The Beast Prince

by Marian Perera

  The smile stretched to the other side of his mouth. “I’m not people, but I’ll call you that too. Go safely, Kat.”

  Without waiting for a reply or acknowledgement, he went back into the outpost.

  Chapter Five

  The pennant on the gatehouse tower dipped and rose, a sign to Kat that she was cleared to enter. Because the sound of horns might carry, those weren’t used unless a Prince was not just sighted but heading for the town—at which point there would be little need for secrecy.

  Beside her, the pony quickened its pace and she did the same, warmth enfolding her as though she’d stepped into a bakery full of fresh loaves. The gate swung open, and she was surrounded at once by guards who hadn’t expected to see her alive again.

  She had to report to the town council first, but the guards seemed to pick up on the fact that she had good news. Murmurs ran around. People appeared at the windows of nearby houses or hurried out of workshops, and the town thrummed like a beehive. Kat slipped the bundle of broken glass into her jerkin and gave her pony over to a little girl whose parents kept the stables. Then she turned to address the growing crowd. She promised everyone they would hear more later—officially—but for the moment there was nothing to be concerned about.

  Even that announcement, brief though it was, brought tentative smiles, so before her cynical side could tell her those wouldn’t last for long, she headed for the mayor’s house. It might be more polite to wash first, but Janice Stuyvesant never wasted time, and would have sent runners to convene the town council the moment word reached her that Kat was back.

  The housekeeper let her in and told her they were waiting, so Kat only had a moment to glance in the polished steel mirror that hung in the foyer. You’re a sight, she said silently to the woman who looked back at her. Nothing to be done about her clothes, but she brushed a stray cobweb impatiently off her hair as the study door opened for her.

  “Kat.” Janice got up and embraced Kat in the affectionate but awkward way of someone who didn’t do it often and wasn’t sure where to put her arms. Kat hugged back just as carefully, because Janice always managed to look clean and well-put-together.

  “You don’t know how happy I am to see you again,” she said.

  “I can imagine.” Janice pulled a chair out for her. Ranjit Blake, the new captain of the guard, had stood when she entered, and Stephen Waverly did the same. He was the only one who had something before him—a few sheets of coarse paper made from hemp, and a pen that he kept as carefully maintained as she did her knife.

  “Dr. McKay is attending to a delivery.” Janice took her place at the table’s head. “So we’re just waiting for—”

  “I’m here.”

  Mia Farlander, the town’s quartermaster, stepped in as if she’d been waiting for her cue. Her smile was cool and distant, but most of the Farlanders were like that.

  “Thank you,” Janice said. “I believe we can begin. Kat?”

  Kat told them what had happened since she’d left the town, and as she’d expected, Janice wasn’t pleased by David pressing the dynamite on her. Mia pointed out that since David worked at the munitions plant, he’d come by the dynamite honestly. Janice put an end to that by asking if the penalty for unauthorized action against a Prince should be levied against David alone or against the Farlanders as a whole. They were fortunate, she said, that Kat was still alive after the Prince had discovered the trick.

  The housekeeper brought a plate of rice and lentils, so Kat ate and talked, trying not to do both at the same time. Stephen’s pen scratched across the paper at speed, though he stopped writing when she brought out the remains of the linx. Everyone prodded the fragments cautiously, Mia held one up to the sunlight, and Janice said those would be sent to the scientists.

  “Well done!” she added, though Kat didn’t feel she personally had done much. David had provided the dynamite, and Marus had figured out how to use it against the linx. So she finished with the list of Marus’s orders, and the housekeeper brought her a cup of goat’s milk, deliciously cold because milk was stored in closed jars lowered deep into a well.

  Janice frowned. “He wants clothes and supplies?”

  Kat nodded, licking milk off her upper lip. “And some means of alerting him if his brothers approach, because he doesn’t want the outpost damaged in the fight. But about the clothes, I don’t think he’s slumming. It’s more like he’s trying to pass himself off as one of us.”

