Sophia, Princess Among Beasts Read online

  I rushed to my father’s bedside. “What’s wrong? Antony—”

  Then I saw the bandages soaked in blood, and a black trail of it on the floor. Sacheverell, the ancient court doctor, pulled back the coverlet to place a new dressing on my father’s stomach. My father’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. He moaned—a hollow, aching sound.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I took up his limp hand and squeezed it. “Father! Father, can you hear me?”

  He didn’t answer, and the doctor grimly went about his work. Sacheverell was battle-seasoned: a man who’d pulled arrows from soldiers’ eye sockets and axes from their skulls. He could stitch any slash, mend any wound.

  I grabbed at his arm. “Tell me you can heal him,” I said.

  Sacheverell turned to me, his shirtfront dark with gore, his expression distraught. “I have never seen a wound like this,” he said.

  “What do you mean? Have you forgotten your skills?”

  “Princess, this is not a sword scrape. This is—”

  “His room is supposed to be guarded! Where were the men stationed outside his door?”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up to see Odo, his face stricken. “He was not in his room, Princess,” he said.

  “Where was he? Was he in conference with his knights? Was he preparing for battle?”

  Odo shook his head. “The king was alone, Princess. I cannot understand it, but he went to the dungeon unaccompanied. He was…”—Odo could hardly bear to say it—“attacked upon his return.”

  My legs gave out, and I sank down onto the bed. “Oh, Father, what were you thinking?” Because I knew exactly what he had done. Though he had refused to release Raphael, he’d gone to visit him. He’d descended into that dank hell to make sure that the traitorous beast—as he would have called Raphael—was still alive, and that he was not being tortured further by Gattis or his henchmen.

  His mercy was repaid in blood.

  This was all my fault, too. First my mother, and now my father.

  I pressed my palm against his forehead. It was damp and as cold as stone. “Father,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. Father, I’m here.”

  His skin was ashen and his breathing shallow. The new bandage covering his wound was already turning dark and wet.

  “You must save him,” I begged the old doctor.

  “I have applied a balm of egg whites and rose water to the wound,” Sacheverell said. “And spiderwebs to help stop the bleeding—”

  “Which is obviously not working!”

  “We have given him henbane as well, Princess,” he said.

  “Does it stop the bleeding?” I asked. My hope was small and desperate. “Does it close a hole in a man’s stomach?”

  The doctor looked away from me then. “It eases pain,” he said quietly. He paused, and then added, “It calms the dying.”

  The dying? Surely he was wrong—my father was a warrior! “But I’ve seen you wrest a wounded soldier away from the grip of Death himself!”

  “I am sorry, Princess. This is beyond my powers.”

  “Please,” I said, “you must keep trying!”

  But Sacheverell only stood where he was, grave and still, as I lay my head on my father’s strong barrel chest and felt its shallow rise and fall. “You’re going to be fine,” I whispered. “Don’t listen to Sacheverell. I will take care of you.”

  My father took in a ragged, harrowing breath. “Sophia,” he whispered. “My sweet songbird.”

  I sat up, clutching at his shirt. “I’m here, Father. Everything is all right. You just need to rest,” I gabbled helplessly.

  His lips widened—a smile or a grimace of pain, I couldn’t tell. “I’m sorry, my daughter,” he said.

  “Sorry for what?” I asked. I was crying now, and my tears fell onto my hands, his chest.

  “I am afraid that I am about to cause you strife.”

  “Father, please—” You can’t die. I forbid it.

  “A crown is heavier than it looks. I only wanted to protect you, my child. And now who will?” He struggled to open his eyes. “Is Odo here? I can’t see.”

  “I’m here, Your Highness,” his knight said.

  “I’m not ready to depart this life,” my father gasped. “Who will protect my Sophia?”

  In a choked voice, I told him that I loved him. I told him not to worry, that he would heal in no time. He squeezed my hand.

  “Perhaps I will see your mother,” he said, a ghost of a smile flitting across his lips. His breath was coming quicker now.

