A man-at-arms hit him in the side with his pole arm. “Silence.”

Another pulled the rabbits from his hands.

The farmer looked down and spoke no more. He was visibly trembling.

“What punishment does he expect?” Aurora asked Prince Phillip. For the man to be so afraid, it must be very bad indeed.

Lord Ortolan pushed his way to the front, clearly glad to be of use. He spoke before Phillip could. “Blinding would be considered merciful.”

Aurora was astonished.

“Have him sewn into the skin of a deer and we will set our dogs on him,” said one of the men-at-arms. “That’s what your grandfather King Henry would have done.” A few of the others laughed.

The man began to weep and beg incoherently.

Were these the same humans who thought the faeries of the Moors were monsters? Did they not see how horrible it was to have so much and not be willing to give anything to someone in need?

Aurora bent down near the farmer. “What is your name?” she asked.

“Hammond, Your Majesty,” he managed to get out through his tears. “Oh, please…”

She hated the idea of hunting, but Hammond was no more cruel than any fox or owl or other animal that killed to feed its young—and she could no more justify punishing him than one of them. He was only trying to survive. Nobles killed far more than they could eat and had to justify nothing.

“You may take rabbits from my woods so long as your family needs food, Hammond,” she said.

She turned to the soldiers and drew herself up. This time when she spoke, she didn’t hide her anger or her horror at their treatment of the man. “Give him back the rabbits he caught and let him go.”

No soldier hesitated to obey her.

“Surely there must be some punishment,” Lord Ortolan sputtered, “or peasants will take advantage of you. Your woods will be picked clean.”

Aurora wanted to contradict him, but it was probably true that no rules around hunting on royal land would result in the forest being emptied, and not necessarily by those in need. “I hereby decree that from now forward, any citizen of Perceforest may take one single rabbit from the queen’s woods without punishment. Furthermore, anyone who is hungry may come to the palace and be given a ration of barley for every member of their family.”

“The royal treasury cannot possibly sustain that,” Lord Ortolan said in a quelling manner.

“If the people are fed, they won’t have to steal. And they can pay their taxes.” If the treasury could afford to pay for all the confections that were set before the nobles, it could afford grain for families in difficulty, Aurora thought. “Furthermore, I proclaim that no one, under any circumstances, shall blind another person or sew them into a deerskin and set dogs on them. Is that understood?”