But she would also have said: "He
reminds me of what a king should be like." And Ethelred would not have called him a
traitor. He would have called him friend.
As if it wasn't enough that his father forgot his ancestry in front of that commoner, things
started to go wrong with the prince. He suddenly noticed that the last packets of
correspondence did not contain thirty letters, only twenty, then fifteen, then ten. And the
letters no longer had five pages. They only had three, then two, then one.
He's busy, he thought.
Then he noticed that he no longer began his letters with "My dearest and most lovely
pickle-eating princess." (The pickle allusion was an old joke about something that had
happened when they were nine.) He Now began "Dear Lady" or "Beloved Princess." Once
the princess complained to the nurse:
"Why doesn't she put 'Dear inhabitant of that palace'?"
He is tired, she thought. And then she realized that the prince no longer told her that he
loved her, and she went out on the balcony and wept where only her garden could hear
her, and where only the birds in the trees could see her.
She began to stay in her chambers, because the world no longer seemed a pleasant place
to her. Why should she go out into the world, an insidious place where parents became
mere men, where lovers forgot her love?
And every night she fell asleep crying, when she was able to reconcile her sleep. When she
couldn't sleep, she would stare at the ceiling trying to forget the prince. And you know, to
remember something, nothing better than insisting on forgetting it.

One day she found a basket of autumn leaves outside her bedroom door. There was no
note, but they were brightly colored, and they whispered when the princess touched the
basket.
"It must be autumn," she told herself.
She went to the window to look, and it was autumn, and it was beautiful. She had seen
the leaves a hundred times a day, but she had never noticed.
And weeks later he woke up and it was cold in the room. Shivering, she went to the door
to ask a maid to put more wood on the fire, and there was a big frying pan by the door,
and in the frying pan was a little snowman, with a smile made of bits of coal, and with
eyes that were big lumps of coal, and it was so comical that the princess had to laugh.
That day she momentarily forgot about her misfortune and went out to throw snowballs
at the knights, who always let her hit and never managed to hit her, as was appropriate
for being a princess: no one put snow on her back or threw her into the water or any.
She asked Nanny who was carrying these things, but Nanny shook her head and smiled.
"It wasn't me," he said.
"Of course it was you," the princess replied, hugging her and thanking her.
Nanny smiled.
"Thanks for your thanks, but it wasn't me." —But the princess did not believe her and she
loved her nurse even more.
She stopped receiving letters, and she stopped writing letters, and she began to walk in
the woods.
At first she only walked in the garden, because princesses are supposed to walk in
gardens. But after several days of walking and walking and walking she knew every brick
of the path by heart, and every time he reached the parapet he wanted to get out more.
So one day she walked to the gate, left the garden and went into the woods. The forest
was not like the garden. In the garden everything was well pruned and there were no
weeds, while the forest was all weeds, all rough and wild, with animals that started
running, and birds that fluttered to keep her away from the nestlings and, best of all, a
ground gravel or soft earth. In the forest she could forget about the garden, where every
tree reminded her of talks she had had with the prince as they sat on her branches. In the
forest she could forget about the palace, where every room evoked a joke, a secret, or a
broken promise.
She was in the woods the day the wolf came down from the hills.
She was returning to the palace, because she was going to get dark, when she noticed that
something was moving. She spotted a large gray wolf walking fifty feet away. When she
stopped, the wolf stopped. When she walked, the wolf walked. And the further she
walked, the closer the wolf came.
She turned around and tried to get away from the wolf.
Shortly afterward she looked back and saw the wolf fifteen feet away, jaws open, tongue
lolling out of her, teeth gleaming white in the gloom of the twilight forest.
She started running. But not even a princess can beat a wolf. The princess ran until she
was out of breath, and the wolf was still following her, panting a little but not at all tired.
The princess ran until she couldn't anymore and fell to the ground. She looked back and
realized that this was what the wolf expected: that she would tire and fall, that she would
be easy prey, an easy meal.
The wolf, eyes gleaming, lunged at him.
As the wolf pranced, a huge brown figure emerged from the grove and approached the
princess. She screamed. It was a huge brown bear, with thick fur and menacing teeth. The
bear reached out with her hairy arm and hit the wolf on the head. The wolf flew several
meters, pitching, and the princess realized that its neck was broken.
The huge bear turned on her and the princess realized in despair that she had only traded
one monstrous animal for another.
She fainted. Which is the only thing you can do when a bear looks at you from a meter
away with a hungry face.
She woke up in a bed in the palace and assumed that it had all been a dream. But she felt
a terrible pain in her legs and the scratches of the branches on her face. It hadn't been a
dream: she had run through the woods.
-What happened? She,” she asked in a small voice. I'm dead? "It wasn't such a silly
question, since she expected to be dead."
"No," said her father, who was sitting by the bed.
"No," the nurse repeated. And why would you be dead?
I was in the forest," said the princess, "and there was a wolf, and I ran but he caught up
with me. Then a bear came along and killed the wolf, and it came over like he was going to
eat me, and I think then I passed out.
"Ah," said the nurse, as if that explained everything.
"Ah," said her father, King Ethelred. Now I understand. We've been taking turns looking
after you since we found you unconscious and scratched up by the garden gate. You
screamed in your sleep: “Let the bear go! May the bear leave me alone! We thought you
meant Bear, our Bear, so we asked the poor man not to take turns taking care of you
anymore, as we thought he was bothering you. For a moment we all thought you hated it.
King Ethelred chuckled. I'll have to tell him it was a mistake.

