“But I was here first,” I protested.
A roar of laughter. A shove. And I sprawled out on the floor among the rushes.
I picked up my knapsack, slung the tie strings over one shoulder, and staggered to my feet.
The crowd in the tavern had grown rowdier, more drunken. Some of the sailors still danced, but they did not even feign keeping time with the music; they lurched and stumbled and reeled. I sidestepped to avoid a foul-tongued ruffian, but I bumped into another man, causing the ale to slosh from his bowl. He took a swing at me, cursing; I ducked into the throng.
Why hadn’t the doctor returned? He had said forthwith. How long had it been?
I began to make my way toward the stairs where last I’d seen him. I edged between the seamen, trying not to get shoved or stepped on, scanning the room as I went. When I had nearly reached the stairs, I caught sight of a familiar face.
Hauk.
He had come back.
And the other one too—the skinny one with the lantern.
Hauk was bound for London, I recalled, so I might have to face him in time . . . but not now.
I slipped into the stairwell and started climbing. It was narrow and dark here, the steps steep and rough, with no railing to hang on to. Halfway up, I turned to look behind me.
Nobody following. Good.
The stairs ended at a landing on the second floor. I peered down the long, dim hallway toward the flickering glow at the farthest door, which stood a little way ajar. Voices inside; two men seemed to be arguing. And one of the voices was the doctor’s.
I tiptoed partway down the hall to hear better.
“I can’t ask him to do that!” the doctor said.
“Why not? If he takes food from the mouths of my working sailors, he’s got to earn it. And I need proof—not just some crackbrained hunch of yours.”
“He won’t do it, Rolf. We’ll lose him.”
“We’ll just take him, then. Easy enough.”
“It doesn’t work like that. If he’s forced, he’ll be no good to us. He’ll vex the bear, not calm her.”
“Pah! He’s desperate. A runaway, you said, without a penny to his name. Besides, someone’s got to buckle that harness. The trapper said . . .” The voice dimmed to a low growl that I couldn’t quite understand.
I crept nearer, until I was right outside the door. My heart was pounding in my throat, in my ears—pounding out, run, run, run. But I had to hear.
“. . . could maul him,” the doctor was saying.
“And if that befalls, we’ll know the boy’s no use to us.”
“If she mauls him, he’ll be no use to anybody ever again.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. I turned to leave, but my toe banged into something hard—a chamber pot—which went clattering down the hall, spewing its foul contents along the floorboards. A commanding voice called out, “Who goes there?”
I ran. Heavy footsteps sounded behind me. I might have escaped if I hadn’t slipped in the trail of filth left by the treacherous pot. A hand caught my cloak at the scruff of my neck and stopped me cold. “What’s your business here, you little scoundrel?”
“Ah, Arthur, there you are.” The doctor’s voice this time. The hand spun me round, and I saw the doctor standing in the doorway. “I see you’ve met the captain,” he said. “Come along within, lad, and we’ll talk.”
CHAPTER 8
Wolf’s Den and Rathole
I HAD NO choice, for the captain shoved me down the hallway before him and into the room, bolting the door behind us. He glared at me all down the blade of his long, crooked nose—his eyes, frost blue and piercing, overhung by a thornbush of pale and wiry brows. Behind him, I could make out a narrow bed and a fireplace with a sputtering flame.
“Well?” the captain demanded.
I didn’t know what he meant for me to say. Did he want me to tell what I’d been doing in the hallway? Or to explain, someway, about the bear?
The captain hoisted an unruly brow and then turned to the doctor. “He doesn’t look like much,” he said. “Does he speak?”
“Arthur,” the doctor said. “The captain wants to see for himself how it is with you and the bear before he agrees to grant you passage. We’ll return to the warehouse, and—”
“So she can maul me? So I’ll be no use to anybody ever again?”
“You little weasel!” the captain said. “I’ll maul you myself, never mind the wretched bear.”
The doctor held up a pacifying hand. “Nobody wants you mauled, Arthur. I told you—you won’t have to go in the cage, just near it.”
