Tiger, Tiger. Lynne Banks Reid

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?’