Prince of Dogs

7

THE rats came out at night to gnaw on the bones. The whispering scrape of their claws on stone brought him instantly out of his doze.

But he did not want to open his eyes. Why did God torment him in this way, giving him such dreams? Why had his mother cursed him with life? It was better to die than to dream that Bloodheart was dead and he was free. In this way, Bloodheart chained him more heavily, weighted with despair.

The dogs whined nearby, tails thumping against the ground. One growled.

“Hush, son,” said a voice like his father’s. A hand touched his hair, stroking it gently as his father had done years ago when he was a child and delirious with grief at the loss of his nursemaid, the woman who had nursed him and helped raise him. She had died of a virulent fever, and though he had sat at her bedside for days despite her whispered pleas and the commands of his father that he must leave her or risk catching his death, he had not left—and he had not gotten sick.

“‘No disease known to you will touch him.’”

The hand stroking his hair now had weight and warmth.

He bolted upright, growling, and then flinched back from what he saw: not the cold nave of the cathedral but the interior of a pavilion, its contours softened by the warm glow of a lantern. His father sat in a camp chair beside the pallet on which he had been sleeping. Two servingmen slept on the ground; otherwise they were alone.

The king did not withdraw his hand but held it extended and brushed a stinging end of hair out of Sanglant’s eye. “Hush, child,” he said softly. “Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep,” he whispered. “They’ll kill me if I sleep.”

Henry shook his head slightly, a tiny gesture in the gloom. “Who will kill you?”

“The dogs.”

Now the king sighed deeply and set a hand determinedly and firmly on Sanglant’s shoulder. “You are Bloodheart’s prisoner no longer, my son.”

Sanglant did not reply, but his hand touched the iron collar. Henry took hold of that hand and drew it away from the harsh touch of the slave collar.

“Nay, nay, child. We’ll have it taken off.” He wet a clean strip of pale linen with his own spit and dabbed at the raw scrapes along the curve of Sanglant’s neck where the collar rubbed and pinched. At his own neck the gold torque he wore glinted as he bent closer and then faded into the darkness at the curve of his neck as he leaned away, examining his son. But it flashed in Sanglant’s eyes like a blinding stroke of lightning: symbol of the royal kinship that had given Henry the right to try for the throne, just as Sanglant’s person, his actual safe delivery into the world, had given Henry the right to rule after his father, the younger Arnulf.

“Come, then,” said Henry. “If you can’t sleep, then eat a little bit. I had food brought in—”

“That I might feed in private and not embarrass myself?” But he hadn’t meant to snap in the way of dogs nipping one at the other. He groaned and sank head in hands.

But Henry only laughed quietly. “Sometimes you weren’t so different from this as a child, Sanglant. It isn’t so bad, after all, to be as alert as a hound. Sometimes I think the princes are no better than those dogs who followed you out of Gent, fighting among themselves. They’d tear my throat out, some of them, if they thought they had the chance or if I showed any least sign of weakness before them.”

“A fine lord with his handsome retinue,” said Sanglant bitterly, remembering Bloodheart’s taunt.

“Although we might as well cut their throats now that they’re safely chained down—”

“No!” He started up. At his full height, he towered above his father. “They were faithful to me. Like my Dragons.”

“Sit!” commanded Henry. Sanglant staggered, still exhausted, still disoriented, and sank down in the other chair. A small table stood at his elbow with a basket of bread and a bowl of berries, freshly picked. “But we won’t kill them, for if we can keep them chained—they chew through leather, so my servants tell me—then they can serve as a reminder to you.”

Sanglant picked up the bowl and brought it to his nose, but the lush fragrance of the berries made his stomach clench. He set down the bowl and tore off a hank of bread. Ai, Lord, he was so hungry, but he must not gorge. He must take small portions at first and teach his stomach how to eat again. “Remind me of what?” he asked, to stop himself from bolting the hank of bread.

“Of the princes and nobles of the realm.”

“Why should I want to be reminded of them?” Still he twirled the bread through his fingers. It fascinated him: the sight of food that was his to take or leave as he wished.