AFTER THE SPARSE meal was eaten, the bear allowed himself to put his foreboding about the wild man out of his mind. He was glad for a chance to rest at last. The gift of long life from magic did not mean boundless energy. And he hoped to learn much from these humans.
Their magic was more powerful than anything the bear had heard of, in his own time or in Prince George’s, but in addition to that, the bear felt enormous gratitude for the way these humans treated the hound. Even George and Marit did not see her as these people did. The princess had treated the hound like a hound, a wild creature. And she was that—but she was more, too. No one but this family had seen that as the bear did.
The sun faded in the sky and the stars came up. It was a warm night with a gentle wind. The bear remembered many a night like this that he had spent in his castle, watching others dancing and drinking himself to oblivion. He had awoken only to vomit into the wind, stare at the stars once, and go back to sleep.
He was a bear now, but how much happier he was here.
With the hound.
Frant spoke then, as if he had been steeling himself to offer this much of himself. It was the first time he had seemed to struggle, and when he spoke it was of magic—and his past.
The bear was glad that he understood, though he could not speak in return. The details of the story were very different from his own, but somehow the way the man spoke of it, it seemed much the same.
“My father was always proud of his magic, and though he did not speak of it openly, he and my mother taught me well,” Frant said. “Until—”
He struggled, then went on: “They were both killed when I was nine years old. A neighbor had come to warn them of the imminent attack, but by then the mob was too close behind. To save me, they sacrificed themselves and sent me to safety with him.”
A man daring enough to save a boy with the animal magic was surely a courageous one, thought the bear.
But Frant’s expression twisted with pain. “He left me alone in the woods, and told me never to return anywhere near my home or his. He said that if I did, he would be the first to light the match to my bonfire.”
All sympathy had gone, and the bear felt a low growl rise in his throat for this man who had pretended to help, then had abandoned a small boy to his lonely fate.
Frant nodded, as if he had been asked a question. “I have thought about it in the many years since then and I believe I understand now what he did. This neighbor lived on a farm adjoining ours. I think he hoped to claim my parents’ farm for himself. When they were dead, he had to make sure I could not gainsay him.”
There was no forgiveness in Frant’s voice.
“He saved your life,” said Sharla softly. “I must be forever grateful to him for that.”
“Only because it was easier to frighten a child than to kill him,” said Frant. “I owe him nothing for that.” He stared at his wife until she looked away. “I was left to raise myself. For many years I lived with the animals. Sometimes as an animal, sometimes as a boy. But soon I became lonely and I began to seek out others like myself—with the animal magic.” He nodded at his wife.
The bear stared at her, seeing both hound and human in her. But it was the human that stood out. What animal would have compassion for the one who threatened her mate? Not his hound, he did not think.
Sharla said, “My story is simpler. I did not discover who—and what—I was until I was nearly fourteen. My parents were horrified, and I woke one night to hear them discussing how they might kill me to prevent the stain on their reputation. I fled north as an animal, thinking I would never see another human all my life. And then I met Frant, not far from this very place.” She was finished, that quickly.
And again the bear was reminded of the hound. She found language of different sorts useful, but she did not indulge in idle chatter.
Frant said, “We have lived like this for most of our lives now. We are used to it and would not change for our own sakes. But we worry for our children. They have only each other for company and know nothing of human ways.”
“They are happy enough,” said Sharla. “And human ways are not necessarily better than animal ways.”
The bear pondered this. He respected animals, cared for them, honored them. But given a choice, he would not choose to remain as a bear. Yet this family had grown used to both forms.
“Perhaps,” said Frant. “But still, there are things that I would like to see made possible for them. They have never seen a book. Or a dance. Or a well-baked loaf of bread. And more than that—I worry for their futures.”
The bear ached at this thought. He had not known how much he wanted a child until he realized he would never have one. A bear cub would never be a substitute, for it would only remind him of all that it was not.
“We must be patient,” said Sharla confidently. “There are others like us. You see, these two are proof of it. In time we will find more. And then our children will be well matched in marriage.”
“And if not?” asked Frant, as the bear would have asked himself.
A flicker of pain crossed her face, but then Sharla spread out her hands. “They spend their lives as animals. They live with animals. They speak as animals. Perhaps it would not be so bad if they loved as animals.”
