The Rat Prince by Bridget Hodder Page A

and buried my face against his fur. He smelled clean and sweet, like lavender and lemon water. Do rats bathe? This rat must have.
    â€œOh, Blackie!” I exclaimed.
    He poked his snout into my cheek and nuzzled me a bit, until my head cleared and the worst of my fears subsided.
    â€œDid you and the mice dress me in this gown?” I inquired at last in a whisper, as if someone might overhear. “Did you somehow find out about the ball, and you gave me this … this marvelous gift, just as you gave me the ring before?”
    He nodded again. I felt the nod, rather than saw it, because his face was still against mine. “Do you understand me?” I asked.
    Another nod. I was not mad; my tame rat understood human speech.
    â€œBlackie, how can this be?”
    He nimbly hopped from my lap and went to the red book my ancestor had written. He ruffled through the pages until he came to a particular one and pointed to it. Then he looked at me as if to say, Well, come on, then.
    I snatched up the book and focused on the passage Blackie had indicated. It was difficult to make out the quaint old language and the odd spelling of my ancestor, yet I was able to understand it after some moments’ struggle.
    Kin of our kin, this captaine of the shippe upon which our ancestors arrived at this lande, Captaine Ulum by name, when he was given to understande that by the effort of the rats alone was his vessel saved from sinking, for, lowly creetures tho’ they be, they had filled the breeche in the hold with sackes of grain, thusly preventing the seas from rushing in to overwhelme the shippe … When Ulum, then, understoode this miracle, then swore he, ne’er shall there be strife between rat and any descendant of mine, as long as there be sun in skye and man on terra firma; yea, said he, tho’ rats be the most despised of creatures, ne’er shall my son nor my son’s sons so despise them; and none shall slaye them in shippe or house, unto the sun’s darkeninge at the breaking of the Seventh Seal at the end of days.

 
    P RINCE C HAR
    I could see Rose’s mind working.
    â€œNo one in my family has knowledge of this book,” she said, her eyes bigger and rounder than ever.
    â€œBecause in order to protect it from one of your brainless great-grandfathers, who remodeled the library and let his decorators burn thousands of precious volumes, we stole it and hoarded it in our treasure chamber for about one hundred years,” I replied in my own language. “Though it was forgotten by the Lancastyrs, that book is our charter. It gives the details of a pact between an ancient goddess, your family, and my people. This agreement is what gave the rats on Captain Ulum’s ship—and their descendants—long life and intelligence far above that of ordinary rat-folk. The book tells us that if the line of the Lancastyrs should ever come to an end, we rats will return to what we once were.”
    She didn’t need to understand me. She could fill in the blanks for herself. At last, we had broken the long silence between humans and rats, and the charter had been shared with the Lancastyrs once more. I had done it.
    I, Prince Char.
    Rose’s jewel-like eyes closed. “Ah,” she said. “A mystery is solved. The Lancastyr coat of arms features a sable rat, to the right side of a ship, under crossed swords. My father told me it was a device indicating persistence, endurance, cleverness. The rat may indeed have represented those qualities, but clearly the device tells the tale of our ancestor Captain Ulum and the rats.” Then she looked at me.
    I nodded again. The coat of arms she mentioned was the same one etched upon the ring I had given her.
    â€œWhere did you get this gown?” she asked.
    Millennia of history before her—a family tale dating from the time of the Phoenicians—yet her first question was about a dress?
    Nonetheless I would have