The king left. Splendid, thought the princess. He will tell Bear that it was a mistake, and
actually he hates him to death."
The nurse knelt by the bed.
“There is another part of the story. They made me promise not to tell you, but we both
know that I will always tell you everything. Looks like two guards found you and both said
they saw something running away. Not running, exactly, galloping. Or something like that.
They said it looked like a bear running on all fours.
"Oh no," exclaimed the princess. What a fright!
'Well, they said so,' continued the nurse, 'and Robbo Knockle swears it's true, that the
bear they saw had carried you to the gate and set you down gently. Whoever brought you
smoothed your skirt and put a pile of leaves under your head, like a pillow, since you
certainly weren't up to it.
"Don't be silly," replied the princess. How would a bear do all that?
'It must not be a common bear. "It must be a magic bear," the nurse whispered, for he
thought magic should be mentioned quietly, in case some sinister creature heard and
came.
"Nonsense," replied the princess. I am an educated person and I don't believe in magical
bears, magical concoctions or magical things. It's just old lady nonsense.
The nurse stood up and pursed her lips.
"Well, this silly old lady will take her silly stories to some fool who wants to hear them."
"Oh, don't take it that way," said the princess, for she didn't like hurting anyone's feelings,
least of all those of her nurse. And they reconciled. But the princess still did not believe in
the bear. However, it had not been eaten, so perhaps the bear was not hungry.

Two days later, when the princess got up and went out for a walk again—although she
had ugly scabs on her face from scratches—the prince returned to the palace.
He arrived mounted on a horse that was foaming at the mouth. The horse fell to the
ground and died at the gates of the palace. The prince looked exhausted, and he had large
red circles under his eyes. He had no luggage. He was not wearing a cape. Just the clothes
he was wearing on him and a dead horse.
"I've come home," he told the doorman, and passed out in his arms. (Incidentally, it is all
very well for a man to faint, provided he has ridden five days, without food, and been
chased by hundreds of soldiers.)
"It's treason," he said when he woke up, ate, bathed, and dressed. My allies have risen up
against me, even my own subjects. I have been expelled from my kingdom. I'm lucky to
still be alive.
-Why? King Ethelred asked.
Because they would have killed me. If I had been caught.
"No, no, no, don't be silly," said Bear, sitting in a chair listening. Why did they rise up
against you?

