The Princess and the Hound (6 page)

G
EORGE WAS SMALL
for twelve years of age and very conscious of how much he still had to grow before he was his father’s height. But on his twelfth birthday, after the tedious and formal celebration, George was called to the king’s chamber.

“How are your lessons with Sir Stephen?” the king asked.

George wondered if his father intended to take Sir Stephen away and replace him. Would George like that? He thought not. Though Sir Stephen was stiff and old, at least he was familiar. There were also advantages to a tutor who asked no more than he gave.

“Good, Father,” said George.

The king nodded, tapping his fingers on his legs.

Then he turned to look out the window. After a moment he spoke again. “We do not spend much time together, do we?” he asked.

“You have your duties,” said George. He did not want his father to feel that he would like to spend more time with him. The time he spent with his father already was so nerve-racking that George chewed his fingernails to the quick in dreadful anticipation during the hours leading up to any event.

“Yes, I do indeed. Yet I think that if your mother were alive—” He stopped there.

George had caught his breath. His father rarely spoke of his mother, and usually when he did, he referred to her as the queen.

But the king said no more on the subject. He shook his head and turned back to face George directly.

“You have learned many of the duties of a prince.”

“Yes, Father,” said George.

“But I believe it is time for you to learn some of the duties of the king.”

George’s mouth gaped. What did his father mean?

The king stepped toward George and put both hands on George’s shoulders. “It is time for you to make a judgment of your own.”

“No!” came out of George’s mouth before he could stop himself.

Since his mother’s death, George had been accustomed to sitting at his father’s feet in the long hall every second day of the week. His father sat not on a throne then but on a plain wooden chair, and he sat there from early morning until long past dark, if that was what it
took to see all the people who had come to ask his rulings.

On judgment day, King Davit ate only the same small portion of coarse bread and cheese that he gave George, the same portion that was offered to all those who kept wait on the king that day.

But George had never said a word at any judgment. How could his father always be sure who was lying and who was not? How did he know which woman truly loved her children and had hurt them only in punishment and which woman abused them out of foolishness or anger? George could not possibly do such a thing.

“You are afraid,” said the king.

“No!” George blurted out again. How could he admit to that?

“You do not want to learn then?” It was the same tone the king used when he had dismissed one of the lord general’s soldiers from the army at judgment day last week. The man had been accused of drunkenness and would not admit to it. The lord general, whose temper was so hot he was rumored to have killed his wife for bringing him gray tea instead of green, would have sent the man packing himself—with a beating—but the king had insisted on hearing both sides.

George had seen it all. The soldier’s stubbornness, the lord general’s anger, and the king’s frustration, which eventually led to a stern punishment. The soldier not only had ended up without his pay for the last month
but had been forced to take off his uniform piece by piece while standing in the public square for all to see. His fellows had stood at attention surrounding him, to make sure he was not physically harmed.

As if that mattered, thought George. Far better to have taken the beating the lord general had suggested than the one his father had devised. Yet George could not think it quite cruel. His father was always just, and this punishment would at least have the chance to change someone.

“I will learn then,” said George softly, accepting the inevitable. Of course he would do what his father expected. He always had.

“Good,” said the king. “Shall I tell you of my first judgment?” he asked after a moment.

“Yes, Father,” said George.

“My father had it planned. It was designed to test me, the players all given their parts, even the words that they would say to me. When I got it wrong, he told me, before all gathered there, what I had missed. I did not judge for many years after that, not even in the first year of my kingship.” The king’s voice wavered. “In my place I sent another, whom I thought the people must trust better than they did me.”

George was unsure how to react. His conversations with his father were usually brief and formal. He had never heard his father talk about his youth and certainly not about any failure.

“I promise you this. I shall make sure that the case you are given is a true one, with no players. And whatever judgment you give, I shall not gainsay it. Yours will be the last word on the matter. And so you will learn to trust yourself, as I never did.”

“B-but—” George stuttered.

The king stopped him with a raised hand. “A king cannot show his doubts before others, however much he feels them. If he does wrong, he must live with it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father,” said George miserably.

The king dismissed him, and George left in a whirl of emotions. A real judgment. His judgment. Tomorrow.