  “Surely food won’t accomplish that.” Stephen blew across his neatly transcribed notes to dry the writing.

  “No.” Mia seemed paler than usual, which made the tattoo across her face stand out. It was the Farlander emblem, a constellation that—in the world they’d all come from—sailors supposedly used to orient themselves and find the way. “No, that will just put more of a strain on our supplies as we feed a mouth that’s likely to bite us. A pity we can’t poison him.”

  “He shared meals with me twice,” Kat said. “If I served him something but didn’t eat any of it, he might be suspicious.”

  “I did consider it,” Janice said, the same way she would mention that she’d considered rearranging the furniture. “But no poison we have kills in a split-second, which is how long he’ll need to revert to earth form until the effects wear off. Even if they never wear off, he wouldn’t need to return to flesh to kill us.”

  Stephen nodded. “And putting him to sleep would be useless if they sleep in earth form. No point wasting ammunition firing into rock.”

  Kat looked into her empty mug, wondering if she could kill him while he was helpless. There was no better way to dispose of such a dangerous enemy, but giving him gifts of poison… Well, if that plan failed, it would doom them all.

  If it succeeded?

  She reminded herself it didn’t matter if he’d been courteous to her, because trusting a Prince was like petting a snake. No one would think less of her if she put a bullet through his brain while he lay unconscious—hell, the Farlanders might make her an honorary member of their cadre—and even the surviving Princes weren’t likely to care. They were as violent towards their own kind as they were to humans, with the huge difference that their power couldn’t affect their brothers.

  She just wished she didn’t feel so reluctant, as if something inside her turned away in an instinctive reaction. Hell of a time to sprout a conscience. Nothing they could afford.

  “If he’s not going to harm us, one more person on the breadroll won’t make much difference,” she heard herself say.

  “If.”

  Ranj’s reply dropped into the room like a stone, and the tattoo across Mia’s face distorted with her bitter smile. Kat leaned back tiredly in her chair. She couldn’t say any more, and if the town council voted to kill him, she would have no choice but to obey.

  Hell, the second time around, they might even have a chance of success, because after David’s desperate attempt had fallen apart without putting a scratch on its target, Marus might be lulled into a sense of complacency.

  “What I don’t understand is why he didn’t make his presence known to us,” Janice said. “Hiding from another Prince or two makes sense. That explains why he’s staying in a place so run-down and why he wants us to post sentries, but if he wants tribute, why did he wait for us to come to him?”

  Everyone looked at Kat when there was no answer, and she sat up. “I don’t know. He’s stranger than the rest of them put together.”

  “But do you think there’s a chance of winning his…favor?” Janice’s upper lip lifted as she said that, though her tone never changed. “His patronage?”

  Kat shrugged. “He let me leave.”

  There was no sound except for sheets of paper rustling as Stephen looked over his notes—reading them, Kat supposed enviously. Then Janice let her breath out.

  “You’re authorized to take what you need from the storehouses,”
she said, “and hopefully he doesn’t want a security perimeter implemented today, because we have to decide how to go about that. If he asks, Kat, tell him we need to build shelters for the sentries and make a schedule. We’ll set up a method of communication with you. Have a runner meet you every morning.” She turned to the rest of the council. “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes,” Stephen said, to Kat’s surprise. As the coordinator and archivist, he was the one most prone to listen rather than speaking. “I received word from Harperfall this morning. They’ve taken in a survivor of a recent catastrophe that struck Copper Lake. Apparently that town has been destroyed by a Prince, but the woman who escaped says it happened because Copper Lake’s patron and protector abandoned them.”

  Kat’s meal turned to a stone in her stomach. “Marus?”

  Stephen nodded. “The woman says they must have done something to displease him and lose his favor, but she has no idea what.”