The captain made a scornful grunting noise; the doctor shot him a look.
“But if you show us that you can help to calm the bear,” the doctor went on, “we’ll grant you passage to London. What say you?”
“I say, why give him a choice?” the captain growled. “Let’s just haul him in there and—”
“Because that won’t serve us.” The doctor’s voice had risen. “Never mind the harness! I can’t get near enough to use it anyway. Don’t you see? The bear isn’t eating; she isn’t sleeping; she paces night and day. The skin on her flanks is festering, and she comes after me every time I try to treat her. We can’t have her looking diseased when we deliver her, or worse yet, dying on us. I’ve told you before—”
“At length,” the captain said. I could hear the grate of irony in his voice. “But I tell you—”
“She’ll spook the crew—you know it! If the boy can calm her, it’ll go better for all of us.”
“I told you I’m for it, Garth. Let’s take him in there and see what happens.”
“Outside the cage. With his consent. If we force him against his will, the bear’ll sense it in him— Don’t argue with me; I know this bear; she will—and that’ll put everyone at risk.”
The captain cocked a bushy eyebrow. “Put you at risk,” he said. “The bear is in your charge. Your neck is on the line.”
“If something goes wrong, don’t think the king won’t take it out of your hide too.”
I stared at him. The king?
I serve a very powerful man.
The king? This was the king’s bear?
The captain crossed his arms over his chest and leveled a flinty eye at me. “Well, say something, won’t you? Useless boy,” he grumbled.
“Make up your mind, Rolf,” the doctor said. “One moment he’s useless; the next you’re sending the press-gang for him.”
“You dare talk to me that way?”
“Until we’re aboard ship, I do.” But the doctor took in a deep breath and went on more mildly. “Captain, this serves all three of us. For you and me, it’s smooth passage for the bear. For Arthur, it’s a way to London.”
London. At once, something dawned on me. The doctor had said: A gift. From one very powerful man to another.
“So,” I said, “this bear is a gift from King Haakon to . . . the king of England? To King Henry?”
“You told him?” the captain sputtered. “Now the word’ll be out to every guttersnipe and spy in Bergen.”
“I didn’t, but there’s no call to keep it secret,” the doctor said. “Henry’s expecting it. What matter who else knows?”
“Lord save me from fools! If you’ve let out that there’s a royal gift aboard my ship, the pirates’ll come swarming at us from every wolf’s den and rathole.”
The doctor sighed, but I was still fixed on King Henry. My father had fought with Prince David of Wales against Henry. But David was dead, and his nephews had made peace with England, and so Henry would have no bone to pick, even with the son of a former enemy. Would he?
“What say you, Arthur?” the doctor asked. “Let’s visit the bear again. I pledge my word that you’ll be safe. You won’t have to set a toe within the cage. And,” he added, “you’ll be doing a service for King Haakon. If something’s amiss with the bear, it will reflect badly on the king and on Norway.”
Let the king get someone else to
help, I thought, for I had a bad feeling about this bear. Likely it had been a fluke with her before . . . though I had sensed something, some odd communion between us. But clearly these men weren’t going to protect me. Well, the doctor might try, but the captain outranked him, and in any case, the doctor was looking to spare his own neck.
And how would I get to Wales? It was a long way from London, and I had no coin for lodging or provisions . . .
“You would take me to Wales?” I asked. “To my kin there?”
The captain rolled his eyes, but the doctor said, “Yes. If you show us that you can calm the ice bear, I’ll guarantee you passage to Wales.”
They were looking at me now. Waiting. The fire suddenly popped and flared, and shadows played across their faces, making them look sinister in one moment, benign in the next.
To reclaim my birthright, my lands. To train the royal horses and ride with the princes, like my father before me . . .
“Very well,” I said.
CHAPTER 9
Soft Nose Whisper
BEFORE WE SAW the bear, we heard her—a heavy, rhythmic tread, a thump, a clang. Beyond the reek of fish, I sniffed out the feral musk of her.
