Lord of the Beasts

by Susan Krinard

  Donal could not hear the silent cries of the men, women and children in their daily suffering, but he heard the animals. He strode along broad avenues where the carriages of fine ladies and gentleman dashed from one amusement to the next, attempting to shield his mind from the wretched travails of overworked cart horses who might be fortunate enough to live a year or two before they broke down and were sent off to the knackers. The contented thoughts of pampered lap dogs, safe in their protector’s arms, slipped past his defenses, but he could not warn them that a dismal life on the street was only a stroke of misfortune away.

  Once again his thoughts turned to last night’s dream of Tir-na-Nog. In the Land of the Young there was no stench, no starvation, no drunken violence. What men called hatred did not exist. Anger, like joy and thanksgiving and affection, was the work of a moment, quickly forgotten.

  At times such as these he could almost forget why he had chosen to throw in his lot with mankind.

  He stopped at a street corner to take his bearings, blinking as a lamplighter lit a gas lamp overhead. Behind lay Regent’s Park and Tottenham Court Road, and between him and his hotel at Covent Garden stood the filthy warren of tumbledown houses and bitter poverty known as Seven Dials. He had been warned by the staff at Hummums to avoid the rookeries at all costs, but he had little concern for his life or scant property. The wilderness of his own heart was a far more frightening place.

  When he had traveled up to London at the request of Lord Thomas Pettigrew, an old acquaintance of his mother’s and Fellow of the Zoological Society, Donal hadn’t expected to face anything more arduous than the work of healing he was accustomed to doing in his Yorkshire practice. Certainly he had never before been asked to examine an exotic beast from beyond England’s shores; he had been content to limit his sphere to the common animals he had known all his life. But Lady Eden Fleming had too much pride in her children to hide their lights under a bushel, and so Lord Pettigrew had been convinced that her gifted son must give his expert opinion on several difficult cases that had defied solution by the usual string of local experts.

  That was how Donal had come to see the tiger. She had been refusing food since her delivery at Regent’s Park, and her keepers feared she might starve herself to death. So Donal had sent all the other men away and listened to a mind unlike any he had touched before.

  It was not that he had never entered the thoughts of creatures that survived by taking the lives of others. He had run with foxes on the moors, hunted with badgers among limestone grykes and ridden the wings of soaring falcons. But those familiar souls were simple and mild compared to that of a beast who had stalked swift deer in the teeming forests of India, undisputed mistress of all she surveyed.

  Donal had shared the tiger’s memories and her deep, inconsolable grief for what she had lost forever. That joining had left its mark on him, but he might have come away unchanged if not for the others: the giraffes and zebras with their dreams of running on the vast African plain; the chimpanzees whose seemingly humorous antics had meaning no ordinary human could understand; and Sheba, who remembered what it was to bask in the mud with her kin and glory in a world of which she was an irreplaceable part.

  The sights and smells and sensations of those “uncivilized” lands had reduced England to a narrow cage of ordered fields and hedgerows, shaped by man for mankind’s sole purpose, and the animals’ wild souls had awakened a yearning within Donal that hearkened back to his father’s ancient and unearthly heritage…feral blood that recoiled at the thought of returning to the sheltered, safe existence that Dr. Donal Fleming had believed would content him for the rest of his life.

  He shivered and continued on his way toward the hotel, stepping into Crown Street with little awareness of the changing scene around him. In his imagination he crept through a dense and dripping jungle where only a few men had ever walked, breathing air untainted by civilization’s belching chimneys and grinding machines. His fingers sought purchase on the sheer side of a mountain peak while pristine snow lashed his face. His legs carried him at a flying run over a plain where the only obstacles were scattered trees, and the horizon swept on forever.

  And sometimes, in the visions of freedom that possessed him, a nameless figure walked at his side. A woman with bold gray eyes, severe brown hair and a foolhardy fearlessness she wore as if it were a medieval suit of armor. A female of the type he thought he despised: meddlesome, supremely well-bred and absolutely convinced of her own infallibility.