All night George writhed in an agony of fear and anticipation. He had hardly fallen asleep when Sir Stephen came to wake him, and then he sleepily pulled on his best leggings and tunic and the silver circlet that proclaimed him prince.

It was spring, still cool in the morning, though it might become unbearably hot later in the day with so many people in one room. George settled himself in the chair that was his father’s and felt his father’s large hand on his shoulder with pride. Then the doors were open, and the people streamed in.

There were murmurs when George was seen in his father’s place, but King Davit gave a short speech to explain what this was about. Then a man, struggling in ropes that bound his hands behind his back, was pushed
forward by a half-dozen men. They all were farmers by the look of their clothing and the pattern of calluses on their hands. The man in bonds had greasy blond hair that fell into his face as he moved, but he could not push it away. He spat at George’s feet when forced to kneel before him.

George wanted to look up at his father, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. He would do this alone.

“Speak your piece,” George said. They were his father’s words and had become the traditional opening of each hearing on judgment day.

One of the men, with several missing teeth, came forward. “All year long we work our fields, feed our beasts. Two years ago there was a terrible plague of locusts that ate everything they could. But his”—a nod to the bound man—“his fields were left alone, and he had a full crop come harvesttime.

“Last year half our animals died from some disease. But his did not. This year we watched him. He walks the fields at night, protecting his plants. He goes to his animals at night, speaks to them. They speak back to him. He has it: the animal magic.”

The hall went still.

George felt cold sweat drip down his back. He did not look up at his father.

“And you: speak your piece,” George spoke to the bound man through numb lips.

The man spat again, at George’s feet. “That’s all the
witness you’ll get me to speak against my own self,” he said.

George stared at the man. Did he not realize that this was his one chance to deny he had the animal magic? He could give some excuse for what he did with his animals, say that he was only lucky in the way his crops and animals had survived the last few years. He could say there was some other reason for his success, the seeds he planted, or the way he fertilized them—anything.

“They’ll rally the animals against us all,” said one of the other men, cowering with his head behind his hands, as if afraid that even in the presence of the king and the prince, the man with animal magic was the most dangerous to offend. His body shook with fear.

George tried to think of a solution. He turned his eyes to the man with animal magic. He looked to the angry accusers. How could he make a proper judgment? He was, on the one hand, admiring of the man who refused to deny his magic and, on the other hand, angry and resentful of him. Why would he not live in silence and not make trouble for others of his kind, including George?

I am prince,
thought George.
I must do something here. Something right.

Everyone was waiting for him to say something. His father expected George somehow to make both parties leave here satisfied. It was what his father was known
for. It was why he was such a beloved king.

“I don’t care what you say,” said the man with animal magic, his eyes turning from the king to George. “You’re no king of mine, nor prince either. Not if you’ve no magic to your name.”

George knew then that this was impossible. There was no right judgment. And yet he must do something.

Finally, it was the man with the broken teeth who spoke. “Burn him. That’s the only way to deal with animal magic, the only way to make sure it does not spread.”

George gasped, remembering his mother’s pyre, then looked down, to gather control of himself once more.

George looked to his father at last, silently begging for help. And he saw cold terror on his father’s face, the same pale, stricken, stiff expression that he had shown the night George’s mother had died. The king saw the danger here. He had known of it all along and had never spoken of it.

George, terrified, trembled violently. Then his father, wiping all expression from his face so that he looked like the king once more, stepped forward. He turned to those who stood before him, waiting for judgment, and gave them something else instead.

“Go your way, all of you,” he said. “Make your own peace with one another. As king of Kendel, I claim authority over land and animals, water, and even family.
But I claim no authority over magic.”

What?

George jerked forward in astonishment. His father refused to make any judgment at all? George could not think of any judgment that would not have been wrong. Not to judge, though, that was more wrong. Surely it was.

“Unbind him,” commanded King Davit, waving to his guards.

The man with animal magic cursed at the guards as they undid the ropes. Then he made a terrible sound, like a charging ram, and ran out of the long hall.

The other farmers ran after him.

George sat the rest of the day at his father’s feet in that same hall, curled up with his arms wrapped around his legs. He had never felt so small in all his life, or so wrong. He was wrong because he had not made a judgment. He was wrong because he had made his father look weak. He was wrong because he too had the animal magic. And he had not even had the courage to admit it.

