Read The Eyes of a King for Free Online

have to know when they’re doing something bad.” I glared at the ground. “Did he really say that?”
    “Yes. Well, perhaps he didn’t mean it to sound as bad. First he said, ‘Don’t think you’re above becoming a soldier.’ ” His voice wobbled. “That’s not what I thought. I never think I’m above anything.”
    “I know.”
    “Then he went on talking, and he said, ‘You’re lucky to have any chance in life at all, knowing what your parents were. Your father deserved worse than he got, making his money out of royalist … royalist …’ ”
    “Propaganda?” I prompted him. I had heard these things before.
    “Yes…. And he said, ‘And your mother was no better than a prostitute.’ That’s what he said. So he didn’t mean that she was a prostitute exactly.”
    I didn’t speak. “She wasn’t anything like that, was she?” asked Stirling tentatively.
    “What?” I turned to him, grabbing his shoulder. “Stirling, you are clever enough to know that’s a lie. She was a singer. A good singer—really good.”
    “And a dancer and all.”
    “Yes. But in theaters, not bars or anything. There’s a difference between that and a prostitute. Just because Sergeant Markey is a stupid bastard …” I realized that I was shaking his shoulder, and let it go. “She was a singer,” I told him again.
    “Oh. I can’t remember her, that’s all. And when people tell you something, you get to think that it’s true.”
    “I know.” I spoke more gently.
    “Listen, Leo,” he said. “Don’t tell Grandmother. Please don’t. It would make her so upset.”
    I hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He was still shaking. “Here, let me give you my jacket,” I said.
    “No…. You don’t even have an overcoat.”
    “It doesn’t matter.” I took off my jacket—regulation pale blue-gray—and wrapped it round his shoulders, on top of his coat. “Come on,” I said. “The sooner we get home, the better.”
    When we got in, Grandmother fussed over Stirling, making him tea and putting him to bed. I sat by the fire and coughed and shivered. I had put on my jacket again, and my coat, but I was still cold. I stared into the fire, frowning.
    Grandmother came back into the room, shutting the bedroom door behind her. “Sleeping,” she whispered to me. She pulled her rocking chair close to the fire and sat down and began to sew together some squares of colored material, and she held them barely an inch from her face. She started humming. It irritated me. “All right, Leo?” she asked. I nodded. We never had much to say to each other. “I’ve put some soup on the stove,” she said. I nodded again.
    I watched the flames caper about the small pile of wood in the grate. It hurt my head to look at the brightness, and I shut my eyes, but I could still see colored spots blaring against my eyelids. And Grandmother went on humming, out of tune. I rested my head against my arms, and my arms on my knees. “I hope Stirling doesn’t catch a chill,” she said after a while.
    “A chill?” I said, looking up sharply. “Did you see how he was shivering? He could catch more than a chill standing outside in the snow for three hours—”
    “Don’t shout at me about it, Leo,” she said. She picked at the sewing without meeting my eyes.
    “I’m not shouting,” I said, lowering my voice. “And you are partly to blame. You think the teachers are angels of God whocan do no wrong. He made Stirling cry! That bastard Markey is constantly bullying him—”
    “Leo.”
    “Stop interrupting me!” I was shouting now. It made my own head ache, but somehow that made me shout louder. “Something has to be done. He made Stirling cry!”
    “What was Stirling crying about?” she said, putting down the sewing.
    I stopped then. I had promised not to tell her. I shrugged and rested my head against my knees again.
    “I am on your side, Leo,” she said after a minute. “I just want you to be happy. Happy with what you’ve