The prince looked at Bear with a sneer. It was a nasty sneer that twisted the prince's face
in a way unknown when he lived with King Ethelred and was in love with the princess.
"I hadn't realized I was dumb," he muttered. And of course I hadn't noticed that you were
invited to join in the conversation.
Bear fell silent, bowed apologetically, and just watched.
And the prince did not explain why the people had risen up against him. He was only
vague about power-hungry demagogues and mob rule.
The princess went to see the prince that same morning.
"You look tired," she said.
"You are beautiful," he said.
—I have scabs on my face and I haven't combed my hair for days.
-I love you.
“You stopped writing.
"I think I lost the pen." No, now I remember. I lost my head. I forgot how beautiful you
were. A man would have to be crazy to forget you.
He kissed her and she kissed him, and she forgave him all the pain she had caused him and
it was as if they had never been apart from her.
During three days.
Because after three days the princess began to understand that the prince had changed.
She opened her eyes after kissing him (princesses close their eyes when they kiss) and she
noticed that he was looking into the distance with a distant expression. As if he barely
even noticed that he was kissing her. That is not flattering to any woman, not even a
princess.
She noticed that sometimes the prince didn't even notice her presence. They passed each
other in a hallway and he didn't speak, he walked past her unless she touched his arm and
greeted him.
Sometimes he would get angry or offended by trifles. If a servant made a noise or spilled
something, he would fly into a rage and throw things against the wall. He had never raised
his voice when he was a child.
He often said cruel things to the princess, and she wondered why she still loved him and
what was wrong, but then he apologized and she forgave him because after all the prince
had lost a kingdom through betrayal, and he could not be expected to always be tender
and kind. But the princess decided that if it was up to her—and it was up to her—he
would never stop being gentle and kind.
One night Bear and his father entered the study and locked the door. The princess had
never been excluded from the study, and she was furious with Bear because she was
taking her father from her, so she eavesdropped. Even if Bear wanted to exclude her, she
would manage to find out about her. Here's what she heard her.
"I have the information," Bear said.
"It must be bad news, or you wouldn't have asked to see me alone," King Ethelred said.
Aha, thought the princess, so Bear did want to exclude me.
Bear walked over to the fire, leaning on the ledge, as King Ethelred sat down.
-And good? asked the king.
“I know the boy means a lot to you. And for the princess. Sorry to bring these news.
The boy, the princess thought. They couldn't call the prince a boy, could they? Why, he
had been a king, except for that betrayal, and a commoner called him a boy.
"It means a great deal to us," agreed King Ethelred, "and for that very reason I wish to
know the truth, whether pleasant or unpleasant.
"Well," said Bear, "I must tell you that he was a lousy king."
The princess paled with rage.
“I think he was too young. Or something like that,” Bear went on. Perhaps he had a facet
that you did not know, because as soon as he ascended the throne, power went to his
head. Considering his kingdom to be too small, he waged wars with neighboring counties
and dukedoms and seized their lands for annexation. He conspired against other kings
who had been good and loyal friends of his father. He raised taxes to support huge armies.
He started one war after another and the mothers cried because his children fell in battle.
“And finally,” said the Bear, “the people got fed up, like the other kings, and a revolution
broke out and at the same time a war. The only true part of the boy's version is that he
was lucky to escape with his life, because everyone I spoke to mentioned him with hate,
as if he was the most evil person they had ever met.
King Ethelred shook his head.
"Could he be wrong?" I refuse to believe this from a boy I practically raised myself.
"I wish it weren't true, for I know the princess loves him dearly." But it seems clear to me
that the boy does not reciprocate... he is here because he knew that he would be safe
from her, and that, if he married her, he would be able to rule over her when you die.
"Well," said King Ethelred, "that will not happen." My daughter will never marry a man
who would destroy the kingdom.
"Not even though I love him?" Bear asked.
"It's the price of being a princess." She must think of the kingdom first, or she can never
be queen.
At that moment, however, being queen was the last thing that mattered to the princess.
She hated Bear for taking her father away from her, and now for persuading her father to
stop her from marrying the man she loved.
He banged on the door, yelling, "Liar, liar!" King Ethelred and Bear ran to the door. King
Ethelred opened the door, and the princess burst into the study and began beating Bear
viciously.
Of course they were light blows, because she was not so strong, and he was corpulent and
resistant and those blows could not cause pain. But he screwed up his face as if he were
being stabbed through the heart.
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Daughter, daughter," said King Ethelred. What's this? Why were you listening?
But she didn't reply; she beat Bear until crying stopped her. And then, between sobs, he
began to scream. And since she rarely screeched, her voice grew hoarse and he had to
whisper. But whether shrieked or whispered, the words were clear, and each word spat
hate.
She accused Bear of reducing his father to a nonentity, a wimpy king who consulted a
filthy commoner whenever he made a decision. He accused Bear of hating her and trying
to ruin her life by preventing her from marrying the only man she could love. She accused
Bear of being a traitor plotting to take the throne and rule the kingdom. She accused Bear
of fabricating mean lies about the prince because he knew that he would be a better king
than his weak father, and that if she married the prince he would destroy all of Bear's
plans to rule the kingdom.
And at last he accused Bear of having such a twisted mind that he imagined that he might
one day marry her to be king.
But that would never happen, she gasped.
—That will never happen, never, never, never, because I hate and abhor you and if you
don't get out of this kingdom and never come back, I swear I'll kill myself.
She grabbed a sword from the shelf and tried to cut her wrists, and Bear stopped her by
seizing her arms with his big iron hands. She spat at him and tried to bite his fingers and
head butted her chest until King Ethelred grabbed her hands and Bear let go of her and
stepped back.
"I'm sorry," King Ethelred said, though he didn't know to whom he was apologizing or
why. Sorry. And he understood that he was apologizing for himself, because in that
moment he knew that his kingdom was doomed.
If he listened to Bear and banished the prince, the princess would never forgive him. She
would hate him and he couldn't take it. But if he didn't listen to Bear, the princess would
marry the prince, and the prince would ruin his kingdom. And he couldn't take it either.
But the worst of it was that he couldn't resist Bear's anguished expression.
The princess sobbed in her father's arms.
The king wished there was something he could do or undo.
And Bear was silent.
Until he shook his head and said:
-I understand. Bye.
Bear left the study, left the palace, left the garden, left the city, and left all the lands that
the king had heard of.
He took nothing with him: no food, no horse, no change of clothes. He only wore his
clothes and carried his sword. He left just as he had come.
And the princess wept with relief. Bear was gone. Life could go on as before the prince left
and Bear arrived.
That's what he believed.
He didn't understand how his father felt until he passed away four months later, suddenly
old, weary, lonely, and desperate for his kingdom.
He did not understand that the prince was not the same man she had loved until she
married him three months after her father's death.
On the wedding day she herself crowned him king, she led him to the throne.
"I love you," she said proudly, "and you have the presence of a king."
"I am a king," he said. I am King Edward I.
-Eduardo? Why Edward? That is not your name.
"It is the name of a king, and I am a king." Do I not have the power to change my name?
-Clear. But I liked your name better.
"But you'll call me Eduardo," he said, and she called him Eduardo.
When she saw him. Well, he didn't visit her often. As soon as she put on her crown he
began to exclude her from court and handled the affairs of her kingdom where she could
not hear him. She did not understand anything, because her father had always allowed
her to hear everything related to the government, so that she could be a good queen.
"A good queen," said King Edward, her husband, "she is a quiet woman who has children,
one of whom will be king."
So the princess, who was now queen, had children, and one of them was a boy, and she
tried to raise him as befitted a king.
But as the years went by she realized that King Edward was not the charming boy she had
loved in the garden. He was a cruel and greedy man. And he didn't like it.
He raised taxes and the town got poorer.
He expanded his troops and the army grew stronger.
He used the army to seize land from Earl Edred, who had been godfather to the princess.
She also appropriated the lands of Duke Adlow, who had once let her pamper one of his
tame swans.
He also appropriated the lands of Earl Thlaffway, who had wept his eyes out at his father's
funeral, saying that he was the only man he had revered, for he was a fine king.
Edred, Adlow and Thlaffway disappeared, never to be heard from again.
"He's even against the commoners," the nurse growled one day as he was combing the
queen's hair. Yesterday some shepherds came to court to tell him of a prodigy, for it is his
duty, after all, to inform the king of any oddity that occurs in these lands.
"Yes," said the queen, remembering that in their childhood she and the prince often went
to see their father to tell him of wonders: how the grass grew suddenly in spring, how the
water disappeared on a hot day, how a butterfly clumsily climbed out of the cocoon.
"Well," continued the nurse, "they told him there was a bear at the edge of the woods, a
bear that doesn't eat meat, only berries and roots." And this bear, they said, killed wolves.
Every year the wolves kill a lot of sheep, but this year they haven't lost a single lamb,
because the bear kills the wolves. Wow, he's a prodigy.
"Oh yes," exclaimed the princess, who was now queen.
"But what did the king do?" exclaimed the nurse. He then ordered his knights to chase the
bear and kill it. Let them kill him!
-Why? asked the queen.
"Why, why, why?" the nurse asked. The best answer in the world. The shepherds asked
the same thing, and the king said:
"I can't have a bear loose around here. I could kill children."
"'Oh no,' said the shepherds. "He doesn't even eat meat."
"'Then he will steal grain,' replied the king. And now, my lady, the hunters are after a
harmless bear. You can bet the shepherds don't like it. A totally harmless bear! The queen
nodded.
“A magic bear.