  But he couldn’t drive her from his thoughts, so he accepted her presence and set off across a sun-scorched desert, searching for the life that lay hidden just beyond his reach….

  The scream shattered his pleasant illusion. He jerked upright, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of the narrow, lampless street. The half moon crept behind him like a timid beggar, offering only the faintest illumination, but it was just enough to show Donal how far he had gone astray.

  The rookeries of Seven Dials rose around him, unglazed windows and empty doors glaring like hollow eye-sockets and toothless mouths. The air was still and heavy, poised as if awaiting a single misstep from an unwelcome visitor.

  Donal had no memory of how he had come to be in the very heart of the slum. Ordinarily he would have simply turned and walked away. But the cry of one in deathly fear still quivered in the silence, and he could not pretend he hadn’t heard. He listened, breathing shallowly against the stink of raw sewage and rotten food. There was no second scream.

  The sagging walls of cramped tenements seemed to press in on him with the sheer weight of the misery they contained, and he almost chose flight over intervention. But he continued to linger, casting for the thoughts of the stray dogs that knew each corner of every maze of alleys and crumbling shacks.

  Almost at once he found the source of the trouble. He unbuttoned his coat and followed the agitated stream of images that flowed through his mind like water over jagged stones, abandoning the illusory safety of the street for a dank, noisome passage between two dilapidated buildings. Slurred laughter floated out from an open doorway, and a man’s voice uttered a stream of curses in a hopeless monotone. Donal felt the dogs’excitement increase and broke into a run.

  The passage ended in a high stone wall. The sound of coarse, mocking voices reached Donal’s ears. He turned to the right, where the wall and two houses formed a blind alley, a perfect trap for the unwary. And this trap had caught a victim.

  A child crouched amid a year’s worth of discarded refuse, her back pressed to the splintered wood of a featureless house. The dress she wore was no more than an assemblage of rags held together with a length of rope, and the color of her long, matted hair was impossible to determine. It concealed all of her thin, dirty face except for a pair of frightened blue eyes.

  A trio of nondescript dogs stalked the space directly in front of the girl, facing an equal number of men whose manner was anything but friendly. It was their voices Donal had heard, and they were far too intent on their prey to notice Donal’s arrival.

  “’ere, now,” a fair-haired giant said, wiggling his blunt fingers in a gesture of false entreaty. “Don’t be so shy, love. We only wants to show you a good toim. Ain’t that roight, boys?”

  “’at’s roight,” said the giant’s companion, a skinny youth whose jutting teeth were black with decay. “Yer first toim should be wiv true gents like us. We won’t disappoint you.”

  “Maybe you’ll even be able t’walk when we’re done,” the third man said, wiping the mucus from his nose with the back of his sleeve. All three broke into raucous laughter, and the girl shrank deeper into the rubbish while the dogs bared their teeth and pressed their tails between skinny flanks.

  “You come wiv us now,” the first man said, “and maybe we’ll let yer doggies go. ’R else—” He nodded to Rotten Teeth, who drew a knife and slashed toward one of the dogs. The animal darted back, shivering in terror but unwilling to abandon the girl.

  Donal set down his bag and
stepped forward. The dogs pricked their ears, and the girl’s eyes found him through the barrier of her tormenter’s legs. Her cracked lips parted. Fair-Hair’s shoulders hunched, and he began to turn.

  With a flurry of silent calls, Donal shrugged out of his coat and tossed it on a slightly less filthy patch of ground.

  “I regret to interrupt your sport, gentlemen,” he said softly, “but I fear I must ask you to let the child go.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE THREE BLACKGUARDS spun about, wicked knives flashing in their hands. Fair-Hair lunged, and Donal leaped easily out of his reach.

  “Now, now,” he said. “Is this the welcome you give strangers to your fine district? I am sadly disappointed.”

  Fair-Hair, Rotten-Teeth and Snot-Sleeve exchanged glances of disbelief. “’oo in ’ell are you?” Snot-Sleeve demanded.

  “I’m sure you’re not interested in my name,” Donal said, “and I am certainly not interested in yours. Let the child go, and I won’t report your disreputable behavior to the police.”

