The Princess and the Bear (20 page)

T
HE WEDDING COULD
not be escaped. It wasn’t the finality of marriage with Richon that bothered Chala. Even the ceremony itself, however tedious and incomprehensible, could be borne. But the preparations made her irritable enough to wish for her hound’s teeth, if only to snap at those who bothered her every moment with some triviality.

Already there were rumors swirling that she was a she-bear that Richon had brought back with him from his enchantment. She must do what she could to show her human side as much as possible. And yet there was a part of her that would always be different.

There were three women who became Chala’s particular burdens. She refused to call them ladies-in-waiting, for she had no more wish of women fluttering around her now than she had when she had been Princess Beatrice. They were kind enough, but they tended to chatter about
topics of no particular interest to Chala. When she spoke of sword fighting, hunting, or running races, they gave her strange looks and seemed to have nothing to add to the conversation.

The three insisted on attending each of Chala’s fittings for her wedding gown, for they said that she would not be able to see herself clearly and that they would be better able to tell her what flattered her figure best.

The seamstress came with her best work, but Chala rejected gown after gown. One in particular Chala remembered with a shudder: lace everywhere, with a feathered hat and silver threads that a beautiful white wild bird had died to make.

“You would look like a dainty thing,” the seamstress promised as she held it out. “A woman made to adorn the arm of the king.”

“It is lovely,” said one of the not-ladies-in-waiting.

“Magnificent,” said another.

But Chala ignored them. She had not been a human woman long, but she knew what suited her and what did not.

Besides, she did not think that Richon cared a whit about whether or not she looked ornamental on his arm. He had loved her first as a hound, and as a woman he had loved her for what she could do, not for how she looked.

“Bring me something simple,” said Chala. She could wear a gown that was striking in color, she had found,
but simply designed. Yet she knew that a wedding gown had to be white.

And at last the seamstress returned with a gown that was made of one piece of fabric, from the bodice to the skirt.

“It is from three seasons past,” she said, her mouth twisted. “And I never sold it then, for it was too plain for any of the noblewomen who could afford it.”

But Chala liked it immediately. It had strong lines and the fabric shimmered when it moved.

She only pulled out the ribbons at the neckline and then raised the gown over her head. She even liked the feel of it as it touched her skin and warmed to her. She smoothed out the fine fabric over her hips.

She looked up and saw the seamstress and the three not-ladies-in-waiting gaping at her.

“It suits her,” said the most thoughtful of the three. “With the starkness of the pattern, it is her face you see. The strength in it. And the love.”

“She will start a new style entirely,” said the seamstress. And she began sketching intently some new gowns that were similar.

So in the end they were not displeased with her choice.

The seamstress brought in a shoemaker later that day. He offered her dainty jeweled slippers and pinched dancing boots with heels too high to be comfortable.

In the end Chala sent him away and decided to wear
instead the boots the wild man’s magic had given her when she was first transformed into a woman. They were worn, but she sent them to be cleaned, and they came back shiny and with new laces. They did not show much under the gown, but they did not shame her. And she had the added comfort of knowing that she could run in them.

Not that she expected to need to. But it was nice to know she could all the same.

The morning of the wedding she dressed herself, but allowed one of the ladies to pull her hair back from her face.

Then the music started.

The doors opened.

Chala had to force her legs to move forward.

She had no flowers in her hands. She thought it an abomination to pick living things purely for the sake of decoration.

But now her hands were clenched at her sides.

She was dry-mouthed, staring at Richon, far to the front of the palace chapel. And between the two of them, at least a thousand gaping faces.

She trembled, and tried to decide which way to go.

Toward Richon. Or away from him?

She knew which way she wanted to go. But she did not breathe until she reached his side.

Then he put his hands in hers. “Would it help for you to know that I am dripping sweat?” he said.

It did help. It made her grin and think that perhaps
he sometimes felt as little suited to his role as king as she did to hers as queen.

“Don’t look at them. Look at me,” he said, pulling her closer. “It’s not them you’re marrying.”

Strangely, as soon as the ceremony was over, the noise of the cheering around her lifted her spirits. She did not mind the cannons firing at all, though dinner went on far too long, and the meat was overcooked.

That night, when at last she went to Richon’s bedchamber rather than to her own, he asked her if she was nervous. Many women were, and she was so new to her body, he said.

But she bit his ear and he did not ask any questions after that.

