The Princess and the Hound (25 page)

M
ORE THAN A WEEK
later, to George’s astonishment, he found King Davit out of his bed, sitting in the chair by the window.

“Father?” asked George.

The king turned. His face was gray.

“Father, should you be sitting there?” George hurried to his side, ready to help him.

“Dr. Gharn says that a little sitting up will not damage me, though it may fatigue me. You do not need to fuss over me like a mother hen.”

George moved back. “I thought—that is, I was used to—”

“Yes, I know. I have been neither king nor father, truly, for these last months. But I am not dead yet.”

George flushed. “I did not mean—I know you are not—”

“George, what did you come to say to me? Surely you are not here because you heard that I was sitting up out of bed.”

“No,” George said. “I came to tell you that I intend to go out into Wilbey today and into the villages within riding distance of the castle. I want to let them see me, to know I am no coward, and to hear their complaints about the proclamation.”

Spoken aloud, it sounded so bold. Would his father forbid it? There were dangers, certainly, but George had to be allowed to face them.

“I see,” said King Davit. “And do you go alone?”

“Do you mean that I should take some guards with me? I had thought I would bring two. Enough to prove who I am, but not so many that they could not be overwhelmed.”

“You wish to be overwhelmed?”

“I wish to show that I am not afraid of being hurt,” said George, “and that I do not depend on my guards to protect me from my people.”

“Because you can call the animals to come to your aid?”

George was flustered. Was that what the people would think? But he could not see how to stop those who would think ill of him. He must not do everything for their sake. “They must come to trust me,” he said at last, “and this is the best way I can see to do it.”

Would his father offer another way? Would it be
better? Then George would have to accept it and do as he was bid. But he desperately wanted to be allowed to do as he had planned. Even if it was not the perfect plan.

“You will take this Henry of yours as one of the guards?”

George nodded. Of course he would take Henry, now that he had come back. All had gone well with his beloved, and they were soon to be married. Sooner than George and Marit. George felt a bit of envy at that, but also pride, that he had helped make this union a happy one. And Henry was certainly happy.

“I plan to make him the lord general,” he added. Then he realized he did not have the power to do that. Not yet.

But his father only nodded. He had already heard of his old friend’s defection from Sir Stephen.

“What of the princess?” he asked next.

“I shall ask her to come with me,” said George. “The people should see her at my side.”

In fact George must go quickly to Marit if he was to persuade her to come with him before she had to return to Sarrey. They would need most of the day to get to Wilbey and the villages beyond, and George did not want to leave the impression that he believed his villages unworthy of his presence.

His father had one last thing to say. “George, you will make a fine king. I only wish I could be here to see the whole of it.” A small smile fluttered across his face.

George went to Henry and told him what he intended to do. The guard seemed several inches taller now that he no longer had to hide half of himself in fear of reprisals against animal magic. He would do very well as lord general. Very well indeed.

“Do you have a recommendation for the second guard?” George asked.

“Of course,” said Henry. “His name is Trey, Your Highness.”

That phrase had always rankled George. And yet he could not escape from it, any more than he could escape from his animal magic. He had to accept both of them now.

“Tell me about this Trey,” George said.

So Henry said simply that he was the most closemouthed of the group.

“Does he have the animal magic himself?” asked George.

“He says that the animal magic is no more or less a skill than playing the flute. And as he himself is tone-deaf to music, he does not care the one way or the other about it.”

“Ah,” said George. Good. He needed to get both sides to trust him now, and he would rather not be seen as favoring those who had animal magic so that he would have no others close to him at court.

Now George hurried to Marit’s bedchamber.

She agreed to come with him readily enough, but
once they were out riding, she seemed to grow silent and unsure. George reached for her hand as they approached the central road that led into the town of Wilbey. She was cold and trembling nearly as much as his father had been.

He motioned for Henry and Trey to stop just ahead of him.

“What is it?” he asked Marit.

“I do not know if I am ready for this,” she said. “I hear a voice in my head, telling me I am worthless, that I can do nothing of value. How, then, can I be your queen?”

“It is your father’s voice?” George asked.

Marit nodded unhappily. “For the years she was with me, my hound, Beatrice, replaced his voice with her love. But now she is gone, and—”

And George was not enough. Well, though that put an arrow through his heart, he had known her for only a few weeks’ time. Perhaps in several more years she would hear his voice instead.

