The Princess and the Hound (14 page)

A
FTER ALL THE TIME
he had waited to speak to Henry about Dr. Rhuul, George was a little disappointed at what he heard.

“They said that he was a man of few words,” said Henry with a shrug.

“And?” George prodded.

“And he was not well liked by the servants. They said he looked down upon them, that he would not speak to them plainly or even allow them near him in the same chamber.”

“And the others? The nobles?” asked George.

Henry sighed. “I did not have a way to ask them directly, Your Highness.”

“Of course.” George waved away this objection.

“But did you have any impression from what the servants said?”

Henry shook his head.

“Did anyone give you a description of him? His hair color? His eyes? His height?”

“They said he was an ugly man,” said Henry at last. “But I could not tell if it was from the way he acted or the way he looked. I’m very sorry, Your Highness.”

George did not know what he wanted. He dismissed Henry with a hand and told himself there was far too much for him to do to keep the kingdom running while his father was ill; he had no time to keep at such a mystery. It likely meant nothing.

It was late spring when George returned home from Sarrey, and it was always busier in spring than in the fall at the castle. Sir Stephen seemed to have delighted in keeping a list of urgencies stored up for him while he was gone and then making sure that George took care of each one in the proper way. No shortcuts and no denials.

There were new uniforms to order for the guard, wedding invitations to be signed, a tax dispute to settle, aid for a town burned by lightning, and on and on.

And of course the judgment days to be managed, the everyday decisions of the castle to look over—who was visiting from where and what honor should be duly shown to them, which meals should be served and when. On and on.

So George went to the woods but once a month, to bleed off his need for an hour or two, enjoying the company of a family of sparrows that were as competitive as
a family of ten sons of a baron he had dealings with. Diving out of their nest, each one trying to outdo the other. And all their names were Black. They seemed to have no understanding that perhaps they all should have different names.

Yet one day as spring was turning to summer and the warm judgment days seemed to be attracting fewer complainants, George had a session with Sir Stephen about the upcoming visit of Princess Beatrice. Suddenly George found himself asking, “What do you think of Dr. Gharn?”

After a surprised look, Sir Stephen said, “I must say I have had little contact with him. He seems a very private man.”

“But surely you must speak to him about his treatment of the king?”

“The man keeps me very well informed in his written accounts. His expenses and his list of times for the king to be medicated, and with what.”

“And you do not ask for more than that?”

Sir Stephen rubbed his red-veined eyes. “In fact I am glad that he does not ask for another part of me, Your Highness. I have much to do already, and speaking to a man when it is far easier and less time-consuming simply to read what he has written: What is there to complain of in that?”

George had not meant to scold Sir Stephen, who was clearly carrying far more burden of the king’s illness
than George was. But he could not let it go.

“Is there no one who knows anything of him?”

Sir Stephen raised a finger as if to gather a memory. “You may ask Henry, of your own guard. I believe he was one of those who received some of Dr. Gharn’s first cures.”

“Oh? What was he suffering with?”

Sir Stephen shook his head and refused to answer. “I’ll let him tell you himself.”

So the next day, George went to Henry, who was in the stables tending to his horse, and asked him to walk about the moat. Staring into its dark water was a good reminder of the mistakes George had made in the past.

“Henry, Sir Stephen said that you were one of those cured by Dr. Gharn when he first arrived last year,” George said. The sun was high overhead, and the moat stank almost as strongly as Dr. Gharn himself. George did not mind. Not so long as he was outside, in the fresh air.

“Yes,” said Henry. He colored.

“Will you tell me what he cured you of?”

“I’d rather not,” said Henry. His eyes would not meet George’s.

Could George command him to speak? Perhaps, but then what? There would be nothing between them ever afterward.

Instead George asked, “Were you pleased with the cure?”

Henry hesitated for a long while before he spoke. “I could not say it did not work,” he said, “so long as I was willing to take the medicine.”

“Ah,” said George. He was silent for long enough, to let Henry add more.

“He was…cold,” said Henry eventually. “He spoke very little, and when he did, it was as if he was used to not speaking. As if he thought everyone but himself an idiot.”

That was the same man George had seen indeed. “You saw others cured that day as well?”

“Yes, dozens,” said Henry.