-Well of course. Now that you mention it, it looks like the bear that saved you that day...
Aya, there was no bear that day. It was a dream, product of my anguish. No wolf chased
me. And of course there was no magic bear.
Nanny bit her lip. Of course there was a bear, he thought. And a wolf. But the queen, his
princess, was determined not to believe in good things.
"Of course there was a bear," the nurse insisted.
"There was no bear," replied the queen, "and now I know who put the idea of a magic
bear into the children's heads.
"Have you heard of him?"
'They came to tell me a silly story about a bear that climbs up the parapet into the garden
when no one is around, and plays with them and lets themselves be mounted. You
obviously told them your silly story about that magic bear that saved me. I told them that
magic bears were tall tales and that even adults didn't tell them, and that they had to
distinguish between truth and fabrication, and that they had to wink when they told fibs.
"What did they say?" the nurse asked.
“I made them wink when I talked about the bear. But I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't put
any more nonsense into their heads. You told them that stupid story, right?
"Yes," the nurse admitted sadly.
"How much trouble your quick tongue can cause," the queen complained, and the nurse
left the room in tears.

They reconciled afterward, but they didn't talk about bears. The nanny understood.
Thinking of bears, the queen remembered Bear, and everyone knew that it was she who
had expelled that wise counselor.
If Bear were still here, thought the nurse (as well as many others in the kingdom), if Bear
were here we wouldn't have so many problems.

And problems abounded. Soldiers patrolled city streets and locked people up for saying
things about King Edward. And when a palace servant made a mistake, the king would fly
into a rage, throw things, and hit him with a stick.
One day King Edward did not like the soup. He threw the tureen at the cook, who as he
left declared:
“I have served kings and queens, lords and ladies, soldiers and servants, but this is the first
time I have been put in the service of a pig.
The next day he returned at the point of a sword, not to work in the kitchen, of course,
since the cooks are in contact with the king's food. No, the cook went to clean the stables.
And the servants were told bluntly that they could not leave. If they didn't like their job,
they'd get another one. And they all saw the job that the cook had been given and held
their tongues.
Except the nurse, who told the queen everything.