That night, long after the line of judgment seekers had departed and George had gone at last to his own chamber, he stood at his window and stared out. Despite the lack of sleep the night before, he was not at all tired.

The dark sky was lit with a terrible red column of flames. It came not from the forest or from the grounds around the castle but from the village. And from that direction came the sounds of shrieking.

A man was dying. A man with animal magic whom George should have saved.

The man was calling out in every tongue he knew. He called to doves, to owls, to sparrows and robins, to jays and hawks. He called to foxes and deer, to wolves and hounds and foxes, to moles and rabbits and bears.

He called for vengeance. Bring down this village. Bring down this castle. Bring down this kingdom, he demanded.

George could see animals here and there stop and listen. But they did not move to respond. They did not go to the man to save him or do what he wished. Because he had only the same animal magic that George did, the magic of speaking. And it would not save his life.

He was alone at the end, as alone as George was, part of two worlds yet part of neither.

At last the man’s shrieking stopped. Even then George could not look away from his window. He stood watch until the last sign of the flames had disappeared in the pink rise of the dawn. Then he lay down on top of his bed, his hands folded across his chest.

He realized for the first time that his father had not done what the king should do. Only what perhaps his father should have done.

George wrapped that thought around himself and fell asleep at last.

His father came to see him sometime later that
morning. He lifted George into his arms and whispered to him, “I did not mean it to happen like that. I did not mean to hurt you.”

It was a new beginning for both of them, fragile at first but growing stronger. In the years that followed, there were still many times when George spoke to King Davit rather than his father. And many times when the king spoke to the prince. But there were also times when George spoke to his father. And his father told a story now and again about his childhood or his queen.

The one topic they did not touch upon, however, was the animal magic. They spoke around it and past it, as the kingdom seemed to flare up in hunting those with animal magic and punishing them in brutal ways, for it was clear the king would not interfere.

Strangely, as he grew older, George found it far easier for him to forgive his father than to forgive himself for that judgment day. His father had not been the coward then. George had.

A
T SEVENTEEN YEARS
old, Prince George was still not as tall as his father. In fact he looked more like his dark-eyed, delicate-featured mother than his father in almost every way, yet he was known to lack the love of animals that had defined her. He rode a horse passably well, but not with his mother’s passion. He was known to refuse point-blank the gift of any pet, from the grand offer of a green-collared rolluff brought all the way from the southern province of Jolla to the black tom kitten handed him by a grubby peasant girl at the Autumn Moon Festival.

Those who served the prince had never a bad word for him. They spoke easily of his kindness and generosity. Yet if asked, not one of them would have been able to say what color tunic the prince preferred of all those in his wardrobe or what his favorite feast food was.

Since the king had become ill a few months earlier, George had begun to do much to keep the kingdom running smoothly. He worked well with Sir Stephen, who had returned to his post as the king’s right-hand man now that George no longer needed a tutor.

George could also manage a well-mannered conversation with the lord general, though the man made no attempt to keep back his disdain for a prince who could not hold his seat on a horse as well as a cavalryman. No one who heard the two speaking together would have any reason to believe that the prince returned the lord general’s dislike.

That was the duty of the prince. And the prince always did his duty.

So when King Helm of Sarrey offered a betrothal to his daughter, Beatrice, there was no question what George’s answer would be. For nearly all of his seventeen years, there had been an uneasy truce between the two kingdoms following the great war, and now was the chance to resolve that. Though George would not rule as king in Sarrey, for the king’s nephew had long been groomed as his heir, still it was an alliance that could not be refused.

In but three days Prince George was to spend a whole week in Sarrey, meeting his betrothed and discussing their marriage with King Helm. He woke up that morning with a vague memory of a dream he had not had for many years, of a bear and a man. Why had
it come back now, of all times? His body ached, and he felt entirely unrested. Now was not a good time to worry about animal magic. He had learned to deal with the threat of fevers before they struck, but he did not think he was as happy with his animal magic as his mother had been.

A knock on his door, and George heard a messenger announce that King Davit requested an audience with his son.

“Thank you,” said George. “I shall be with him immediately.” George sighed. He had hoped that his father was done talking to him about the dangers of dealing with Sarrey and the possibilities of a marriage to a young woman within the kingdom of Kendel.

Apparently not.

