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

was seen by his folk again, looking a little paler, perhaps, smiling even less often. And when one of the cockroach soldiers was fool enough to ask after the Honeycomb Child, the King’s explosion of rage was enough to ensure that no one else ever dared ask the question again, or even referred to the fact that, once, their King had had a son.

Only the Honeycomb Queen knew the truth. But she never told anyone. She had only intended to punish the King, not to ridicule him. But that was the end of the Lacewing King’s desire for a son in his image. For, as the Honeycomb Queen had said, love is often half-sweetness, half-sting, and he had been stung once too often. And yet, sometimes, it seemed to the Queen that something about him was different. She hoped so. In spite of all his many faults, she was his mother, after all.

In any case, the Lacewing King never did take revenge on the honeybees. In fact, in his way, he always seemed closer to them than to any of the Silken Folk. Nor did he threaten the Queen again, or ever try to coerce her. But he never spoke of his son again, or gave any further sign of wanting someone with whom to share his life. Hopeful queens and princesses began to look elsewhere for a husband. His selfishness they could live with, they said, as well as his temper and cruelty. But for all his wealth and power and looks, he just wasn’t made for fatherhood.

31

P

ENANCE OF THE

L

ACEWING

K

ING

Soon after that, for the first time since the restless days of his boyhood, the Lacewing King decided to leave his underground court and travel the roads of World Above. No one could guess his reasons for abandoning his kingdom, his comforts, and his servants—except perhaps for the Honeycomb Queen, who may have had her own ideas, and who knew him better than anyone.

In any case, once he had made up his mind, no one could force him to change it. He left his Glow-Worm Chancellor and his Cockroach Commander in charge of the court, and, stopping only to pack a few necessaries—his sword, two shirts of spider-silk and a pound of earwig cracknel—set off into the forest towards the mysterious world of the Sightless Folk—in other words, the world of Men.

The Sightless Folk had always held a peculiar fascination for the King. Perhaps because he had been delivered by a human midwife; perhaps because he felt the need to atone for some of his cruelties. Or maybe it was just because they seemed to lead such frantic lives, fraught with hope and hate and love, while his was uneventful, and had been so for a hundred years. And so he set off alone, at first light, leaving his people wondering.

“I’ll give him a week, maybe two,” said the Glow-Worm Chancellor.

But the Honeycomb Queen was not so sure. Since the loss of the Honeycomb Child, the Lacewing King had been different. She had seen him angry; impatient; bored; but never so sad—at least, not until now.

So, he has a heart, after all, she thought. And she sent her bees to follow him, to report to her where he went, and to give him any help they could.

It was autumn. The nights were cold. For the first time in his life, the King slept on the hard, cold ground, and not in a bed hung with gnats’-wing drapes, under a caterpillar quilt. But while he was sleeping, the bees came down from out of the forest canopy and covered him from head to foot in a warm, thick blanket. The King never noticed them, of course; but was surprised at how well he slept, and from afar, the Honeycomb Queen was reassured that her son was safe.

Day by day, the Lacewing King continued through the forest. The leaves were mostly fallen now, and the air was white with mist. He soon finished all the provisions he’d brought, and looked around him for berries and fruit; but the season was past, and pickings were few, and so the King went hungry. Though he was used to eating such things as cockroaches and woodlice, these were always served to him deliciously prepared, by chefs who had been trained for years to braise a roach to perfection, or to make a tart from dragonfly tongues that melted as it touched the lips.

But the King had no idea how to do those things for himself. And so he fed on rose-hips, and drank the rain that dripped from the trees, until once more the Queen sent her drones to show him where the wild bees slept, and to feed him straight from the honeycomb.

By now it was very clear to the Queen that this quest was no whim of her son. Seven days had already passed, and the Lacewing King was undaunted. What was he looking for? She did not know. Perhaps he did not know himself. But until he found it, the Queen understood that he would not return to her. She wanted to protect him, but knew that he must find his own way, and so she simply watched from afar and hoped that he could take care of himself.

On the eighth day of his quest, the King came to a village. It was years since he’d cared to venture so far from his underground court, and yet he seemed to remember it. Hidden from sight by the trees, he watched as the villagers came and went; the washer-women by the stream; the blacksmith with his horses. As night began to fall, he watched as the children came out of school and the smoke from the evening’s cooking-fires came curling out of the chimneys. It was all quite unremarkable, and yet for some reason it drew him.

Night came. The Lacewing King continued to watch, as fires burned, and windows lit up all around the