The Princess and the Hound (23 page)

I
T WAS PAST MIDNIGHT
, and the moon was shining bright as Marit and George approached the palace.

“Can you see her still?” Marit asked. “With your magic?”

George closed his eyes. Yes, there she was. In the woods with the bear. They had not yet retreated to a cave but were washing in the stream.

“Is she well?”

George smiled as he saw the bear push Beatrice into the stream. She righted herself, then leaped out, circled the bear, and this time he fell in.

“She is happy,” said George.

Marit winced a moment, as if Beatrice’s happiness hurt her. Then she sighed and nodded.

Did she expect that Beatrice would not go on with her life? Did she expect her own life to be at an end now?

“She is a hound at heart,” said Marit. “She does not let wounds fester. When they are healed, they are done and gone.”

“Yes,” said George. That did seem to be part of the Beatrice he had known. It had been something he had admired about her and would miss. But it belonged more in the woods than in the human world.

Humans did not let go easily. And there was something wonderful about that. The way Marit had, after all these years, not given up on her father. Perhaps not on George either.

“I shall see you in the morning,” George said firmly, daring to touch her arm.

She nodded and moved away. She turned back a moment later. “Will you dream of her?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said George. He thought now that the dreams had been the way for the other part of his animal magic to bubble up, to communicate with him when he would not see it true.

“I envy you that,” said Marit.

“I will share them with you as much as I can,” said George. But of course that would not be enough for her.

Marit nodded, biting her lip, and turned away once more.

“We will visit her,” George told her. He did not think she believed him until he added, “And take the game of kings with us, to see how well she does.”

Then Marit smiled. “Yes, let us do that.”

That night George slept like a rock, dreamless. In the morning he felt so refreshed that he smiled at his reflection in the mirror. He would go and talk to Marit, invite her to sit with him at breakfast. He would have amusing stories to tell her, and there would be always a bit of truth in them so that she would see he was not a frivolous man.

He had almost reached her chamber when he heard the noises outside: voices, shouting, and the sound of a cannon.

“Prince George?” asked Marit formally, peeking out to see him. Her lips trembled, but she held them tightly closed as if to conceal her concern.

“I’m sure it is nothing to worry about,” George said. “I shall be back in a moment.”

When he had started down the stairs, he realized she was following him. The noises had grown louder and more ominous. Where were his guards?

George set his jaw and went outside to the drawbridge. Marit had caught up to him by then, and when he stopped to see the guard, her hand was resting on his shoulder.

“What is this?” George demanded. He did not recognize any of the guards. He should, he knew. He needed to take time for these details. His father did.

“Your Highness,” stuttered one of the guards, with a bow.

George turned to see the crowd gathered around the moat, shouting and jeering. “Burn him!” came the shout
of one man, his fist raised.

“No animal magic at the court!” shouted another.

Marit’s hand on his shoulder tightened.

George turned to her. “You could go back in,” he said.

She shook her head, and it gave George renewed courage to know that she would not desert him now, despite all.

He turned back to the crowd. It was time for him to face this alone, without his father.

Somehow the knowledge of his animal magic had come out. He would not deny it this time. It was time his people knew the truth, and time too for the whole kingdom to be changed, as changed as Marit and Beatrice had been. But not by magic. This time the only power he had to use was the power of his persuasion.

George stepped forward, determined not to show fear. “What is this?” he demanded. “Why do you come here in this way? Since when do we solve problems in Kendel this way?”

A whisper seemed to spread through the crowd, and George heard his name. “Prince George, Prince George is here!” It did not make sense to him. Hadn’t they expected that he would come answer his accusers?

“You!” George said at last, pointing to a man near the front of the crowd. At his side was a young boy, limping, a bloody bandage around his leg. The boy stared wide-eyed and pale at the castle.

“Tell me what this is about!” George demanded.

The man stepped forward tentatively. “My son,” he said, then swallowed.

“Yes.” George tried to look at the boy kindly. Did the boy truly have something to do with all this?

“He saw a man in the woods. Dressed in the livery of the king’s guard. He used animal magic.”

What? One of his guards was accused, then, and not he himself? For a moment George was tempted to let it go as it was, not to admit anything. But that was the man he had been, not the one he had become. Moreover, if he put this off for another day, it would not get any easier. It would only force him to hide himself more and more deeply.

He was tired of hiding who he truly was. All his life—it had been far too long.

“Tell me what this guard looked like,” said George.

The father looked back at his boy. “Young,” he said. “And—” He faltered.

George pointed to the boy. “Bring him here.”