“Truly cured. Not gone home to discover their symptoms returned?”

“I suppose I would not know that,” said Henry. “But there is another guard who said that his sister was cured of a blind eye she had had since a dog bit her in childhood. A magicked dog, he said. But I do not know if there is any truth in that.”

“And yet he does not heal regularly in the palace now?”

“Well, he has the king’s health to deal with,” said Henry. “Of course he has no time for the rest of us. We would not want to take away his attention from finding cures for the king.”

“Of course,” said George, musing. “And do you think the king is getting better?”

“No,” Henry said after a moment. “But what do I
know? I am only a guardsman—”

George put a hand out to stop Henry from going further. “You do not blame Dr. Gharn for this then?” he asked.

When Henry finally spoke, there were tears in his eyes. “Men die. Even kings. And even the best physicians cannot always heal them.”

George turned to go, but Henry’s voice stopped him. “Your Highness.”

“Yes? Is there something else?”

“I—that is…perhaps I shouldn’t…it was only a rumor.” Henry looked miserable, his face twisting this way and that.

“Tell me.”

“I heard that once Dr. Gharn was passing the king’s own troops, who were holding a flag. He should have stopped and bowed his head, to do them honor, but he spat instead. Spat on the ground in front of the troops and said he hated the flag.”

“A rumor,” said George. Perhaps. But what if it was more than that? How could a man who hated the king’s soldiers and the kingdom’s flag serve the king without prejudice?

F
OR MANY WEEKS
King Davit seemed better, and preparations for the wedding were so fierce that George let go of his suspicions about Dr. Gharn. But then George heard that Dr. Gharn had spent some hours tending to a family of peasants that had come to him from the north, begging for his particular assistance. He had gone to them, given them a few packets of herbs, and sent them on their way. But why? It seemed thoroughly out of character for the unpleasant man George had seen.

George decided in a rush of impatience that he would go to Dr. Gharn that very day. When he had a few moments between appointments, and the merchant he was to meet with was late, George disappeared.

“But your duty,” said Sir Stephen.

“My duty does not include encouraging my own people to treat me badly,” said George sharply. He
slammed the door behind him on his way out.

So he went to the main hall and asked a few of the servants where Dr. Gharn was likely to be at this time of day. The physician was rarely out of his chambers, he was told. In fact the kitchen always sent his meals directly to him in the isolated tower where he slept.

Even at the bottom, the tower was hot and stuffy. George felt closed in as the staircase narrowed and the steps grew steeper.

Nervously George knocked on the door at the top.

“Leave the tray outside. I’ll get it when I’m ready,” came a distracted voice from within.

George knocked again. “It’s Prince George,” he said. “I would speak with you, if I may.”

A short flutter of wings within, and there was a clicking sound as the door opened just enough to show Dr. Gharn’s face. “I’m sure we have nothing to speak of,” he said, not allowing George a glimpse of his chamber.

“Please. I should like to talk to you about my father’s treatment.” He tried not to breathe in the foul stench, but even with the door open a few inches, it was powerful indeed.

“Your father does as well as can be expected. Go talk to him if you wish,” said Dr. Gharn.

George put his boot in the door before the physician could close it again. “I will speak with you.” This time he did not speak tentatively. He used a deep, commanding
voice, as he had on King Helm’s hunt, and pushed firmly against the door.

Dr. Gharn stepped back, eyes wide for a moment. But very quickly they turned dark and cloudy. He waved George into his chambers.

Once George got used to the eye-stinging smell, he allowed himself to take in the details.

No one could say that the king’s physician was overly indulged. There was but one small window that looked out to the east. The shelves on the walls were filled with odds and ends, and on the table by the bed were several vials like those that held his father’s medicine and alongside them some dried herbs.

“Is this what you give my father?” George reached for a bit of the herb, and it crumbled in his hands. He smelled it, and his eyes watered at the sudden new and overwhelming odor.

“Yes,” said Dr. Gharn. He offered no more than that.

The physician was standing beside a cage that held a small bird. A dove, in fact, the cause of the wing-fluttering sound he had heard at first.

“Your pet?” George asked, moving toward the cage. He meant only to look at the bird, for it seemed a very unusual creature. It held still when George came toward it and did not flutter even when Dr. Gharn snarled and held the cage away from him.

