Tiger, Tiger

*

Now she rose languidly and walked slowly through the heat to the fountain in the centre of the courtyard of her apartment. Its constant music and the cooler air around it always soothed her. In the pool at the fountain’s foot there were water lilies, and in their shadow exotic fish, brought from afar. She crouched beside the parapet and trailed her hot hand in the limpid water, letting the tinkle and splash of the fountain make her mind a harmless blank.

A large orange-coloured fish came to nose her fingers inquisitively.

She did her trick, something she’d discovered for herself. She let her fingers move gently in the water, and the fish glided in between them and held itself there with lazy motions of its tail while she very delicately stroked its slippery sides. She concentrated intently. She knew that if she moved her hand quickly enough she could stick her forefinger and thumb into the fish’s gills and, in a swift movement, lift it out of the water. She could capture it and end its life if she chose to. She knew this because she’d done it once, held a trapped fish firmly out of the water, felt it struggling in her hands, felt its struggles cease… Afterwards she’d felt sick. She’d thrown the dead thing back in the pond, where it turned on its side and floated until a servant came and cleared it away.

Now she tickled the fish for a few minutes and then lifted her hand suddenly and watched it flash away amid the bright drops from her fingers.

That was power. To have a life in your hand. Even a fish’s. She felt the thrill of it. But something told her it was an evil power – to kill because you could, without reason, for pleasure. She felt dimly that the true power was to withhold the death-stroke, to let the creature go when you could have killed it.

Such deep thoughts tired her. She sighed and went back to her day bed.

She had hardly settled on it when one of her maids came soft-footedly across the marble tiles to her side. She was breathing fast and her face was flushed.

‘My lady, someone is here to see you. He – he has brought a gift.’ She looked strange, as if she were torn between hysterical laughter, and fear.

Aurelia sat up sharply.

‘Who is it?’

‘I don’t know. But he says your honourable father sent him.’

‘Well, send him in!’

‘No – no, I can’t, my lady! You must come out and see what he’s brought. He can’t bring it in here!’ She let out a high-pitched giggle of excitement.

Aurelia pulled the girl down beside her. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me at once what it is.’

‘It’s – it’s a…’

‘Yes, go on! What’s the matter with you?’

‘It’s a tiger, my lady!’

Aurelia was silent for a moment, puzzled.

‘You mean, a tiger-skin rug.’

‘No.’

‘A stuffed tiger.’

‘No, my lady! A real, live one! Oh, please come and see it!’

Aurelia pushed her away, threw her long dark curling hair back over her shoulders, and stood up. Her heart was throbbing behind her ribs. A real, live tiger? But that was impossible! Of all the beasts brought from far-off countries to please the crowds with their ferocity, the tiger was one of the most formidable. Also, because it came, not from Africa, but from some far eastern land, it was the rarest, and most terrible, somehow. There could be no one bold enough to introduce one into Caesar’s palace! But the girl had said Aurelia’s father had sent it. As a gift.

She ran swiftly across the cool floor to the double doorway and flung the doors open.

There it was, indeed. Safely in a cage on wheels. And very young. And very, very – oh, there were no words for what it was! Beautiful, sweet, adorable. Fabulous.

Aurelia didn’t even notice the person who had brought it. She crouched down, a safe distance from the cage, and stared into the yellow eyes of the cub.

‘Hello,’ she breathed.

The cub stared back for about five seconds. Then it turned its face aside.

One paw, seemingly too large for its body, stuck through the bars of its cage. Not the whole paw, of course – the bars were too close together. Just the tip of it. Aurelia, greatly daring, crept forward and touched the golden fur with one finger. The cub pulled the paw back and then swiped the bars of the cage. Aurelia saw its claws spread themselves and jerked her hand away.

‘He wants to scratch me!’

‘It’s his instinct, Princess. But don’t fear. His claws will be seen to.’

She looked up swiftly. He was young and brown with smooth, round, muscled arms. A slave from the menagerie. He wore an animal skin over his tunic as a sign of his profession.

‘‘Seen to’? How, seen to?’

‘His claws will be drawn.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean, drawn?’

