The Princess and the Hound (15 page)

G
EORGE FLED TO THE
woods and to a family of possums, which chattered on about the way the sun moved overhead or underhead.

It was precisely the kind of contact he needed. Soothing, and without expectations. Later, shaking with cold from his own sweat, George made it back to the castle in the cool of the summer evening without being seen by the guard, sneaking in around the stables the way his mother had taught him so long ago. Only the lord general raised his head slightly.

George went back to his chamber to change out of his filthy clothing, intending to find a bite of food and then Sir Stephen, to offer an apology. Surely he had a long list of tasks that must still be done, as the princess was to arrive late the next day.

But before George could get out the door of his own bedchamber, he received an urgent summons to go to his
father. He went immediately, taking two steps at a time, one boot still unlaced.

Four-fingered Jack stared down at the boot, but George refused to pay it any attention and stared at Jack until the door was opened and he was admitted.

Inside, his father was worse than he had ever seen him. He was pale and cold, but most terrifying was the fact that he did not seem to recognize George.

“Who are you?” the king demanded hoarsely.

“I am your son, Prince George,” he said, leaning close to his father, trying not to show the terror that he felt in his heart. What was it Dr. Gharn had said: that he was afraid of his father’s dying because he did not think he was ready to be king himself? Well, it was true.

“George? Don’t be ridiculous,” said King Davit, his mouth twisting to the side and a line of drool dribbling out of it. “My son, George, can’t possibly be more than—” He stopped suddenly, and sweat broke out over his face.

“George?” he asked.

“Yes, Father. I’m here.”

“So you are, so you are.” And he dozed off.

That, at least, George had seen his father do before. And at the moment he was almost grateful. It gave him a chance to collect himself. His father needed immediate assistance, and much as George’s encounter with Dr. Gharn had pained him, he had no reason to believe the man a danger to his father. He was a physician, and he
might be able to give some ease.

So George slipped his hand out of his father’s and opened the door to call Jack.

“Dr. Gharn has already been sent for, Your Highness,” said four-fingered Jack, “at the same moment you were.”

“Was he told it was urgent?” George demanded. Why was the man not here yet? His tower was no farther from this chamber than George had been.

“He was sent for immediately, Your Highness. I do not know why he has not yet arrived.” Jack’s expression was not at all happy.

“Has he been so late before?” George asked, dark suspicion growing in his heart once more.

“Never, Your Highness.”

“Go after him yourself then, Jack,” George said.

Jack hesitated a moment, looking back to the king.

“Go!” said George, using his commanding voice for the first time on Jack.

Jack started, eyes wide in surprise, but he did not object. Instead, he nodded briefly, then scurried down the stairs. In a moment he had gone from sight.

Immediately George regretted treating Jack so badly. It was hardly his fault that George felt the need to assert himself. And yet Jack would one day have to accept his authority too.

George waited what seemed an interminable length of time. At last Jack returned. He walked with his arms
low, swinging randomly from side to side, and there was no attempt at speed.

“What is it?” George demanded.

“He is gone, Your Highness,” said Jack.

“What do you mean? Gone from his tower? Then scour the castle and find him. He must have gone out for a walk.”

But Jack only stared at George. “His tower is entirely empty, all his herbs and mixings gone, all his clothes, his trunk.”

“Even his dove?” George asked in a low voice.

“Even the bird in the cage,” said Jack.

George’s head felt stuffed full of wool. He could not think. “But I talked to him only late this morning. There was no sign of his intent to leave then.”

Jack merely shrugged.

“When did he last come to see the king?” George asked.

“But two hours ago,” said Jack. “He brought him a triple dose of the black elixir and insisted the king drink all of it as he watched.”

While George was in the woods, neglecting his duties. Again.

In a moment George could hear the low dong of the bells in the town of Wilbey that proclaimed it to be dark. Impossible to begin a search for anyone now. They would have to wait until morning. But Princess Beatrice would arrive the next day, and the castle would be far
too busy with that to think about a missing physician.

No doubt precisely as Dr. Gharn had planned.

“How was the king when Dr. Gharn left?” he asked, though he thought he knew the answer already.

