The Princess and the Hound (7 page)

“Y
OUR
H
IGHNESS, HAVE
you found a betrothal gift for Princess Beatrice yet?” Sir Stephen, his face as long and thin as always, caught George on the way downstairs.

Once years ago George had asked his father why Sir Stephen never laughed. The king had gone very still, then said simply, “If he is sober, he has good reason for it, George.” And no more than that.

“No,” George said. The truth was, he had no idea what to choose.

“There is a merchant in town who has a wide variety of pretty things. I have arranged for her to come to the meeting chamber if you’d like to see a sampling.”

“Thank you, Sir Stephen,” said George, with relief. This was why Sir Stephen had been one of his father’s most valued advisers for so many years. How had the king ever managed to do without him for all those years
he served as George’s tutor? Or had Sir Stephen simply done double duty?

When they got to the meeting chamber, however, the merchant had not yet arrived. As they waited, Sir Stephen asked George, “Are you nervous about the marriage? It would be quite understandable if you were.”

George’s chin went up, and suddenly he found himself blurting out, “And what do you know about marriage?”

Sir Stephen’s hand dropped, and his body went stiff. “I was to marry a woman once,” he said. His eyes stared at some place far beyond George’s head, just past his ears.

“Oh?” George breathed. This was a day for revelations, it seemed. He had never suspected such a thing in all the years he had known Sir Stephen.

“Her name was Elsbeth. She was small and lovely, like a pink shell from the seashore. She was killed quite accidentally by a group of soldiers from Sarrey. It was not meant to be the beginnings of a battle, I don’t believe, though it became one afterward. One of the last battles of the great war, in fact. There were cannon…and—” Sir Stephen’s voice had gone hollow.

George’s hand lifted and fell away again. It seemed an insult to imply that anything so small as a touch could stop the raw feeling in Sir Stephen’s suddenly dark and haunted eyes.

“Her father was a great healer. If only he were here
for King Davit, I am sure he would have found a cure by now. He was known far and wide for his knowledge and his kindness. He would always set his price at well below what could be paid. But he was never seen after Elsbeth died. I think he could not stand the grief.”

Sir Stephen was staring into the distance.

“I am sorry,” George said. He was surprised to find his voice hoarse.

Sir Stephen shook his head. “I should not have spoken of such a personal topic, my prince.”

The merchant woman came in now and began by taking out of her cart an astonishing array of scarves, skirts, and gowns all in purest silk. George’s eye was caught by the red, but he did not know if such a gift was too personal. He had never met Princess Beatrice. How was he to guess what color she would prefer? Or if she liked silk gowns or scarves at all?

He shook his head, and the merchant went out to get more.

George looked at Sir Stephen, thinking he might offer some assistance. But Sir Stephen said nothing.

The merchant woman brought in jewelry next, gaudy baubles and true gems simply set. George looked at each one, tiring more quickly than he had imagined. Couldn’t he send the woman directly to Princess Beatrice, tell her to pick out what she liked, and have the woman send him the bill? Then he would be sure to get something that Beatrice liked.

George knew the betrothal gift was not meant merely to please the receiver but also to tell something about the giver. He looked through the jewelry again. He liked a set of blue beads, small and luminescent like pearls. They were not costly, and he was afraid Princess Beatrice might think he was cheap.

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

The merchant woman shrugged and took out a small bag. She had a wizened face, but she did not move like an old woman. Her fingers were spotted with sun, and her mouth was puckered, but George had not heard her speak a word since she began.

“My husband makes these himself,” said the merchant woman slowly. She looked at George, as if daring him to laugh at her or tell her to be quiet and remember her place.

George only stared, intrigued by the small leather bag and what it might hold.

“He lost his legs in the war and can’t see too good, but he has a feel for these.” She laid out a series of small blown-glass figures in startlingly fine workmanship and color. There was a small, fierce-looking bear that made George’s heart skip a beat, a hummingbird just the size of a real one, and a miniature hound that seemed to be running, its head up, its teeth showing in a wild grin, its eyes wide and blazing.