‘Pulled out, Princess.’

For a second she felt faint. She clenched her hands as a sympathetic pain struck her fingernails.

‘You mean – someone will pull out all his claws?’

‘Of course. You couldn’t play with him if he had sharp claws.’

‘How? How will they do it?’

‘You need not trouble yourself—’

She raised her voice to one of command. ‘Tell me immediately how they will… draw his claws?’

‘With pliers, my lady. They will pull them out as teeth are pulled out.’

She stood up. ‘You will not do that to him. You will cut his claws instead, the way my finger and toenails are cut by my maid, straight across so they have no sharp points.’

‘He could still—’

‘There is no more to be said. He is to be mine, isn’t that so? I will say what shall be done with him.’

The young keeper bowed his head. But still, he muttered something.

‘Speak louder!’

‘I said, Princess, that you may keep him in his cage, just as he is, but if you want to let him out and play with him, you must let us protect you. He’s only a baby now, but like a cat he can already bite and scratch.’ He showed her several deep red scratches on his arm. She drew in her breath. ‘And when he grows a little bigger he may be dangerous to you unless you let us draw his claws. His fangs,’ he added boldly, ‘have already been removed.’

‘What!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve started pulling his teeth out too! How will he eat?’

‘Our concern,’ said the youth, with a touch of humour, ‘is that he shall not eat you.’

She looked back at the cub. He was looking at her again.

‘Will he try to bite me if I put my hand into his cage?’

‘No. I have handled him and gentled him. Also he’s not feeling very fierce just now because of the long journey he’s had, and the operation. Do you like him?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed, gazing at the fabulous creature. Her own. Her very own. She glanced again at the scratches on the young man’s smooth, brown arm, and quailed for a moment. But then she stiffened herself. Cautiously she stretched her small hand, sideways to be narrow enough, between two bars towards the animal’s bicoloured head. Its ears moved, flattened. It growled deep in its throat. She snatched her hand out again.

The young keeper laughed. He unfastened the lid at the top of the cage and raised it. Then he reached in fearlessly and scratched the cub behind the ears. It looked up at him trustingly.

‘How can he like you and trust you when you’ve hurt him? It must have hurt terribly to have his fangs pulled out!’

‘I didn’t do it, Princess. I was the one who comforted him afterwards, rubbed oil of cloves on the wounds and gave him warm milk in a bottle to remind him of his mother.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Who knows? Far away in the jungle he came from. He won’t see her again.’ He was petting and stroking the tiger’s head, working his hand under its jaw. The cub’s eyes closed in bliss. There was a different sound from him now – a rumble of pleasure.

Aurelia stood up. ‘Oh, let me! Only I don’t want him to growl at me.’

‘He won’t. Here, take over from me. He’ll soon learn to accept you.’

The cub’s warm fur was a delight – so soft, so silky-soft, such beautiful colours, rich gold and deep, dark black. After a tentative moment, she sank her fingers into it luxuriantly and was overjoyed when the cub continued to purr like the great cat that he was. She was soon using both hands to pet and please him. Better than stroking a fish!

The keeper-boy was talking.

‘He’s a present from your father. There were two of them, twin brothers. One, the bigger and stronger of the two, has been taken to the Colosseum to be raised for the circus. This one was chosen as a special pet for you by the Emperor.’

Aurelia withdrew her hands and stood staring down at the baby tiger, who followed her now with his yellow eyes.

‘Do I have to keep him always in a cage? Because if so, I don’t want him.’

‘Well, I can take him out now, if you like. We’ll see if he behaves himself, but I don’t think he will try any tricks while I’m here.’

When she nodded breathlessly, he reached down and lifted the cub out of the cage, talking to him in a clucking, rumbling tone. He held him, positively cuddling him. Aurelia’s arms ached to hold the furry adorable thing.

‘Good boy. You’re a lucky cub. Look at your mistress! Wasn’t that worth a little pain? You’re better off than your brother!’ And he lowered him on to his big, padded feet on the marble floor, where he stood, his tail twitching from side to side.

‘Does he understand what you say to him?’

