Her mother sometimes said that the Princess Chandra suffered from being a middle child.  Her little brother, Raj, was of course heir to the throne, and much cherished by their father.  Her older sister, the Princess Savitri, was considered very beautiful, and it was always she who was sent out to give alms to the poor and be generally admired.

Chandra knew that she was not considered beautiful.  She had always been called a plain child - behind her back and to her face - and to make matters worse she had suffered a tiger bite at the age of eleven.  It was, as everyone agreed, a miracle she was not killed, or at least dismembered.  But the tiger had been dispatched, and the princess’s blood flow stemmed, and all that appeared to have come of the incident was a very large scar.

Following this scare, the Princess Chandra’s mother had begun to dote upon her younger daughter, and hated to let her out of her sight.

‘I don’t know how I’ll let you go if you are ever to be married,’ the mother said one day.

‘Most people agree that I shan’t marry,’ said Chandra.  ‘Or some say a second son of some court may take me, if I’m lucky.  I don’t call it lucky, Mother, to marry anyone who doesn’t love me, second son or otherwise.’

‘You have never spoken of love before, Chandra.’

‘You have never spoken of marriage before, Mother.’

‘There is something strange about you - I see it now.  Are you in love, my child?’

‘Me in love!’  Chandra laughed, and even to her the laugh sounded convincing, though she struggled not to choke on it.  ‘Mother, why are we talking of such things?’

‘Because,’ her mother said, ‘your sister has accepted a proposal of marriage.’

Savitri, Chandra learned, was to be married to the heir to the throne of a neighbouring kingdom.  He had apparently travelled many miles, driven by rumours of the princess’s beauty, and - so he said - his disbelief that they could really be true.

‘He said,’ Savitri told her sister, ‘that they did not do me justice.’

‘How flattering,’ Chandra said.

‘Of course he was exaggerating,’ said Savitri, smoothing her hair in front of a mirror.  ‘I believe most men practise their flattery as if it were a fine art.’

‘Then your prince is an accomplished artist.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And what other qualities does he have?’ asked Chandra.

‘Well, he is handsome, of course.  Heir to a kingdom.  He has quite excellent manners.’

‘And do you love him?’

‘Love?’  At last Savitri turned to face her sister.  ‘Mother told me earlier that you were speaking of love.  In fact she swore you were in love yourself, and seemed to think that I must be your confidante.’

‘Savitri,’ said Chandra.  ‘You and I are princesses.  What use is love to us?’

‘Well,’ said Savitri, ‘that rather depends.  If it was someone suitable…’

Chandra shook her head, looking sadly down at her hands.  Then she looked up again, saw her sister’s face and realised her mistake.  ‘I am not in love.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Savitri.  ‘Not a servant!’

‘No,’ said Chandra.  ‘Worse off than a servant.  He is poor, Savitri.  Dreadfully poor.’

‘Chandra, you are lying to me!  What poor people do you know?’

‘You may be the one who rides out to the people with the food we couldn’t eat,’ said Chandra, ‘but I have seen suffering that you cannot imagine.’

Savitri raised her eyebrows.  ‘Indeed?  And you have fallen in love with one of them?’

‘Savitri,’ said Chandra, with a sigh.  ‘Don’t let it trouble you.  It scarcely matters, as he does not and never will love me back.’

‘What makes you so sure?’  Savitri moved towards her sister, and took her hands in hers.  ‘You know what people say about you, but if they’ve made you believe that no man can ever love you, then you are very silly.  Mother and I look upon your scar with respect, as though you were a surviving soldier.  Now I don’t say that I think you ought to pursue this pauper, but I’m sure there are men of breeding who value other things before beauty.’

‘I admit I have come to doubt the integrity of the average human male,’ said Chandra.  ‘But that isn’t it - not at all.  He simply isn’t the type to fall in love.  Now let’s not talk about it anymore,’ she said, speaking more quickly as she caught sight of the sunset through the window.  ‘I am tired.  I should like an early night.’

‘Another early night!’ said Savitri.  ‘How interesting that you should have told me of this man you love.  I wonder, if I made a note of all your early nights, whether I would find a pattern.  If I go into your chamber tonight, Chandra, will you be there?’