He was perhaps ten years old. George remembered that age very well. Of course he was afraid. And he had no idea what any of this meant. Later, perhaps, he would understand it more.

“Tell me what he looked like, this guard you saw.” George coaxed the boy. He held out his hand, the one not holding Marit’s, and pulled the boy toward him.

The boy moved jerkily and looked about wildly for his father.

But the father could not speak against the prince.

“Was he tall? Short? Young? Old?”

“Young,” said the boy at last.

That helped George but little. All his guards were young. If they grew older, they became trainers for the younger guards but rarely moved outside the castle itself.

It was really a matter of mere curiosity, for George had never suspected that any of his guards had animal magic. If he had, what would he have done? Anything at all? Perhaps not. He would have been afraid of the connection, much as he also would have longed for it.

And now?

Now he refused to be afraid any longer. Still, he wished to know.

“And the color of his hair?”

“Br-brown,” the boy answered.

“His eyes?”

The boy shook his head, trembling from head to foot. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember anything else about him? Anything to tell me which one it was?”

“You could bring them all out, Your Highness,” the father said, “and let him look at them one by one. He could tell you which one it was then.”

George said, “I think I shall do just that.” He motioned to the guards at the gate, and one ran forward. George gave a whispered command, and the guard
stared out at the crowd, whitened, and nodded. Then he ran back.

Marit was holding George’s hand so tightly that he could no longer feel his fingers. Did she trust him to do what was right here? It seemed a test, and not merely for the guard.

George looked down at the boy. “They will come out, a group of twelve. All with brown hair, as you said. All young. You look at them carefully and tell me if you see the man there.”

What would George do if the boy did not see the guard he had met in the woods? What if it had not been a guard at all but someone else in a uniform? The whole castle might have to be searched before they came to him. And if they did not, then what?

Then what? It would not be as easy for George to proclaim his animal magic. Another temptation to wait, to take the easy course.

Only half the guards had come out when the boy shouted out, “There he is.” He pointed, and George turned to see who it was.

Henry.

Henry?

George moved to his side, shielding the guard who had become his friend.

Henry stiffened. “I shall tell no one, Your Highness,” he promised in a mutter that did not move his lips.

He did know of George’s magic, then? He had
known that they shared that one thing all along. And he had never spoken of it, had allowed George to think it was still his secret?

“This is the man?” George asked the boy, nodding to the other guards to go back behind the gate.

The boy shivered, then nodded, and his father came to lift him up and carry him off.

As if the animal magic, like a disease, could contaminate them.

George turned on Henry. “Will you confess?” He shouted loudly enough for all in the crowd to hear.

Henry, confused, stared at George. “I have the animal magic if that is what you mean,” he said.

“Yes, and tell us all how this boy came to know it of you. Speak your piece as the boy has already spoken his,” said George, borrowing his father’s words from judgment day. He saw backs straighten and knew there were many who recognized those words and knew what they meant.

“I
—I went into the woods. I was there because I needed…to speak with the animals.”

George nodded. “And?”

Henry bowed his head. “I heard a rumbling sound from far away. And then the sound of an animal in distress. I knew it was a horse. I could not ignore it, so I followed the sound north, where the woods narrowed and there was a bridge spanning a great chasm with a stream at the bottom.

“I could see that the bridge had broken and that a horse had fallen into the ravine below. A horse and also a child. That boy.” Henry pointed to the child who had accused him of animal magic, and though there was no malice in his manner, the boy turned away and cried out in fear as though the look alone could kill him.

Henry went on. “I had to climb down toward the ravine slowly, step by step, because of the fall of rocks,
which had also caused the bridge to break and had carried away the child and the horse with it. If I had caused more sliding of the rocks, it could have been the end of the boy, and the horse too.”

But he did not say a word of his own danger. Did anyone else hear that? George looked through the crowd. He saw one man who was listening very intently, with furrowed brow and a look of interest rather than fear or anger. He glanced back, and there was Marit too, a step behind George, tears standing in her eyes.

“I called out, and the boy answered me. I could not see all of him, amid the rocks, only his blood-smeared leg just beyond the horse. I was afraid that the leg was broken, or worse, that it would have to be cut off entirely, after the weight of the horse had destroyed it.”

Could anyone doubt that Henry had cared at least as much for the boy as for the horse?

“I told him I was coming and shouted to him not to move. He begged me to come quickly and waved an arm. Then the horse, agitated by this new movement, began to adjust its position, trying to find its head. I had to use my animal magic then.” Henry looked to George for pity because he did not expect it from any other source. “I do not use it often, for it is feared so much. But in this case I thought surely no one could argue against me. It was to save a boy’s life.”

