The king was on the run. Some said he wasn't the king. Never had been. They called him pretender. But the people of the fields and farms and workshops acknowledged no other leader. And so it was they sheltered him and fed his scattered armies as war divided and maimed the land. Fields were not sown. No crops were harvested for two years. Hunger weakened the people and disease took the old and very young.
The miller's wife sat at the cottage fire. There was no grain to grind to flour. Even the acorns and chestnuts had been ground and mixed with saw-dust and chalk to make a sort of meal.
``The war must end,'' said the miller's wife, ``Win, lose - what difference to the people?''
She spoke to a mendicant monk who sat across the hearth, but he did not hear her. He slept the sleep of exhaustion. When he awoke the fire was a handful of embers. He was no monk. He was the king.
A spider was trying to spin a web across the fireplace. Half dozing in the fading warmth the king watched the spider strive to span the corner with his silken thread. How many times did he swing himself? How many times fail? The king slept once more. In the morning he awoke to see the completed web perfectly symmetrical across the fireplace corner. Just as he focused on the finished web, the miller's wife swiped it away, killing the spider as she did so.
``So much for perseverance,'' the king thought. He ate sparingly of bitter acorn bread and continued on his way.