by Kage Baker
"Oh, the poor little thing!" There were actually tears in her eyes.
"See, somebody took a baby goat, and they did some sort of primitive surgery on its head—"
"I can see what they did, damn it!" She was examining its little feet. "And somebody gilded its hooves once, too, look at this, that's why they've grown out this way. What kind of bastard would do a thing like this?"
"Somebody who wanted to make some money." I shrugged. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, remember that at least he's running around in a nice green garden this way. If he were still a goat, he'd probably have ended up as somebody's barbecue by now. And it's not as though he's in any pain."
"How the hell would you know?" She gave me a truly savage look. "How would you like to have a pair of your wisdom teeth bound so they grew into each other?"
How graphic. I backed off a pace. "Okay, okay, so it's cruel. What can we do about it, though?"
"You'll see." Grimly, she rose, the unicorn docile under her arm, and swept away with him.
"But you can't—"
Crash. Nicholas burst through the hedge, breeches already at half-mast. His whoop of triumph was strangled as Nef turned to glare at us. "God save you, madam," he choked, sweeping off his biretta.
"Buenos días, señor," she replied icily. The unicorn bleated. She turned away and marched on. We stared after her.
"What ails the lady?" he inquired at last.
"She hath discovered Sir Walter's unicorn, and the truth of it hath moved her to a great passion of rage," I explained.
"Charity to dumb beasts?" His eyes began to spark again. "Why, perhaps she should have been a shepherdess. God knows she's no duenna." And with that we changed the subject and had great joy of each other, there and then. Still, in the back of my mind a small beacon flashed red, red. I'd never seen Nef angry before.
It was a week before anybody found out what she meant to do, exactly a week to the day, and in that seven-day span summer left us: overnight. Nicholas and I went to sleep sprawled on top of his blankets and in the morning woke huddled under them.
I sat up in astonishment, in the dry cold air. The green leaves at the window stared in at me with a shocked look. What was wrong with them? I slipped out of bed to stare back. Yellow edges like fire beginning all around, chlorophyll breaking down, sugars blooming. I turned away. Nicholas lay watching me, an odd expression on his face.
"It's so cold," I said. "And the air has a smell."
He nodded. "Autumn," he said. "Time to put the pavilion about the Portingale orange, lest it die of cold. Come back into the bed, love, lest thou do likewise." I scrambled back in beside him gladly enough. He pulled me close to his body.
"It is very deciduous in this country, is it not?" I remarked. I could feel him bemusedly sorting out the meaning of the word, and then his heartbeat quickened. He burrowed down to face me and said in Greek:
"Leaves fall in England, yes. But do they not also fall in Spain?"
I answered warily. "Yes, we have autumn in Spain. But not so much. There were not many trees where we lived. Pines there were. So, you see, I have never seen such a season."
"I thought you said you also lived in France. And there are many trees in that country."
"We were in the south of France," I countered. "In the spring and summer."
"Aah." He narrowed his eyes.
"And perhaps I went to Egypt once," I added.
"Egypt." One corner of his mouth lifted. Sneer or smile?
"Yes. Or somewhere in the Holy Land. I remember seeing great seas of sand when I was small. There is no autumn in the desert, you know."
"Truly?"
"Yea, truly." I kissed him, and wriggled upward to the pillow and the safety of English. It was a great language to be evasive in. "But we have no time to debate these things, señor. The season changeth! Winter is at hand! The acorn shall drop for the rooting swine, and each little herb of the field shall bear seed according to its kind, señor! The holly berry waxeth red, doth it not? And I must gather fruiting body and example of them all. Quickly, señor, quickly!"
"I'll show thee seed enough." He reared up like a dolphin cresting a wave.
When we waltzed down to breakfast, very pleased with ourselves, the whole house was bustling. A brisk fire roared and snapped on the hearth. Sir Walter finished his oat porridge and poached egg in a gulp and lounged back in his chair, eyeing Nef.
"I think me this would be good weather for hunting," he remarked. "Have you never seen one of our English hunts, Lady Margaret?" I rolled my eyes at Nicholas.
"Never, señor." Nef did not look up from her dish of eggs and bacon.
"I think they have no such hunts in Spain. Our English hound is the only beast for the chase, I may say, and our English red deer the prince of quarries."
"I know little of these things, señor," she said calmly, buttering a slice of bread.
"Of course, I never kept a deer park." Sir Walter looked out of his window with a sigh. "The Idens of old, though valiant, were but modest gentlemen and had no such means."
"Come, sir, think of your ancestor! Old Sir Alexander hunted traitors, did he not? What need to take a deer when he had taken the monster Cade, eh?" cheered Nicholas, biting into an apple. It spat wine.
Sir Walter did not brighten much, though. " 'Tis true. A valorous man. Still, I could wish…"
I don't know what he wished, because even as I sat there savoring their mortal grace and silliness, there came a terrible outcry from the garden.
Before it was sound, there was a great blast of smell: two adult males in extremes of fear and dismay. I caught my breath. Nef lifted her eyes to mine. Sir Walter maundered on, Nicholas's fine teeth champed away at his apple, the serving boy with quiet pride lifted the cover from a dish of pudding. Then the shouting became audible to them.
"Sir! Sir! You are robbed, you are robbed outright, you are plundered!" yelled Master Ffrawney, bursting into the great hall. He had one of the servants by the collar, a little old wreck of a man. Nicholas had pointed him out to me as the animal keeper. The keeper staggered forward weeping and collapsed on his face.