George had tried to tell his father again and again that he was perfectly willing to serve Kendel in this and that he had no attachments to other ladies he had already met. There were times when speaking changed nothing and only made duty more difficult.

Gritting his teeth, George put on his best tunic and went to face his king.

At the door at the top of the stairs George was met by four-fingered Jack, one of his father’s servants. Years before, Jack had lost the fifth finger of his right hand at the king’s command, as a thief. Out of mercy afterward King Davit had offered the man a position in the castle. Sir Stephen had been appalled.

“He will not steal from me again.” King Davit had been certain.

When Sir Stephen had asked how he could be sure, King Davit answered simply, “I shall give him whatever he asks me for.”

Four-fingered Jack tested the king’s resolve once, asking for a golden goblet that had been passed on to the king from his father’s father.

“Take it, and gladly,” King Davit had said. “What else?”

Four-fingered Jack had been ashamed and tried to give the goblet back, but the king would have none of it.

“It’s yours now. As is whatever else you wish for. Is that understood?”

Jack had nodded his head like a boy caught in a fight, and the king never spoke of that time again.

After that, George had watched Jack become the most trustworthy and devoted of King Davit’s servants, even through the recent illness. Seeing him now made George feel small again, for he knew he could never fill his father’s throne in Jack’s eyes.

Four-fingered Jack opened the thickly carved door. When George had stepped inside, Jack closed the door behind him.

“Good morning, Father,” George said.

In his bed the king started, then opened his eyes. His face was pale with spots of color high on his cheeks. He was not any better this morning than he had been
yesterday, when George had seen him last. Apparently the treatments of the new castle physician, Dr. Gharn, were not helping the king much at all.

“George,” said his father, then put out a shaking hand.

George met it with his own.

“You are sure of this?” his father asked.

George stifled his impatience. “Father, I am as sure as I have been from the first. And there is no time left now to change my mind.”

The king was silent for a time. When he spoke, it was sudden enough to catch George by surprise. “My son, do you never think about love?”

George stiffened. Love was irrelevant. It was far better that he marry someone he did not love. Then emotion would not cloud his judgment, nor would he have to live through the pain of losing a loved one as he, and his father, already had.

But then the king spoke on in a rather unexpected way. “Do you not think you deserve to be loved as you are?”

George stared at his father. Since the judgment day debacle George had dealt with his animal magic his way and let the king ignore it. George intended that it would never interfere with the running of the kingdom again. It was his own private problem.

“Father—” said George, unsure.

But he felt his wrist encircled by his father’s large
hand. “George, listen to me. Will you?”

“Of course, Father.” That was his duty, always. And far easier than speaking himself.

“No, listen to me truly. With your heart, not your head.” King Davit pointed to George’s chest.

George took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I shall try.”

King Davit nodded, coughed, then began. “The day before we were to be married, your mother came to me. She told me that she had changed her mind, that she had decided not to marry me. She gave me back the ring that I had given her, the huge diamond and ruby. She said she should have known when she had seen the ring that it was not for her, a mere stablewoman. She was not worthy of it. And more important, she could not be happy wearing it.”

His mother? George had always thought of her as serenely happy and self-assured, despite her animal magic. All the things that he was not.

“I took back the ring, but I told her that she should at least tell me the truth when she said she could not marry me. I deserved that much.”

“Yes?” said George. Just thinking about his mother pained him. He had loved her so much and lost her. And it had been at least partly his fault. If only he had been able to do more with his animal magic…

But his father could not understand any of that.

“That was when she told me of her gift, of the animal
magic she held within her. I had always known that she had a special touch with the horses in the stables, that hounds were calmer around her, that birds would fly to her arm with a single call from her mouth. There were plenty of signs. Anyone could have seen them. Anyone but a man in love.”

“You didn’t know until then?” George was too astonished to keep silent. He had never been absolutely sure that his father knew his mother had animal magic.

The king waved a hand negligently, his eyes thickening with tears unshed. “I knew that she was a woman who embodied all I admired. She was kind. She listened to those who spoke to her. She tried to ease pain when she saw it. She did not pay attention to jewels or clothing or titles. She saw clearly to the spirit within. I did not know that it was because she always saw the animal beneath the skin, and so she had come to see humans the same way.”