  Rotten-Teeth snorted. “Will you look at ’im,” he said. “Some foin toff who finks ’e can come ’ere and insult us.”

  “Oi remembers the last toim someone did that,” Fair-Hair said. “Not much left o’ ’im to report to anybody.”

  “’at’s roight,” Rotten-Teeth said. “You lookin’ to ’ave yer pretty face cut up tonoight, nancy boy?”

  “That wasn’t my intention,” Donal said, listening for the scratch and scrabble of tiny feet, “but you are certainly welcome to try…if you have enough strength left after your daily regimen of raping children.”

  Snot-Sleeve aimed a wad of spittle at Donal’s chest, which Donal deftly avoided. He glanced past the men to the circling dogs. They heard his request and made themselves very small, waiting for the signal to move. The girl remained utterly still.

  “’e must be crazy,” Fair-Hair muttered, peering into the darkness at Donal’s back. “’E can’t ’ave come ’ere alone.”

  “There ain’t no one else,” Rotten-Teeth insisted. “Let me ’ave ’im first.”

  “Oi got a be’er idea,” Snot-Sleeve said. “’ooever takes ’im down gets first crack at the girl.”

  “Oi don’t loik this,” Fair-Hair grunted. “Somefin’ ain’t roight….”

  Without waiting to hear his friend’s further thoughts on the matter, Rotten-Teeth crouched in a fighter’s stance and advanced on Donal. The stench of his breath was so foul that Donal almost missed the subtle move that telegraphed his intentions. Rotten-Teeth’s hand sliced down at Donal’s arm, and Donal stepped to the side, grasped his attacker’s shoulder and twisted sharply. Rotten-Teeth yelped and fell to one knee.

  Fair-Hair and Snot-Sleeve rushed to their companion’s defense, but they had taken only a few steps when the rats spilled from their hiding places. Rotten-Teeth gave a high-pitched whine as half a dozen dark-furred rodents swarmed over his feet. Another fifty rats and a few hundred mice raced in an ever-tightening circle about the other men’s boots, breaking rank only to nip at the humans’ ankles.

  Fair-Hair swore and stabbed ineffectually at a bold male who sat on his haunches and mocked the human with a twitch of his whiskers. At the same moment the dogs sprang into action. They darted at the men, seizing sweat-stiffened woollen trousers in their jaws. The hiss of ripping fabric joined the squeaking of the rodents and the villains’ cries of fear and disgust.

  The battle was over almost before it began. After failing to reduce the number of rodents by stamping his oversized feet, Fair-Hair chose the better part of valor and stumbled past Donal in a wave of terrified stench. His bare buttocks gleamed through the large hole in his trouser seat. Snot-Sleeve was hot on his heels. Rotten-Teeth came last, frantically dragging his twisted ankle behind him as if he expected to become the rats’ next meal.

  A restless silence filled the little space between the walls. Donal gave his thanks to the rodents and sent them scurrying back to their nests. He retrieved his coat and casually shook it out, watching the girl from the corner of his eye. She had scarcely moved since his arrival, and her gaze held the same stark fear with which she had regarded her tormentors.

  No, not fear. She had been frightened before, but now those blue eyes held far more complex emotions: suspicion, anger and a glimmer of hope swiftly extinguished. She held out her arms. The dogs wriggled close, licking her face as if she were a pup in need of a good cleaning.

  They told Donal all he needed to know. He started cautiously for the girl, holding his hands away from his sides.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  She lowered her head between her shoulders and peered at him from beneath her dark brows. “Wot do you want?” she demanded.

  Her directness didn’t startle him. A child left alone so young would have been educated in a hard school. She had probably been hurt so often that she regarded pain as a simple fact of life, like hunger and the casual cruelty of strangers.

  “I mean you no harm,” he said, settling into a crouch. The dogs grinned at him in apology but remained steadfastly by their charge’s side. “I heard you cry out—”

  “Oi never. You ’eard wrong.”

  Donal studied her face more carefully, noting the blue bruise that marked her right eye. “Did those men touch you?” he asked.