“Would you rather go back to the castle then?” George asked. He could do without her if he had to.

“No.” Marit’s lips twisted in a defiance that seemed familiar. He had seen it on the same face, but when it had been inhabited by a different soul. Or had the hound stolen Marit’s original expression? Had it been hers all along?

“I shall go with you. And before you think me courageous, realize this: When I leave you, I must face my
father. And I can think of nothing your townspeople can show me that is more terrifying than the thought of him.”

“Are you sure?” George asked one more time.

“I am sure I should do it,” said Marit. “But whether I will run away—that I cannot tell you.”

George did not believe it for a moment. But there was nonetheless a terrible courage in this honesty of hers, to show herself so vulnerable, so certain of failure in one way or another.

“Marit—that is…should I call you Beatrice or Marit now?” George had not asked her outright before but had come to his own decision. Would she be unhappy with it? He had gotten used to it, but he could go back if he had to.

“You think of me as Marit still?” she asked, her eyes shining with tears.

“Yes,” said George guiltily. “It is how I first met you. But if it pains you, I will—”

“No, no. You do not understand. I am glad that you still see me as I was. That I am not simply enveloped by one body or another. You came to know me as the hound, as Marit. I am the same now to you, am I not?”

“Of course you are.” What other answer could there be to that? “Who would think differently?” he asked.

It did not take a moment for Marit to name him. “My father,” she said.

Her father. It always came back to King Helm for
her. “Ah. He never knew that you were changed. Do you plan to tell him even now?”

“Never,” she said with certainty.

“So you will go back to being the Beatrice he has always assumed you were?” George could not suppress a shudder. This seemed worse than death, never to be allowed to grow or change.

“I do not know…how to be anyone else,” said Marit. “With him.” She thought on it longer, then added, “Yet I cannot let him treat me as he has always treated me before this.”

But George could see that Marit must try harder.

“You could play the game of kings with him,” said George. “That would be a beginning.”

“But would he play with me?” asked Marit.

George stared at her. “You must insist on it,” he said. “And that will be the first of the changes.”

“That is one way of doing it,” said Marit. But she did not seem to think it would be her choice.

“You can hardly challenge him to a duel in the courtyard,” said George.

“Can I not?” asked Marit.

George’s face fell. He had not meant her to take it seriously. He had faced her father himself, and it was not something to be taken lightly. And he was a man her father respected and had no intention of killing. If King Helm were truly angry, what might he do? “He would simply refuse,” said George suddenly, with certainty.

Marit did not argue with him. “If I came to him dressed as a woman, yes, he would. But if I were in disguise—”

“In disguise? He would not take any precautions. He would dare to truly battle with you!” said George. It was only when he saw Marit’s face turn to him that he realized what he had said. He did not think she could win against her father. He, of all people, still thought of her as a woman first.

“I lost to him badly,” George muttered. And he was not a woman.

“You do not know him as I do. You have not watched him on the battlefield time after time, facing opponent after opponent. You do not know his every weakness, his every strength. I know his style, his pleasures, even the count of his breaths.”

“Yes, but—” He could not stop himself from objecting again.

“If I beat him, he will see me differently. Truly.”

“But if he kills you…” said George.

Marit blinked at him. “Then I will be dead.” She said it as coldly as if it were Beatrice speaking, a hound that had lost all her family and did not care to live any longer.

“And you will not think of me and what your death will do to our kingdoms?”

Marit’s face was splotched red and white, but she did not look away. “If I think of you so much that I forget myself, then my father will be right. I will be only a
woman. Not Marit. Still Princess Beatrice, now and always.”

George opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong, that it did not have to be that way, but only a low croak came out. It was exactly the way he had felt about declaring his animal magic. She had to be herself. Even if she did very well and was wounded. Even if she did badly and was killed. Her father would think of her differently ever afterward.

“He had best beware then,” said George softly.

Marit reached out and embraced George, over their horses. Then she gave him a shy little kiss on his cheek.

“You don’t offer to send animals in with me to protect me?” she asked.

George knew what to say then. “I had better send them to his aid, I think.”