“He was…not well. He began vomiting soon afterward,” Jack said, as if it pained him to admit his master’s weakness. As if it were his own fault.

“And was that not alarming to you?” George asked. “That he began vomiting after the physician’s medicine?”

Jack said, “It has always been so. Dr. Gharn says it is drawing the poison out of his system.”

Or putting it in,
thought George.

“Send for Sir Stephen,” George said.

Jack went for a messenger, then came back and stood behind George’s place at his father’s bedside. “Do you think—will he die, Your Highness?” asked Jack.

“He can’t,” said George. “I won’t let him.” And he held tightly to his father’s hand, hoping to make his words true.

T
HROUGH THE NIGHT
George kept vigil as the king slipped into a deeper sleep. He could no longer be roused by George’s pricking a needle into his hand. And yet he breathed.

Sir Stephen had come in shortly after having been sent for, but he had said very little except to ask after King Davit’s condition. Then he found himself a place to stand that was out of George’s sight and remained there without a sound.

Once George turned and asked him, “Wouldn’t you rather sit and have some rest?”

“No,” said Sir Stephen. “I would not. While my king rests, I must be awake and alert.” His voice was so prickly as to preclude any further comment on George’s part.

So George let the man be, thinking that Sir Stephen, and Jack outside the door, and he himself were all the same in this. And why should he think that he was the
only one who loved his father enough to watch every breath?

In some ways, it seemed unfair. If George’s father were any ordinary man, then it would be his son alone who waited at his sickbed. But even in this, Davit was king, and so he offered his pain and his illness to all. George found his old childish anger bubbling, hot and volatile, back to the surface. Where was the man his mother had loved? George did not know if he still existed at all beneath the crown.

Wake up just once more. Let me make my peace. Talk to me again as George,
he said in his heart.
That is all I shall ever ask of you.

But come morning, the king was still in a black silence. And there were other things to be done.

“He is no worse,” said Sir Stephen.

Yes, of course, Sir Stephen would feel obliged to put a good face on even the worst news. It was for the sake of the kingdom, and George thought that his father had never had a better student in keeping on a public face than Sir Stephen.

Four-fingered Jack brought in a tray of rolls and fruit from the kitchen. “It is the king’s breakfast,” he said as George’s nose began to twitch in anticipation of one of Cook Elin’s best pastries.

“Ah.” George left the tray, untouched, on the table where Jack had put it. The king’s breakfast indeed.

“Shall I call for something for you?” asked Jack.

“No, no,” George told him, and Sir Stephen said the same.

Jack went back to his lonely post. George and Sir Stephen stared at each other.

“We cannot simply stay here. There are things that must be done to prepare for Princess Beatrice and her party. We must think of the future, of the kingdom and…and…” Sir Stephen went silent as he stared at the still form of the king.

Yes, what did any of it matter without the king?

The soft morning light grew hot on George’s seat near the window. The king’s lunch was brought in and the breakfast tray taken away. This time Jack did not ask if George and Sir Stephen wished anything. They were given bowls of soup and fresh rye bread.

George tried to talk to his father. It was useless.

His mind turned over and over all his failures, his weaknesses. Beatrice would see them surely as soon as she arrived. She would go back to Sarrey, and then George would be forced to admit to one and all that he could not take his father’s place. His mind whirled with visions of what would happen to Kendel. Civil war, being swallowed up by Sarrey. Each thought was worse than the one before.

He turned at last to Sir Stephen. “Talk to me,” he said. “Say anything you wish.”

And perhaps because Sir Stephen was as desperate as George himself was, he did.

“I knew your father when he was first made king,” said Sir Stephen. “He was hardly older than you are now. I was a page at the time, with no hopes for anything more than that.”

“
Mmm?”
said George. It was not fair to make Sir Stephen carry the whole conversation, but for now George could not do any more than that one small sound.

“But still, I did not like him.”

“Oh?” George felt terrible. Achy. Tired. Cramped. Thirsty.

“I did not think he had the qualities that make a good king.” Sir Stephen went on. “He was not stern enough. He laughed too loud and too easily. The war was not going well. And then he married so far beneath his station.”