“Not a pet,” said Dr. Gharn.

Then what was it? “You use the feathers in one of
your concoctions then?”

“Medicine, not concoctions,” said Dr. Gharn. “And no, I do not use it that way. Not this bird. Not ever.”

“Then it is—”

“What did you come for?” Dr. Gharn interrupted him, his tone belligerent.

“I told you, I came to ask about the king.”

“And I told you, he is as well as can be expected.”

George felt even more suspicious of the man.

“Dr. Gharn, can you tell me where you learned your medicine?” George decided to flatter him, though he doubted the physician would be fooled. “I ask because I should like to send others to train to be physicians as you are. We have need of many of your kind here in Kendel.”

“I trained in many places,” said Dr. Gharn. “I do not believe it would be possible to train another such as myself.” He put a finger into the cage, and the bird stepped onto it. Through the bars he petted the bird’s feathers.

“I do not doubt that is so, yet you seem very reluctant to speak of specifics. Is there a reason for that? A fear of something?” George pressed on, his heart in his throat. He was not used to wielding his power so directly.

“Perhaps you are the one who is afraid,” said Dr. Gharn sharply.

For a long and terrible breath, George
was
afraid, that Dr. Gharn would accuse him of having the animal
magic. That he knew the truth, had always known it, ever since he had entered the king’s castle in Kendel.

The expected attack did not come, however. The physician said instead, “What do you know of being king?”

The implications of that fell on George slowly, producing a black heaviness in his heart.

In a hoarse voice, he asked, “Are you saying that my father will die soon?”

“I am saying that you are untrained, and you look for others to blame that state upon. You are so used to relying on others, so unsure of yourself. And yet—you are also a prince without friends, without any interests or passions of his own. A shadow of a man, one who does not know himself and does not wish to know himself. A man who is still a boy, truly.”

“I—” George’s voice broke and went high, as if he were a boy, as Dr. Gharn had said. If Dr. Gharn had seen this so easily, what about those at court? Did they all pretend that he was suitable as a prince because they had no other choice?

All except the lord general.

Dr. Gharn had one final salvo. “You, George, a king. Ha! I daresay that Princess Beatrice, even now on her journey here, is just as amused at the thought.”

“What do you know of Princess Beatrice?” George demanded, distracted from his own doubts at the thought of her.

At this, Dr. Gharn’s expression went very still, so that George was sure he was right.

“I have been sought in many courts.” His voice dismissed the subject, but his eyes would not look directly at George.

“In Sarrey?”

Dr. Gharn shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Then you have met Princess Beatrice personally?” If Dr. Gharn admitted that, it would lend credence to George’s suspicions about Dr. Rhuul. And then what? George’s heart sank as he realized that he did not know what Dr. Rhuul had done in Sarrey. He had only Marit’s and Beatrice’s vague expressions of discomfort to guide him and Henry’s report of talk of Dr. Rhuul’s unpleasantness.

Then Dr. Gharn spoke. “I have met the princess.” At first nonchalant and then filled with dark sarcasm. “What do you think of her, Prince George? Have you fallen in love with her already? She is so beautiful and so sad, is she not?”

Anger flooded through George. Dr. Gharn should not be allowed to discuss Beatrice in this way, as if she were some bit of flesh to be sold at a fair.

“Yet she can also be cold.” The physician continued. “I wonder how it is possible that one woman can be so different. Have you heard the rumors that she is mad? Two women in one.”

“What do you know of Princess Beatrice?” George
attacked in return. “She is not mad. Do not say that of her.” His thoughts whirled. Beatrice was not like other women, but she had her sanity. More than most, he could argue.

“Do I hurt your feelings by speaking of your beloved? Poor prince, destined to be betrayed. And he does not even guess at the source.”

George had his hands around Dr. Gharn’s throat in an instant and tightened them as the physician struggled for breath. George pressed and pressed again.

And then abruptly let go.

He stared as the physician fell to the floor, gasping. Then he ran from the tower, afraid of himself more than he had been afraid of Dr. Gharn, whatever he had done. Was this the fault of animal magic, that he could let his anger take control of him so? Or was this simply his weakness as prince, as Dr. Gharn had said, never fit to rule?