The King and the Tiger
Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a palace. A palace unlike any seen by your eyes, My Beloved, for this one was in a country of heat and jungle, made of intricately carved marble and set with jewels. In this extraordinary palace lived a very young king, perhaps even a few years younger than you, My Beloved. Although a young man, he was already weary of his duties, of the intrigue of politics and diplomacy. His favorite escape (other than into the royal harem, which is not part of this story, My Beloved, but perhaps another later one, if you are very very good) was to go on hunting expeditions into the jungle.
So one day when he had had enough of his advisors being cranky, and the visiting diplomats groveling obsequiously, and his harem of wives resounded with high-pitched quarreling, he called together his closest friends and least-irritating bodyguards, and notified the stables to prepare the stallions for an hunt.
The king was not really much of a hunter, and although somewhat ruthless in his political relations, he was surprisingly tender-hearted when it came to animals, particularly wild ones would were going about their wild lives in the jungle, disturbing no one. But hunting was the only acceptable excuse to go off into the wild, so that is what the king did. (I do not know what they usually hunted, or what their game was on this expedition. To the king, it did not matter, so it does not matter to me, My Beloved.)
On this trip, the king charged ahead of the rest of the entourage as usual, in his desire for freedom and peace, but for the first time as long as he could remember he was successful and managed to lose them. He found himself alone in a little glen in jungle. Or he thought he was alone. Actually, there was a tiger hiding in the stripy tree-shade, which he noticed as soon as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he was quite surprised My Beloved, as you might expect. But being a king, if a young one, he kept a cool head and his wits about him and tried not to show his fear. The tiger just stood there, looking at him.
The king dismounted from his stallion, which took the opportunity to bolt away as fast as it could, since it did not have the courage of the king. The king slowly laid his crossbow on the ground and stepped away from it, never taking is eyes off the tiger. He tripped over a small rock and sat down quite unplannedly when the tiger, who had been looking at him steadily the whole time, said,
"Thank you. Now I don't have to kill and eat you. I'm quite full from last night's deer, and you men are not very tasty."
The king stuttered and sputtered for a moment, for even the wits of a king sometimes fail him, and do not pretend that your wits would have been any stronger, My Beloved, for I know you well. But eventually he regained mastery over his tongue, and the king responded that he was very glad to not have to be eaten.
"I can tell that you are a king," said the tiger, "because of your fancy clothes. But you are very young. What happened to the last king?"
So the king told the tiger how his father, the last king, had been killed by assassins from a foreign king, and how he himself had become the king when still a boy. The king wanted to ask the tiger how it happened to be able to speak, but he thought that might be rude, and as the claws and teeth of a tiger are very sharp, he thought it best to not be rude, no matter how full the tiger might say it was.
"I am the mother of all the tigers in this country," said the tiger. "I have lived here for a very long time, a time which is drawing to a rapid end. I have been waiting to meet you. Your father the king often hunted me through these trees, escaping the wilds of his palace for my wilds here. I wondered how much like him you would be. Not much."
As you can imagine, the king was a bit taken aback by this. He didn't really remember his father, who died so long ago, but he had always hoped to live up to his honorable name and be a good king. Every man wants to be as good as his father, plus a bit better, wouldn't you say, My Beloved? So the king tried to think of an answer, while the tiger seemed to smirk a bit and continued,
"Your father was not such a good king, if he got himself assassinated, was he? You should think carefully about who your advisors are, and who are really your friends, and see if you think you will end up in your father's mausoleum soon. Maybe you do not want to live a long life, though, and maybe your advisors can help with that," she said as she grinned and showed him her long teeth. "Be sure those you call your friends think of you as their friend as well," she said, which is good advice for a king, and good advice for you as well, My Beloved. And for us all.
The king thanked the tiger for her advice with big flowery words befitting a king, and as he bent over to retrieve his crossbow and depart, she growled low in her throat. The branches behind the king parted and several of his friends and bodyguards rushed in and shot the tiger fatally. They had thought the king was in danger, lost in the jungle, and rushed to his aid before they knew the facts. As many of us do, My Beloved, and we are sorry. We mean well.
The king had the tiger brought back to the palace, and laid her in royal state in one of the great halls, on a beautiful carpet of the finest wool, with ceremonial candles and a brazier burning expensive incense, strewn all around with pink roses. Pink roses are for gratitude and sympathy, appreciation, and a desire to be believed, My Beloved.
And there the king sat for many days thinking about what the tiger had said.
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