Perhaps Henry had also hoped, George thought, that people would not believe the rantings of a small boy
who had been in such a terrible accident. They would think it was simply a fantasy his pained mind had created, and it would have been true if only it had been about anything but animal magic. There was no rationality where animal magic was concerned, not in Kendel.

“I called to the horse in the language of horses, to lie down.” Henry continued. “But he did not hear me, or he would not listen. And so the rockfall started again. I watched as it pulled the boy down farther.”

“He called the rocks down!” one of the crowd shouted. “He meant for the boy to die!”

George stared out until silence reigned once more. Ridiculous. He had experienced the full extent of his animal magic now, and it was great. But that did not mean he could call down a rockslide from a mountain. Might as well say he could change the boundaries of his kingdom at will, and the faces of all those in it. Changing their hearts would be more convenient but, alas, equally impossible.

“I was sure that I would die with them then, but it stopped after just a moment. I was closer to the boy and the horse then, and I inched forward bit by bit, searching for stable footing.” Henry was sweating as he thought of it. George could imagine how frantic he had been.

So much about Henry made sense now. He had left his home and the woman he loved and refused to name.

Why? To hide himself. To keep any suspicion from falling on those he loved. And to make himself forget, if he could, those things that could never be his. A normal life. Friends. Family. Love and respect.

“I spoke to the horse and promised I would get it out. I put my hand out and calmed it. I spoke to it of the stable and the warm hay that would be waiting, if only it did as I said. Just a few more minutes, just keep still, I told it. And it did.”

This was where the crowd should have broken out into a cheer, but it did not. The only open mouths were twisted with hatred. George cheered silently for Henry’s courage. Henry, he thought, was more of a prince than George had ever been.

But that would have to change. Today it would change.

“I moved to the back of the horse and by touch found the boy’s buried leg. It was not broken, only badly cut and bruised. His head was facedown in the rocks, and he struggled when he felt me touch him. I helped him first get his head clear so he could breathe. Then he looked at me. I think he knew that I had the animal magic then.”

Still, the boy had not screamed or told Henry to go away. He had been willing to be helped by the animal magic.

“When he was ready, I told him I would get him out of the rocks, but that he must not cry out in pain. If he
did, I was afraid of what the horse would do. I could not control them both at once,” said Henry.

“I pulled him where I could and dug around the rocks where I had to. Then he was in my arms, and I promised him that he would be safe. I told him to put his arms around my neck. And I began to walk out of the ravine with him.

“I had to touch the horse first, so that it would not buck or shake the rocks while we were gone. I promised it I would be back, but I had to get the boy out first. The horse understood that, despite all the danger.

“When I had the boy settled on a high ridge, he began to spit at me and call me names. But he could not move because of his leg, so I left him and went to tend the horse.”

“The horse first and the boy had to get out by himself! That’s the true story!” shouted the boy’s father. “Tell it true or not at all!”

But George believed Henry. And the boy’s leg seemed too badly injured for him to have gotten himself out.

“By some miracle, the horse was nearly untouched, so I helped it to the top. Before I had a chance to get to the boy once more, he had climbed on his horse and ridden away.”

Now Henry lifted his hands, palms up. “I did not know how to go after him. I could have followed the horse, but I would have come so much later I did not see
how it would matter. I thought that he would be safe once he was home.”

And so he had been.

So what now? Somehow George had to find a way to be fair to both sides. Here was that first terrible judgment day of his, come again.

“Your Highness, I am sorry to bring this shame here. I did not mean—of course I will accept any punishment you deem proper. To protect you and yours.” Henry knelt. He knew what he was offering: his own life for George’s safety, his animal magic so that George’s could remain hidden.

Before he could speak, George felt Marit’s hand on his back. He turned. Her face was white as a winter owl.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

“I am afraid for you,” whispered Marit. Her eyes shone with the knowledge of the danger that George faced. And of the fact that he could turn away from it.

But she could not be asking him to do that, surely?

“I have lost her already. How will I survive if I lose you as well?” she asked, lips quivering.

“If I do not do this, then I will have lost myself,” said George. He stared at her to see if she understood what he meant.

At last, she nodded. And let go of him.

How strange that he had to have more to lose in order to find the courage to proclaim himself.

“Do you agree to abide by my judgment on this ani
mal magic?” George asked, his face turned to the father and the boy. This was important. For so long the people of Kendel had taken to judging animal magic on their own. They must agree that George had the authority.

“Yes, Your Highness.” The father licked his lips. He could tell that there was something unexpected here, but he did not know what it was or what it meant.

“And the rest of you make no objections to my right to judge here?” George looked out over the crowd.

