Beneath the jasmine I saw him, lying there, still, beneath the jasmine.

From a distance, as I was, he could easily have been sleeping outdoors like
the little boy blue of the old nursery rhyme- albeit clad in silks
and damasks instead of rough shepherd cloth. I wanted it to be so,
wanted on approach to find the smooth-skinned youth I had known,
dreaming peacefully in the shade, improbably untouched by the years
that had passed. But I knew better, and a cold dread filled my heart.
It couldn’t be good news.

Before I had time to fully comprehend what was happening, I found myself
running barefoot through the tangled grasses towards him, throwing
myself down beside him. He didn’t move. Blinking through the
moistness stinging suddenly at the corner of my eyes, I looked at
him. And gasped, in spite of myself.

He was changed- altered- almost unrecognisable. This I had known, with the rational part of my mind, but I hadn’t quite been able to imagine
the full extent of the change that had melted and bubbled his
familiar features like wax. The disgust lasted only a second though;
I reminded myself that it was the boy I had known beneath all the
thick, bushy hair and tentatively, marvelling at my own
presumptuousness, I touched his bristly cheek with a soft hand. It
was too cool.

That was when I couldn’t pretend any longer: he was gone.

I couldn’t say how long I lay there, weeping tears of silent grief that choked
back the words, which, even now, when it didn’t matter, I couldn’t
say. Nor would I want to dwell too long on them. At some point,
though, I realised how unseemly it was, how ridiculous I must seem to
the villagers if any of them had been there, sobbing like a child
before the body of the enormous, shaggy creature Charles-Auguste had
become. Composing myself, therefore, I swiftly wiped my eyes on my
apron, and stood up with a sudden purposefulness.

“I’ll be back,” I murmured to his unhearing body, and began to walk
towards the palace in search of the woman who’d killed him.