The Princess and the Hound (10 page)

“W
E NEED TO
get back to the hunt,” George said. The encounter with the rabbit had dissipated the pain in his head—for now. It should last long enough to take him back to Kendel.

Henry nodded. “They will hardly notice you have been gone, I suspect. Too excited about the sight of the bear.”

George’s ears rang. “Bear?” he echoed, his body suddenly taut.

“Yes,” said Henry. “A great black bear that has only recently appeared here in Sarrey, they say. Old, and alone, it is said to be angry and completely unafraid of humans.”

George shivered. “We must get back to the hunt immediately,” he said abruptly. “Where is your horse?”

“I brought back both of them, yours and mine,” said
Henry. He nodded toward the way he had come. “I thought it would be better to tie them at the last place I’d seen you, in case I went in the wrong direction and you came back there.”

George nodded. “We must reach them before they kill the bear,” he said firmly.

“If you insist, Your Highness,” said a bewildered Henry. “We will try.”

No,
thought George. It was not good enough to try. For this bear, he had tried before and failed. This time he would succeed.

George nudged his horse to go over faster through the woods. He hoped the horse knew the terrain better than he did, for he had no idea where there might be a pit in the trail, or a tree fallen in the way, or an old stream to leap over. Aware of Henry close by, George whispered in the horse’s ear only now and again about the need for speed. By some miracle, the gentle mare was able to go nearly as fast as George wanted. Henry and his mount struggled to keep up, or so it seemed by the grunting and heavy breathing George heard behind him.

Drenched in sweat and dew, George emerged suddenly from around a corner and caught sight of the hunting party ahead. Many of the horses were shying away, despite their riders’ attempts to keep control. King Helm was in the front, with a spear held up high, ready at any moment for the bear’s throat.

It was the bear George had seen as a child; he was
sure of it. George could see the same coloring, the same terrible stature and girth. Most important, there was that same human look in its face.

Unmistakably human.

But that look did not stop King Helm, if indeed he recognized it at all. He shouted at the beast and maneuvered it this way and that, to make sure there could be no escape.

George, however, did not see that the bear intended any escape. It looked to him as though it were begging for death and had come precisely to this place to get it. The bear could have shorn off King Helm’s throwing arm entirely with one swipe, if it had wished. Instead, it tottered back and forth, waiting.

“Stop!” George called out.

It was not enough to keep King Helm from releasing his hold on the spear but enough to alter its trajectory. Instead of striking the bear in the throat, the spear hit the animal’s shoulder instead.

In a moment the woods were filled with a terrible howl of despair, a combination of human anguish and animal ferocity that George hoped never to hear again.

King Helm turned about, his face red with anger. “Mindless idiot! Why did you do that?” he demanded. Nor did he try to soften his words when he saw it was George.

George drew up to the king. “This is a bear from my kingdom,” he said, mixing truth and bravado. “I claim it
for Kendel and for myself.” He waved at the bear. “It is mine to kill or to let live.”

“From your kingdom? How can you tell such a thing about a wild beast? Besides, if it has wandered here, then surely it is ours now.” King Helm seemed to be torn between amusement and affront.

George dismounted and strode manfully to stand between King Helm and the bear. Strangely, he was not afraid of being attacked from behind. “I have hunted it several times,” said George. “And I know its marking.”

King Helm snorted. “Ridiculous.” He looked back toward the bear, which had fallen to the ground in writhing agony. Then he sighed. “Well, then, finish it off, if you can,” he said. He offered George the knife on his belt.

“No!” George said, shaking his head.

King Helm dismounted and faced George from his full height. “It is a man-beast. Did you know that when you hunted it in your own kingdom, if indeed you did? Infected with the animal magic. Look at it and see!” he said.

George did not look. “Nonetheless. It is my beast, and I say it goes free.”

“With that wound in its shoulder?” King Helm was scornful. “You are simply condemning it to die in agony some days from now.”

“And that bothers you?” George threw back at him. “Because you are so concerned about the pain of a man-beast.”

King Helm’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He might have said something then, but there came a distinct cry at that very moment. “Father, help me!”

“What?” King Helm seemed more irritated than afraid. “Beatrice?” he said. But then he turned to George and gave a tiny bow as if of acknowledgment. Whether what he did next was out of duty or merely to show up George, no one ever knew.

“Men, that way!” he called. He pointed to the west, and the hunting party followed him without hesitation, leaving George alone with the bear.

George should have gone too. His betrothed had called for help. Yet there had been something in her voice that made him disbelieve her need. And there was no question of the bear’s need.

Hoping that Beatrice would understand, he bent himself to his knees and crawled forward, to show he meant no harm. And perhaps—could the bear remember him? “Let me help you,” George said.

The bear said nothing, did nothing.