George knew his father had been king for several years before he had married. “When did you change your mind about him?” he asked, surprised by his own voice, as weak as a thread.

Sir Stephen spoke as if in a dream. “I do not know when it happened precisely. When Elsbeth died, I was angry with your father. I thought it his fault in some way because he had not ended the war earlier. And though I was on his own council, I refused to speak to him directly.

“Time went on, and I could see the others around me change, as he took time to listen to them one by one and treat them well. But I did not see it in myself until the day you were born, just after the war was over. He
sent someone for me, to come into the nursery where you lay, a few hours old.

“There he offered me the chance to hold you. I refused. I did not know how to hold a child.
Give me a child of fifteen,
I thought,
one who can speak and reason. I could deal with a child like that.

“But your father insisted. He bade me sit in a rocking chair and showed me how to hold out my hands. Then he laid your tiny body in my arms. I was terrified that I would drop you, the heir to the kingdom. I thought the king was mad to insist upon this.

“But he told me that he trusted me with more than his life. He trusted me with his son’s life. And when I looked into his eyes, I knew that I would never doubt him again.”

Sir Stephen wiped his eyes. “I’ve watched over you ever since, George. Tried to justify your father’s trust in me.”

“Yes,” said George, “I know.”

“I wanted to make sure that you became a man your father would be proud of.”

George stiffened. All his life he had tried to live up to his father’s character, but no matter how he tried, he had always known he fell short. Flatterers told him differently, but Sir Stephen had never been in that category before.

Sir Stephen touched his shoulder. “You are, George. You are very like your father in many ways, yet you
have strengths of your own.”

“What strengths?” George asked, defensive, sure that Sir Stephen would not be able to think of even one.

“Courage,” said Sir Stephen.

George could hardly imagine an answer that would have astounded him more. Courage? Compared with his father?

“Yes.” Sir Stephen insisted. “In your honesty there is courage. You demand it of yourself and of others.”

Honesty?

Sir Stephen went on. “And you give of yourself in a way your father cannot.”

George had never heard Sir Stephen ever speak of King Davit’s inadequacies.

“Ah, well. Enough of that. You will find yourself, as he did. But that will not mean it is easy. There are few things easy in life that are worth the doing.”

This sounded more like the Sir Stephen whom George was used to. A few words of old wisdom to act as a palliative.

George felt steadier, and then a thought burst into his mind. His father could not die. “We must find a new physician.”

“The other castle physicians were dismissed,” said Sir Stephen. “But we might be able to coax them back with an offer of money. If you think they could do something—”

“No,” said George. “No. We need another physician. Someone who can truly cure anything. Have you heard
of such a man? It would not have to be in Kendel. In any land.”

George would send out riders if he had to. He would mortgage the castle itself to the kingdom’s noblemen or to King Helm to get enough money, if money was what was wanted.

Sir Stephen’s red-rimmed eyes stared into George’s. Then he said, “I know of no one.”

“Think!” George commanded.

Sir Stephen was startled enough to say, “There is only—” and he stopped himself.

“Say it,” said George. “Say the rest. Who is it?”

“I was thinking of Elsbeth’s father. He was the finest physician I ever met. He disappeared after she died, but if we found him, if he is still alive…”

“You think he could cure the king?” asked George, breathless. This was hope, painful and sweet.

“If anyone could, he could,” said Sir Stephen.

“But you have heard no hint of him in all this time? Surely a man so talented would be well known. Unless he wished to hide himself.”

“I—” Sir Stephen paused.

“What?”

“There may have been tales of him. But I would not wish anything to happen to him.” He looked meaningfully at George. “Do you understand my meaning?”

George twitched. He was not sure that he did.

“Elsbeth would never say a word about his strangenesses, but I could see they were there. He walked lightly,
as if in a dance. A cat dance. He did not keep pets around him, but he would give medicine to animals. There were rumors about him—”

Sir Stephen looked at George and stopped.

So Elsbeth’s father had had the animal magic. And Sir Stephen had been ready to marry his daughter. He had been willing to take the risk of her having it or of their children having it too.