The hound was not at all like George’s childhood pet. But there was something, not so much in the shape
of its body as in the fierce expression of its face, that reminded George of what Teeth had been, at the very beginning. This was a true wild hound. And it was perfect.

George reached out a hand. “May I?” he asked. His hand trembled in fear of revealing too much of himself by his interest. But he could not resist. He was used to denying himself the kennels and the stables and the creatures all over the castle. But this he had not been prepared for.

The merchant woman gave it over. “My husband used to have a hound, but he sent it out to the woods after the war. Said the hound couldn’t be expected to stay home with him all day, that it deserved to live its own life. This is the only glass he’s made of it, though. Never have found anyone to show an interest in it. Mostly they shiver and say it looks too fierce and real.”

“It is fierce and real,” said George. It weighed almost nothing in his hand, but when he held it up to the light, some trick of the color in the glass made it seem as though it were suddenly moving.

“Cost you too much, it will. But I can’t sell anything of his for the bit of the glass. He puts too much of himself into them. He’d feel it an insult, he would.”

“Of course,” murmured George. How could any price be enough for this perfect thing? He looked at it again, astonished at the detail. The long, sharp jaws, the sleek skin on the back, the shortened tail.

The merchant woman named a sum that made Sir Stephen let out an audible breath.

Would Sir Stephen try to tell George it would not be prudent?

“I’ll take it,” said George swiftly. “And…the blue beads.” The hound was for himself, for he could not imagine giving such a personal gift to a woman he did not know. Nor would he risk the chance of it revealing his true weakness to her.

But after Sir Stephen had paid the merchant woman and she took her things away with her, he turned to George. “Princess Beatrice is rumored to have a wild hound, black and short-haired, with sharp jaws and a sleek coat. Did you know that?”

George shook his head and was surprised to find himself suddenly warm at the thought of the woman he was to marry. A hound? A woman who loved animals? Might there be something between them after all?

“They say she will not go anywhere without it. That she even sleeps with it in her own bed.” Sir Stephen went on.

Suddenly all hope dropped from George. If she slept with the hound, it was surely nothing more than a trained pet. And he already knew what he felt about pets and those who made them. That was nothing akin to animal magic.

“I think you have tried to know as little of her as possible,” said Sir Stephen after a moment.

George answered sharply. “What difference would knowing her make? I must marry her no matter what she is like.”

Sir Stephen nodded slowly. “And so you fear to hate her, to begin with. As much as you fear to love her, I think.”

Love her? But George knew now that was impossible. Not a woman who kept a wild hound as a pet.

Suddenly he wished that Sir Stephen had not told him that, had kept him in ignorance for just a little longer. And he wished most of all that he had never seen that tiny glass hound that looked so much like the wild creature that had so quickly died in a young pup’s face.

Teeth had died just last year. The houndmaster had come to George to tell him of it, to ask if George wished anything in particular to be done with the body.

At first George had refused and sent the man away. But afterward he had gone back and begged for the body, then taken it to the moat and buried it with the other creatures he had lost over the years. And he wept for his hound, lost so many years ago, never to be regained.

T
WO DAYS LATER
George was ready to leave for Sarrey. In uniforms of crisp silver and blue the eight Sarrey guards who were to escort him had arrived on perfectly matched gray horses. They were to ride ahead of the carriage, leading the way. George’s smaller group of four Kendel guards, in black and green, was stationed behind.

The lord general had just walked away, after a long lecture to the guards on the care of the horses. To George, the lord general had said nothing, though he had acknowledged him with a small nod of the head, the very least he could have done to the prince of the kingdom.

The four guards themselves were much less austere.

One of them, with sandy hair and blue eyes, came forward as George stepped into the carriage. His young face looked uneasy. “Your Highness? I do not trust these
guards. What if they mean you harm? They outnumber us two to one.”

