When Ignatius woke up, it was midday and the squirrel was seated on his chest,
peering down at him and swaying his now fully healed tail back and forth in a
happy manner.
“Why, hello!” Ignatius said, rather
surprised to see that he had returned so quickly. “I see Avaline has done your
tail some good.”
“She’s fixed it completely, sir!”
the squirrel said cheerily. “She’s fixed it completely and fed me so many
delicious nuts and oats and gave me a warm bed to nap in and I feel like the
wolf never hurt me at all! And I see that you’ve slain him! You’ve slain him,
and now he will never terrorize my poor family again! Oh, a thousand thanks,
sir! A thousand thanks! I don’t know how I will ever be able to repay a hero of
your caliber, which is truly the highest caliber there is! But I promise you, I
will repay you one way or another!
But tell me, why have you run away from your home in the palace, when it was
all too clear to me during my short time there that they deeply care for and
value you? Your friend Avaline must’ve begged me a million times to please just
tell her where I ran into you, and where you might be found now. But I knew
that I could not, and I kept my mouth shut no matter how much she pleaded and
cried. I felt terrible, sir, having to see her cry like that, and I wanted so
much to tell her where you were, but I followed your directions to the
letter.”
“I don’t understand why they care so
much,” Ignatius said. “I am nothing special. In fact, I proved to myself today
that I am quite an idiot, as I never told you how long you were meant to stay
at the palace before returning to the forest. Only an idiot would let such a
thing slip his mind so easily.”
“You are not an idiot,” the squirrel
told him matter-of-factly, “and it doesn’t matter about that, because I
happened to decide for myself when I should come back! And anyhow, I don’t
think anyone at your palace cares very much about that. The palace is in a
gloomy state, and everyone is so deep in mourning that nothing is really
getting done, and palace life appears to have halted completely. I questioned
your friend Avaline about it, and she told me that it was because Sir Ignatius,
the tenth knight of the king’s guard and the king’s chosen heir, has vanished
without a trace. The king has sent out all his knights to search high and low
for you, and is even taking part in the search himself, and will not call off
the search until you are found and returned. The citizens are in an upheaval;
they are truly terrified of the possibility that they have lost their best
knight. They…”
“Best
knight?” Ignatius interrupted. “You mean they still think of me as their best
knight?”
“After what you’ve done for me and
my family, without any price or negotiation or hesitation, I can see how they
think of you as their best knight, sir!”
“No, no,” Ignatius said, shaking his
head, “I am not their best knight. I have deserted
them! No good knight would ever desert his kingdom and leave everyone in
the sorry states they are all in now, and such a thing would be absolutely
unthinkable to any they could rightly name their best knight! No, this won’t do at all. I must return home and tell
them that they are all mistaken, and that if anyone is their best knight it is
most certainly not I! And then I will find the king, and beg him to execute me
on the spot for my crime of desertion!”
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