Suddenly much of Sir Stephen’s behavior to George made sense. His unwillingness to speak about the animal magic, but the way that he was unsurprised by hints of it.

All this time he had known.

Well, there would be time to talk of that later. Or perhaps not.

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again? Can you give me a description if I send out soldiers to find him?”

“It has been so long, and I have worked for so long to block my memory of that time. So painful…,” said Sir Stephen.

“Try, please try,” said George.

“Medium height, medium build. Hair of brownish color. Eyes the same. Strong hands, long fingered.” He shrugged. “It is not much. But I suppose he had his reasons for not wishing to stand out.”

“Indeed.” George’s heart stopped. “What was his name?” he asked, and the voice sounded very distant, even to him.

“Raelgon Poll,” said Sir Stephen.

“Rael-gon,” George separated the two syllables, and said the last one as Sir Stephen had done, with a slight southern accent that added an
r
. It sounded exactly like Dr. Gharn. And Rael was not far from Dr. Rhuul.

Dr. Gharn had worked so hard to keep away from direct contact with Sir Stephen, with anyone, really. His disguise had been his smell and his very lack of distinguishing features.

The bird he had kept in his tower, George thought. That pointed to Dr. Gharn’s having the animal magic as well. Why had George not seen it before? Because Dr. Gharn had turned George’s thoughts to himself. And then to Beatrice.

“And you say that this man—his daughter was killed in the war.”

“His only daughter,” said Sir Stephen. “How he doted on her.”

“Do you think he would have blamed my father?”

Sir Stephen shrugged. “I did for a time.”

“And King Helm?” George asked.

“Perhaps,” said Sir Stephen. George did not have time to explain it all, even if he could. The connections were so tenuous, requiring great leaps of the imagination. And yet they fit in a way nothing else did.

George let himself work it out in his mind. Raelgon Poll had wanted revenge for his daughter’s death. He had planned for many years how to do it. He had gone to Sarrey. George was certain that he had done something
there, to King Helm or his daughter. And then he had come back to Kendel, to take out his anger on King Davit.

The black elixir. All along it had been poison. And three doses all together—would his father ever recover from that?

George began to search his father’s bedchamber methodically.

“What are you doing?” asked Sir Stephen.

But George was too busy to answer. No doubt Dr. Gharn had very carefully cleaned the tower, but there might be something left here.

There!

Underneath his father’s bed, an empty vial. George scrambled toward it, then came back out triumphantly. He held it high, then sniffed what remained inside.

“May I?” asked Sir Stephen.

George saw no reason not to let him.

But he did not expect the gasp that came afterward.

“Tell me,” George said.

“There was a man.” Sir Stephen spoke as if he had not thought of this memory for a very long time. “Raelgon found him in the forest. He had eaten some leaves. There were a few still in his hands. He was insensible and could not speak. But there was a strong smell, like anise and a bear’s piss combined. A distinctive smell.”

He held the vial to his nose once more. “This is it,” he said. “I am certain of it. All this time the king has been taking it. And I did not know. I did not think to
suspect—” He stared at George with tears in his eyes.

“What did the leaves do to the man?” George asked impatiently.

Sir Stephen shook his head.

“Tell me,” said George. Then, more quietly: “Please.”

“There was nothing to be done for him. Even though Raelgon was the best physician I had ever heard of, he said that he knew his limits, and some poisoning the man could never recover from.”

George felt tears start out of his eyes. No! His father was not dead yet. And if Dr. Gharn had not known a cure twenty years ago, that did not mean there was no cure now.

“I’ll go after him,” said George.

“But Princess Beatrice’s arrival—” said Sir Stephen.

Yes, of course. That was the reason that Dr. Gharn had left. Before he could be recognized and accused. George would wait to greet Beatrice properly, to see if she had information that would help.

George left his father’s bedchamber to Sir Stephen and headed toward the stables. He could not leave today, but that did not mean he could not begin gathering what was necessary to leave as soon as possible. Supplies, for one thing. Men, for the other.

George could not do without Henry. The lord general would have to give suggestions for the others. And for the horses. They would have to go quickly. And in which direction? Where would Dr. Gharn go?

Not toward Sarrey: That was all George knew.