‘No. But it soothes him. You must talk to him a lot. And you must learn his language.’

‘Does he talk?’ she asked naively.

He smiled. ‘Yes, in his own way. Look at his tail, now. If it were lashing from side to side, you’d need to be careful, because that means, I am angry! I may pounce! But that twitching is just uncertainty – curiosity.’

‘No, no! Tell me exactly what he’s saying!’

‘He’s saying, I don’t know where I am or what’s happening. Reassure me. Be kind to me. Tell me I’m safe.’

‘Oh! Yes, I see!’ Aurelia, enchanted, fell on her knees and put out both her arms to the cub. ‘Come here to me! I won’t hurt you. I love you already. Come and be stroked!’ But the cub stood still and didn’t come. She looked up beseechingly at the young keeper. ‘What can I say to him to make him come?’

‘Nothing. You must offer him a gift.’

‘What? What?’

The keeper opened a basket he had on his back and took from it a small piece of raw meat.

‘Are you afraid to get your hands soiled?’

She hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘No! Give it to me!’

He handed her the meat. Before she fully had hold of it, the cub leapt forward and snatched it from her grasp, startling her so much she cried out and fell over backwards. In a moment, the young man had his hand fastened on the scruff of the cub’s neck and it shrank down. But Aurelia sat up at once and said, ‘No, he didn’t mean to frighten me. Leave him.’

The keeper obeyed. The cub lay down and began chewing on the meat. Every now and then he shook his head.

‘Why does he do that?’

‘He can’t understand why he can’t eat quite as he used to. And it may still hurt a little.’

Aurelia crept towards him.

‘No, my lady,’ warned the keeper. ‘Don’t try to touch him while he’s eating. He’ll think—’ He corrected himself. ‘Look, he’s put his ears back. He’s saying, Don’t try to take my food! When he’s satisfied his hunger he’ll remember that you gave him the meat. He may sniff the blood on your hand, and come to lick it off. Then he’ll begin to recognise you. That’s how cats are. They like you for what you give them.’

‘I want him to love me for myself.’

‘Better not to hope for that. He’ll be your companion, but never will he love you. Cats can’t love, except perhaps each other. But be kind to him and learn his language and you can be friends, in a way.’

Aurelia sat on the floor with her diaphanous robes spread about her, and watched the cub eat. She didn’t move a muscle till he had finished. Then, as he was licking his whiskers, she said, ‘Can I keep him with me all the time? Can he sleep in my bed?’

The youth shook his head.

‘I am to stay with you while you get acquainted. Then he must go back in his cage and I will take him back to the menagerie for the night. You have other things to do. But he’ll look forward to coming to see you, to leaving his cage, to eating from your hand, to being petted, to being free. In that way he’ll become yours.’

‘Has he a name?’

‘I call him Tigris.’

‘But that’s just what he is! That’s a boring name.’

‘Then think of a better one, Princess.’

She looked at the cub a long time. He stared at her, but he did not come to lick her hand. She wiped it on the floor.

‘I’ll spend the night thinking,’ she said.

The young man bent and picked the cub up. ‘I must take him now.’

‘Can I kiss him?’

He smiled secretly, thinking: Fortunate creature. ‘Yes. Why not?’

Aurelia came close and kissed the cub on the head and touched his hurt face tenderly. ‘Goodbye, little one. When you come back to me tomorrow, I will have a name for you.’

She watched as he was put back in his cage and wheeled away. The young man looked back once, irresistibly, but she didn’t notice. Her mind was following the tiger – her tiger – and was busy with the delightful task of naming him.

‘What’s your name?’ she called after the youth.

‘Julius.’

‘Come early, Julius!’

‘Willingly!’ he said, and added, in his head, If only your eagerness were for me!

Chapter Three

THE NAMING

The younger and smaller cub, still lacking a name, spent the night alone in his cage, in the city menagerie where he was to live.