In the morning she woke up with Richon’s breath on her shoulder and thought that all had been worth it. Even if she had no moment past this one.

She did mention to him sometime afterward the rumors about her that she had heard whispered about the palace.

Richon went rigid and white with anger. “Who would repeat such things?” he asked. His hands twitched, as if ready for a sword to be placed in them, to defend her honor.

“It is true,” said Chala with a shrug. She was surprised that Richon had heard nothing of them himself. It meant something to her that those around him knew him well enough to see how he loved her and how it would
hurt him to hear such things.

“It is not true,” Richon said flatly. “You are not a bear. You never were one.”

“But I was a hound, and I doubt that your people would see much distinction between the two. I was an animal.”

“You are human now. As much as any of them,” Richon said fiercely. “Without you I do not know if the battle would have gone as it had. I do not know if I would have taken the magic from the animals even. You guided me. And then you ensured that the cat man would never touch us with the unmagic again. You deserve their thanks and their welcome. Not these foul stories.”

“I think you must make an announcement of some sort,” said Chala.

“And say it is truth? How will that help?”

“It will help because your people will see you as strong enough to stand up against a threat.”

“And what of you? If I do as you suggest, then there will be countless jokes told about you all over the kingdom.”

“And there are not now?” asked Chala with an arched eyebrow.

“At least they are not said in your hearing,” said Richon.

“I think that you can trust me to be formidable enough that that will happen only once,” said Chala.

And so it was.

Richon did not make a public announcement, but he spoke openly of Chala’s years as a hound at his side and of her transformation.

The week after, a lack-witted noblewoman sat at dinner and mentioned casually that she thought that Chala’s teeth were rather large for her face.

Chala opened her mouth very wide and said, “And yet they are perfect for tearing flesh from bones. I always liked the taste of warm blood.”

The noblewoman went very still, then left the dinner table after a few minutes and did not return. She left the palace the following day and was not seen again.

Chala was not sorry for her.

But it stopped the rumors.

I
N THE MONTHS
following the wedding, peasants came to Richon from far and wide to ask for his wisdom. Others spoke to him of what reasonable taxes might be for the coming year. And many asked if they could send sons, daughters, or cousins to the palace to work.

This was the pleasant side of being king.

There was a far more unpleasant side.

Richon reserved the extreme penalty of execution for those who spread unmagic. There had been death enough in his kingdom already, but he had to send a clear message about not tolerating unmagic if he were to save the future.

Among the first to die was the man from the village with the alehouse who “trained” animals with unmagic. Chala had described him, and then made a positive identification at trial.

Richon told her repeatedly she need not come to the execution, but she insisted upon it.

“I have seen deaths before,” she told him.

“But not like this,” Richon insisted.

“No? King Helm executed five men while I was his daughter. And he made me come to see each of them. One was a man who did not know he was to be killed. His head was cut off in the midst of a polite conversation about music.” She held her lips tightly together when she was done speaking.

Richon thought perhaps she was right. It was not as if she were a sheltered noblewoman. She had seen many things as a hound, and then again when she had been in the body of a princess. And she had been with him at the battle. He did not think this would be worse.

The animal trainer went to his death quietly, and Richon wondered if he was too well acquainted with it by now to fight it. He seemed as empty of life and vigor as any of his animals.

Chala watched it all without any sign of emotion.

But afterward Richon found her weeping in their bedchamber.

“Can I do anything for you?” he asked.

She stared at him, her eyes red. “I understand now,” she said.

“Understand what?”

“Guilt,” said Chala. “Such a human thing.”

Richon nodded soberly.

“It does no good, for it changes nothing. But it is there all the same, reminding you that you might have done something different.”

“Not you, Chala,” said Richon. “You did all you could.”

Chala stared at him. “Are you trying to take away some of my humanness?” she asked.

Richon blanched. “No,” he said.

“Then leave me with my guilt.”

And he did, but never alone.

What surprised Richon most about being king again was the forest animals that came to consult with him.

A line of them, sometimes as long as the humans who came, would wait and speak to him and wait for him to translate for Chala, for it was her perspective they wished to know. They seemed to see her as their special queen.

Before the wedding and afterward, Richon went out and saw a group of swordsmen practicing in the courtyard. A few of them were soldiers, who used the swords as weapons and thought of death as they wielded them. Others held the swords as if they were artists. All of them were better than he was, so he asked if they would teach him.

