Susan Krinard - Lord of the Beasts

He considered and discarded the notion of a visit to the hotel dining room before setting out for Regent’s Park. He doubted his stomach would tolerate even his usual light breakfast, and he had no desire to see greedy, overfed tourists stuffing their mouths with slabs of beef and rashers of bacon. Instead, Donal unwrapped a hard roll left over from yesterday’s journey and broke it into small bits, wishing he had a friend to share it with.

As if in answer to his thoughts, someone scratched at his sitting room door. The sound came from very near the floor. Donal hurried to the door and opened it, meeting the bright brown eyes of his unexpected visitor.

“Well, now,” he said, squatting to offer his hand. “Have you come to share my bread?”

The parti-colored spaniel cocked his head and gravely regarded Donal’s crumb-dusted fingers. He was no street cur to go begging for his meals; his red and white coat gleamed with the luster of frequent grooming and good health, and he wore his handsome, studded collar as if it were the crown of the Cavalier King who had given his breed its name.

Donal set the roll on the ground and listened. For all his well-bred dignity, the spaniel’s thoughts were clear and honest in the way of his kind, and he gazed at Donal with absolute trust. The dog’s natural intelligence had warned him that something was amiss when his human would not rise from his bed to take him for his morning walk. When his friend only groaned at the patting of a paw and an encouraging lick, he had set aside good manners and barked until another human had come to investigate the uproar. Then he had dashed between the startled woman’s feet and run as fast as his legs would carry him, straight to the one place in all London where he knew he would be understood.

“I see,” Donal said, resting his hand gently on the spaniel’s broad forehead. “Of course I’ll do what I can.” He stuffed the roll in his pocket, rose and followed the dog into the hallway and around two corners to a door indistinguishable from his own. He knocked, but there was no answer. The spaniel whined anxiously.

Donal turned the knob, and the door gave at his push. Immediately his nostrils were assaulted by the smell of sickness. The sitting room was far more luxurious than his own modest suite, with thick Oriental carpets and furnishings that a wealthy nabob might find acceptable.

Donal strode to the bedchamber, took one glance at the rumpled bed’s motionless occupant and gave a sigh of relief. For all the signs of recent illness, the spaniel’s master was neither near death nor in urgent need of a physician’s care.

He dampened a towel at the washstand and sat beside the stout, middle-aged object of the canine’s adoration. The man had the look of prosperity about him, but he had clearly behaved with intemperance and paid the consequences. He mumbled an irritable query under his breath and subsided back into sleep.

“It’s nothing to worry about, Sir Reginald,” Donal said to the dog as he bathed the florid, mottled face and listened to the steady pulse beating in the man’s bejowled throat. “He’s only drunk more than is good for him.”

The spaniel jumped onto the bed and intently studied his master’s face, silky ears lifted.

“What he needs now is rest,” Donal said, rinsing the towel and laying it across the man’s forehead. “He’ll wake when he’s ready.”

Sir Reginald hesitantly wagged his tail. Donal tucked the bed’s coverlet under his master’s chin and clucked his tongue in invitation. After a last glance at his human, Sir Reginald followed Donal from the room.

No one paid any heed to a respectable guest and his dog as they strolled casually from the hotel lobby. Sir Reginald liked the hubbub of the market no better than Donal, so they beat a hasty retreat to the dining room, where Donal ordered steak and water for the dog and plain eggs and toast for himself. A pair of severe business men at a nearby table cast disapproving glares at the spaniel, who crouched patiently between Donal’s boots.

The waiter returned a few minutes later with a harried-looking young man whose high collar points had scratched red welts into his cheeks. The young man scurried about Donal’s table, craning his neck to see under it, and came to a nervous halt just out of arms’ reach.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, jerking his head very high, “but I have had complaints … it is my understanding that you have brought an animal into the dining room.”

Sir Reginald cringed, his naturally ebullient nature suppressed by the uneasy hostility in the young man’s approach. Donal quieted him with a quick pat and got to his feet.

“I have brought a friend to dine with me,” he said quietly, meeting the young man’s eyes. “I’m sure you can see that he is not inconveniencing anyone.”

The fellow looked pointedly toward the businessmen. “Are you a guest at this establishment, sir?”

“I am.”

“Then surely you will agree that it is our duty to see that respectable standards of decency and cleanliness are upheld. If you will kindly provide the direction of your room, I will send a porter to return the beast—”

A low-pitched growl sounded from under the table, and the young man shuffled a few steps back. Donal smiled. “Sir Reginald prefers not to be disturbed,” he said, “but I will personally attest to his good behavior.”

“You refuse to remove the animal?”

In answer, Donal resumed his seat and pretended interest in a neatly mended tear on his coat sleeve. The young man sputtered. “You leave me no choice then, sir.” He signaled to a waiter, who scurried off toward the kitchen doors.

By now the scene of dispute had attracted the attention of the other diners, who shook their heads as they continued to gorge themselves from overflowing plates. A waiter with a thatch of bright red hair sidled up to Donal and leaned close under the pretense of delivering a copy of the morning paper.

“I likes dogs, sir,” he whispered, smoothing the paper as he laid it on Donal’s table. “Thought you should know that they’ve sent for the constable.” He passed a wrapped bundle into Donal’s hand. “This’ll do for the little mite. You’d best make yerself scarce, sir.”

Donal concealed his surprise and accepted the package with a nod. Sir Reginald emerged from beneath the table and politely wagged his tail at the waiter, then set off at a purposeful trot for the door to the street.

Donal casually rose and followed the spaniel, ignoring the critical gazes of the men who awaited the drama’s denouement. He reached the door and opened it, admitting a rush of noise, dust and pungent odors from the market. He closed his eyes and cast his thoughts outward like a net. Here and there, like drifting bits of flotsam in an ocean of humankind, the questing sparks of intelligent animal minds searched for the means to survive another day.

Donal called out an invitation, and they answered. Sir Reginald fidgeted on his haunches and pricked his ears toward the silent tide gathering from every quarter of Covent Garden. The wave was lapping at the very shores of Old Hummums Hotel when the officious young waiter reemerged from the rear entrance with a tail-coated constable.

By then it was too late. Donal scooped Sir Reginald into his arms and stepped out of the doorway just as the first hungry mongrel skittered into the dining room. The head waiter stopped in his tracks, open-mouthed, and one of the businessmen rose to his feet. But the flood could not be stemmed. As the dog on point skirmished toward the nearest table, his company surged in after him, a wash of furry projectiles, large and small, in every imaginable color of dusty white, brown, red, black and yellow. Yapping with the joy of sinners facing the promise of salvation, the dogs leaped upon the feast—the largest hounds planting enormous paws on table tops as they wolfed steaks and loafs of bread with equal fervor, the smallest dashing beneath to collect the fallen scraps. Not one was left wanting.