We crept through the dark warehouse—the doctor, the captain, and I—until I made out a large, pale, moving form in the deep gloom ahead. The doctor motioned us to stop, and we watched from behind a stack of crates and bales. This bear was as tall as a pony, longer than a caribou, and as wide as two bulls. Back and forth she paced in her cage, and back and forth again, her head swinging side to side on her long neck, the convex bow of her snout lending her an air of nobility. The bear-smell now filled the air, and the stench of dung as well. A surge of fear rose up in me, turning my bones and sinews to liquid.
I would not have to go inside the cage, I told myself. The doctor had pledged it. And they needed me.
The bear paced in a shuffling, pigeon-toed gait, her front legs wide and shaggy. At each end of her cage, she tossed and rolled her head, with an impatient chuffing sound.
“Only go near,” the doctor said softly. “Not near enough to be in danger, but—”
“But near enough that we can see something,” the captain grumbled. “We didn’t come here to watch you cower behind the hardtack and cod.”
I felt a dark, cold place open up within me. I had said that I would do it, but now I didn’t want to. To tell the truth, I was thinking that I had fled from home in foolish haste. My legs itched to run, to take me back, back to the steading, where the most fearsome creatures I was likely to encounter were Baldur and Loki; and the sober, gentle horses; and the sheep.
I glanced back toward the warehouse door, wondering if I could just drop the lantern and flee. But now the doctor was taking the lantern from me. He was saying, “Arthur, think of your father’s family; think of Wales.” He was saying, “We need your help, Arthur. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything that would harm you.”
But would he? I didn’t know this man. And even if he didn’t put me in danger now, what proof did I have that he wouldn’t later, when we were at sea, with nowhere to run?
The bear let out a sound, long and low. You could call it a growl, perhaps, though not a roar. You could call it a grunt or a groan. But there was something sad about it, something pathetic and mournful.
I swallowed, moved toward the sound.
When I was within the length of a man’s body to the bear, she turned and faced me, her great black nose searching, searching. I could see the unbuckled harness dangling off to one side of her. She made the sound again, and then, seeming to see me at last, stood absolutely still except for her sniffing nose. But I could feel the hum that was pent up within her, something that wanted to run.
I know how it is, I thought. I know how you feel.
I edged close to her. The humming was strong within me. The bear moved her nose between the bars and began to snuffle at me.
“Arthur . . . ,” the doctor said in a warning voice from behind.
The captain huffed out a sigh.
I edged nearer still—near enough to smell the ripe bear-breath, almost near enough for the searching, reaching nose to find me. Maybe the bear smelled the drippings of the rabbit haunch I had given her, or maybe she smelled the venison I had recently eaten, or maybe she smelled the running on me. Or maybe she heard me humming.
Humming. Aloud now, I realized. Not just in my head. I leaned in, between two iron bars, and the bear sniffed the air all about my face and breathed me in, breathed in the song I hummed.
“Arthur!” I felt the doctor pluck at my cloak and try to pull me back, but I broke away and, still humming, moved my face in close to the bear.
I felt the soft nose whisper across my brow, my cheeks, my mouth. I could see that the collar part of the harness was fastened securely, but the part that spanned the bear’s back hung unattached. Slowly, I put my arms between the bars and groped for the loose ends and buckles of the harness, the parts meant to fasten across her chest. My fingers found them, discovered the ins and outs of them. Slowly, clumsily, I buckled the ends together. I hesitated, then shyly stroked the bear’s fur along the side of her neck. It felt coarse and thick.
She made a small sound that started out rumbly and rose up into a sort of question. You might call it a grunt. You might call it a greeting. Then she turned away from me and sprawled out on the cage floor. She laid down her head and, with a great, weary moan, closed her eyes. But one of her back feet, the size of a tomcat, reached toward the bars near me and pressed itself against the toe of my boot.