And she sparkled with that. He had done the right thing for her soul, he was sure. He wished he could be as certain it was the right thing for her life.

But no, he should not doubt. He would not doubt.

N
EAR THE TOWN
square of Wilbey they slowed, then stopped and dismounted. Hand on Marit’s shoulder, George moved her forward and looked out over the gathered people. In a loud voice, he said, “This is Princess Marit of Sarrey, my betrothed.”

The murmurs began then, as the townspeople stared at her from one side or the other, trying to decide if this was the same woman they had learned to call Princess Beatrice or if this was her sister, perhaps, and very like her.

George did not wait for a consensus. He went on. “I have come to settle any complaints to be made regarding the recent proclamation on animal magic. And to answer any questions.”

A roar of voices answered him, and it was only when he pointed to a man holding a knife in his hand that the
noise died down, though Henry and Trey gave each other nervous glances.

The man waved the knife at George. George motioned for Henry and Trey to step back. After all, he had brought them more for show than for real assistance. If a mob meant to kill their prince, they could do it.

“What is your concern?” George asked.

“You think there is no evil in animal magic?” the man demanded.

“Not inherently,” said George carefully. “Of course there is evil everywhere, and those with animal magic are not above it any more than anyone else.” Was that the right answer? Well, it was the only one George could give.

“Then you will not mind taking my son from me,” said the man. He nodded to a man behind him who held a boy tightly roped with his arms behind his back.

The boy was pushed forward and nearly fell on his head. When he got to his feet, he snarled both at his father and at George. Then he burst into the language of the bear, so that George could have no doubt that he truly had the animal magic.

Was the boy mad? Had the animal magic done that to him?

“He eats my food and does nothing else all day but snarl and bite and sleep. He is a beast, I tell you. And if you think he is more than that, then you take him. I will have no more to do with him.”

George moved closer to the boy, tried to speak to him gently. “Friend, I am a friend. No danger here.”

But as soon as he was close enough, the boy bit George’s hand.

His father laughed harshly. “I told you. He is a beast.” And he spat on his son, then kicked him down so that he was in the dirt once more. Without another word, he strode away.

And George was left to find some solution from this. Wasn’t this what he wanted? To have the chance to improve the lives of others who had animal magic? To meet them, to know who they were and what their challenges meant to them?

But now he was in the middle of a swelling town square, all eyes on him, his people waiting to see what he did, in justice and mercy.

How had the boy been treated as a child? How long had his father known that he had animal magic and despised him for it, even as he tried to conceal it?

George closed his eyes for a moment and imagined himself as the boy. What would he have been like if his father had been this boy’s father?

The wound on his hand throbbed. George felt his heart beating fast in his chest.

And he put out his hand again. This time he spoke in the language of the bears. “Friend,” he said simply. “Friend.”

The boy stared at him, quiet.

George put out his hand and touched the boy’s head, gently moving down to his back. Then he moved close enough to touch the ropes that bound him. He tugged at them, to no avail. They had been pulled too tight, for too long. To judge from the sores on the boy’s wrists, he had been tied this way for months on end.

“Henry, a knife,” George said.

The gathering crowd gasped when Henry flashed the steel and brought it to George. Did they think that he would kill the boy, slit his throat and leave him for dead? Or abuse him and threaten him as his father had?

The boy flinched as George brought the knife closer.

Again, as a bear speaking to another, George said, “Just a moment, and you will be free.”

The boy braced himself, and George flicked the knife at the ropes. They fell away, and the boy was still for a moment, his hands held to his back as if they knew no other place to go.

The crowd was silent.

Then suddenly the boy jumped up, hissed at George, and clawed at his face.

The crowd gasped.

And the boy turned on them, raking and clawing at those who were nearest.

Should George have killed him while he had the chance?

Henry and Trey raced through the crowd to pull the boy away.

Still, George thought he could see the outrage on the faces of those he looked at. They were willing to accept difference only so far, and no further. Prince George having animal magic was one thing, but this boy was another.

“What shall we do with him, Your Highness?” asked Henry.

George raised his knife to the boy’s face.

Suddenly the boy was quiet again. It was as if he were begging for death. A madman does not beg for an end to his madness, does he?

George gave the knife to Henry instead.

“Let him go,” he whispered.