We might as well be slaves," he said. And that includes salary. It has cut it in half, in some
cases less, and we hardly have anything to eat. I am well, ma'am, for I must not feed
anyone, but there are those who find it difficult to get wood for the fire and a crust for a
hungry mouth, or half a dozen.
The queen thought of pleading with her husband, but she understood that King Edward
would take it out on her servants. So she started giving the nanny jewelry to sell. The
governess gave the money to the most needy servants, and he whispered to them,
although the queen had told him not to say anything:
"It's the queen's money." She reminds us, even though her husband is a lout and a
freeloader.
And the servants remembered that the queen was kind.
The people did not hate King Edward as much as the servants, for though the taxes were
high, there are always fools who take pride when his army wins a victory. And King
Edward had quite a few victories early on. He would feud with a neighboring king or
nobleman and then seize his land. People thought that King Boris's 5,000-strong army was
a bad thing. But with his high taxes, King Edward was able to hire an army of fifty
thousand men, and the war changed. On enemy soil, the soldiers lived off the fruits of the
land, killing and plundering as they pleased. Most of the soldiers were not locals. They
were the scum of the highways, beggars or thieves, and now they were paid to steal.
But King Edward tripled the size of the kingdom, and many good citizens followed the
news of the war and cheered as King Edward walked the streets.

They also praised the queen, but they didn't see her much, just once a year. She was still
beautiful, more beautiful than ever. Nobody noticed the sadness that her eyes now had,
and those who noticed it preferred to keep quiet and forget.
But King Edward had won his victories against weak, peaceable, ill-prepared men. And at
last the neighboring kings banded together, and also the rebels from the conquered lands,
and plotted the downfall of King Edward.
When the king began his next conquest, they were prepared, ambushing King Edward's
army on the same battlefield where King Ethelred had defeated Boris. Eduardo's fifty
thousand mercenaries were up against a hundred thousand, when they had never faced
more than half their number before. His bravery for hire vanished, and those who
survived the first onslaught hit the ground running.
King Edward was captured and brought to the city in a cage. They hung the cage over the
city gate, where the statue of the bear now stands.
The queen went out to meet the leaders of the army that had defeated King Edward and
knelt in the dust to beg for her husband. And since she was beautiful and kind, and since
they were good men who only tried to protect her life and her property, she spared his
life. For her, they even allowed the king to keep her throne, although they imposed an
onerous tribute on him. In order to save his skin, he accepted.
So the taxes were raised even higher, to pay the tribute, and King Edward could only keep
enough soldiers to guard his kingdom, and the tribute went to pay soldiers of the
victorious kings, to stand on the borders and watch our lands. For he suspected—and
rightly so—that if they were careless for a moment, King Edward would raise an army and
stab them in the back.

But they did not loosen their watch on him. King Edward was cornered.
Then he was seized with a dark malaise, for a greedy craves much more for what he does
not have. And King Edward craved power. Since he could not have power over other kings,
he began to exert more power in his own kingdom, his own abode, and his own family.
He ordered prisoners to be tortured until they confessed to non-existent conspiracies,
until they denounced innocent people. And the people of the kingdom began to lock up at
night and hide when someone called. Fear spread throughout the kingdom, and people
began to leave, until King Edward ordered the fugitives to be captured and beheaded.

And things were also bad in the palace. For the servants were savagely flogged for the
slightest mistakes, and King Edward ranted whenever he saw his children, so the queen
kept them hidden.
Everyone feared King Edward. And people almost always hate who they fear.
Except the queen. Well, although she feared him, she remembered her youth, and
sometimes she said, talking to herself or to the nurse:
“Somewhere in that sad and sinister man is the beautiful young man I love. I must help
you find it and revive it.
But neither the governess nor the queen knew how to make that happen.
Until the queen herself discovered that she was pregnant. Sure, he thought. With a new
baby he will return to his family and remember to love us."
She ran to tell him. And he ranted that she was stupid to bring another son to witness her
humiliation, a royal family with enemy troops on the border, no power in the world.
He took her by the arm and dragged her to the patio where the lords and their ladies were
gathered, and declared that his wife was going to have a child to mock him, since she
retained the power of a woman even though he no longer possessed the power of a
woman. a man. She claimed that it was not true. He hit her, and she fell to the ground.
And the problem was solved, because the queen herself lost the baby and she remained in
bed for days, delirious with fever and on the verge of death. No one knew that King
Edward hated himself for what he had done, that he pulled at her beard and hair thinking
the queen might die from her anger. They only saw that he was getting drunk while the
queen was convalescing, and that he was not going to visit her.