The man was overly cautious, but George appreciated it. Though the war with Sarrey had officially been over for years, border skirmishes occurred far too often, and the general sentiment among the people was that the whole kingdom was a danger to Kendel. In fact Sarrey merchants and travelers were treated with such suspicion that they complained frequently, both to their own king and to King Davit.

They were not subjected to the violence reserved for those with animal magic, George noted. But being spat at in the street, cursed at by old women, and refused even the most innocuous of flirtatious encounters with the women of Kendel was surely bothersome. As for the uniform of Sarrey, it was used in plays and other representations of the war, and its colors signaled danger and death.

But this guard was just doing his duty, reporting danger when he felt it. He was not the only one who would have to change his attitude about Sarrey. Could George simply make laws that demanded such a change? Or was it a matter of waiting for a second generation to rise, one that had not seen the horrors of war?

Well, George would have to start here and now. With this guard.

“Your name?” George asked him directly. He had probably seen the man a dozen times before yet did not know anything about him. King Davit would no doubt
have known half the man’s life history already.

“Henry.”

George took Henry’s hand firmly in his own and looked into his eyes. This had to be done delicately, making sure this Henry knew George did not think him a fool. He tried to think how his father would do it.

“Thank you, Henry, for your concern. It is a comfort to know I am so well guarded. I will make sure to praise you when next I speak to the lord general. But for now I think there is no need to worry.”

Henry looked back to the Sarrey guards once more, then nodded and moved away.

With a quick hand out the window George signaled that he was ready to leave, and the carriage lurched forward and began its long journey on the best (but still very bumpy) road in the kingdom. The inside was so stifling that over the next several hours George wished more than once he were outside. At least then he could feel the wind in his hair, the smell of the spring.

But of course he could not. He was a prince, and why take a risk?

Truly, he should let himself enjoy this small piece of time to himself. It would not last long. He let his head lull forward on his chest and tried to nap, but he found he could not stop thinking about Sir Stephen’s description of Princess Beatrice and her hound. He took the glass hound out of the pouch around his neck and stared at it again.

Why had he been so drawn to this piece? And why had he brought it on this journey? He could have left it at home if he truly did not intend to give it to Princess Beatrice. It would be madness to let her have any reason to be suspicious of him. And yet here it was.

Strange.

He almost dropped and shattered the tiny hound when there was a shout and the carriage lurched abruptly to a halt.

George tried to put his head out the window but was met immediately by Henry. “Stay here, Your Highness. Please, for your own safety.”

“What is going on?” George demanded. He could hear more than one voice, and Henry’s horse danced nervously.

“I don’t know, Your Highness. My responsibility is to keep you safe. The lord general told me he’d have my sword arm if anything happened to you.”

There were angry voices shouting and someone weeping, George was sure of it. A man.

“Go find out what is happening,” George ordered Henry.

“Your Highness, I can’t—” There was a flicker of fear in Henry’s eyes, quickly suppressed.

“Then I’ll go myself,” said George. He reached for the door of the carriage.

“Your Highness, please!” Suddenly white-faced, Henry gestured the prince back into the carriage. “I will
go if you promise to stay here,” he said.

But once Henry was gone, George could not bear to remain in the carriage alone. He opened the door and climbed down the steps, then moved toward the noise and the tightly knit circle of men.

It was when George heard the language of horses from what had to be a human tongue that he stopped.

His neck went cold with sweat, and his legs trembled. He felt as if he were twelve again, in that judgment hall with a thousand eyes staring at him. And then it was as if he could smell that same fire of human flesh—

It will not happen again,
George told himself firmly.

“Your Highness.” Henry appeared. “Please, there is danger here. You should go back.”

“Step aside,” George said, poking his finger into the back of the guard ahead of him, one of Sarrey’s, in silver and blue.

The guard turned, a snarl on his face, then realized who George was. “Your Highness,” he said stiffly, “this does not concern you.”

In fact George realized, as he looked over the countryside, that he was no longer in Kendel. He no longer had the authority to make his wishes law here.

