The Princess and the Hound (5 page)

Y
ET HE COULD NOT
escape so easily. Dreams of the bear haunted George for many years after their strange and terrifying encounter in the woods. He would become the bear, hunting for honey or berries or watching for a lame animal or an old, slow one to take down. The bear seemed as sickened as George was by the mess that it made of eating, and it never ate much. George could feel the pangs in its stomach. Large as it was, the creature grew thinner day by day. And in the winter, when most bears were asleep, this one moved restlessly through the snow, still searching for a rabbit or a squirrel.

George could not doubt that the dreams were real, for they were too vivid. Yet this shared dreaming had never happened with any of the other animals George had met. It was surely part of the animal magic, and George dared not speak of it to anyone. Though Lady
Fittle had been turned out of his father’s court after his mother’s death, George had to remain careful.

George was often afraid to go to sleep. Some nights he sat upright all night in a chair by the fire, pinching himself to stay awake. Or he stood by the door to his bedchamber, pacing back and forth. Yet the magic of the bear, whatever it was, was always waiting for the moment when he would drop to the floor, in a dead faint.

Then the dreams came again.

George wondered if there was some way for the bear to stop the dreams. He went back to the woods now and again, half fearing he would actually find the creature. But he never did. And the bear, in its dreams, did not seem to think of George at all or even remember him.

In time the dreams changed. George still had dreams of the bear, but there were bits and pieces of a man’s world mixed in with them. A wealthy man, well dressed, who rode the best horses.

Sometimes George thought the horse rides were hunts, but he never caught a glimpse of any creature being hunted or of the end of the hunt either. The man he dreamed of loved the feel of his bare feet on wet grass, and had tried and tried to juggle.

George saw him meeting young ladies at this ball or another, and how they tittered and made eyes at him. The man was embarrassed and determined never to marry, not one of them. But then he was so lonely and
had to pretend that he was not. He watched his friends with their children and envied them that pleasure that could not be his.

This part of the man George understood. All around him were those who made friends so easily, perhaps not the same friends George wanted, but still, they had something. He had nothing.

When George woke in the morning after such a dream, he always ran to the kitchen, starved. Cook Elin had a place in her heart for the little prince. She did not think him nearly plump enough by her own standards. But she never referred to him by name. He was always “boy,” no more than that, and she would not watch him while he ate. She simply gave him what he asked for and went back to work.

George was as close to Cook Elin as he was to anyone in the castle, and he stayed by her for as long as he could in the mornings. Then it was back to being prince again, going to this event or that one, fulfilling expectations, and being told he was the image of his father. No mention of his mother at all.

Then night came, and more dreams, and George could not fight them, no matter how he tried.

The man in the dreams was often rude. He seemed not to know another way to speak, and those around him either learned to grow hard skins or left him. The man was abandoned many times by his own servants, without a word.

Yet he was not intentionally unkind. He came to see that there were those around him who were, and he hated them. And yet if they were the only ones who would not leave him, he felt he must not deserve any better.

It was difficult for George, on some mornings, to distinguish himself from the man in the dreams. But who was this dream man? Did he have something to do with the bear?

George could think of no other explanation. He remembered the way the bear had gestured so desperately at their first meeting, how he had wanted…something. But it was impossible. The legend of King Richon was no more than that. And a story could have nothing to do with this bear or the man, or the dreams George had about them both. Besides, George could do no transformations with his magic. He could only speak to animals, and no more.

Yet he did not speak to animals in any place where he might be seen. Certainly not in the castle and often not even in the fields around the castle or in the stables or the kennels. He had once mewed at the old cat Cook Elin kept as a mouser and looked up to see Cook Elin staring at him with a look on her face that frightened him. He did not speak to the old cat again, but sometime later he woke up in the middle of the night, before even Cook Elin was in the kitchen, and found the cat dead. He took the body to bury it in the soft dirt by the moat.

It was Cook Elin who noticed Prince George’s aversion to rare meat and teased him about it, a “great, strapping lad like you,” she said. “Afraid of a little blood?”

But the meat reminded him of the bear’s meals, animals caught midflight and then dismembered, their messy entrails steaming on the ground. With his oversize knife and fork he felt as clumsy as the bear, and though he knew that these were not wild animals that had been slaughtered, it made little difference to him. His mother had always eaten sparingly of meat, though she had disdained those who claimed not to eat meat at all, saying that the law of the animals was that it was right to kill but only in necessity.

At last the dreams of both the bear and the man became less frequent. It was a relief, yet George missed his nightly companions. He even missed the temptation of thinking that his magic was something great and important and that only he could do what was meant to be done with it. Because he was great and important too.

But he was not. He was only Prince George, quiet and obedient and pitied by all who knew him, because of his mother’s death and his father’s neglect. Prince George could hardly be trusted to put his shirt on the right way around, let alone change the world with his magic.

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T
ALL, STERN
S
IR
Stephen became George’s tutor when he was eight years old. He had the king to advise, as was his official position, but when other tutors complained the prince was too stupid to learn properly, the king appointed Sir Stephen to take over the task.