George had not thought of animal magic this way. He had always thought that it set him apart, made him different, dangerous. But perhaps it was not all burden. There could be good that came from it. If he could have been more like his mother, that is.

Still, he could not help turning his head around to be sure that there was no one listening, hidden in the curtains, at the window, or even in his father’s wardrobe. If the truth were known, what would happen to him? What would happen to the kingdom? His father had no
other sons to pass it to, and George did not even have any first cousins. His father had been an only child. And King Helm of Sarrey was far more likely to take control in a swift war than either of the second cousins George knew of.

Yes, King Helm. That was what he must think of.

“Father, I am no romantic,” George said. He did not intend to take any risk in his marriage with Princess Beatrice. If that meant there was no chance that he would find a love like his parents’, he could live with that. Better, easier.

“Do you remember nothing of your mother?” the king asked quietly. “Did she not leave any part of herself in you?”

“I remember her,” said George, stung.

“Then tell me what she was like. Tell me how you remember her.” King Davit lay back on the bed, so that George instantly regretted his angry tone.

Still, it took some time for him to find a memory of his mother. The truth was, he did not think about her often. It was too painful. Finally, he began: “She came to me one night when I was supposed to be asleep. I couldn’t, because there was an owl outside my window, hooting his sad life story to all the world. He had lost all his young ones and his mate, and he had decided that he would not eat again, so that he might join them in death.”

“She heard the owl too,” said King Davit.

George nodded. “She held me in her arms and told me that she was sorry for the owl but that she thought he was very wrong. She said that all living things have an obligation to live as best they can, no matter what pain comes to them. She told me that I had that same obligation and that my gift, the animal magic, made it stronger in me than in others.”

George took a breath, then continued. “She said that the animal magic was more than being a prince because any boy might become a prince. Only special boys, she told me, were given the gift of animal magic. Only special boys could speak to both animals and humans and find a way to bridge the gap that lay between the two worlds.”

Did he still believe that? That the animal magic was special? His mother seemed naive to him, now. And yet the Kendel she had lived in had been just as prejudiced against those with the magic, just as likely to show violence to them. How could she have been as she was, despite it all?

George continued. “She told me she did not know what it was I was meant to do, but she promised me that I would find it. And that it would be a task only I could succeed at. She said that no matter what happened, I could never turn away from that task.”

The bear, George thought suddenly, thinking of the dream from the night before. The bear that had wanted so much from him, more than he could give. But his
mother—what would she have said? A promise…And someday…George was ashamed to think of it.

A long cough shook King Davit’s frame. George stood and helped his father to a sitting position. When it was done, the king said, “Thank you.” After a moment he added, “I had never heard that story of her.”

Her. His mother.

His father and mother had lived such different lives, even as king and queen. Yet they had loved each other so much. It was one of the reasons his father had never married again, despite the urging of his advisers.

“She loved you very much, you know. Perhaps more than she loved me.” The king’s voice had gone to a whisper.

“No,” said George. Never that.

“Well, then—” But before he could finish his sentence, the king began to cough, gently at first, then violently enough that his face turned purplish red.

Panicked, George grabbed the four boxes of medicine on the bedside table and held them closer to his father. They were from Dr. Gharn, whom George had disliked since he arrived several months ago. All his medicine had done nothing to prevent the king from sliding into a worse and worse illness, but at least he had tried. The other castle physicians had left when the king began to feel ill, saying they could see nothing to be done.

After a moment the king chose the elixir in the black
bottle and drank down a sip, then another, until gradually his breathing grew normal once more.

George had no special love for Dr. Gharn. The man was proud, unwilling to speak, and dressed in the stiffest, most formal attire—worse than the most pompous noble of his father’s court. He also gave off a strange scent—no doubt from all his medicine making—that made everyone keep away from him as much as they could. And his voice was high and false sounding.

Yet he was the only hope the king had.

“You will think about what I have said?” the king asked at last. He was lying back on the bed, his hands outstretched, utterly motionless except for the movement of his lips.

“Yes, Father,” said George. In fact, as George took his leave, he found that he could not stop thinking about it. About his mother and how much she had loved his father. And George. George could never hope to be as she had been. Not as good, or as brave, or as loving.

Dr. Gharn was forgotten entirely. The heart had never been something that could be healed with an elixir.