  “You can’t leave, Father,” I begged. “I need you. The kingdom needs you.”

  “I’ll tell her how lovely you are,” he whispered. “How kind and good you’ve grown to be. How much…”

  I heard the shuddering of his heart as I pressed my face against his chest. Its beat was fast, faint. With my whole soul I wished for it to surge on, keeping him alive, keeping him with me. But a few moments later, it stopped altogether.

  I sat up, sobbing, and pounded my fists on his chest. He didn’t move. He was gone.

  My father—the great Warrior King—was dead.

  I no longer had a mother or a father.

  And it was all my doing.

  For a moment, grief blinded me. The world went utterly dark, and everything around me was a swirling storm of sadness and horror.

  Then I felt hands lifting me from the bed. Pulling me up to standing. I opened my eyes and saw every man in the room sink to his knees.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, bewildered.

  “Your Highness,” spoke Odo, his head bowed low. “The king is dead. Long live the queen.” Then he looked up, and his fierce, kind eyes met mine. “You,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 13

  Dawn broke pale and cold. I turned in my bed and rubbed my eyes. I felt dizzy, my head full of scenes from the night’s terrible dreams. I saw blood pooling on stones, servants wailing, and my father’s face gone slack in death. But I was awake now, and I knew the sun would banish the nightmares.

  I started to sit up but then fell back against my pillow. It was as if a giant hand had pressed me down flat, and I could not lift myself again. I began to pant and struggle.

  Was this another terrible dream? My hands were limp, and my head felt heavy and hot. “Jeanette,” I called weakly. “I need you.”

  In a moment she was by my bed, her normally ruddy face white with worry. “Oh, my darling Sophia,” she whispered. “Your father loved you so.” Tears slid down her face, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. Instead, her hand cupped my cheek. “You poor, orphaned queen.”

  Queen.

  I gripped the bed as the room spun around me. It had not been a dream! My father was dead, cruelly stabbed in a midnight hallway by an unknown enemy. The kingdom was now mine, and Ares, the greatest threat Bandon had ever faced, advanced against us.

  I knew nothing about warfare.

  I knew that I should find Odo and learn our plans for counterattack, but in this moment, the grief was too much to bear. I began to shiver, and I pulled the ermine coverlet to my chin with shaking fingers.

  “Come bathe and dress,” Jeanette urged. “Let me comb your hair. It will make you feel better. Sophia, we must be strong.”

  I shook my head as I lay quaking beneath the covers. “I can’t get up, Jeanette.”

  “Sophia, you are our ruler now,” she said gently. “You must show your people that you deserve their love and loyalty. You are a queen, child. You must contain your sadness.”

  I could hardly take in her words. And I could barely lift my hand to touch her arm. “Jeanette, I feel so weak. It’s freezing in this room. Are all the windows open? Has winter come already?”

  Her brow furrowed as my legs, against my will, began to seize under the covers. “Sophia,” she cried. “What’s wrong?”

  “You must get Odo,” I said to her. “Ares approaches. Odo knows what to do. He will command—” But my teeth chattered so much it was hard to s
peak.

  Jeanette rose from the bed and backed away from me, fear in her eyes. “No, I must get Sacheverell,” she said.

  I tried to clench my clacking jaws together even as I spoke. “Nothing is wrong with me at all except that my father is dead, and I don’t know how to lead an army! Do not bring me that useless old doctor! Bring me Odo!”

  Without another word, she ran from the room. Though I tried to keep my legs from spasming, it felt like I was being rattled by an invisible force, as if some unseen hand held me in its grip and shook me to and fro. I gritted my teeth so as not to cry out.

  Jeanette was gone a long time, but no maid came in to stoke the fire. Adelie and Elodie never appeared, either. I had often been alone in my life, but on this frigid, awful morning, I was more alone than ever before.