  “Maybe someone tried to assassinate him,” Janice said dryly. “Kat, we’ll get more information from her and pass it—”

  The door opened and someone stumbled in. It was one of the town runners, a boy of nine or ten, but his face was such a mask of sweat and dust that Kat barely recognized him. Everyone rose, Ranj’s hand going to his flintlock pistol. The boy gasped for breath and spoke.

  “Ma’am,” he said to Janice. “A herder—he found a girl. A Prince had her.”

  * * *

  From a safe distance—halfway across the room—Janice Stuyvesant watched as Dr. McKay made the girl comfortable. Which was all he could do, given how little they had. He’d cleaned and bandaged the worst of her cuts and scratches, and now he lifted her head to help her drink a willowbark infusion. Even from that distance, Janice heard the girl’s hoarse breathing.

  Finally Dr. McKay gave instructions to an apprentice to use cold compresses, and washed his hands. “Let’s talk outside,” he said to Janice.

  He led the way to a supply room, half of which was taken up by an old desk, making that part of the room his study. The other half was crammed with people. Kat, Stephen and Ranj were waiting, and though Janice could only justify Stephen’s presence, since everyone else could get the news from her, she said nothing as she shut the door.

  The only chair belonged to Dr. McKay, but he couldn’t use it, since townlaws mandated the archivist always have first access to whatever was necessary to record information. So Stephen was in the chair, pen poised, as Dr. McKay leaned tiredly against a wall and began.

  “Her eyes are human,” he said. “If I had to guess her age, I’d say thirteen to fifteen. Condition suggests an infection, because her temperature is a hundred and four.” They had one thermometer, which went everywhere with him in a padded case.

  “An infection which might affect others?” Janice wanted to sink her face into her hands.

  Dr. McKay blew his cheeks out. “I can’t tell. Probably affecting her lungs, from the way she’s breathing, but not likely to sicken healthy people.” He unrolled his shirtsleeves to his wrists. “She’s malnourished and suffering from exposure. I’m guessing she made her way over rough ground to reach us, which wore her down.”

  Janice knew better than to ask if the girl would recover. Dr. McKay’s predecessor had been discovered hanging from a rafter after three patients had died in one night, and he was under enough pressure already.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said. “She’s in very good hands.”

  “Oh, one more thing.” Dr. McKay fished in a pocket. “She wore this.”

  He dropped a bracelet into her palm. It was crudely made, of thick plain copper segments linked together, though when she held it up to eye level, she saw tiny catches along the sides of the copper chunks.

  She popped each with a fingernail and the hollow segments opened, but there was nothing inside. “What else was she wearing?”

  “Rags.”

  Janice felt dispirited. Obviously he hadn’t recognized the girl, and she couldn’t parade the population into the infirmary to identify her, even though countless people had missing loved ones. The girl might have been the sole survivor of Spicewood or New Galveston before some Prince had seized her, but until the girl woke up and was lucid enough to confirm it, no one could be sure.

  Instead, she sent for the herder who had found the girl. His name was Charlie Delgado, and he gripped a tattered straw hat before him as he told them how the goats’ bleating had alerted him. He’d found her lying beside a stream, too weak to shout for help.

  “I asked her who she was, ma’am,” he said. “But she just said Prince Ractane, and…” He grimaced. “A harem.”

  “She was in one?” Kat sounded stunned.

  Delgado twisted his hat. “She said it twice. A harem. Prince Ractane’s. And she made these—sounds. Like she was crying inside her chest, but it never got higher than her throat.”

  Oh, God. Janice was grateful she hadn’t eaten, because she tasted bile in the back of her throat. She expected evil of the Princes, but to use a thirteen-year-old in that way…

  And worse, what if Ractane came after the girl, or whoever gave her shelter?

  “Thank you, Mr. Delgado,” she said. “You saved her life and you’ve given us some valuable information. Please keep this to yourself. I’ll make an announcement later.”