His brain was full of new things, new bewilderments. Having his fangs drawn had been terrible, but the pain was fading and with it the memory of his terror and agony. He thought about the male two-legs that had comforted him, making soft sounds to him and giving him milk to suck, reminding him dimly of his lost Big One. Not all two-legs were either things to fear or things he might like to eat. They were certainly meat, but they were more. They were powerful and puzzling and even fearsome, but also they could do pleasing things. He thought of the female two-legs with the eyes that had looked into his. He had wanted to creep to her and lick the blood off her hand after she had provided him with food, encourage that hand to scratch and stroke him again. He sensed no threat, but he was uncertain. He hadn’t seen anything like her before.

Where was his brother?

That was the most important thing.

They had been a pair, and now that had ended and he was alone. In the darkness there was no warm, friendly other to curl up against. No familiar smell and no one to communicate with.

He slept at last, miserable, aching and lonely.

But in the morning things were better. The male two-legs came and made sounds to him and petted him. There were others with him, but the cub only noticed the one he knew.

‘Today would have been a bad day for you, Tigris, but you’re lucky again. She’s forbidden it. So I’ve got something for you instead, so that you won’t forget yourself and do her a mischief!’ He reached down into the cage and began to rub the cub’s belly. Instinctively he rolled over and stuck his big feet in the air. Before he understood what was happening, something was slipped over each of them, something that muffled his claws.

He rolled over swiftly and stood up, sniffing this new addition to his body. He didn’t like it. He caught the stuff in his teeth and tried to pull it off, but he couldn’t. It fitted tightly around his legs and was too strong to tear.

He rolled and rubbed and bit, but it was useless. The young two-legs watched him, and, when he could, scratched the cub’s ears.

‘Get used to it, friend. You’re a shod tiger now, and you must wear them till you learn good manners. Till you can be trusted.’

‘If that day ever comes!’ said one of the others.

But the cub understood only that when he tried to walk he couldn’t properly feel the ground under his feet and learn from it. He didn’t yet know that he couldn’t use his claws. But when his day’s meat was brought to him, he found out. He was used to pinning the meat down with his claws and chewing chunks off it. But this meat was in small pieces. He didn’t realise that it was because his jaws ached too much to chew properly. All he knew was that he couldn’t hold it, he couldn’t rend it… He was no longer whole, no longer what he had been. What he knew he was meant to be. He was muffled. He was less.

*

When he was taken to the female two-legs, he was already angry.

She took one look at him and began to make a mouth-noise.

‘Oh, look! He’s got boots on!’

‘Yes, Princess. It was Caesar’s orders when he heard that you’d forbidden us to draw his claws.’

She capered about joyfully.

‘I couldn’t think of a name for him, but now I have it! I’ll call him Boots!’

The cub named Boots without knowing he’d been named, watched her, surprised because she whirled like a peacock. She had no tail but she had something like a tail, that sparkled and flared. She made a noise rather like a peacock, too. But she still looked like a big monkey to him and she smelt good. He sensed she wasn’t as strong as the males. He thought he would try to eat her. But only if the male two-legs wasn’t there to put his hand on his neck and stop him.

But the big two-legs didn’t go away. He stayed.

He took the cub out of the cage. The cub liked being held by the two-legs. It made him feel very safe. It was strange, smelling his food-smell and, at the same time, liking to be held close to him. The anger was still there because of what had been put on his feet. But he already knew better than to bite the male two-legs. The puzzling thing was that he no longer wanted to.

*

That day he learnt to play.

Of course, he had played before, with his brother. But not for a long time. Not during the bad time in the dark, rocking place. They had been too fearful and wretched. But now he remembered that it was good to chase something that rolled along the ground, to catch it and leap with it, knocking it into the air and batting it with his muffled paws. He almost forgot they were muffled.

The female two-legs made the peacock noise and the rain-on-leaves noise with her front feet. She crouched down and made the same sound over and over again: ‘Boots! Boots!’ He sensed she wanted him to come to her, and he wanted to come. At first he was too timid, but then the male two-legs picked him up and put him down close to her. She smelt good and her paws when she touched him were knowing and cunning amid his fur, scratching and stroking in ways that made him squirm and lie on his back and rumble deep in his chest. He had a vague memory of the rough tongue and the warm flanks and the nipple that filled his mouth with sweet flowing power.

