The Princess and the Hound (17 page)

I
N THE MORNING
George stood with the other guards, as well as the lord general, who had insisted on accompanying the prince on this “ridiculous advanture, if for no other reason than to prevent you from killing my best soldiers.”

No mention of the lord general caring if George killed himself.

“Why are we not leaving, then? It is dawn, but perhaps you have not had sufficient breakfast?” the lord general asked.

“We are waiting for Princess Beatrice,” George explained.

“Why?” the man asked, his twice-broken nose twitching in irritation. “Have you fallen so much in love with her that you can’t stand to go for a ride without holding her hand?”

“She is necessary,” George replied. As prince he should not have to say more.

“A woman is never necessary,” said the lord general. “And the man who thinks she is will soon find out the truth of that for himself.”

Another insult to Beatrice. This time George stared the lord general down.

But the lord general had his revenge when he sent Henry to bring their horses. Beatrice’s was a fat white mare with a good temper. George’s was a huge monstrosity of a beast, black and more than a hand above George’s head. He stomped about, pulling at his bit, as Henry held him.

“He’s called Ass,” said Henry helpfully.

“And why is that?” asked George.

Henry swallowed, turned red, and said, “Because anyone who tries to ride him ends up on his ass.”

George would not deign to ask for a different horse and hear the lord general complain of a weak prince. He reached forward to take hold of the lead and a moment later was flying through the air. He landed on his backside and got up with a glint in his eye. And an idea.

“Henry,” he said, “take off all the gear, saddle, stirrups, reins—everything.”

Henry looked as if George had suddenly gone mad.

George wondered at it himself. “Do it,” he said again. “And make sure you stay with the princess.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” said Henry. He did as he was commanded.

Ass was quiet.

But George was not fooled.

At last Beatrice arrived, Marit at her side.

“Wearing something suitable, at least,” the lord general muttered.

She was dressed in men’s riding trousers and riding jacket. George found it strangely appealing, though it did not emphasize her femininity. It made her eyes seem darker, her cheeks broader, and her whole body stronger.

“Good morning,” said George. “Will this horse suit you?”

She looked the mare up and down. “Of course,” she said, without much enthusiasm.

George looked down to Marit, but she seemed as comfortable as her mistress and, if he was not misinterpreting her look, was watching him with something like laughter in her hound’s eyes.

George nodded to her with a wry smile of his own and turned away. He walked once around Ass, then leaped suddenly from the side and landed on the animal’s back. It took all the courage and strength he possessed to hold on to Ass’s mane for the next several minutes, speaking quietly all the while in the language of horses.

At last Ass slowed.

George held as tightly as ever to the mane.

Ass gave one last great shiver to dislodge George. It did not work.

Beatrice and Henry were far behind him, but they caught up as George rode to the edge of the forest, where
the lord general and the others of his men were waiting.

“Still intent on this foolish chase, Prince?” asked the lord general.

“Yes,” said George. He spurred Ass onward, and by the time he made it across the forest, he was sore in places he had not known were his before, while Ass seemed to be enjoying his every twitch.

It was far from dark, but he dismounted and waited until the others caught up. Then he instructed the lord general to make camp there at the edge of the forest. He walked around the camp to ease his aching muscles and found Marit at his side. She was a comfortable companion. She matched strides with him, and there was about her presence something that soothed him.

When he realized how rare it was for Marit to be away from her mistress, even for a short time, he felt honored that she had chosen to come to him. He took in the smell of her coat, the feel of her eyes on him. He did not know if he had ever felt so rested in the company of another. It was no wonder that Beatrice loved Marit so. At first he had thought it was because Beatrice was so remarkable a woman. But that was unfair. Marit was at least as remarkable a hound.

Finally, he went back to check on Beatrice and her tent. The princess did not seem very impressed with it but had made no complaints.

Just then the lord general himself came to see the princess. He stared at her rather rudely, then turned to George. “She looks pretty enough and strong enough to
bear you several children,” was his blunt assessment.

Beatrice hesitated a moment, looked down at Marit, then faced the lord general directly. “When you speak to me, speak to my face,” she demanded.

The lord general’s face was a study in surprise. “I do not take orders from women,” he said. He could have taken a step away from her and retreated to save his pride. But George was sure the lord general had no intention of showing even that much weakness to Beatrice. So he held his place, and she held hers.

Beatrice’s lips were firmly set together. George almost expected her to growl. She said, “You will not dismiss me. I demand your recognition.”

The words were awkward, yet George silently applauded Beatrice.

“You are a woman,” said the lord general, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“I am Princess Beatrice.” She took a small step closer to him.

