Prince of Dogs

Just behind the mayor’s palace, abreast of the old open market-place, they found a good-sized workshop with a sizable courtyard, a well, and access to the main avenue. Here the servingwomen began to sweep and wash out the interior while the servingman went to haul mud and lime to patch the walls. Anna drew water up from the well and filled the big dye vat while Gisela’s niece ventured out to see what kinds of pots and utensils she could scrounge from the palace kitchens.

“Come on,” said Matthias into Anna’s ear. He had been raking the courtyard with a rake unearthed from a jumble of forgotten and rusty implements, but he now set down the rake and tugged on her sleeve. “I just want to go see if the daimone is still there, or if we can find the tunnel. We’ll come right back.”

She thought about it. Everyone else was busy. No one would miss them, and what was it to the others, anyway, if they went to the cathedral to pray for the soul of Papa Otto, who had saved their lives?

It was a short walk to the cathedral, much quicker than the roundabout way they had taken months ago, that night when they had fled Gent. Now they could mount the stone steps in daylight. The long twilight lent a hazy glamour to the scene. The cathedral tower draped its blunt, elongated shadow sidewise over the steps as they climbed to the great doors. Beside the doors lay a heap of fresh garbage and when they ventured cautiously inside, they saw two deacons patiently sweeping away the litter that had made of the nave a kind of forest floor of loam and debris. Of the daimone there was no sign, and it was too dark to go down into the crypt. Anna discovered she didn’t want to go at all, and Helen began to snivel, faced with the gaping black stairwell.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” muttered Matthias. “Come, let’s go back. Hey, there!” Helen, having backed away from the crypt door, now ran outside, and Anna and Matthias ran after her only to find her pawing through a gauzy cloud of down feathers that had surfaced in one of the piles of debris.

“She’ll take some teaching, poor thing,” said Matthias. “You may be mute, Anna, but at least you have your full kettle of wits. I fear our Helen does not.” He scooped her up and started down the steps while the little girl crowed an incoherent protest.

Something rested within the downy bundle. Anna nudged it with her toe and all at once the bundle of feathers tipped, rolled, and spilled open. A hairless creature the size of her hand plopped onto a lower step.

It was not a rat, not even a malformed rat. It lay there, the kind of dead white of things that never warm under the sun’s touch, its grotesque little limbs splayed in all directions. It didn’t have recognizable eyes, only nubs where eyes had tried to grow.

But at least it was dead.

Sun and shadow shifted and the rich golden glow of the westering sun touched the ghastly little corpse.

It shuddered. Stirred. Curled. And came to life.

Anna shrieked.

As if the sound startled it or gave it impetus, it darted away. She blinked and in that instant lost sight of it.

Matthias turned, ten steps down, and looked up at her. Helen quieted in his arms. “What is it, Anna?”

But she couldn’t speak to tell him.