In her delirium, the queen dreamed many times and many things. But a recurring dream
was of a wolf chasing her in the woods, and she would run until she fell, but when the
wolf was going to devour her, a huge brown bear would appear, break the wolf's neck and
throw it into the air, and then gently pick her up. and deposited her at the gates of the
palace, fixing her clothes and putting a pillow of leaves under her head.
Upon waking up from her, she only remembered that there was no magic bear that came
out of the forest to save her. Magic was for commoners: concoctions to cure gout and
plague and to woo a lady, spells whispered in the night to ward off creatures of darkness.
Nonsense, said the queen. Well, she was an educated person, and she knew that there
was nothing to drive away the creatures of darkness, no cure for gout or the plague, no
concoctions to make your husband fall in love. She repeated this to herself and despaired.
King Edward soon forgot the sorrow he had felt fearing the death of his wife. As soon as
the queen recovered, he was as sulky as usual, and she would not stop drinking, though
the reason for it had passed. He only remembered that he had hurt her and he felt guilty
about her, and every time he saw her he felt bad about her, and since he felt bad about
her he treated her bad about her, as if it was her fault.
Things couldn't be worse. Rebellions broke out across the kingdom, with rebels beheading
every week. Some soldiers had mutinied and crossed the border with the fugitives they
were supposed to arrest. One morning, then, King Edward's mood was blacker and more
sour than ever.
The queen came into the dining room to breakfast, beautiful as always, for sorrow had
only deepened her beauty, and one felt like crying at the pain in that exquisite face and
the pain in that straight, proud bearing. King Edward saw the pain and suffering, but he
saw even more her beauty, and for an instant he reminded the girl that she had grown up
without care or sorrow or evil thoughts. And he knew that he had caused her every bit of
pain she suffered.
So he began to find fault with her, and suddenly ordered her to go to the kitchen to cook.
"I can't," she objected.
"If a servant can, so can you," growled the king.
She burst into tears.
"I've never cooked. I have never lit the fire. I am a queen.
"You are not a queen," the king grumbled, hating himself for saying it. You're not a queen,
and I'm not a king, for we're a bunch of helpless lackeys taking orders from those bastards
across the border. Well, if I am to live like a servant in my own palace, so must you.
He dragged her into the kitchen and ordered her to prepare and serve her breakfast.
The queen was devastated, but not enough to forget her pride. She spoke to the cooks
huddled in a corner.
“You have heard the king. I must prepare breakfast with my own hands. But I do not know
how. You must give me directions.
They gave her directions and she tried to follow them, but her inexperienced hands
muddled everything. She was burned by the fire and scalded by the potage. She put too
much salt on the bacon and left a shell on the egg. She also burned the buns. Then she
took everything to her husband and the king began to eat.
Everything tasted horrible.
Then he understood that the queen was a queen and she could not be anything else, just
as a cook could not aspire to be a queen. And he looked at himself and realized that she
could never be anything but a king. But the queen was a good queen, while he was a lousy
king. He would always be king, but he would never be a good king. And as he chewed on
eggshells he sank into despair.
Another man, hating himself as much as King Edward, would have taken his own life. But
King Edward was not like that. Instead he took the staff from him and began beating the
queen. He beat her until her back bled, and the queen herself fell to the ground crying.
The servants came, and so did the guards. The servants, seeing the queen in such a state,
tried to stop the king. But the king ordered the guards to kill anyone who tried to
intervene. Still, the head waiter, a cook, and the butler perished before the others gave up
their attempt.
And the king kept whipping the queen until everyone understood that he was going to
beat her to death.
And in her heart, as she lay on the stone floor, so stunned by the pain in her heart that she
didn't feel the pain in her body, she wished the bear would come back, come and kill the
wolf that swooped in to devour her.
At that moment the door splintered and a terrible roar filled the dining room. The king
stopped beating the queen, and the guards and servants looked toward the door, where a
huge grizzly bear stood on its hind legs, roaring in fury.
The servants fled.
"Kill him," the king ordered the guards.
The guards drew their swords and charged at the bear.
The bear disarmed them, although there were so many of them that some wounded him
before he lost his sword. Some tried to fight the bear without weapons, because they
were brave men, but the bear hit them on the head and the rest fled.
But the queen, despite her daze, sensed that the bear had not used all her strength yet,
that the huge animal was saving her energy for another battle.
And that battle was with the king, who faced him sword in hand, hungry for combat,
longing to die, with despair and self-loathing that would make him a terrible opponent,
even for a bear.
A bear, the queen thought. I wished for a bear and here it is." She was left lying on the
stone floor, weak, helpless and bleeding, while her husband, the prince, wrestled with the
bear. She didn't know who she preferred her to win, for she didn't even now hate her
husband. Yet she knew that her life and the life of her subjects would be unbearable as
long as he lived.