When George was close enough, he put his hands on the spear still embedded in the bear’s shoulder and pulled on it, testing.

The bear gave a terrible whimpering noise but did not move. If that was not proof of its humanity, George could think of nothing that could be. But it did not help him move the spear, which had cut deep. King Helm was a strong man. Any smaller bear would have been pinned to the ground with the force of that
throw and certainly dead by now.

Could he pull it out?

He had to.

“This will hurt,” George said, but not in the language of the bears. He knew already this animal would not understand that. He looked into the bear’s eyes.

Then he planted his feet on the ground firmly, leaned forward, and took hold of the spear shaft with both hands. He breathed deeply, counted to three aloud, and pulled.

The spear shaft shifted, but it did not come out. There was blood all over George’s hands and more blood pouring down the bear and into the ground. So much blood—how could anything live after losing that much blood?

“I have to try it again,” said George aloud, to encourage himself. There was nothing else to do. He had thought he would save this bear, but perhaps King Helm had been right and the only thing to do was to end its suffering.

He leaned forward, gripped his hands so tightly his knuckles went white, and gave a grunt that sounded as if he had become a bear himself. Then he ripped, and the spear came loose in his hands. He careened backward with the force of his pull and stumbled a few moments before laying aside the spear and turning back to the bear.

It bled more, and then its eyes went dull. Slowly it fell forward, senseless, on the ground.

Would it live? Would it recover?

“Prince George, you have done all you can do, surely,” said a voice behind him.

George looked up to see Henry. He had not gone off with the rest of the party after all. He was waiting for George. Until now, waiting silently.

What would Henry do? Well, George would have to see about that later. For now the bear was his priority.

After checking to make sure the bear still breathed, George considered his position. He had commanded the king of Sarrey, the man who could end his marriage prospects and bring a new war down on his head, not to kill a bear he had fairly hunted to the ground. He had done this for no good reason except what must appear either madness or boyish greed. Now what? He could not carry the bear all the way home. He could not nurse it back to health. He would have to leave that to the bear’s own nature.

And try to save what he could of his own situation. Was there any chance that the marriage could go forward now? That there could be a lasting peace between the two kingdoms? Or had George ruined that in his rash decision to save this bear of his childhood dreams?

George patted the bear once, in encouragement; then he washed his hands in the stream and turned back to Henry. “We should go after the king now.”

“As you say, my prince,” said Henry, blank-faced. Together, Henry and George mounted their horses and
followed the tracks that led them to King Helm and Princess Beatrice. And Marit.

When they arrived, King Helm turned back to George and threw up his hands. “Ah, the perfect match,” he said disdainfully.

“Is the princess well?” asked George politely.

Beatrice looked flushed with exertion, and there was a tear in her riding habit, but otherwise she seemed as she ever was. George looked at the hound but saw no sign of an injury there.

“She is a woman,” said King Helm with feeling.

Beatrice turned to George for sympathy. Or more than that? Assistance? Information? “I wished to join in the hunt for the bear,” she said.

It suddenly occurred to George to wonder how she could have known of the bear and why she would have dared her father’s displeasure by joining him on the hunt when he had expressly forbidden her coming. And by pretending to be hurt as well.

Daring indeed.

Or mad.

A madness like George’s perhaps.

Beatrice turned and finished her story. “But then I fell—” She pointed to a tree root in the path. “And there was a fox.” Her voice quavered falsely.

When George looked around, he saw no fox or any sign of one. There was only Marit, standing guard beside the princess.

“And that is why a woman is never welcome on a hunt,” said King Helm in frustration. “She imagines danger at every turn.”

“I am sorry, Father,” said Beatrice, head bowed.

George doubted it very much.

“Next time you will do as I command you or I shall see you beaten,” said King Helm. “Do you understand me?”

George twitched at the thought of how many times Beatrice had been beaten before, that she did not think this threat out of the ordinary.

Beatrice nodded. “Yes, Father.”

And George remembered having said the same words so many times himself. In the same tone of abject humility. How could he not see the similarities in their lives? How could he not feel that they were meant to be together?

“The bear?” asked King Helm, swerving around, his eyes boring into George’s.

“I chased it toward Kendel,” said George, hoping it was true.

King Helm shook his head. “Your bear, your bear,” he echoed in disbelief. “Ah, well, if I see it in my woods again, you can be sure I will not check its marking before I throw another spear at it. Your bear or not, it will hang on my wall.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said George.

The ride back to the castle was spent in listening to
King Helm complain about women in general and his daughter in particular.

“Ugly and ungainly. The least dependable creature you ever met. Just when you think you understand her, she changes. If only I had had a son,” he said bitterly, each time.

