Page 14 of Yellow Belly

Stefano croaked softly at the memory. Several years ago, with adulthood barely upon them, he and Stefano had donned clothing very similar to Henry’s current outfit and had slipped out of the palace. Unaccompanied by guards, they’d wandered the city for hours. Henry took them to the very modest neighborhood where he’d spent his early childhood, they’d wandered near the docks, and they’d strolled past shops in the wealthier parts of town. It had felt like a wonderful adventure, capped by a visit to a pub where most of the patrons were visitors from other places. Stefano and Henry had been in high spirits about it and returned late to the palace. But the next day the king demanded an audience with Stefano—and had ordered Henry beaten with a wooden rod.

Now, Stefano stared at Henry and wondered at his strength and resilience. And if Henry was upset about how things had turned out, he didn’t show it. “In the morning we’ll board a coach. Unfortunately, you’ll need to remain hidden during our journey, but I’ll make you as comfortable as I can. But first I need to sell some of your things. You will remain here?”

Although Stefano wanted to ask many questions, he managed only “Where?”

Luckily, Henry understood his meaning. “We’ll go to Fraysia.”

Stefano started to hop out of the dish, but Henry held him in place. “Listen to me. Unless you want to remain cursed forever, we must go to Fraysia, and the princess must kiss you. Do you understand? Croak twice if you do.”

Stefano didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of this. He wanted… to be with Henry in a house somewhere far away, where nobody bothered them or made demands of them. Where they could spend nights tucked cozily into bed. Where nobody would command Stefano and nobody would beat Henry. Where Stefano could spend his days studying nature while Henry determined what his own true interests might be.

But that was never going to happen, and it was high time he accepted it.

Perhaps he should remain a frog. Henry could find a nice pond for him. It wouldn’t be so awful, worrying about little more than finding something to eat and a warm spot to sun himself.

Except he might get sick or injured or eaten by a predator. And even if he didn’t, he likely wouldn’t live long. Most frogs didn’t.

And he certainly couldn’t expect Henry to remain with him under those circumstances.

Stefano croaked twice and then attempted a human sentence: “I understand.” It came out as little more than a rasp.

Without further comment, Henry stood and, after briefly rubbing his chest in a manner that caused Stefano to worry about him, put on his boots and cloak and shouldered his bag. He left the room without looking back.

The water-filled dish still felt nice but now offered little emotional comfort. Judging from Henry’s odd reserve, he was clearly furious with Stefano. He’d never once been angry at Stefano over the whippings, but the current situation was obviously too much. Most likely Stefano-as-frog disgusted him as well.

Really, Stefano ought to find a way to escape this room, and he ought to disappear into the city. He wouldn’t survive long, but that would leave Henry entirely free. He’d even have funds to sustain him while he left the kingdom and settled elsewhere.

But Henry would, if necessary, spend the rest of his life searching for him. Henry had never failed him, and Stefano was certain that he never would. No matter how little Stefano deserved it, Henry had always been there for him. And gods, every moment of feeling cherished, every act of kindness, every sincere smile, had come from Henry. Stefano’s books and bugs and plants had all been well and good, but Henry had been his only source of true happiness. How could Stefano possibly survive without him? He was too big a coward to even try.

If he were still human, Stefano would have unleashed a deep sigh. As it was, though, he simply closed his eyes and sank beneath the surface of the water.

Chapter Seven

When Henry was very young, his parents had worked in one of the city’s textile mills, which produced fabrics that were sent by ship all over the world and provided much of the kingdom’s wealth. To be precise, the fabrics provided wealth for the noble families that owned the mills and, in taxes, for the royal family as well. The people who actually toiled away in the mills—such as Henry’s mother, father, and older brother—earned only a few coins per week, barely enough for a few cramped rooms, secondhand clothes, and a bit of food on the table. They labored long hours for those few coins, with only a half day off per week.

Henry was often told by his parents that he was fortunate: they earned just enough that, unlike his brother, Henry wasn’t put to work when he was very young. And he was lucky, he supposed. He’d seen the way his brother dragged himself home in the evenings looking like a worn old man.

At first he’d been cared for during the day by his grandmother, who’d also worked in the mills until her body was so broken that she could barely walk. Lungs fouled by years of fabric dust meant she coughed frequently and sometimes struggled to breathe. She died when he was six. After that, he was on his own for most of the day, either huddled up inside their home or wandering the streets with a small pack of similarly situated children. He wasn’t miserable because he’d never known anything different.

Then a fire had raged through the mill, taking the lives of over a hundred people, including his parents and brother. Henry was sent to a poorhouse, recently opened amid much fanfare about the king’s generosity. Like the other children, he was given work to do—mostly building small pieces of furniture. He would undoubtedly have spent the rest of his life in a factory, or perhaps he would have become a soldier. But one morning a very well-dressed stranger had appeared, accompanied by the orphanage director, and Henry and a few other boys had been lined up in front of them. The stranger peered at them as if they were chickens for sale in the market, and he’d asked them a few questions. Then he’d pointed at Henry and said, “That one will do.”

In all the years since then, Henry had spent nearly all of his time within the palace or its spacious grounds. Excursions into the city had been rare and usually heavily chaperoned. He’d stopped minding that long ago, content to be living in comfort with his prince.

And now here he was once again, striding through his birth city as if he were a traveler from afar. Nothing looked as he remembered. The streets were narrower and more crowded, the people grimier. There was a cacophony of shouts and wagon wheels and pounding, and odors of food, of unwashed bodies, of animal and human waste.

It was all very strange and might even have been overwhelming, but the iron bands around Henry’s heart caused him to feel numb. Nothing mattered. Nothing that he saw or heard or smelled or felt. All he was left with was his sense of loyalty to Stefano, a knowledge that Stefano was important to him, and a distant longing for what he’d lost.

The neighborhood he sought was some distance from the inn, well within the old city wall and not far from the docks. It had cobbled streets flanked by three- and four-story buildings, most of which had spalling plaster and rickety-looking upper balconies festooned with drying laundry. On the ground floors were small establishments where one could purchase a cheap meal, jewelers of middling quality, a few pawn shops and barely respectable pubs.

Henry visited several jewelers and pawn shops, offering to sell only a single item at each one. His story was that he’d inherited from a deceased distant relative who’d married into the aristocracy. It was doubtful whether any of the shop owners believed the tale, and they offered far less than the objects were worth, but he’d expected that. He was able to collect sufficient funds to get them to Fraysia and keep them in modest comfort for a time—not that Stefano required much in his present form.

He did require some things, however. Henry remembered that Stefano used to occasionally capture a frog from the pond, putting it in the same cage in which he was currently imprisoned, in fact. Stefano would bring his captive indoors and spend the day observing it closely, often creating sketches and even small paintings along with his copious notes. He made sure to keep the creature somewhere warm, and he’d provided a damp cloth to keep its skin from drying out.

Stefano had also fed it little bits of raw meat. He’d set the meat atop a small stick and wave it around until the frog gobbled it up, a process that seemed to entertain and delight him. By the time he returned his frog to the pond—usually the same day he’d caught it—the pampered little beast had seemed almost reluctant to return to the relative harshness of nature.

With all of this in mind, Henry stopped by a butcher’s shop on the way back to the inn and bought the smallest amount possible of some very expensive beef. The butcher raised his bushy gray eyebrows at the odd purchase but didn’t ask about it.

As Henry climbed the stairs to their room at the inn, he imagined opening the door and discovering that Stefano was gone. The idea made Henry’s heart ache as it strained at the iron bands confining it. When he reached the room and spied Stefano in the dish, exactly where Henry had left him, he heaved a small sigh of relief.