They circled the room, the bear with clumsy speed, King Edward with great agility, tracing
circles of steel in the air. Three times the sword sank into the bear, before the animal took
the blade in its claws. When King Edward drew the sword, he lacerated the animal's claws.
But it was a battle of endurance, and the bear was sure to win in the end. She snatched
Edward's sword, wrapped him in a mighty hug, and led him out of the room as the king
yelled at the top of his voice.
And at the last moment, when Edward was trying in vain to retrieve the sword and the
blood flowed from the bear's claws, the queen wished that the bear would resist, that he
would take the sword from her, that he would win so that the kingdom, her family and
herself free from the man who devoured them all.
But while King Edward screamed in the bear's paws, the queen herself only heard the
voice of a child in the garden, in the eternal and fleeting summer of her childhood. She
passed out with a blurry memory of that boy's smile.

She woke up as she had woken up another time, thinking it was a dream, and
remembering it was reality when the pain of her blows nearly made him pass out again.
She fought against her weakness and she stayed awake, and asked for water.
The nurse brought him water, and several high-ranking lords and the captain of the army
and the chief servants came in to ask what they should do.
"Why do you ask me?" -She said.
"Because the king is dead," answered the nurse.
The queen waited.
"The bear left it at the gate," said the army captain.
"His neck was broken," the chief pointed out.
"And now," continued one of the lords, "we must ask you what we must do." We have not
yet informed the people, and no one has been allowed to enter or leave the palace.
The queen thought with her eyes closed. But what she saw when she closed her eyes was
the body of her beautiful prince with a floppy head like a wolf's, that day in the forest. She
didn't want to see that, so she opened her eyes.
"Announce throughout the kingdom that the king is dead," she said. And she turned to the
captain of the army. There will no longer be beheadings for treason. Whoever is in jail for
treason will be released on the spot. And all other prisoners whose sentences are about to
expire will also be released immediately.
The army captain bowed and left. He didn't smile until he was through the door, but then
he smiled until tears ran down his cheeks.
To the head chef the queen said:
“All palace servants are free to leave, if they wish. But please ask them on my behalf to
stay. If they stay, I'll return them to their former status.
The cook was going to thank him sincerely, but he thought better of it and went out to
warn the others.
To the gentlemen he said:
“Go to the kings whose armies guard our borders, and tell them that King Edward is dead
and they can go home. Tell them that if I need help I will call them, but until then I will rule
my kingdom alone.
And the gentlemen tenderly kissed his hands and left.
And the queen was left alone with the governess.
"I'm sorry," said the nurse, after a long silence.
"What ails you?"
“The death of your husband.
"Ah, that," said the queen. Oh yes, my husband.
And the queen wept with all her heart. Not for the cruel and greedy man who had fought,
killed and plundered everywhere. But for the boy who had become that man, the boy
whose tender hand had healed the wounds of his childhood, the boy whose mournful
voice had called her at the end of his life, as if wondering why he had lost himself within
himself. , as realizing that it was too late to leave. When she finished crying that day, she
never shed a tear for him again.

Within three days she was up, although she had to wear loose clothing because of her
pain. She still presided over the court, and it was then that the shepherds brought Bear.
Not the bear, the animal that had killed the king, but Bear, the advisor who had left the
kingdom many years before.
"We found him on the hillside, and our sheep were sniffing him and licking his face," said
the older shepherd. It seems that the robbers surprised him, since he is quite battered. It's
a miracle he's alive.
"What does he have on him?" the queen asked, standing by the bed where she had
ordered Bear to lie down.
"Oh," said one of the shepherds. It's my cape. They found him naked, but it didn't seem
right to us to bring him here in that state.
She thanked the shepherds and offered to pay them a reward, but they refused.
"We remember him," they explained, "and it would not be right to accept money to help
him, for he was a good man in your father's day."
The queen asked the servants—who, by the way, had stayed behind—to wash and
bandage his wounds, and attend to his needs. And because he was a strong man, he
survived, though those wounds would have killed a weaker man. Still, she never regained
the use of her right hand, and she had to learn to write with her left, and has limped ever
since. But she always said he was lucky to be alive and she wasn't ashamed of his
ailments, although she also said something had to be done about the marauders who
roamed the hills.