  She hugged the dogs closer. The spotted, wire-haired male whined anxiously, striving to make her understand. She cocked her head and frowned. “You ain’t no rozzer, is you?”

  “I am not a policeman.”

  “Did you bring the rats?”

  Donal considered the safe answer and immediately discarded it. “Yes,” he said. “They wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  “Oi know.” She pushed a hank of hair out of her eyes. “Why didn’t you let ’em eat them nickey bludgers?”

  Her hatred was so powerful that he felt the fringes of it as if she were more animal than human. “Rodents are naturally secretive creatures,” he said seriously, “and I already asked them to do something very much against their natures. Would you ask your dogs to eat a man?”

  She giggled with an edge of hysteria and wrapped her arms around her thin chest. “They ain’t my curs,” she said. “But sometoims they ’elps me, and Oi ’elps them.”

  “They’re very brave, and so are you.”

  She shrugged, and the gesture seemed to break something loose inside her. “Wot’re you going to do now?” she whispered.

  Her bleak question reminded Donal that he hadn’t considered anything beyond rescuing the child from her attackers. The smallest of the dogs, a shaggy terrier mix, crept up to Donal and nudged his hand. The animal’s request was unmistakable.

  “What is your name?” Donal asked, stroking the terrier’s rough fur.

  “That ain’t none o’ yer business.”

  “Mine is Donal,” he said. “Donal Fleming. How old are you?”

  “Twelve years,” she said sharply, narrowing her eyes. “Wot’s it to yer?”

  Donal’s hand stilled on the terrier’s back, and the dog growled in response to his sudden surge of anger. “Where do you live?” he asked, keeping his voice as level as he could. “Do you have anyone to look after you?”

  She concealed a wet sniff behind her hand. “Oi don’t needs nowbody.”

  “What if the men return?”

  Blinking rapidly, the girl scraped her ragged sleeve across her eyes. “Oi won’t let ’em catch me.”

  But her efforts at bravado were hardly convincing, and the dogs knew how truly afraid she was. Donal got to his feet.

  “You’d better come with me,” he said.

  Her eyes widened, gleaming with moisture in the dim moonlight. “Where?”

  “To my hotel. I’ll see that you have decent clothing and a good meal. And then…”

  And then. What was he to do with a child? His thoughts flew inexplicably to the woman from the Zoological Gardens and skipped away, winging to his farm in Yorkshire. He hadn’t the resources to ta
ke the girl in, but there were a number of solid families in the Dales who owed him payment for his care of their animals. Surely one of them could be convinced to give her a decent home.

  Relieved that he had found a solution, Donal smiled. “How would you like to come north with me, to the countryside?”

  The dogs burst into a dance of joy, their tails beating the air. The girl pushed to her feet and brushed scraps of refuse from her colorless dress. “Away from Lunnon?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Far away. Where no one can hurt you again.”

  She stared at the ground, chewing her lower lip as she watched the dogs gambol around her rag-bound feet. At last she looked up, brows drawn in a menacing frown. “You won’t try nuffin’?”

  His smile faded. “I have no interest in abusing children,” he said. “Your dogs know that you can trust me.”

  “Oi told you, they ain’t my—” She broke off with an explosive sigh. “Can Oi takes ’em wiv me?”

  Donal briefly considered the obstacles involved. “Perhaps we can sneak them in. I already have a dog there. His name is Sir Reginald.”

  The girl snorted. “’At’s a flash name for a cur.”

  “But he isn’t puffed-up in the least. You’ll like him.”

  “Well…” She kicked an empty tin and sent it spinning across the alley. “Awroight. Me name’s Ivy.”

  Donal bowed. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Ivy.”

  She made a rude sound, but her eyes were very bright. “Come on, then,” she said to the dogs. “Oi’m ready for a spot o’ supper, even if you ain’t.”

  THEY ARRIVED AT HUMMUMS after midnight. The market was quiet, awaiting the arrival of the next day’s wagons, though a few coffee stalls accommodated fast gentlemen and women of the street trolling for their night’s business. There were no “rozzers” present to complicate Donal’s scheme.