Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

And the parakeets echoed; “King! King!”

The cat was delighted. “At last!” he said. “At last, a people who will appreciate my magnificence!” And he made himself a royal crown of grass-green parakeet feathers and sat upon a grass-green throne to listen to his subjects. And all through the day, the parakeets circled him, squawking; “King, King!”

The cat was overjoyed, and swore to himself that he would be a good ruler and only eat his subjects very occasionally, to keep discipline and to vary his diet of capons and cream.

But when night fell, the cat grew hungry. And so he addressed his new subjects, saying; “I hunger. Bring me meat.”

The parakeets flew round him, crawk-ing and squabbling.

Meat! I hunger! Meat! Meat! squawked the flock of parakeets, and all the predators in the woods heard their call and came prowling. Wolves; foxes; weasels; owls; all followed the cries of the parakeets, and came to where the King sat, crowned; reclining on his grass-green throne. And all the parakeets flew away.

“Don’t go!” cried the King.

“Go! Go!” called the parakeets as they vanished into the treetops. But still the wolves and foxes came, eyeing the cat with hungry eyes.

Seeing that his subjects had flown, the cat made a rapid decision. “I don’t think I want to be King after all,” he said, and jumped off his regal throne and ran away as fast as he could. He ran away through the forest, leaving a trail of grass-green feathers as he went, back to the palace kitchens, where the king of the kitchens, in his tall hat, was fast asleep by the dwindling fire, and dreaming of becoming a pastry chef, or even, one day, a sauce-boy.

26

T

HE

R

ETURN OF THE

W

ASP

P

RINCE

During this time, the Wasp Prince had grown into young manhood. Under the care of the Spider Queen, he had grown strong and fearless; skilled in combat; silver-tongued; and brought up in the certainty that vengeance was sweeter than honeycomb.

The young Prince had his father’s powers; the ability to take any form, or to walk among the Sightless Folk in the shape of a handsome young man. He could sleep, cocooned in silk, in the top of the highest trees. The Sightless Folk feared him—he was cruel—just as they feared his father, whom they blamed for the son’s cruelty. And as time passed, the Wasp Prince learnt to enjoy his power in the world, and, with the Queen’s encouragement, to revel in causing fear and death. Throughout the summer and autumn he would gorge himself on honey and fruit; and in winter, he would sleep beneath silken sheets and thistledown in the heart of the Spider Queen’s lair. No one dared approach him. No one dared stand up to him.

His cruelty took many forms. Sometimes, he would take the shape of a swarm of wasps and attack at random, and without warning; here an old man on the market road; there a group of children playing around a mulberry-tree. But this was the least of his malice. In his guise as a young man, he would seduce a girl of the Folk—or sometimes, a boy—make them love him; then, when they were naked and in the throes of passion, the Prince would revert to his swarm Aspect, blanketing his victim in fire; stinging and remorseless.

Some died in his embrace; some, too, were left insane. The wasps—his special envoys—became the scourge of the Silken Folk; doing whatever they wanted; taking whatever they wanted; terrorizing humankind and living only to serve the Prince who had given them power and life.

From afar, the Lacewing King heard of the Wasp Prince’s exploits. Through his coat of a thousand eyes, he watched his son’s activities with growing curiosity. The Spider Queen had secret ways of shielding herself from prying eyes; and so the King was unaware of her influence in the young Prince’s life. Besides—as he told the Glow-Worm Chancellor, when that gentleman cautiously inquired as to whether His Majesty proposed to curb his son’s erratic behaviour—it was not the place of a King to meddle in the affairs of Princes. And as long as the Prince did not threaten him, he was content to leave him alone. Perhaps he was even flattered by the way his son had turned out—the Wasp Prince had already proved himself as ruthless and strong as he was himself.

Finally, the Honeycomb Queen came to hear of the newcomer, and traced his arrival back to her son. The Honeycomb Queen was the only one who had ever dared speak up to the King, and it was to her that desperate folk came to beg to intervene. She had a court of her own, deep in the heart of the woodland; a court that some called Tír na n’Óg, and others called Fiddler’s Green. There, she cared for her daughters, the bees, and watched over her son from a distance. But as the Wasp Prince and his folk grew stronger and more dangerous, she could no longer stay silent. Robed in bees, golden from head to foot, she came in state to the court of the King and found him in his throne room.

It had been a long, long time since the Queen had seen her son. It may be that he feared her a little—she was, after all, his mother. It may be that he felt guilty at not having visited her more often. Or it may be that he was simply bored: with the King, it was hard to tell. In any case, he greeted her politely enough: the bees on his coat of a thousand eyes winked and hummed and shimmered.

Bowing low, the Queen explained the reason for her visit. “Your rebel son, the Wasp Prince, has become too great a threat to ignore. You must exercise some control over him, or he will one day defy you.”

The Lacewing King laughed at that. “That little boy? Defy me?” he