It was not that George did not wish to learn or even that he could not. It was only Sir Stephen who seemed to realize that George was best prodded by reminders of his mother. Sir Stephen was the one who would say, “Would your mother be happy if she saw you today?” and so George reluctantly kept at his lessons, for her memory’s sake.

Sir Stephen might have given the hint to another tutor. Some claimed that he was looking to his future, that he wanted to assure he had the next king’s ear. But George felt real sympathy from Sir Stephen, as if he understood what it was to be a boy of whom too much
was expected. Also, only Sir Stephen had known his mother well enough that now and again he could surprise George with a new story or two about her life.

He told of her first state dinner, when she had used the wrong fork and all the other ladies at the table had been forced to use the wrong fork with her. George went red with embarrassment for his mother’s mistake, but Sir Stephen shook his head and laughed.

“She did it every dinner after, for a year,” he said, “just to tease them.”

George smiled at this and went right back to work at his letter writing, though he did purposely misspell a word here and there: “I shall always fail my responsibilities” instead of “I shall always fill my responsibilities.”

He watched as Sir Stephen tried to keep his temper. And waited for him to see how he had only followed his mother’s example from the story.

Then Sir Stephen shook his finger and threatened George direly, but with a twinkle in his eyes.

Even with Sir Stephen’s sympathy, George knew how different his life might have been had his mother lived. She would not have insisted on so many lessons. She would not have allowed George to be forced into the duties of a prince every hour of every day. And when the king said, “A prince must think of the kingdom first, its citizens second, and himself last of all,” she might have said that there were times a prince could think of himself first, or there would be nothing left of him to give to others.

George wished he knew when those times might be,
but Sir Stephen could not help him there. He told stories to gain George’s compliance, but he did not let George forget who he was. Not even for a moment. And he never, ever gave George the slightest hint that there might be reason to trust him enough to tell him the deepest secret of all, of animal magic.

There George needed no reminder of his mother, for the last weeks of her life and the manner of her death made it clear to him that he had to make sure there was not even a suspicion of his having animal magic.

Yet for all his secrecy, George could not make his magic go away, for he had learned that from his mother’s death. So he did his best to find out what he needed to know. He found himself thirsty for any scrap of information or rumor. And he heard much, as he stood at his father’s side, from adults and even from the servants’ children, who ran freely in the castle as George could not.

He could do no more than listen, however. The moment he tried to ask a question directly or gave any sign that he was watching, the voices ceased. He received bows aplenty, as was suited to the prince of the kingdom, but nothing more.

Once he ordered a group of children playing in the field outside the castle to let him play with them. But they would only do exactly as he commanded them. They would stand here or there, run this way or that, but they would not play. How could they when he had power over their very lives?

Still, he could not stop himself from seeking more
information and more company. He was allowed little time indeed with animals, almost as if Sir Stephen had suspected George’s animal magic and were trying to keep him away from them. And yet he did not watch so closely that George was in danger of another magical fever. George simply waited until he was thought asleep and went on his own, in the dark.

When George was nine years old, the king decided that it was time for him to begin making friends among the children who would be his peers when he was king. The sons and daughters of dukes and lords were invited to the castle, and George was commanded to play with them. This was hardly more successful than his own attempts at commanding friendship.

These noble children always let him win whatever game they played, but George supposed that was better than not playing at all. And there was Peter, the son of a minor noble, who George thought might actually forget now and again that he was supposed to be losing. Perhaps Peter even forgot that George was the king’s son. Or so George allowed himself to believe.

Peter was several years older than George and taller too, but they often raced together. One day, as they both were lying on the grass after a race that George had narrowly won when Peter pretended to fall and sprain his ankle, Peter recovered his breath first. Unexpectedly he began to talk of animal magic.

“Don’t touch that toad,” he told George as it crossed their path on the way to the moat.

“Why not?” asked George, startled.

“A toad that has danced under a full moon will bring animal magic to any who touch him and to all their children forever after,” Peter said in an ominous tone.

George jerked his hand away from the toad and stared at Peter. “Everyone who has the animal magic got it from a toad?” he asked. He knew that his mother and her father had had it. He thought it was simply passed along blood to blood. But what if it was not?

“Not everyone,” said Peter. “There are other ways.”

“What other ways?” demanded George.

“Well, I’ve heard that kissing behind a haystack after midnight on the third week of a month in summer will bring it too.”

“Kissing?” George was dubious about that. At least the toad was an animal. Kissing behind a haystack didn’t have anything to do with animal magic that he could see. Besides, kissing was far more disgusting than touching a toad. Very few people must get the animal magic that way.

“Or…” Peter’s eyes shone. “Some say it comes from swimming in a castle moat, without clothes, at dawn.”

“Really?” said George.

Peter shrugged. “It comes from any evil done or thought of. That’s why it’s part of them, the very smell of them. That’s why even when they’re dead, animals will come and tear into their graves and drag their bones into the forest to gnaw on.”

“Evil?” whispered George.

“Evil,” Peter hold him. Then he went on to describe other ways to get animal magic and to get rid of it.

George wondered whether he would choose to give up his animal magic, if he could. Not having anything to conceal would make his life easier. But it might also make him lonelier, and that seemed worse by far than the trouble he took to conceal it now.