The lord general stepped back at last. His head bowed, and he moved around her. “Prince, we will be up early in the morning.” He glanced at Beatrice.

“I am sure the princess and I will be ready to leave when you are,” said George.

The lord general gave a curt nod and walked away.

“You were right to insist he treat you well,” said George.

Beatrice said nothing.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” he asked.

“What could you get for me?” asked Beatrice quizzically.

What indeed? “I meant, are there any comforts you would prefer to have? I might be able to find a cushion for you or an extra blanket,” George said at last. “Or perhaps a candle if you wished to keep your tent light in the dark.”

“No,” said Beatrice. She had her hand on Marit.

Of course, with Marit, she did not need George for company.

Still, he stood there, thinking.

“Did you wish to offer me a prize of some sort?” Beatrice asked, her head tilted to one side as if she were studying him. “You have already presented me with your betrothal gifts. Surely that is enough for the sake of the custom.”

“It is not about a custom.” George had become impatient with this conversation, but he did not know how to end it.

“You are not afraid that I will marry another,” said Beatrice. “I have told you already my reasons for the betrothal, and those have not changed.”

“Yes, you have.” Cold-blooded reasons, all of them.

“Then what is it?”

“When you were a girl, was no one ever kind to you for your own sake and not your father’s?” George finally asked.

Beatrice took a moment to think that over. “I do not know. I do not think so, but it is so difficult to be sure.”

George sighed deeply. And was he really any different from her? His life too had been the closed and private life of a prince. It was why they were to marry after all. Yet if he could erase his place as prince and hers as princess, if they could meet as only a man and a woman, what then? Would they do better or worse?

George had to believe better.

“I am sorry to have bothered you.” He turned on his heel, expecting her to let him go.

Nothing could have surprised him more than when she spoke back softly into the night. “I am sorry I cannot accept more from you, Prince George. It would be unfair when I am already taking more than you know.”

“Taking what?” George half turned back, but he could see nothing on her face that gave him a hint of a clue. She was speaking in riddles again. She seemed to be speaking in riddles always.

No, that was not true. Now and again he had a sense that what she said was absolutely true and from her heart. But he thought he could count those times on one hand.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. She did not offer any more.

“Good night,” said George.

T
HAT NIGHT
G
EORGE
dreamed of Marit, instead of Beatrice as he had before. He watched as the hound ran through the forest, chasing down a fat partridge. He tasted the hot blood in his mouth and the warmth in his belly. He danced in the cold stream and back out again.

Afterward George saw the castle in Sarrey, now through Marit’s eyes, as she ascended the steps in front and sniffed along the corridors. He felt her sense of confinement in this place. She was restless to be out again as soon as she entered it. Yet she made no sound of complaint.

It was more restraint than George had ever seen in a wild creature before.

Then Princess Beatrice came into focus in the castle. The hand on the back, the warmth shared. And so she stayed. Duty and love tied her.

George understood both very well.

He woke feeling as tired as he had when he went to sleep. It was still dark, but he could not sleep again. The restlessness of the hound in the dream was part of him now. He quietly dressed and crawled out of his tent.

He looked across the camp and saw Marit staring back at him.

He went toward her, thinking perhaps he could offer her something. If the princess would not accept, then the hound?

He put out his hand to beckon to her. But she did not move from the door of the tent.

He moved closer, then knelt down. “We’ll go out running, you and I,” he whispered. “Wouldn’t you like that?” He remembered from the dream the way she had felt with the wind blowing in her face, the feel of the moss beneath her paws as she pressed and moved as a hound was meant to.

Still, she would not come to him.

So George sat morosely on the ground, hands on knees, and thought on the matter. Why would she deny herself what she loved?

There was a rustle inside the tent, and before George could stand, Beatrice was there, a dark shadow in the open flap.

“She woke you too,” she said flatly.

“I suppose. After a fashion.”

“She does not sleep well these days.” Beatrice seemed on the edge of tears, something that George had never seen before. Yet he dared not offer her anything, not
even a chance to unburden herself.

“Do you share her dreams as well?” George asked instead.

“No. I have not your gift,” said Beatrice. “It is one of the things I envy you.”

George had the feeling that the list was not very long. “Would you like me to tell you what she dreamed?”

“I can read it in her eyes and in the way she stands,” said Beatrice. “She is unhappy. But I am unhappy as well.”

“Will you ever let her go?” asked George.

“When she lets me go,” was the cryptic reply.

“It has not always been like this between you, though,” said George.

“No,” said Beatrice. She seemed about to add more, then shook her head.

“A hound should have a pack,” said George suddenly.

Beatrice looked down at Marit. “And a woman should have a family that loves her,” she said.