I hummed. The pressure of the bear’s foot against my boot felt warm and alive. In a moment, though, the humming went out of me. I breathed in and out a few times in silence, then backed my head from between the bars and turned round to face the two men.
The doctor pulled me away from the cage. “How did you know to do that?” he murmured. “To hum?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It happened.”
“So,” the doctor said. His hands moved to rub his eyes; suddenly, he looked weary. He turned to the captain. “Well?”
The captain knit his tangled brows and regarded me appraisingly with those eyes of his. His gaze moved past me, to the bear. He shrugged. “God only knows what that creature will do in heavy seas. God only knows if the boy will be able to soothe it then. But if you think he might be of use, I’m willing to take him aboard.”
CHAPTER 10
The Queen Margrete
THE CAPTAIN WAS right about one thing: every guttersnipe in Bergen seemed to have turned out the next morning to watch the king’s bear being loaded onto a ship. Somehow, the word had spread. And not only guttersnipes—grown men of every description swarmed the docks as well. Fishermen and sailors, merchants and beggars, carpenters and smiths. Some women were there too: fishwives, serving maids, mothers with babes in arms. Children darted in and out among the rabble, and all seemed in a festive mood—laughing, singing, shouting.
I stuck close behind the doctor as he threaded his way through the throng on the quay. At last he halted and pointed at the ship before us. “There she is,” he said. “The Queen Margrete.”
She was a large vessel, and though broad abeam, far more beautiful than the chunky foreign cogs that squatted at the docks. She had a straight sternpost and rudder, like the newer ships, with a sterncastle built onto the post. But her prow swept up into a fluid Norse curve, graceful and proud.
Seamen scrambled to and fro, hefting crates and bales up the gangplank. The captain called out orders, and a great, tall crane was wheeled onto the quay. And now, through the din of the mob, I heard a chuffing sound from somewhere behind us.
The bear.
I couldn’t see her over the heads of the folk, but I heard the change in their voices—a long, drawn-out ooh. I sensed a shifting movement in the crowd, and soon I heard the creaking wheels of a cart. And then there she was—the bear—pacing back and forth in her cage.
She was magnificent—her long, patricia
n snout lending her a dignified mien; her fur a tawny hue somewhere between white and gold.
I half feared that the doctor would tell me to go to her and try to calm her, but he put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Wait.”
Now, one of the seamen was climbing up onto the cart, to the top of the cage. He made a comical show of cringing before the bear below him; the crowd roared. The captain gestured at him and shouted angrily, but his words were swallowed in the din. Dangling a chain with a stout iron hook, the arm of the crane swung out over the cage. The seaman on top fastened the hook to one of the bars and jumped back down onto the quay.
With a creaking of rope, the bear’s cage began to lift and turn. The bear bawled in protest; the cage rocked, and the bear slid from one end to another, scrambling for purchase on the teetering floor, thumping hard against the bars. The crowd shouted with laughter.
“Fools!” the doctor muttered. “She’s a living creature, not a tun of ale.”
I held my breath as the crane’s arm slowly pivoted above the quay, and the cage came to hover above the ship. A shout—the captain—and the cage, swaying back and forth, began its slow descent toward the deck of the Queen Margrete. A sudden crack; a hiss of rope. The cage hurtled down and hit with a crash.
I made for the ship, but the doctor caught my arm. “Arthur, wait,” he said. I twisted out of his grasp, pushed through the throng, and ran across the gangplank. Ahead, through the bars, I could see the bear. She was huddled in a corner. Completely silent and still.
I jumped onto the deck and ran to her. The cage had fallen a little way astern of the mast; it was squashed on one end and out of kilter overall. The bear did not move.
“Boy!” the captain shouted. I turned round to see a row of faces peering at us from the quay—the captain and the doctor among them.
The captain drew his bushy brows together. “Well, see to her, boy,” he said. “Is she alive?”
I made myself go still and watched the bear closely. Yes. I could see a slight breath rise in her back and sides.
Journey of the Pale Bear Page 3