Abruptly Peter said, “Meet me here an hour before dawn.”

George’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

“To swim naked in the moat, of course. I challenge you to it. You aren’t afraid, are you? Of getting the animal magic?”

How could George be afraid of getting magic he already had? The only problem he saw was on Peter’s part if he got the animal magic. Then he would have to live as secretly as George did.

No. That was the marvelous thing, George realized. Once Peter had the magic too, they could always speak of it with each other. It would be almost as if his mother were alive again. They could sneak off together to the forest. They could speak together in animal languages.

George had not felt so hopeful in years. He knew it was selfish to want to make his friend like he was, especially when he knew the difficulties of keeping the animal magic secret. But surely Peter wouldn’t mind, once he’d gotten used to it. Once he saw that he and George could use it together.

“I’ll meet you,” George said solemnly. A weight of
guilt tugged at him all day.

That night he woke to the sound of a rock being thrown at his window. He looked down and saw Peter and hurried out of his chamber without bothering to dress. After all, they were only going in the moat naked.

“Are you afraid?” asked Peter.

“No,” said George truthfully, though he swallowed hard at the thought of his friend’s daring. Was he a true friend to Peter if he let him do this? He thought of what his father would say about duty. Then George shook his head angrily.

“What’s wrong?” asked Peter.

“Nothing,” said George. He clenched his teeth and told himself that he wasn’t king yet and didn’t want to be king. Or prince either, for that matter. Besides, he had been a prince every minute of his life for so long now. He deserved a few moments to be himself. To make a selfish choice once, just a small one.

George walked toward the moat, feeling the weight of Peter’s steps behind him.

They reached the edge of the moat. George opened his mouth, then closed it. He should at least warn Peter what it was like to have the animal magic. He didn’t seem to have any idea at all. In fact he seemed—as excited as George was.

In the end that was what kept George silent. If Peter wanted the magic too, then who was George to stop him?

“You first,” said Peter, waving a hand.

The water in the moat looked cold and the surface
was not even. There were things that lived inside there that George did not have the names of. The stench was none too pleasant either. But George stepped forward. Going first was the least he could do.

“I’ll come in right after you,” said Peter. “I swear it on my father’s name.”

George didn’t doubt him for a moment.

He closed his eyes, took a step, and fell into the water. He went down for a long time. He opened his eyes, but he could see nothing. He could feel things bump against him, and he tried to get away from them, but he seemed caught in something that would not let go.

He thought he should try to speak the language of the fish, but he couldn’t get any sounds out. He couldn’t hear what the fish were saying either.

He struggled and thrashed, his lungs filling with water, until—

One of the castle guards dragged him out of the water and laid him out on his stomach by the moat. He whacked George several times across the back to get his breathing going again.

“What in the world did you think you were doing, you idiot?” he asked. Then he looked more closely at George through narrowed eyes. “Uh, Your Highness,” he added belatedly.

“Swimming in the moat,” said George in a low, hoarse tone. He looked around, but there was no sign of Peter.

The guard carried the naked, shivering George back
to his bed. He called for the physician, who insisted that George could not leave his chamber for ten days and forced down him the worst medicine George had ever had to swallow.

During every waking moment of those ten days, George thought of Peter’s face as he had said, “You first.” A tight face. A narrow, unfriendly face.

But Peter was his friend, wasn’t he?

So why had he not gone into the moat too?

At first George told himself that Peter must have become frightened at the last, at the thought of getting the animal magic. After all, Peter had gone for the guard to save George, hadn’t he?

But the more George thought about Peter, the more uncertain he became.

Then, as he was struggling with his thoughts, Sir Stephen came in to ask if there was anything he’d like to tell him about going into the moat.

That was when it came pouring out. He begged Sir Stephen not to do anything against Peter, but Sir Stephen would have nothing of it. He went away and came back with Peter and his father, and George was forced to relate the story Peter had told him about the moat and about the other ways of getting animal magic.

“Does he believe he has it now?” asked the nobleman, turning to Sir Stephen as though George could not be trusted to give an intelligent answer for himself.

“I have explained to him that it can’t possibly happen that way,” said Sir Stephen firmly, and he glanced
sidewise at George, as if to make sure he was not contradicted.

“Good. Well, I’ll make sure this one gets the punishment he deserves for telling stories.” He took Peter off roughly, and George saw him only one more time, at the castle gate the next day.

Peter sneered at him and held up his hands. “Won’t touch you. Don’t want your dirty animal magic,” he said, and laughed cruelly.

It took George several years to realize that Peter had not believed even then that George had animal magic, that it had only been a boy’s mean joke. In those years George became even more closed than before. He continued to meet with those his father insisted he should make friends with, but he never again made the mistake of believing their friendships to be real.

George had learned his mother’s father’s lesson all over again. Betrayal was too easy against those who had animal magic. George hadn’t paid for his trust with his life this time. But the pain in his heart had left a scar.

So George made a choice. He would never feel that pain again. If that meant also never having a friend again, he could live with that. Better no friends at all than a friend who had the power to do that.