compassion

They’re saying I killed the man. Poison in his drink, knife in his chest when it took too long for the life to drain from his eyes. I’d confess to it if I thought people would understand. See, he was going to die anyway. He was weeks out at most, failing organs and jelly limbs, he could barely sit up in bed. Every day he saw only the empty white of the palace ceiling and the rim of the porcelain bowl I used to feed him sad brown porridge. What is life in a state like that? When you’re young like me, at least people tell hopeful lies—they’ll say your aching joints could mend themselves one day, that you might become more than a lowly servant if you serve your monarch well. But for a man like him who had seen all there was to see, everyone was waiting for him to die. If he had been able to speak in those last moments, he would’ve begged me to finish him off. They’re saying I killed the man. But I know. I showed him compassion.