He heard no response and took that as assent.

Now to reverse what had happened on his first judgment day, when King Davit had allowed one man with animal magic to exempt all of his kind from the king’s power.

“And you, guard?” George asked. “You put yourself in my hands the day you came here and took service at the castle. You will not try to save yourself with your animal magic at the last moment, will you?”

“No,” said Henry. He had steeled himself against every emotion, George thought.

George did not know how to convey to him a bit of hope. “You will accept my judgment whatever it is?” he asked.

Henry blanched but nodded stiffly.

“Good. Listen to me now. I will give my judgment here upon you all.” George raised his voice just loud enough that it could be heard by every person in the crowd, as long as he was listening with absolute stillness.

“The boy and his father: You are to receive compensation for whatever damage your horse received, including the choice of the king’s own stables if you wish it. And your son will have the best physician in the kingdom tend to him. Do you have complaint with that?”

The father chewed at his lip. “No, Your Highness. Of course not. That is very generous. I did not think—that is, it was only for his sake that we came.” He nodded to Henry.

George ignored this. He turned to the crowd. “You will disperse. You have no purpose here. It is my judgment that matters now. And as soon as I speak it, you must be gone. Are there any objections to this?”

If there were, they were not spoken aloud. George turned at last to Henry.

Marit was so close he could hear her shallow and uneven breathing. Losing the kingdom somehow seemed a paltry thing now in comparison to losing her. What kind of fool was he?

“You admit that you have the animal magic?” he asked Henry.

Henry nodded.

“You admit that you used it to save this boy’s life and the life of his horse, at the risk of your own?” George spoke as solemnly as before. Nonetheless, there were a few heads in the crowd that lifted at this, eyes shifting this way and that, uncertainty gleaming.

“Yes,” said Henry.

“You admit that you have served me for three years and that you have kept this secret from me? From everyone who has ever known you?”

Henry’s lips moved, but no words came out. He was sweating heavily.

George held himself back. “You must give acknowledgment,” he said.

“Yes,” said Henry at last. “I did not mean to harm you, Prince George.”

“And all this because of your fear of what I would say or do when I discovered the truth of your animal magic?”

“Yes,” said Henry again. This time it came automatically.

“And have you ever told anyone that you discovered that I also have the animal magic?” George asked quietly.

Suddenly Henry’s head came up. He stared at the crowd about them. “Your Highness, what do you mean? I don’t know what you’re talking about! You have no animal magic!” He lied bravely.

“Ah, but I do,” said George. “I have had it since I was a child. It was a legacy from my mother, the queen.” He looked out to the crowd. “Did no one ever suspect her? She was known to love animals. She died because of her animal magic and because of the way she was forced to hide it. And all these years my father has been afraid to let the truth be known.”

The silence from the crowd lasted one more moment,
then broke out into shouts of angry denial, and worse.

George stared out over all of them, refusing to retreat, to show any sign of fear. His guards were behind him rather than in front. But in some battles that was the way it must be.

A glob of spittle came at George and landed on his face. He let it dribble off without deigning to wipe at it with his finger.

“How can I punish you, then, my guard Henry, without punishing myself?”

Henry shook with emotion. “Your—your—”

“I cannot, of course. So this is the punishment I mete out. You and I are to use our magic in the service of humans and animals wherever we can. And we are no longer to keep it a secret but proclaim it and allow all others to do the same, with the same impunity.”

George took a breath and thought of Dr. Gharn. He must not forget that man’s power or how he had used it. He continued. “Those who are truly harmed by animal magic, however, have only to come before me, and they will find I will punish this as swiftly as any other crime. For it is not the animal magic that is evil, any more than it is an arrow or a knife in a man’s back, but those who wield such weapons. Good or evil, we all are to be judged by our actions, not by our capabilities.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” said Henry at last, and fell to his knees and made obeisance more proper to a king than a prince.

George raised him, then looked out at the crowd. The people were quiet, but he did not think they were satisfied. Had he thought that they would be? Of course not. That was why he had put this off so long.

Yet it could have been worse. Far worse.

George thought back to a long-ago bonfire.

This was not the end, he knew. This was the beginning.

Finally he said, “That is my judgment. You have agreed to accept it. Now go your way.” He waved out away from the castle.

Slowly a few men at the back of the crowd turned away. Then a few more.

The boy and his father went next, confusion as much as anger in their eyes. As if they were not sure that they believed George truly had the animal magic. Perhaps he should have done some proof of it for them all. But he was too tired, today of all days. He could not.

There would be other times for that, he was sure. Let them wait, and they would see it.