Moisture had moved through the air again last night. So much so that it left Gren’s sheet damp. Should’ve closed that damned window, he thought as he squinted at the morning light beaming through the small hole in the wall. The morning air was ice cold as usual. When the air never feels any different, those details tend to grow unremarkable, but the feelings never dwindle. The cost of raising a family in the valley, he smiled and shrugged comically. He struggled to remove his hands from the warmth that had built up under the sheet. He finally managed it and yawned as he rubbed at his face and itched his scalp. He moved his hand to the space beside him, but felt no one there. His palm touched the frosted ground and his eyes slowly adjusted to the light in the room. That’s when the reminder hit him like a mace to the side of his head. He looked around the room, at the window secured by bars of steel, at the putrid-smelling bucket in the corner spattered with brown specks, at the blackened straw he was lying on. His wife was not here. He wasn’t in his room. He wasn’t even in the valley. He looked a second time at the window of his prison cell. Couldn’t close it even if I wanted to. After all these years, Gren Forwood was still waking up to a life that had ended fifteen years ago.

It was early spring when Gren and his family ushered the King into their small town in the valley of Veromei. A visit from the King to one of the Lesser Cities usually only happened once every fifty years or so. If one was lucky enough to live in one of the Lessers, they may hear the roaring crowds from a distance, and even that was counted as an experience of a lifetime. The Forwood family shouldn’t’ve been anywhere near enough to even hear the crowds. But the result of the death of one of the cooks assigned to the Royal dinner left Gren filling in as a replacement. Subsequently, he and his family were given the honor of welcoming the King and his body of men not from a distance, but in person. Although not by his own efforts, Gren felt for the first time in his life that he had given his family something to be proud of, some positive piece of history to add to the Forwood name.

Dressed in their very best, the Forwoods found themselves bowing as the company passed. All except Gren’s youngest, the three month old Cal. And Gren soon learned that some great events are better viewed either from a distance or not at all. He did not know the King or his expectations, so when the King approached and saw that Cal was not bowing, he gave Gren a second chance to get it right. Gren threw his son to the mud and begged under his breath for Cal to bow, but Cal, being three months old, did no such thing. Gren was apprehended and immediately taken to the Summit, a prison where winter never ends. Fifteen years in the past, and Gren remembered every detail like it had just happened.

Gren heard the crunch of boots on the hard ground. Someone was coming. He skittered across his cell into the corner that was farthest from the door and curled into a ball. No, no, please no. Not yet. God, I can’t do it anymore. He began breathing heavily, chest rising and falling hard.

“Alright Grenny boy, up you get,” a round guard with multiple chins chuckled in a mocking tone as the key met the keyhole on the cell door.

“Please, can’t we just give it a rest for a couple days? I need more time to accumulate,” Gren scratched at his scalp, worried.

“Oh, save it, Forwood. Are you, after all these years, really going to pretend that you still don’t know the King or his expectations? You must be dull as rocks! The King is throwing some waste-of-time banquet tonight, so we need to get started early and you better produce a fine haul. Now, get up or you’ll spend the next week in the leper’s cell!” Gren did as he was told, but the guard spat in his straw bed anyway.

As Gren passed, the guard could see that his head was crawling with lice. The lice was so thick that it looked as if Gren had just pulled his head from a hole at a sandy beach. “Ah, that’s real nice,” the guard drooled, glands firing at full force. “Today must be your lucky day, Grenny boy. The King is going to be real happy,” he finished, slapping Gren hard on the back.

“Can we…slow down a little bit? I need to…catch my…breath,” Gren managed as they raced through the hall.

“You’ll shut that mouth if you know what’s good for you, Forwood. Besides, the combing room is unavailable, so you’ll be snowin’ right here today.”

The guard slowed into a room Gren had never seen before. The room was bare except for a brazier in one corner, a set of iron manacles affixed to one of the walls, and an oversized bowl on the ground below the manacles. Gren secured himself with the manacles and looked up at the guard with basset hound eyes.

“C’mon, Grenny! Don’t just stare at me, get to it! Today ain’t the day to dawdle around! The King has made it very clear that parmesan is no longer an adequate substitute! FILL THAT BOWL! I tell you, if that bowl ain’t filled in the next twenty minutes…do I need to mention the leper again?”

Gren sighed and began scratching his head. Lice and dead skin began flurrying into the bowl. He began scratching harder. And harder. He scratched so hard that blood began running down his forehead threatening to drip into the bowl and contaminate the entire thing. He moved his head in time for the drop to land on the ground.

“The King wants his lice, Grenny! He wants it alllll!” The guard was becoming hysterical and he was losing complete control of himself now. He began frothing at the mouth. “Get that lice! Get that lice! Lice for the King! Lice for the Queen! It’s gonna be a buffet tonight, my dears!” He was marching around the room now, holding a stick in his hand that he’d found on the ground, pumping it above his head into the air.

The bowl was almost filled. Ninety seconds more would do it. Gren scratched harder than he ever had before. His head and fingers were on fire with pain. He began screaming, a last ditch effort to give all he had left. The guard went down on all fours and began screaming with him, the scabbard of his sword dragging on the ground. Birds outside the prison scattered as the sound became piercing. Then all went silent, save the heavy breathing of the two men in the room.

The guard was soaked and dripping with sweat, Gren with blood. He had done it. An amount of head lice fit for a King.

The guard composed himself, wiping his foamy mouth on a dirty sleeve. He crawled over to the bowl, licked his index finger, dipped it into the bowl and put it back into his mouth. He made a sound of satisfaction as his finger came out clean and wet. “Mmm, uh,” he said, short of breath, “God, Grenny. You really are a work of art, you know that?”

Gren kept his head down and remained silent as streams of blood began flowing down his face. The guard stood and slapped Gren in the face for his lack of acknowledgement. He patted down his uniform and wiped the sweat from his brow, then picked the bowl up with both hands. “A fine haul. A real fine haul, my boy. Same time tomorrow? I hear the King is throwing an even bigger dinner tomorrow night!”

At that, the guard left the cell whistling and forgetting to release Gren from the manacles.