Tiger, Tiger: Prologue-Chapter 2

The two tiger cubs, romping in the jungle undergrowth near their den, prick up their ears.

But these sounds are not what they want to hear. They are strange and alarming. Loud, staccato beats, clattering and banging—hacking and chopping—a trampling of green stems.

He is pounced on, seized by the scruff of the neck, and thrust into a sack.

The smaller cub doesn’t even manage to struggle—he is enclosed in a dark, noisome place, and swung upward.

They hand their burdens to others while they mount, then take the sacks again and loop them over the pommels of their saddles.

As the cubs are carried down to where cages wait in the grim bowels of the ship, they cannot know that their last chance of rescue lies at the foot of the gangway with a spear through her heart.

It was bad being enclosed. All the smells that should have dissipated on the wind were held in, close. Cloying the sensitive nostrils. Choking the breath.

When the unnatural motion grew really strong, the whole enclosure they were in slid and crashed against other hard things, frightening the cubs so that they snarled and panted and clawed at the hard non-earth under their pads, trying in vain to steady themselves.

But she was gone forever. No more warm coat, no rough, comforting, cleansing tongue. No more good food, no big body to clamber on, no tail to chase, pretending it was prey.

All their natural behavior was held in abeyance.

They began to recognize when the undifferentiated thudding overhead, where the sky ought to be, presaged the opening of a piece of that dead sky, and the descent from this hole of the two-legged male animals that brought them food.

They began to recognize when the undifferentiated thudding overhead, where the sky ought to be, presaged the opening of a piece of that dead sky, and the descent from this hole of the two-legged male animals that brought them food.

The male two-legs made indecipherable noises: “Eat up, boys! Eat and grow and get strong. You’re going to need it, where you’re going!”

There were wild dogs, barking incessantly and giving off a terrible stench of anger and fear.

But they could hear the wild battles as one dog after another succumbed and was torn to pieces.

The cubs watched warily as the other captives were lowered to the ground near them, and soon the crowd had moved away to inspect the bears, the peacocks, the monkeys.

She was twelve years old but already so beautiful and womanly that her father, the Emperor, had issued a protective edict that no man might be alone in her presence without his express permission.

The balcony overlooked the palace gardens, and beyond them, three of Rome’s fabled Seven Hills could be seen, covered with a mixture of sun-bleached stone buildings and cypress trees, their stately dark fingers wagging at the sky as if admonishing the gods for not giving Aurelia enough to do.

The balcony overlooked the palace gardens, and beyond them, three of Rome’s fabled Seven Hills could be seen, covered with a mixture of sun-bleached stone buildings and cypress trees, their stately dark fingers wagging at the sky as if admonishing the gods for not giving Aurelia enough to do.

Her mother had hinted again, only that morning, that Aurelia was indulging in too much idleness and daydreaming.

As a Roman emperor’s daughter she already had some duties, but they were not of a kind to alleviate the boredom she felt in doing them or in looking ahead to doing them again tomorrow.

She had her regular lessons, of course, but only the music ones actually engaged her, and that was as much because of the charms of her music teacher, a young Assyrian with coal black curly hair and nervous but excited eyes, as for any fascination with the lute.

Her other tutors were old and deadly dull, and didn’t seem to realize that she was quicker-witted than they were, and usually grasped what they were mumbling at her long before they’d got to the end of their meandering sentences.

Aurelia had all the intelligence that her clever parents could bequeath her.

Other young girls—the few her parents considered suitable for her to associate with—seemed to talk and think of little but beautiful young men and marriage, but to Aurelia the idea of following in her mother’s footsteps—marriage at thirteen, motherhood a year later, a life of matronly duties and domesticity—appealed to Aurelia about as strongly as being tied up in the arena and fed to the wild beasts, like those strange, death-inviting Christians.

Once, five years ago, she had seen one of her own handmaids cruelly flogged. It had happened as a direct result of Aurelia’s complaining about her for some trifle.

“For example, the animals in the arena that are set to fight the gladiators, and each other. They’re usually killed in the end, and they’ve done no wrong. Why do they have to be hurt?”

“Why does any living being suffer at is all the will of the gods. It is their design. It is blasphemy to question the order of nature. Surely you’re not questioning your father’s right to show the people signs of his power, to entertain them with circuses?”

“Don’t you know that Christians don’t believe in our gods—that they’ve set up a single, all-powerful god above ours? Could any heresy be worse? Come, enough of this idle tongue-wagging! You must stop asking foolish questions and get down to the study of the heavens.”

Now she rose languidly and walked slowly through the heat to the fountain in the center of the courtyard of her apartment.

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.

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.

She concentrated intently.

Of all the beasts brought from far-off countries to please the crowds with their ferocity, the tiger was one of the most formidable.

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.

“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.”

She glanced again at the scratches on the young man’s smooth brown arm, and quailed for a moment.

The cub’s warm fur was a delight—so soft, so silky-soft, such beautiful colors, 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 he was.

“Does he talk?” Aurelia asked naively.

Aurelia sat on the floor with her diaphanous robes spread about her, and watched the cub eat.