George granted that with a nod of his head. “I feel as if we are pieces in a game of kings,” he said. “Moved about this way and that, coming close together, then moving apart once more.”

“Who is moving us?” asked Beatrice.

“I don’t know. I cannot see that far.”

“And if you could, would that change the power that works you?”

George did not answer this. There was nothing to say.

“If you were a hound, I should say that you needed to make a kill,” said Beatrice.

“And is that what you think this hunt for Dr. Gharn is? My chance for a kill?” asked George.

Beatrice shrugged. “Is there pleasure in it for you?”

George thought back to the dream he had shared with Marit. She had been hunting for a small thing, a partridge, yet her joy in the catch had been so pure. Would he feel that same joy in catching Dr. Gharn?

No, because it would not be finished then. There would always be another step and another.

“Is there pleasure in anything for you?” Beatrice asked. “Without thinking of the future or of others, only of yourself?”

George tried to think. There should be one thing in his life that was for him alone. He was a prince, of course, and he had his duties. But even the animal magic that was his alone was not something he found joy in. It had always been a source of shame, and fear, and constant thinking, to make sure that he was not gone too long or did not meet with any other humans while he was out or did not come back too obviously from the woods.

“Perhaps not,” he said.

“My father always loved war,” said Beatrice. “He did not like the idea of giving it up, but he still has the chance to practice in the yard, with the soldiers. I think that will be enough for him.”

As for George’s father, he had had his queen. Even
when she was gone, he could remember her. George had come upon him often enough, distracted, his eyes cloudy in the past.

“And you, what gives you joy?” asked George.

Beatrice met his eyes squarely. “In that, you and I are alike,” she said. “Duty moves me wholly.”

“Duty does not force you to speak to me like this, in the middle of the night,” said George. “You could have remained in your tent.”

“No,” Beatrice said. “You are right.”

“Then we can be friends? Or if not friends, then at least we could walk together in the dark, while we are not sleeping.”

“We could do that,” said Beatrice.

That was the trick, George thought. To make sure that she did not think she was receiving an undue gift and to keep her from giving more than she wished. They walked around the camp, Marit keeping pace with them, then around it again in a wider circle. Suddenly Marit went very still.

“Shh,” said Beatrice, and put out a hand to catch George’s shoulder.

He stopped, and Beatrice pointed. There was a flash of white not far into the woods, and then it disappeared in a sudden movement.

Marit raced after it, and George and Beatrice followed. As they chased, George realized that the animal was no hare. It was a fox, full grown, far too big for a
single meal for Marit. Yet Marit was eagerly playing the game of the hunt with it.

In fact it was all George could do to keep pace with them. His heart pounded, and his legs ached with cramps, but he could see a smile on Beatrice’s face, and it seemed contagious, for he knew he too was smiling.

In the end, Marit caught the fox by the tail and worried at it. The fox turned and scratched at Marit’s nose.

George thought that Marit would use a paw to stomp on it. She had it now; it could not go free.

But she let it go, and it ran off into the woods.

George thought it strange that after all the hours he had spent in the woods, he had never had such joy as this. Was it because he had not used his animal magic enough? He was inclined to think that it was Beatrice and Marit. They knew a secret he had never thought of: Sometimes it is better not to think of tomorrow, but only of today, of this minute, of now.

The sun was rising behind them, just a touch of pink in the sky. In a few minutes the lord general would be out of his tent and rousing the rest of the party. George did not care to imagine what the man’s reaction would be if he found the prince and the princess missing from their tents without a word.

They had to go back.

George touched Beatrice’s hand. “Thank you,” he said.

It broke the spell that had been between them. She stiffened. “I did not even know you were here.”

Yet it had been as if all three of them had been hounds. Interesting, that with all his animal magic, he had never before been able to forget how human he was. He had talked to the animals, learned from them, even seen their way of life, but always from his perspective. It had taken Marit and Beatrice to show him a new way.

He bent down and looked at Marit. Perhaps he would get a better reception from her. “Thank you,” he said.

She came toward him until her muzzle touched his nose. She did not bark or whine, but simply held there. A moment of recognition, of acceptance, George hoped, that they were more than they had been. Friends indeed.

Then they went back, and George wondered if it all had been a dream. It did not seem quite real, but he still had a scratch on his hand from a tree that Marit and Beatrice had avoided but he had collided with.

It would fade in a few days’ time. And then what? Would their shared chase also fade?

No, he promised himself. He would remember it. Even if Marit and Beatrice did not. Like his father, he would go away in his mind and let his eyes go blank, so that he could take out that memory and relive it. A pleasure for himself, and fairly earned.