Free The Necessary Beggar by Susan Palwick

advisor. She understood the ways of the court better than he did, and knew whom to flatter and whom to avoid, which courtiers would respond to threats and which to gifts, and which tradespeople would manufacture gifts—if gifts were required—most quickly and cheaply. And she had been young when she died, and very beautiful.
    â€œThe baby boy’s spirit became enclosed within a gray stallion, that he might learn power and movement who had died dependent and confined. But the mother’s spirit was housed in a reed, for her mind had shaped itself to the mazelike ways of the court, and she needed to learn the wisdom of straight lines, and of being part of an equal multitude rather than standing above and alone, and of valuing sunlight and water rather than gems and costly gowns.
    â€œNow the prince still loved them both, as much as he could truly love anything, and every day he rode on the stallion to visit his wife among the reeds. But whenever the stallion spoke joyously of the glories of freedom, of galloping under the sky, the father grew more angry and bitter that his son
had not lived to run in human form. And whenever his wife spoke of the contentment of drawing nutrients from the earth, the prince despaired that he had lost his advisor, who had so cunningly guided him through the bogs of politics. And, just as fathers sometimes begrudge the bond between mothers and babies, which excludes them, the prince began to grow jealous of the growing love between the stallion and the reed, for both of them relished the wind, which meant nothing to him, and rhapsodized about the flavor of rain, which to the prince was only an annoyance which forced him to cover his head.
    â€œOne day he rode to the reeds in a great quandary, for dark rumors were swirling in the court that his youngest brother and several courtiers were plotting against him. Yet he had no proof, and if he accused them or acted against them without cause, he would hurt his own cause with his father, the king, who already thought him unbalanced with grief. And so he urgently sought his wife’s counsel, for once she would have known just what to do.
    â€œHe told the entire story to the reed, but his wife’s spirit said only, ‘How tiresome the court is! If you lived here by the river, you would know the magic of the dawn.’
    â€œâ€˜But I do not live by the river. I live in the court, and must continue to live there. Help me as you used to do!’
    â€œâ€˜This is truer help than any I ever gave you, husband. Learn to love the sunlight and the soil, and scheming courtiers will lose their power.’
    â€œAnd then the stallion said, ‘Oh, Mother, how true that is! How clear the sunlight is today, and how moist and fertile the earth!’
    â€œBut nothing in his life but loss and rage were clear to the prince, and he understand now that he had lost not only his moist and fertile wife, but her counsel, and thus his own hopes of survival in the court. And bitterly he said, ‘Wife, are you happier now as a stupid reed than you were in my arms, when we loved one another and plotted the increase of our power?’
    â€œâ€˜Oh, yes! I have learned happiness you never could have taught me, for the truest love is love of life, and the truest power lies in being part of many, as reeds are by the riverbank.’
    â€œAnd the prince, who no longer loved his life, and who thought he would be nothing if he were not first among men, flew into a rage: and he reached down and tore his wife’s reed from the soil, and broke it into two pieces, and cast them on the ground. And the stallion, in horror and terror at what the prince had done, reared up and struck him with its hooves, and the prince died in great pain.
    â€œAnd the Elements saw then, in grief, that the living and the dead could not be permitted to speak to one another, for the living who most needed the
wisdom of the dead would ever be the greatest