He hadn’t forgotten his brother, either.

*

And his brother hadn’t forgotten him.

The bigger, stronger cub was not frolicking with a tender, laughing female two-legs, being fed titbits of meat in a pleasant sunlit open place. He was in a dark, bad-smelling, closed-in place, under the ground.

He knew he was under the ground because he had been carried, in his cage, down a long flight of steps into dimness and coldness. He growled and snarled all the way and tried to reach through the bars to claw the bodies of those who carried him, but he couldn’t. At last he was released from the cage. The front of it was raised by some invisible agency and he came out with one bound – only to find his way blocked by cold black stone. There was a clang behind him as bars came down.

His thoughts were all confusion, rage, frustration. His stomach churned and threw up bitterness into his mouth. He clawed the hard, stopping walls. It was useless.

At last he stopped. He put his front paws on to the wall and stretched his neck, but he couldn’t see anything beyond.

He had never felt so alone in his life. He had never been alone, till now. He whined miserably.

A coarse, loud voice shouted, ‘Quiet, you little brute, or I’ll give you something to howl for!’ The threat in it was unmistakable. The bigger cub urinated with fear, then found a corner, pressed himself tight to the cold wall, and lay down.

He didn’t sleep. He was too nervous. He shivered and all his striped fur stood on end. There had been something in that voice that filled him with dread.

*

For several days no two-legs came near him. He could hear them, at a distance, shouting. His food was pushed between the bars at the front of his prison on the end of long poles, while the cub clawed and gnawed it. As the days passed he lost condition and became listless with misery.

Two days went by without any food. And then the teasing started.

The cub sensed something bad was going to happen when a two-legs came into the dark place and made sounds that were the same as the shouting from afar. Unlike his brother, this cub had never had kindness from a two-legs, and all he knew of them was that they were the all-powerful source of food, and fear.

This two-legs, very big and very threatening, stood over him as he lay in the corner he had chosen as a sleeping place. The cub didn’t know the nature of the threat but he knew he was afraid and helpless. He held himself alert as he lay with his head on his forepaws.

‘Get up, you,’ growled the two-legs. And it was a growl, deep in his throat, the sort of growl tigers make. It was almost the language the cub understood. The words meant nothing but the threat was clear. He didn’t move.

The man prodded him sharply with something he carried.

The cub lifted his head and snapped at the thing that had hurt him. But it wasn’t there any more.

‘Get up,’ the two-legs growled again.

When the cub still didn’t move, the two-legs jabbed him again. This time the sharp thing nearly pierced his hide. He jumped up with a snarl of pain and swiped at the thing with his claws. It went away, came back, jabbed again, was snatched away before the cub could seize it.

The cub was infuriated. He crouched, ready to spring at his tormentor. But he couldn’t, because a volley of small jabs kept him at bay.

‘Come on, you little pig’s whelp, you miserable mangy little runt! Spring at me! Just try it! You’ll never make the arena, you weakling! Come on, coward, what are you waiting for?’ The threatening voice went on and on, daring him, ordering him, provoking him, rousing him for battle – but always keeping him off, prodding him back. At last the cub, infuriated beyond bearing, did leap, full at the sharpened stick, not even seeing it in his blind rage. It didn’t pierce him. It vanished, as the man leapt aside and the cub dropped to the ground.

‘Good,’ said the two-legs. ‘Good. Now you’re learning.’

He gave him a piece of meat and went away.

So. That was it. He was supposed to spring. If he sprang, the sharp thing would not hurt him. It would only hurt and torment him if he did not spring. If he sprang, he would get meat.

Thus the little tiger began to absorb the lessons that prepared him for his destiny.

*

Aurelia’s mother and father came to visit her several days after Boots’s first appearance.

It was unusual for the Emperor and Empress to visit their daughter together. The Emperor was an intensely busy man and had all too little time for his youngest child (Aurelia had two older brothers, already away in the army). But that didn’t mean he was not devoted to her. Aurelia was the decoration on his life, his sweet reward after the essential sons, both troublesome and hard to love. He was conscious of his duty towards her now she was nearing womanhood, but left the details to his wife.