  My shaking kicked the covers from the bed and flung the pillows to the floor. But then, just when it seemed like the teeth would be jolted from my head, the convulsing suddenly stopped. I breathed in a deep, grateful breath. Perhaps the tremors had passed and my strength would return. I tried to sit up, but an explosion of pain burst in my head. I cried out, clawing at my temples just as Jeanette, Sacheverell, and a handful of his pupils returned to my room.

  They pulled my hands from my head, and Sacheverell took only one glance at me before his face went even paler than usual.

  “My Queen,” he said, “you are gravely ill.”

  “What do you know?” I rasped angrily. “You who could not save my father! What good are you to me?”

  He bowed his head. “I did my best for my beloved king; his wound was too deep. But truthfully, Your Highness, I am no good for you, either.”

  “You’ve lost your skill! Well, no matter—I am not sick.” Once again I tried to sit up but could not, and I lay gasping on my pillow. “I have just bid farewell to my father forever, and what you see is my grief. I will be better momentarily.”

  “I am afraid that is not true,” he said. “Your situation is no less dire than the king’s.”

  I turned to Jeanette. “Why does he say that?” But then I cried out in pain again, and I couldn’t hear her answer. The invisible force that had shaken me was now driving an axe into my skull.

  Jeanette pressed her hand over my mouth as gently as she could. “Forgive me, Sophia, but you must hear this.”

  Sacheverell, still white as a ghost, spoke softly now. “You have the Seep, my Queen. I am sorry. But you will not last the night.”

  CHAPTER 14

  That wild, keening sound—was it coming from my own throat? The bed seemed to fall away beneath me, and I spun down into darkness. You will not last the night. You will not last—

  Sacheverell was lying. How could it be that in a matter of hours, life would be taken from me? The doctor was wrong, he had to be. I was barely out of childhood!

  The pain in my head grew worse and my limbs spasmed. Then through my sobs I heard a familiar voice.

  “My beloved Queen,” Odo said softly.

  I opened my eyes to see my father’s best knight—my own old friend—standing over my bed. His kind face calmed me instantly, though still I shook. I reached for his hand. “Oh, Odo, he’s telling me I will not spar with you again,” I said.

  Odo reached under my pillow and pulled out the parrying dagger he knew I kept there. Its blade flashed in the weak sunlight. “You’ll nick me with this soon enough,” he said firmly. “Sophia, you will survive.”

  But even as he said it, I understood that Sacheverell was right, and we all knew it. Poor Odo! Even with my father gone, he still believed that he could not cause me strife! But I let him have his kind lie.

  I willed my body to stop shuddering. “There is a favor I must ask of you,” I said.

  “Anything, my Queen.”

  “That boy in the dungeon. I want you to take me to him.” Somehow I managed to sit up this time. To then wrap myself in a blanket and stagger to a nearby chair took all my remaining strength. “To carry me, hold only to the chair,” I said. “Don’t touch me, Odo. Don’t risk the Seep.”

  But Odo laughed. “If you die, none whom I have served will be left in this world,” he said. “What would life matter to me then? I will take you there in my own arms.”

  And so he picked me up the way he used to do when I was very small, and he carried me shivering the long way to the dungeon.

  Gattis, opening the heavy door, greeted us with a snarl. He was not used to having his domain disturbed so often. “You again,” he said to me, his eyes bulging like boiled eggs. “And looking worse than some of my captives, I’d add.”

  “Do not speak to your queen that way,” I snapped.

  “The king?” he said, stepping back. “Gone?”

  I nodded, and his eyes widened even more. But Gattis did not seem aggrieved by the knowledge—only surprised.

  “I will see the prisoner,” I said coldly.

  Already he had recovered enough to sneer at us. “Which one?” he asked.

  I would not miss this wretch if death took me! “You know which one,” I said through clenched teeth.

  Grumbling, Gattis produced a key and led us down a crumbling passage to a dark, dank cell. “The King bade me move him to our most luxurious quarters,” he said, and gave a ghastly laugh.

  In the corner of the cell lay a crumpled pile of rags.

  “Raphael,” I called. Even my voice seemed to shiver. “Is that you?”