Over and over again he disparaged her, and George would have thought that Beatrice would be so used to it, she could not be hurt further. But he saw her head grow stiffer and stiffer above her horse while the hound striding at her side began to move with a jerky uncertainty that seemed more human than hound.

T
HAT NIGHT
G
EORGE
dreamed again.

He was being dressed and primped before a mirror, in a confection of lace and ribbons. His red hair smelled burned from the attempt at curls, but they did not stay in well, and the maid was cursing the ineffectiveness of her efforts.

“Your father wants to see a beautiful princess,” she said. “Why can’t you be beautiful?”

It was only then that George realized the face staring back at him from the mirror was the face of a young girl, perhaps eight years of age. She was tall and awkward, and her eyes were filled with tears.

“No, no. Stop that. Can’t have you crying. You’ll ruin everything.” The maid handed George—no, the girl—no, Princess Beatrice—a handkerchief. “Wipe your face. And be calm. We might have time to do something yet.”

The maid stared at the hair for a moment and snapped her fingers. She moved away, then came back with something in her hands.

Then she was pulling and yanking at the hair until tears of physical pain sprang out of the princess’s eyes. At last the maid was finished, and the hair had been teased into some kind of style.

It did not look right, George thought. It was the style of a much older woman, not a child.

“Your father will like that. You look like a woman nearly grown.” The maid cinched up the laces at the girl’s back till she could hardly breathe.

Then the maid led her away from the mirror.

George could feel how the tiny shoes pinched at his feet. If the princess was a woman nearly grown, why should she wear shoes this small?

They walked up several flights of stairs, then stopped by a door. A guard there nodded for the maid to leave. She kissed the top of the princess’s head and whispered, “Be a good girl,” and went on her way.

Then the princess was left to wait for what seemed hours before at last the door opened and she was admitted.

King Helm was inside. George recognized him, though he was much younger. He had hair as red as Beatrice’s, and he was not as thick around the stomach, though still heavily muscled about his shoulders and chest. He did not look like a man a little girl could
depend on for comfort.

“Beatrice, there you are,” he said, as though he had been looking everywhere for her. “Come in and meet your new mother.” He waved a hand toward the woman at his side.

Beatrice turned to her. She was a petite creature, hardly taller than Beatrice was now, though fully shaped as a woman. In fact her cheeks were bright, and her bosom seemed to flow out of the bodice of her gown.

“What a beautiful little thing she is,” the woman said.

But King Helm shook his head at the lie. “I leave her to you,” he said with a sigh. “If you can do anything with her, that is. Do not think that I expect much.”

“I am sure she can be made to be an addition to you and not a detraction. Why, there is time yet to salvage whatever has been done to her before now. At least she does not talk.”

“I do so talk,” said Beatrice suddenly.

The woman’s eyes widened.

King Helm laughed.

“I don’t like you,” said Beatrice. “I’ll never like you.” How must she feel, wondered George? “And you will never make me call you Mother. You’re not my mother, any more than the other one was.”

“You see?” said King Helm.

“I see,” said the woman. “Well, I shall do what I can, but at the worst, you can marry her young, away from
the kingdom, and no one will ever see her again.”

“So long as you give me a son.”

“I will give you more than one son,” the woman said. She moved herself closer to the king, pressed her body against his.

With Beatrice, George looked about her father’s chamber, and caught sight of a game board, with checkered squares. The figures on it were carved stone, in black and white, and they looked like little soldiers.

She stood there for a long while, staring at the game. George thought she must have wanted to make herself into one of the pieces so that her father would pay attention to her, as he did them. A good soldier, silent and cold and unmoving.

“My dear, the girl is still here,” the king said a few minutes later.

“So she is. I must have forgotten her.”

“Now what is wrong with her? She stands there staring like an animal in the woods, as if afraid that if she moves, the hunt will be on.” The woman circled Beatrice, then stopped at last. “Well, I’ve seen enough.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, my dear.” King Helm went to the door.

When Beatrice got back to her room, the maid scolded her as expected and gave her only bread and water for dinner, eating the rich pudding and fruits that had been sent for Beatrice.

But Beatrice had become a soldier and did not say a word.

George woke up dazed and fuzzy headed. At first he did not know where he was. He thrashed in his bedclothes, thinking he was trapped. But when he escaped from the confinement and fell onto the cold floor on the far side of the fireplace, he came back to himself.

He stood shakily, not understanding why he should dream of Princess Beatrice so vividly. He ate the breakfast that had been left on a tray by his door, then wandered through the castle in circles, trying to make himself lost. At least then he would have a puzzle he could solve.

If he were at home, he thought with amusement, he would have a full schedule, with no time to think of anything at all, let alone bemoan his lack of activity. No, at home he would bemoan how useless all the activity was and how he could never get out of it because he was prince.

Here, in Sarrey, he was more free than he had been in years.