“Your Highness!” Henry protested.

“Let him go!” George commanded, so there could be no mistake.

And Henry stepped back.

George spoke to the boy in the language of the rabbits then. He remembered how he had loved rabbits when he was a boy, first learning the rudiments of animal language.

“I shall give you food,” he said, “if you come with me. Quietly, quietly.”

The boy hesitated. “Food?” he asked, his voice hoarse, but the one human word clear.

George nodded.

The boy sagged to the side, and George held him by the shoulder.

“Go with this man. He will take you to the food,” George said.

The boy sniffed at Henry, but he did not attack. Perhaps Henry smelled of animals as well.

“Can you talk to him?” George asked Henry.

Henry shrugged. “I suppose,” he said. “If I must. But that does not mean he will understand me or do what I ask.”

“I think he will,” said George. “Help him onto your horse, and take him back to the castle. Make sure he is well fed and then given a warm bed to sleep in.”

“I should not leave you, Your Highness,” Henry protested.

“I am not alone.” George pointed to Trey. “And I swear I will not be long.”

“What if this—boy harms someone?” asked Henry.

“He will not,” George said. He was sure of it. He had to be. He trusted his people, so that they would trust him.

The boy followed Henry with a nudge from George.

With Marit at his side and Trey at his back, George asked who was next. After a moment a woman came forward. She told her story, that she had once had the animal magic but had suppressed it so long she did not know if she could get it back. She hoped to, though, and wanted to know if George had any advice to give her on the matter.

“Did you get the headaches?” he asked.

She nodded.

“And you ignored them? But you did not die?”

“I came close to it, with the fever. But I survived.”

Perhaps the animal magic was burned out of her then,
George thought. But he could not be sure. “You must come to the school, to tell what you know of the animal magic and what happens when it is ignored. And perhaps there will be those there who can help you as well.”

“But you yourself know nothing of it?” the woman asked.

George cleared his throat and admitted the truth, that he did not.

The woman nodded sadly and went on her way.

And so it went the rest of the day. Trey reminded George to break away some three hours after noon, to get to the villages he had hoped to. This was just a beginning. There was more excitement than George had guessed at, but there was fear too, and violence.

Not many of those in the crowd closest to him had been violent, but he had heard them beyond, and when he and Marit rode away, there had been a few moments when he wondered if they would live another hour.

In the villages things were quieter. People there were in awe just to see the prince and princess who would rule them one day. They asked less than those in town had and offered him the best of their food. After a long day George realized that he would have to come back to them later, allow them questions when they were not afraid what to say.

At last he and Marit rode off as the sun was beginning to set. Trey followed at a discreet distance.

But Marit was quiet, and George found himself thinking about his proclamation. He had thought it so all-encompassing when he had first made it, but now he could see so many holes in it, mistakes even, and places he had not begun to touch.

“If I had a hound still, what would your people think of me?” asked Marit.

George did not know what to say. “Do you wish to have another hound?” he asked, and tried to suppress the sudden feeling of jealousy that rose in his heart. She had already said that she had heard her hound’s voice louder than her father’s. If she got another one, then what about George’s voice? Would it be drowned out altogether?

But did he have any right to insist that she hear him inside her mind and heart? They were only to be married, and that did not mean they had to live inside each other that way as well.

“I might…someday,” said Marit. “I do not know if I will ever be completely comfortable inside stone walls. I am like my father in that way, and always will be.”

“You must do what is right for you,” George said at last.

“Do you think you would have loved me if there had not been the two of us, the hound and I?” asked Marit next.

George puzzled over this for a moment. “I knew from the moment I saw you together that I need never worry about your knowing the truth of my animal magic. But I believe I would have come to love you regardless. It might have taken me longer to find you, however. Underneath that hard skin of yours—and I do not mean the skin of the hound that covered you.”

Marit smiled at this. “I believe you,” she said. “You are not blind as my father is. It is good to know that others in the kingdom will be judged by those same clear eyes.”

George found himself speechless at this unexpected compliment.

“I do love you, George,” said Marit.

The horses had stopped, as if George had asked them to, in the language of the horses. But no, they could also hear another language, the language of love.

“I love you, Marit,” said George. And he had never been so sure of anything in his life.