He quickly grew stronger. He did not come to like the sword any better than before, however, and wondered if there were another battle, if he would do the same as before and simply turn into a bear.

Chala, however, had no such choice. She practiced
sword fighting with him in the courtyard of the palace and Richon loved to watch her. It was as if she had gained back some of what she had lost in losing her magic: the ferociousness and focus that she had as a hound and the sheer grace of her movements.

Often there was quite a crowd to see Chala best Richon, as she did all too frequently. And Richon heard there were more than a few women who were asking to join his royal guard—or even the army. That was when he felt that his people had truly come to see Chala as he did, as one of them, but more.

It was on one of those sword-fighting mornings when a man galloped forward on a horse, dressed finely in livery, and announced himself as a servant to Lord Kaylar, who had once been one of Richon’s companions in drinking and hunting.

Richon had refused many other “friends” from the past who had written to ask for a return to the king’s favor. But when Richon opened Lord Kaylar’s letter, it was a challenge to a battle to the death, to prove who should be rightful king of Elolira.

“What shall I say to my lord, Kaylar?” asked the messenger.

Richon could not see how he could refuse a challenge from one of his own noblemen. “I accept,” he said.

“It is for you to choose the place and time,” said the messenger.

Richon nodded. “One week hence. In this courtyard.
At noon.” The men around him cheered.

The messenger held himself very still.

“And the weapons?” asked Richon. That was Lord Kaylar’s choice.

“Magic,” said the messenger.

“Very well, then, magic it is,” said Richon. He had never seen a battle of magic before, though he had read of them in books that Jonner had recently shown him. It was an ancient tradition.

The messenger promptly mounted his horse and went galloping back in the direction from which he had come.

“Lord Kaylar?” asked Chala later, when the two of them were alone together.

“Yes,” said Richon. “Why?” She couldn’t know of the man, could she?

“He is the one,” said Chala.

“Which one?”

She only had to say one word. “Crown.”

Richon hissed, as the invitation suddenly made sense to him. Lord Kaylar had been the sort of man who attacked where he knew he would win. If he had been angry at Richon, he would attack him through his horse.

Poor Crown.

What did Lord Kaylar intend to do now? Richon suspected the man must have magic himself, but perhaps not much. In order to maim a horse as he did Crown, he could not feel much of the animal’s pain.

So why would he choose to battle with magic?

Did he think to prove that Richon did not have much of it, either? Or prove that Richon was a coward if he refused to kill a man with it?

Doubts tumbling in his mind, Richon did not sleep well for the next week. But when the day came, he was waiting in the courtyard as Lord Kaylar arrived, complete with his entourage. There was a banner-carrying young page at the front, in the bright colors of blue and gold that were Lord Kaylar’s. Then came the men-at-arms, who rode on warhorses. There were six of them.

Then Lord Kaylar himself, astride the largest horse of all. And after that, two carriages full of his wife and her ladies-in-waiting, who had come to watch the “sport” of seeing Lord Kaylar attempt to kill the king with his magic.

“My lord,” said Richon with a nod.

Lord Kaylar stared ahead coldly.

Then Richon put out his hands so that his own people would step back and give them space. When they were far enough away, he began to change into a bear.

He looked at Lord Kaylar. It seemed his magic was taking him much longer to use. Well, the bear would wait for it, then. He would not wish to be called unfair.

He stepped back.

And saw the man reach for a sword thrown toward him by one of his men.

The bear had no chance to see how an animal without a weapon would fare in a battle against a man with one.
Chala raced between Lord Kaylar and Richon and struck Lord Kaylar through the heart with her own sword.

When he lay dead at Richon’s feet, she turned up to look at him.

“I think King Helm would be proud of his princess,” Richon said.

Chala stared at her bloodstained hands. “I think not. It is not what a princess would do.”

“Perhaps not. But shouldn’t a queen do all she can to defend her king—and her people?” Richon asked.

“I would never have done it as a hound,” Chala said. “I would have thought my strength would show your weakness.”

“Your strength is my strength,” said Richon. “And it always will be.”

“Thank you,” said Chala.

Lord Kaylar’s entourage left swiftly.

Afterward, the others in the courtyard lifted Chala to their shoulders and sang warrior songs to her.

They howled to the skies and Chala did not join in. She seemed very thoughtful.

That night she said to Richon, “I thought I had lost my pack. But I have found it again.”