“For me?” The Marsh King brightened considerably, his whiskers rising with pleasure. “Almost all the young men come for Beast! I have not had a visitor in ever so long. What is it, my fine, attractive, excellent young man?”
“Eyvind wants to know how much longer he must wait for the sea to turn to gold.”
The Marsh King furrowed his great brow and peered at the sky. “I can’t say that I know a chap by that name,” he admitted sadly.
“He… he used to be a bear. You made him a man?” The Prince was suddenly embarrassed. The story had sounded convincing as a stone plaque when the tavern-keeper told it. Yet the elderly monarch still humphed and hohumed to himself. At length his face lit up like a festival lantern.
“Oh!” he cried. “The astrologer-bear! Of course! Well, you know, not too much longer, I imagine. Perhaps before you get home to your Witch-woman. Perhaps not. I don’t exactly keep an almanac of such things, you know. And why should I? I am quite the master of my own shape. And now that that is answered, what in the world could you want with my dear friend Beast?”
“I… I need his skin. To restore a maiden to life. It was I who killed her, so I owe her the remedy.”
“Oh,” said the King distastefully, “how vile of you. What a disgusting operation you propose. Absolutely out of the question.”
“Now,” a deep voice like bellows squeezed by mammoth hands sounded across the Marsh, “my dear friend, you ought not to speak for me when I am not present. It is quite rude.”
Across the long swamps came the dark scarlet form of the Leucrotta, antlers blood-bright against the sky. The smell of him filled the saddlebags of the wind—the smell of still pools of blood glittering under the sun, in well buckets and wine casks, china vases and reed baskets, the hot, coppery smell of its wetness, slowly spreading.
But his hide was strangely beautiful, the color of dark, secret rubies and garnets scattered on the snow. And his antlers towered like turrets armed with strong-armed bowmen, forking like a blazing forest. His great jaw hung slightly open, revealing the shock of white bone. On powerful haunches he moved towards the Prince, eyes all pupils, sparking like flint within the endless black.
“Certainly, my dear Monarch, I can take care of my own affairs?” he intoned.
“Of course, Beast, I meant no offense. Dispatch him at your leisure.”
“Oh, none taken, old boy. And I wouldn’t dream of trampling all over your jurisdiction. After you,” Beast yielded.
“Oh, no, after you.” The Marsh King bowed at the waist.
“I insist.”
“I won’t hear of it.”
The Leucrotta looked appraisingly at Leander for a long while. “My skin, you say? I had not heard that it had any medicinal value, but if the Witch needs it, I must, as a gentleman and a monster, yield to her.” Both the Prince and the King started, shocked at the suggestion.
“But we must have a battle!” insisted the Prince.
“Don’t be ridiculous, boy. I would eviscerate you within a minute. Just take the skin and scurry back.”
The Marsh King spluttered in consternation. “My dear boy! I must protest! The mess it will make in my swamp! And a skin is not a pocket-watch—you cannot simply hand it over!” He stamped his mossy foot—which of course made no sound as he remained floating just above the water.
The Leucrotta shrugged. “I expect I shall grow another within the month.”
And with that he bent his great crimson head to his chest and tore his hide from his body like a child peels a ripe apple, all in one long, spiraling stroke.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, as the pile of skin beside him grew, “when the Witch was young we were quite social. How can I refuse that delightful creature? She was beautiful in her day, I must tell you—the scars and tattoos, the way her face was mangled was most divine. The deformity of her features was as lovely to me as summer’s first fruit, hanging red and perfect on a dew-bright branch.” Beast sighed dreamily. “Such, well, what you would call ?ugliness’ is so rare, one finds so little of it expressed as it was in her.” He looked pointedly at the Marsh King, who was, if elderly, still handsome in a stately sort of way. “The way her tattoos reflected her scars, in a marvelous symmetry of black ink and punctured white skin—were I but a troubadour I would have composed such songs to her beauty. And the way her hair flashed! Like my own skin burning in the sun!”
Beast was paring the last of his skin from his hooves, the pile beside him enormous and deep scarlet, like leather in the shop of a master tanner. Beast himself sat quite comfortably, even redder than before, his muscles shining with pinpricks and rivulets of blood oozing out of him, dribbling like paint onto the swamp grass. The wind pulled at his exposed flesh, but he seemed to enjoy its ghostly fingers on his great haunches.
“Fear not, my little faun,” he assured the Prince, “it is not at all painful. Rather brisk, in fact. I would suggest that the two of you try it, as a fortifying tonic, save that your anatomy is… unequipped, shall we say.”
The Prince looked on, horrified, at the hulk of the Leucrotta, sitting happily before him and bleeding freely from his massive musculature. He began to gather up the skin into his pack.
“Will you not stay to hear of how I knew the Witch?” cried Beast, hurt filling his voice like a winesack. “After I have done exactly as you asked? Didn’t your mother teach you to be kind to monsters who completely fail to gobble you up?” Leander’s face colored abruptly and an awkward silence descended, a woolen shadow settling over the trio.
“Perhaps not,” conceded Beast, “but sit beside me and listen, and all will be well, you’ll see.”
The sun was still high in the wind-wracked clouds, with time enough before the hours became his enemy. In order not to be turned into anything untoward by the Marsh King, the Prince sighed his acquiescence.
SHE RESCUED ME, THE LITTLE MINX. I WAS BATTLING, as luck seems to frequently have it, a Duke’s Son of the Eastern Duchies, the sort with ornate armor of silver and ivory. Terrifically impractical, of course, but they al ways were dandies, the Duke’s boys. I had already gored him through the left side with my antler, but had unfortunately missed all the vital organs, and the ferocity of his blows became as great as twelve wolves who share a mother. He was desperate, the poor thing. But in his desperation he managed to slide his blade just under my ribs, nearly to the hilt.