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Hearing his name, the courtier’s crimson head bobbed pertly. “Just Beast,” he assured me.
The Marsh King raised himself up and ushered me out the door with the air of a host who has just realized he is one guest away from a comfortable nap.
“Off you go then, Eyvind, my boy—and ho! now you really are a boy! Splendid. We shall see you again, I have no doubt. Run along! Fare thee well and all that rot!”
EYVIND’S BODY RELAXED. HE HEAVED HIS GREAT mass onto a stool and sighed. “And I’ve been a man ever since. I got old and got fat until I looked something like a bear again, what with the gut and the hair. It doesn’t do any good. I’m not a bear. I try, but I’m not. I’m still waiting for the sea to turn. It never does. I stay close to the Marshes, hoping that it’s true that Kings don’t lie. I don’t have much hope; after all, your father is a King. The Marshes aren’t more than a week’s journey north of here. The days, they have their way with me now. Maybe I’ll just die serving beer to brats in this filthy tavern.”
The Prince stared at the surface of the bar, the loops and whorls of the wood like a fingerprint. “I am sorry for you,” he mumbled.
Eyvind’s face purpled. “I don’t need your pity, boy. That’s a useless load. I’ll give you a pair of walking boots with no promise they’ll fit if you carry a message—you ask that no-good bird when I’ll be getting my own back. I’m sick of waiting.”
“The… the Marsh King, you mean?”
“Stars, boy, you’re thick as a cub still sucking at its dam. Yes, the Marsh King. A week’s walk north and you’ll be knee-deep in mud and eels. Now take these and be off before I charge you rent for that stool you’re ruining.” He tossed a muddied pair of greasy black boots several sizes too big for the young Prince onto the bar and disappeared with a final grunt into the back room.
Leander took the boots gingerly and slipped out of the tavern, his face burning under the stare of the bedraggled patrons.
He set out north as Eyvind had said, and indeed, at length he came to the Dismal Marshes, their borders a clear and sodden green, full of the stink of rotting grass and bone. He easily picked up the scent of the Leucrotta itself, which was indeed very like blood, coppery and sharp. The Marshes were wide and smoke-colored, jade over polished wood, the sluicing paths of swamplands with their rattling cattails and poised egrets. The water shimmered like necklaces laid over one another, and beneath the water he could see fat eels and the flash of fish.
In fact, the Prince found the Marshes very beautiful, but every step sucked at his oversized shoes until the going was so slow that he thought he might very well be stuck there, save that he knew he must return to the Witch by the new moon in order to fulfill his promise. And so he dragged himself through the swamps, mud sloshing around his boots and catching the sheath of his sword in its wet pockets. At each up-step the mammoth boots threatened to catch, but slapped up against his heels at the last second.
In the center of the Marsh there was a copse of tamarind trees, their reddish bark glinting as though embers burned within. He wondered at it for a moment, drawn to their color. But Leander had had enough of magic, and he quite feared to be further delayed by whatever terror dwelt inside. He gave it a wide berth, though it meant wetting his breeches to the waist.
Just as he passed the copse, a shape composed itself seemingly out of the water and grasses, blocking his way.
“Do you insult me by passing through my land without paying me a visit?”
The shape coalesced into an old man whose beard drooped like the whiskers of catfish and whose hair was a great mass of tumbling moss. His eyes were precisely the shade of marsh water, sparkling green and brown in turns. His hands were wrapped in river reeds and his cloak was sewn together from fallen leaves and acorn mash.
He stood calmly, three feet over the nearest cluster of grasses, fine webbed feet resting on air, bemusedly smoking a pipe fashioned from willow whips.
“Well?” he demanded.
The Prince did not splutter, nor grasp for words like a dying trout gulping for water that will not come. He blinked slowly, once, twice, and sat down heavily on a moss-covered boulder.
The specter laughed heartily. “Poor little hatchling. It all gets to be a little bewildering after a while, I’ll admit. I am the Marsh King,” he gave a courtly little bow, “and you will have come from the Witch of the Glen to kill my friend Beast. Now, of course, I can’t let you do that, but I am happy to pass the time discussing it with you, if you would like to have a Discourse on the subject.”
“A Discourse? On whether or not I am going to kill the Leucrotta?” Leander replied, nonplussed. The Marsh King’s shaggy head bobbed merrily.
“Oh, he doesn’t stand on formalities—prefers ?Beast.’”
“Whether or not I am going to kill the Beast, then?”
“Oh, I’m afraid you still haven’t got it, my lad. Just ?Beast.’ He thinks the ?the’ makes it seem as though he puts on airs. Fine chap, Beast is.”
“Beast, then.”
“Beast.”
“And whether I ought to kill him.”
“A Discourse is such a fine thing.” The Marsh King sighed dreamily. “I recall I had a fine one once, oh, fifty years or so ago. Some other upstanding, earnest hatchling harassing Beast… they do come along at a clip these days. Let’s have one, shall we?”
The Marsh King’s eyes flashed like a glimpse of eel flesh in the shallow water, gleeful and fey.
WHEN THE LAST YOUNG MAN CAME ROUND, HE was very rude about it, all manner of officious in his gold tassels and scarlet cape. He didn’t visit me either, but when I appeared, he was amiable enough. Set his cape down on that rock and crossed his legs, as ready to Discourse with me as to lop off poor Beast’s head.
“Now”—I began at the simplest point, as you’ll see—“why do you want to kill Beast? He’s not borrowed your sword and forgotten to return it, he’s not spoiled your favorite sedan chair, he’s not bothered you at all!”