Frant spat. “They are humans.”
“And does that mean that they are above the animals?” asked Sharla.
“Yes!” said Frant fiercely.
The bear thought of the hound. He did not think himself above her, and yet there was a barrier between them, despite all they shared.
Sharla turned to her oldest daughter and said, “Tell the story of the boy who was raised by wolves.”
The girl told the story easily, as if she had heard it many times before.
“Once there was a boy whose mother was killed by wolves. But the babe she carried on her back they took back to their den with them. Perhaps they meant to eat him at first, for he made such a terrible noise.
“But when the lead bitch saw the tiny boy, she offered him her nipple to suckle on, for she had only the day before lost her own son. And while this boy was hairless and moved like a worm, still he was better than nothing. He was warm to snug up against and he eased the ache of her full breasts. And his face was expressive, for when he cried he was as sad as any creature she had ever seen, but when he suckled from her he was perfectly still and content. And when she played with him, he laughed as loud as the birds in the sky.
“She became quite fond of him, though his teeth were weak and he could not run on all four limbs like the other wolves. In time she began to think of him as her own son. She forgot that he had been brought to her as an infant, the dead child of a woman they had killed and devoured. She thought of him as a wolf, smart but weak.”
The girl telling the story looked at her brother for a long moment, then hurried on.
“But the day came that hunters came through the forest, and the boy was discovered with the wolves. The hunters killed two of his packmates, then brought the boy down with them and carried him back to the human dens beyond the forest. The bitch wolf who had been the boy’s mother said farewell to him in her heart and did not think to see him again.
“Until the boy returned. This time he was clothed as a human, and he strode on two feet as he had first learned, before the wolves had taught him better. He smelled as a human smelled, yet he spoke in the language of the wolves.
“The bitch wolf ran from him, but he ran faster and farther. When he caught her, she trembled in his arms.
“‘Mother,’ he called her.
“And he brought her home to his new human den, to honor her.”
The bear shuddered.
“Of course, the mother wolf was uncomfortable there,” said the girl. “She could not bear the smell of the smoke or the taste of cooked flesh. She hated the way her once-wolf son looked, in his human clothes. And the soft touch of the furs under her feet here seemed wrong, for there was no contrast of hard ground underneath. She whined and whined at him until he let her go.
“He mourned her absence, but in time taught his own son to speak the language of the wolves as he had learned it. They went often to the forest and called to the wolves, and though his wolf-mother was long dead, still the wolves knew him and did not fear him. They spoke to him freely, and his son learned in his turn the way to speak with wolves. And with other animals.
“At the end of his life, the man went to the forest and lay down, calling to the wolves to come and devour him. But as the wolves came closer and began to tear at him, the man’s body was transformed into the body of a wolf. He died as a wolf, at their hands, and this, they say, was the beginning of the animal magic.”
The bear thought of the magic he had seen in Prince George’s kingdom—of speaking to animals only, not transforming into them. What had happened? Even Prince George had never made himself into an animal. Was magic growing weaker with time?
“Good,” said Sharla to her daughter. “You always tell that story with feeling.”
“And what is your point?” asked Frant. “That those who have grown up too much with animals have no chance of being happy with humans?” He glanced at his son and then away.
“No,” said Sharla gently. “Only that there is animal in all of us, and the more we have of it, the more magic we have. We should seek it out, for it is that which makes us truly alive.”
Frant’s jaw was clenched. “I want my son to have a life like mine.”
“And if he wants one that is better for him?” asked Sharla.
She suddenly shouted at her daughters to leave their brother alone, speaking partly in human language and partly in the language of the hounds. Annoyed with their teasing, the boy had begun biting his sisters as a hound would have done.
Finally the others quieted and slept.
But the bear stared at the stars, thinking of the approaching encounter with the wild man. He did not know what would happen this time, but he knew what had happened last time. The wild man had been harsh and unrelenting, hardly human at all. He had been a mouthpiece for the magic.
The bear feared that magic greatly. But he feared the unmagic even more.
His thoughts turned to the hound.
He had allowed her to come too far with him. He could have stopped her and he had not.
Now he would.