‘It’s all quite innocent,’ said Chandra, as panic seized her.  Why had she let herself become so weak as to confide in her sister?  It was foolish to confide in anyone, and now Savitri suspected something - though Chandra did not see how she could ever guess.  ‘I must go now.  My head is aching.’

This was quite true, for not just her head but her entire body was aching.  Chandra hurried to her bedroom and shut herself in, arriving just as the light from the full moon began to seep through her window.  She fell to her knees and crawled to her bed, under which she had earlier hidden a joint of meat.  It had started to smell more strongly to her now.  She bowed her head and took the joint between her teeth, and then went to the window.

Finally, when the aching had stopped and she felt strong and agile, Chandra jumped.

- - - - -

There he was, silhouetted in the moonlight and almost hidden by the long grass, but Chandra recognised him at once.  She dropped the meat, and gave a low growl.  A few birds scattered.  He looked up, saw her and began pacing towards her.

She called him Swarna, in her own mind, but she could not have called him by name if she had wanted to.  Tigers had no language.  They communicated by sound, but without words, as well as by sight and by smell.  Chandra could tell from the way Swarna held himself, and from the sounds he made, that he was angry with her.  But she did not feel afraid.  After a month away from him, she was just happy to be there.

Chandra lowered her head, and nudged the joint of meat towards Swarna.  He too bowed his head, and sniffed.  She could smell the human scent on it - the scent of her human self, among others - and so could he.  He looked at her distastefully, and turned away from the meat.  He was no scavenger.  Clearly he was not starving either - not this time.  On other days, he would have devoured it.

Swarna began to slink away, and Chandra followed.  He neither objected nor encouraged her.  He went to the lake and began to drink.  She stood beside him, and drank also.  After a while, when his thirst was quenched, he put his feet into the water and waded in until it was almost too deep to stand.  Chandra followed him, stopping sooner and lying down.  She rolled onto her back, enjoying the cool water beneath her and the night air above her.

The first time she had entered the water as a tiger, she had at once understood why they were so fond of it.  It felt more soothing than it did when she was human.  It was all that fur trapping her heat, she supposed.  She thought it strange that tigers were the only cats that did not dislike water.  She knew that even the big cats of other hot countries would never enter a body of water if they could help it.

Chandra felt the water shifting around her, and heard Swarna’s low, growling breaths as he approached her.  He bent over her, and began to nuzzle her face.  She knew that he liked her in that respect, anyway.  Sometimes she thought about letting him mate with her, but was always discouraged by the certain knowledge that it would mean far more to her than it would to him.  As she had more or less told Savitri, tigers did not fall in love.

She, however, had found no trouble in falling in love with him.  To an average human, all male tigers were much the same.  But she saw the differences in tigers as clearly as she saw the differences in humans.  Swarna’s inability to talk to her had only made it easier.  Such basic communication made for simple honesty.  When he expressed himself, his meaning was plain.  At the end of one night, she knew him and loved him.

Chandra batted him off, and got to her feet.  She waded out of the lake and shook herself.  It was always tempting to let him continue, but it would be unwise.  What if she fell pregnant?  What would become of the cubs when she was human again?  The reckless streak in her wanted to do just that, only to find out what would happen, but she felt sure that whatever came of it was likely to have her exiled from the palace.

The night was short.  With him, they always were.  Chandra could scarcely believe it when she saw the first red glow of sunlight, and she ran back to the palace faster than she would have believed possible.  By the time she was climbing through her bedroom window, she had almost changed back.  Her servant, coming in to help her dress, was astonished to see the princess naked on hands and knees, underneath her windowsill.

When Chandra stood up, and turned to the window, she was astonished to see Swarna approaching the palace walls.  He had never followed her home before.  Just for a moment, she caught his eye, but then he moved behind the wall and out of her sight.

‘Do you see something troubling, madam?’ her servant asked.

Chandra knew that a tiger near the palace was the thing that caused the most anxiety among the royal family and servants.  It was greatly feared that the little Prince Raj would one day be snatched away by a hungry tiger, leaving his parents heartbroken and the kingdom with no heir.  If Chandra revealed that Swarna was there, the palace guards would do everything in their power to kill him.

‘No,’ she said.  ‘Just a beautiful sunrise.’

‘Good,’ said the servant.  ‘Your brother’s nurse has been instructed to take him to play outside.  Of course we want it to be pleasant for him.’

Chandra, with a growing sense of unease, hoped that it would be.