Lynne Banks - Tiger, Tiger

Still, even a gentle bite from a tiger cub is not nothing. Marcus let out a yell and snatched his hand out of the cub’s mouth.

Aurelia grinned broadly. ‘I hope that’ll teach you a lesson, you nasty little tease,’ she said unfeelingly as he sucked his hand. Seeing him fighting tears, she relented and went to look, taking his hand in hers and examining the indentations that were rapidly turning into bruises. ‘Ffff! Poor old you. Does it hurt?’

‘He ought to be whipped,’ said Marcus sullenly, more humiliated than hurt.

She dropped his hand. ‘Oh, pooh. It’s nothing much. He bites me all the time when we’re playing. Look!’ She showed some little regular bruises on her forearm where Boots had been playing a bit more roughly than usual.

‘I heard he’d had all his teeth taken out.’

‘Only his fangs.’

‘Hah! Lost his fangs, eh? How can a tiger be a tiger without fangs?’

‘Well, you’re lucky, he might have bitten your hand right off and run away with it, if he’d had them!’ retorted Aurelia, sitting down on the ground and calling the cub to her. He crawled to her on his belly and lay with his head in her lap while she petted and soothed him. His tail twitched gently. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘he’s saying “I love being with you.” I can understand nearly everything he tells me now!’

Marcus watched her, full of envy. Though he would have died rather than admit it, he was a bit afraid of the tiger. He had to stop her knowing that.

‘Let’s play circus with him!’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Why not? All you ever do is kiss and pet him!’

‘That’s not true. I play with him.’

‘But not real games, only silly kitten-games. We should pretend he’s a wild beast in the arena, pitted against a gladiator—’

‘That would be you, no doubt,’ said Aurelia sarcastically.

‘Yes it would! I know how to fight like a gladiator, with a net and trident, or a sword – my father’s not like yours, refusing to take you to the circus, mine takes me quite often! Here, you, lend me your sword!’ he said suddenly to the young keeper, who had a short sword in his belt.

Julius’s hand flew to it instinctively.

‘I’m sorry, Master Marcus, but my sword never leaves me. Besides, it’s sharp. You might hurt someone with it.’

Marcus faced him boldly. His rank was so far above Julius’s that he felt unassailably superior to him.

‘Do as you’re told,’ he shouted, ‘or I’ll have you flogged!’

Julius looked over the boy’s shoulder at Aurelia. Aurelia was watching, but she didn’t intervene.

‘I have no leave from the Emperor to give you my sword. It’s not a plaything.’

The boy flushed crimson with rage. He flung himself on to Julius and began trying to wrest the sword from his belt. Julius was in a quandary. He held the furious boy away, but he was frightened of what the consequences might be of defying a direct order from the son of a senator, let alone manhandling him.

‘Princess!’ he pleaded.

Aurelia put the cub aside and stood up. She stepped up to the struggling pair and seized Marcus by the hair. One strong jerk backwards and the fight was over. She flung him to the ground, then went back to her place, sat down on the marble floor and began to stroke the cub again as if nothing had happened.

‘You stupid squittering girl-pig, you hurt my head!’ Marcus shouted, sprawling.

‘Mind your language,’ she said calmly. ‘Your foul mouth will get you into trouble.’

That silenced him. The hint was enough. He had a bad temper and he had been thwarted, but as he lay there he gulped when he thought how lucky it was for him he had not said what he might have said in the heat of the moment; for example, that she was the daughter of a pig. You might say that to anybody else during a quarrel, but not her.

After a short while he got up, rubbing the back of his head, and moved towards her. She smiled to him as a sign of truce.

‘I don’t want him to be a fighting tiger, even in fun,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s play ball with him. I’ll throw and you can race him for it. You’d better let him win,’ she added with a little smile.

*

She’d had Boots for two months. He had grown. He was quite a size now, but he had learnt many lessons, and he was so little danger to her that the heavily armed guards that had been engaged to stand by whenever the cub ‘came to visit’ had been dismissed. They were expensive. The Emperor had overruled his wife after watching Aurelia and Boots at play on several occasions.

‘The beast is quite safe. He loves her, you can see it. He wouldn’t hurt her – she has tamed him with her strong will and kind hands.’

The Empress was not so sure. ‘Does he really love her?’ she asked Julius, who still accompanied the cub whenever he was at the palace.

‘No, Empress. Not as we understand the word. But he knows her, and she has gentled him, that’s true, and I don’t think he poses any danger to her – as long as I’m here.’ He stressed this in part because he sensed that she was uneasy about his frequently being alone with the princess and would have liked to dispense with his services, and Julius was quite determined she should not.

‘But he’s getting so big! Surely large male animals become dangerous as they grow?’

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