And as soon as he recovered, the queen made him attend court, where Bear listened to
the ambassadors from other lands and the cases that she heard and judged.
She at night she made him go to King Edward's study, and there she told him of the
business of the day and asked him if he would have acted differently, and he pointed out
her rights and wrongs. And the queen she learned from Bear just as her father had
learned from him. One day she came to tell him:
I have rarely apologized in my life. But now I apologize to you.
-Why? he said, surprised.
"For hating you, and for thinking you served my father badly, and for driving you out of
the kingdom." If we had listened to you, none of this would have happened.
“Oh, that belongs to the past. You were young, you were in love, and that is as inevitable
as fate itself.
—I know, and for love maybe I would do it again, but now I'm wiser and I can still
apologize for my youth.
Bear smiled at him.
“You were forgiven before you asked. But since you ask, I gladly forgive you again.
"May I give you some reward for your services all those years ago, when you left without
our gratitude?"
-Yes. If you let me stay pTo serve you as I served your father would be more than reward.
"How can that be a reward?" I was going to ask you for that favor. And you ask for it as a
privilege.
"Let's just say I loved your father like a brother, and you like a niece, and I long to stay
with the only family I have."
The queen took the ale and poured him a pitcher. They sat before the fire and spent long
hours chatting. As the queen was a widow, and as despite the problems of the past the
kingdom was vast and rich, many suitors came to ask for her hand. There were dukes,
counts, kings and sons of kings. And she kept all the beauty of her, in her early thirties, a
trophy in herself even if no one had coveted the kingdom.
But although she pondered at length on various cases, and even liked various men, she
rejected all of them.
She reigned alone, with Bear as her adviser.
And she also did what her husband had said: she raised her son to be king and her
daughters to be queens. And Bear helped her with it too, teaching her son to hunt, to
scrutinize men's hearts beyond words, to love peace and serve the people.
And the boy grew up as handsome as his father and as wise as Bear, and the people knew
that he would be a great monarch, perhaps greater than King Ethelred himself.
The queen grew old, and she delegated much of the affairs of state to her son, who was
already a man. The prince married the daughter of a neighboring king. She was a good
woman, and the queen saw her grandchildren grow up.
She knew very well that she was old, for she was loose fleshed and no longer as beautiful
as she was in her youth, although many said that she was a much more charming lady
than she could be a girl.
But she never thought that Bear grew old too. Didn't she walk around the garden with one
of her grandchildren on each shoulder? Wasn't he meeting her and her son in the study to
teach them the art of statesmanship and say yes, that's all right, yes, right, you'll be a
great queen after all, yes, you'll be a good king, worthy of the king? kingdom of your
grandfather...?
But one day she could not get out of bed, and a servant came to see the queen with a
message:
-Please come.
The queen found him shivering in bed, his face ashen.
"Thirty years ago," said Bear, "I would have said it was just a fever and gone riding." But
now, my lady, I know that I am going to die.
"Nonsense, you will never die," replied the queen, knowing as well as he that Bear was
dying, and knowing that he knew that she knew.
“I have a confession to make.
-I already know it.
-Really?
"Yes, and to my surprise I find that I love you too." An old lady like me,” she said, laughing.
“Oh, that wasn't my confession. I already knew that you knew that she loved you.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have come back when you called me.
And she felt a chill and she remembered the only time she had called for help.
"Yes," said Bear, "you do remember." How I laughed when they gave me that name. If
only they knew, I thought then.
She shook her head.
-How is it possible?
“I don't know myself. But it's true. I knew an old wise man from the forest when he was a
boy. He was an orphan, so nobody missed me when I stayed with him. I stayed until he
died five years later, and I learned magic from him.
"There is no magic," she said recitingly, and he laughed.
“If you mean brews and spells and curses, you're right. But there is magic of another kind.
The magic of transforming yourself into what you are. The magic of the old man of the
forest was to be an owl, and to fly at night seeing the world in order to understand it.
Being an owl was in him, and the magic was allowing that part of him that was more him
to come out. And he taught me.
Bear stopped shaking, because his body had given up fighting the disease.
“So I looked inside myself and wondered who he was. And I found out. Your nurse also
knew. At first glance he knew he was a bear.
"You killed my husband," she said.
-No. I fought your husband and took him from the palace, but as he looked death in the
face he also found out what he was and who he was, and his true self came out. Bear
shook his head. I killed a wolf at the gates of the palace, and left a broken-necked wolf
when I went into the hills.
“A wolf both times. But he was such a beautiful boy.
"A pup is cute, no matter what he becomes."
-It's me? asked the queen.
-You? You do not know?
-No. Am I a swan? A porcupine? Lately I walk like a crippled old hen. Who am I after so
many years? What animal should I transform into at night?
"You're laughing," Bear said, "and I'd laugh too, but I have to be careful with my breath." I
don't know what animal you are, if you don't know it yourself, but I think...
He stopped talking and shuddered in a huge sigh.
-No! exclaimed the queen.
"Okay," Bear said. I'm not dead yet. I think that deep down you are a woman, so you have
dressed your true appearance all your life. And you are beautiful.
"What an old fool you are, after all." Why didn't I ever marry you?
"You had too good judgment," Bear said.
But the queen called the priest and her sons and married Bear on her deathbed, and her
son, who had learned from him to be a king, called him father, and then they remembered
the bear that he was going to play with them in his childhood, and the daughters called
him father; and the queen called him husband, and Bear laughed and remarked that he
was no longer an orphan. Then he died.
And that is why there is a statue of a bear at the gates of the city