“It has stopped my journey,” George said, taking a different tack. “So what is this about? Who is this man you have caught here?” His words were calm; his voice was unshaking. He was not twelve years old anymore, no matter how he felt inside. And he had the right as a
guest of the king of Sarrey to ask a question.

“He had been brought here to be punished but nearly escaped. He has the animal magic—” A long pause, and then the guard added the obligatory “Your Highness.”

“May I see him?” George asked. And then, though he hated it, he said, “I am curious about them. My father has always kept me so protected in the castle, away from any danger. I have never seen one with the animal magic before. It would be…instructive, I think.”

The guard shrugged, then called out to the others. They pulled back from their quarry, and George saw a man who looked to be his own age, though emaciated and terribly scarred.

“Help me, help me,” the man begged of the horses closest to him.

The horses shied, but they did not move toward him. They did not know him and had little reason to risk themselves to help him.

“Who is the leader here?” George asked loudly.

“I am,” said the burliest of the men.

“And how is it that you know this man has animal magic?” asked George, thinking fast. He had an idea of how to save this man, and though they had never met before, it seemed of vital importance to him. A chance, perhaps, to make amends for what had happened on that judgment day long ago. “Perhaps you have the animal magic yourself?”

“Me?” The man spat on the ground. “Of course I don’t.” He looked at the men who were with him. “They know I don’t have it. Ask them, ask them,” he said.

George did nothing of the sort. He sought out one of the other men, the tallest one, with boils on his face. “And you? You understand animal language too?”

The man with boils stepped back, unsure. “You hear him babbling? What else is he doing, then, if not speaking to the animals?”

“Perhaps he’s mad,” said George. “Or perhaps he’s speaking some language you don’t understand. A human language. There is more than one, you know.” Why should George make this man look like a fool? Because he was a fool.

“But the animals move when he talks to them,” said the man with boils.

A younger man behind him nodded. “They do,” he said.

George turned to the younger man, heart pounding as he realized what he must do. “And do I have the magic too?” he asked boldly. “If the horse moves when I babble, will that be proof against me as well?”

Before he received an answer, George turned to the nearest horse and took hold of its bridle. Then he said loudly in the language of the horses, “Move to the right, in a circle. Do it now, or there’s a whip on your side!”

The horse moved as he had said.

There was a gasp somewhere behind George, but he
did not dare pay it any attention.

Bland faced still, playing the game, he turned back to the burly man. “You see?” he asked. “Now, will you be telling me that I have the animal magic too? The prince of Kendel and the man betrothed to your own princess Beatrice?”

George saw several eyes turn away from him, and more than one man took a step backward.

The burly man licked his lips, and his expression turned sour. “Well, we might have been wrong then,” he said. He let his head drop.

A couple of the men around him stepped back.

George had done it. He’d saved the man. This time. He wanted to fall to the ground and enjoy his moment of redemption. But he had no chance.

One of the guards from Sarrey came forward and shoved the burly man so that he stumbled and fell. “Get up and get out of the way, all of you!” roared the guard. When the other men had fled, he turned toward the man with animal magic.

“You too. Get out of here, and don’t let us see or hear of you ever again, do you understand?”

The man gibbered a moment, then loped away, limping hard on his left side, not turning back to question the sudden reprieve.

George went back to the carriage and let himself triumph silently. But afterward, as the carriage began moving again, and he watched the man accused of animal
magic stumble slowly away, George realized he had done very little. He had saved the man’s life for a time, but he would still be an outcast to any village or town he entered. He could hide his true nature and live as George did, without friends or intimacy of any kind. Or he could let himself live his own way and face death once more in a few more weeks, a few months, or even years. But peace and happiness would always be denied him.

As they were to George.

George had used his animal magic to prove he had no animal magic. Such hypocrisy. How could he be respected? Most of all, how could he rule over both those with animal magic and those without it if he did not admit the truth?

His father’s war was over, but that day George sensed that a new war was beginning. This one would be his own.