  The pile of rags moved, and a dark head lifted itself up. In the torchlight I saw the glint of his eyes. His gaze was as unflinching as ever.

  “Good day, Princess—or is it evening? It’s impossible to tell.” He gestured weakly to the room. “I regret that I have no manure to throw at you. While there’s plenty of rat dung, it’s really too small to be truly effective.”

  “I think you made your point well enough the first time,” I said. Gently, Odo set me down, and I used the bars of Raphael’s cell to hold myself up.

  “So have you come to laugh at my fate?”

  “I’ve come to pardon you.”

  Raphael blinked at me. “The King changed his mind?” he asked.

  “The King is dead.”

  A shadow seemed to cross over his face—maybe Raphael had not really wished for the death of my father. But he wiped his brow with his filthy hand and said nothing.

  “I forgive you for what you did,” I said.

  Raphael laughed weakly. “That’s very noble of you. But I don’t need your forgiveness.” He turned away from me, and as he did so his ragged shirt slipped over his shoulder.

  I gasped when I saw his skin, dotted with dozens of tiny welts. It was just as the villager had warned me. Tiny blisters pop out all over your body, and they ooze liquid clear as water. Then you’d better call a man to dig you a hole in the ground…

  “You’re sick,” I whispered.

  “So now you understand,” he said. “Whether you pardon me or not, I will die in this cell.”

  I did not know what to say to him. I had been born to riches and power, and he had been born to poverty and filth. And yet here we were, in the exact same circumstances: in a dungeon. Dying.

  “I am sick, too,” I said quietly. Are you glad? I wanted to ask.

  Raphael said nothing. But then he smiled at me—a beautiful, sad, surprising smile. “The Seep pays no mind to rank or royal blood, does it? Well, maybe we will meet again someday, Your Highness,” he said. “Somewhere else. In another life and a better world.” He coughed. “Certainly it’s difficult to imagine a worse one.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “For everything.”

  Raphael gazed at me thoughtfully. “Perhaps I misjudged you,” he said. “But it’s rather too late now, isn’t it?”

  Odo put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s not good for you to be down here any longer.”

  I knew he was right, but still I hesitated.

  Raphael patted the ground next to him. “If you are truly sick, come and sit beside me here,” he said. “I’d
much rather look at you than at Gattis, even in your state. We can keep each other company while we wait for death. Who will feel his scythe blade first, the lowly beast or the lovely princess? We can make a wager. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  I smiled sadly at him. “No, not exactly.”

  Gattis pushed past me, shoved a key into the lock, and hauled open the cell door. “Out with you, vermin, if you want,” he said.

  Raphael shook his head. “I’m not strong enough to move,” he said. “And I certainly don’t want you to carry me.” He turned to me. “Well, if you will not join me here… then goodnight, Princess.”

  “Queen,” I reminded him.

  He smiled again, and then Odo lifted me up and carried me away.

  CHAPTER 15

  Ares’s soldiers advanced, their looming shadows tall as trees. Bandon’s knights, their ranks broken, yelled in panicked confusion. I saw the gleam of gory swords, horses with their bellies slit open, and men writhing on the ground in agony.

  My eyes flew open, and relief flooded me. I was in my own bed, not on a battlefield. But the sheets were drenched and my body was wracked with pain. A fever dream, I thought, struggling to sit up. Not the truth.

  Or at least—not the truth yet.

  The first pale rays of the sun slanted through the room. So I had lasted the night, I thought, Sacheverell be damned. But I was so sick that I could barely move. My skin felt searingly hot. Weakly I called for Jeanette, for Odo. Yet it was Abra who burst into the room first.

  His shield was streaked with blood, and he didn’t bow or wait for permission to speak. “Ares’s army is less than a mile away,” he said, “and they cannot be stopped. They fight like men possessed. We will make our stand here, at Bandon Castle.”

  My throat clenched; I could barely whisper my assent. “Do what you will,” I said. “Whatever you do, remember…” I stopped as red-hot pain exploded in my head. “Our lives are in your hands.”