  “I will, ma’am.” Delgado left, and Janice dismissed everyone except Kat. When the door shut again, Kat looked up from her contemplation of the lantern, her face blank and closed off.

  “I’ll ask him.” She and Janice had known each other so long that they got straight to the point with each other. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

  Janice nodded. If this Ractane could follow the girl to Solstice Harbor, then their only chance of stopping him was another Prince. She didn’t tell Kat her real fear. They only knew the names the Princes gave them, and there was nothing to prevent a Prince from lying, so what if Marus and Ractane were one and the same?

  They left the infirmary, and Janice sent runners to let everyone know she would address the town from her house. After what looked like half the population had gathered around the wide steps that spanned the porch, she told them a girl had been found and would be questioned once she woke up.

  “She wore an unusual bracelet,” she added. “Copper with hollow compartments. Does that sound familiar to anyone?”

  No answer from the crowd, so she continued. There was no danger, meaning they could spare Kat, who would return to the Prince. Janice knew better than to hint he would protect them, but it irritated her to see the way several people glanced at Kat, with equal parts relief and pity.

  The crowd finally dispersed, and Janice tried to think what to do next. She invited a different person to supper every day, reinforcing her connections to the townsfolk and allowing them to express concerns in a private and relaxed setting, but she couldn’t face anyone that evening. Instead, she told her housekeeper not to wait up, and she went to the infirmary.

  “No change, ma’am.” An apprentice sponged the girl’s throat with a wet cloth.

  Janice nodded and carried a chair to the bedside. In the glow of a nearby lantern, the hollows of the girl’s face looked deeper. Janice lifted each eyelid in turn, but the pale green eyes were unfocused, and the girl didn’t remind her of anyone she knew. Brown hair lay tumbled on a pillow, and although a patched sheet covered her to the shoulders, it was clear how thin and undeveloped her body was. Most of what was on her chest smelled like a herb poultice to help her breathe easier.

  Once again a burst of anger and revulsion twisted Janice’s stomach. It didn’t surprise her that a few of the Princes indulged in sex with humans as an amusement, but this was hardly more than a child.

  “Don’t worry.” She pushed a lock of hair off the girl’s forehead, noting the heat of the skin beneath her fingers. “You’re safe now. And I’ll tel
l you a story.”

  The apprentice, hardly older than the girl, continued sponging her, but he shot Janice a quick look. He knew what story she was going to tell—the one townlaws mandated children had to know, for all the good that did—but she thought he was still young enough to listen with fascination rather than cynicism. She seated herself and began.

  “Ninety-eight years ago,” she said, “so long ago that anyone who could remember it is dead now, a cruise ship called Solstice left a port. There were four thousand people on that ship, and they had paid for a passage where they could enjoy the sunshine and eat lobster tail.”

  She had never tasted that, but it was probably delicious. “A day into their voyage, they traveled into a stretch of fog as thick as cream.” Pausing, she told herself not to think about food again. “When the fog cleared, the stars were gone. Their communications equipment didn’t work. When they tried returning to port, they couldn’t find it. They were alone in a world of water.”

  The girl whispered something, and Janice paused, but she heard only an inarticulate murmur. The rasping, congested breaths went on as she continued.

  “They couldn’t stay where they were, so they kept Solstice moving, hoping they would sight land before their fuel ran out. Ten days later, they did, so they gave thanks to their gods and anchored the ship and went ashore.”

  “But the land was deserted,” the apprentice said quietly.

  Janice nodded; the thanks had been premature. “They searched it, but finally they lost any last hopes of it leading home. Nonetheless, it was solid ground, and there was plenty of fresh water. The earth could be tilled, the animals hunted or domesticated. They could settle there and wait to be found.”

  She watched the girl’s slack face. “Of course there were some who felt differently, because there always are, but they had a reason to be cautious. There were signs the land had been inhabited before…old tumbledown buildings, blackened remains of cookfires. Very large cookfires. And there was the valley.”