Sir Walter leaped up, reeking with alarm. "Speak, man! What say you?" he demanded. But the keeper was incoherent, and Master Ffrawney spurned him impatiently.
"It appeareth, Sir Walter, that through the negligence of this lying knave one of your chiefest treasures hath been mutilated. Someone hath stolen the horn of your unicorn!"
A chorus of gasps from the assembled company. Eyes met horrified eyes, except for Nef's eyes, which were staring straight ahead.
Another horrified gasp, this one of realization, from me, and quite drowned out by Sir Walter's roar:
"Let me see it! Is he butchered?" He did not wait for a reply but ran for the door, closely followed by the keeper, who was wailing out that it weren't his fault; and so followed the rest of the household, nearly, streaming down the manor steps through the sweet crisp air.
The unicorn was tied near the aviary, kicking and bleating. Sir Walter dropped to his knees beside it and raised profound ululation when he saw what the vandal had done to his heart's zoological darling. I pushed close to see. Dear, dear. The horn had been removed neatly, all the way down to the skull. Cleanly, with surgical clipping of the fur. And a tidy smooth bandage of, as I live and breathe, Graft-O-Plast.
"My unicorn of Hind!" screamed Sir Walter. "My thirty pounds!"
"Twenty pounds eightpence," said Nicholas faintly.
"Chide me not, master, for sweet Saint Mary's sake!" The keeper groveled. "Devils roast me forever if I ever slacked at my post. I put him in his pen last night, and shut the door fast, and when I comes in this morning, he were like that! God smite me with blindness if it weren't just so!"
"Thou liest, whoreson knave!" Master Ffrawney kicked at him again, but the keeper dodged. "Well we know thou hast taken the horn for thyself!"
"By Jesu and the heavenly host, master, I never did!" The keeper grabbed Sir Walter's ankl
es. "What should I do with the thing if I stole it?"
"Why, rogue, sell it for gold! All the world knoweth the horn of the unicorn hath great virtue for healing. Any learned doctor—" Master Ffrawney almost bit his tongue off, he stopped so fast.
Too late. The implication went off like a psychic bomb. The air before my eyes danced with red numbers, red readouts for eight mortals' mounting blood pressure all trying to claim my attention at once. I could scarcely breathe for the smell. And of course here came Joseph at the run, aware something had happened but only just beginning to get an idea of what. He paused. Every head turned to fix on him. Sir Walter's eyes were like a furious dog's.
The reading went off the scale. Killer apes. "Spaniard," someone muttered.
I edged a little backward; in another few seconds I'd be unable to resist the urge to wink out of there and reappear in a safer place, and the mortals would startle away from where I'd stood. Too bad, but I couldn't help it. Oh, the smell. A hand closed on mine, and I jerked and looked up into Nicholas's eyes, cold and sane.
"Doctor Ruy," said Sir Walter. "Hast thou meddled here?" What a thick, barbarous tongue English could be.
Joseph took a step backward. He could read them all, he took in the bandaged skull of the goat in a glance, he met my eyes and knew. He turned his head to Nef, who stood still and quite composed beside me. There was an impact. I staggered. Nicholas's arm went around me.
Joseph strode forward and went down on one knee beside the goat. "Never, sir. Why, this is German wax," he said.
What?
Sir Walter blinked a few times. "How now?"
"This." Joseph tapped the bandage. "I have seen it in the Low Countries. Ferriers use it, and cattle thieves. It cannot be found in England. Some villain of a Fleming hath been here, as God is my salvation."
"A Fleming?" The keeper was bewildered.
"My friend, it is well known what price the horn of a unicorn brings in Flanders, and for what terrible purpose. Sir Walter, my heart is sick with grief at your loss. We must be grateful that the miscreant did not slaughter your little beast outright, though you may be sure he refrained only so that another horn might grow back, when peradventure the cunning thief may return, hoping to work yet another outrage! Precautions must be taken, my friend!"
They all shook their heads, trying to make out what he was saying. The violence index was dropping. Joseph turned to John, the gatekeeper. "Hath there been any come to see the garden in recent days who spake like one from Flanders?" Joseph inquired sternly. "Or ragged men, who might be soldiers back from foreign wars?"
"Uh—" John's mouth opened. An idea was put into his head. "Aye! Aye, they was two such."
"Two." Joseph nodded. "You see, he had an accomplice."
"Damned Flemings!" Sir Walter clenched his fists.
"German wax?" said the keeper.
I closed my eyes with relief. The little screen of numbers trickled down, out of imminent hazard. The mortals were only confused and angry now. Someone muttered that he had seen a soldier drinking in the village, and someone else was telling a third what his old father used to say about Flemings. Sir Walter was shouting orders to search the grounds.
Joseph walked through them to Nef. They looked at each other. Impact again. The whole garden skewed and slid over sideways, with its tiny creatures gesticulating and running about all flat and far away. Standing through that ephemeral reality were two towering clouds with edges sharp as razors, in terrible conversation: Joseph and Nef. Their words were sound below sound, unspeakable violent silence, a quarrel to break the inner ear. Off in a corner, a little squiggle of smoke, wailing and scrabbling: me. Surely Heaven was going to crack right open with that percussive wrath. Then the garden was back in real time, and I was standing, clutching my ears. Joseph and Nefer had not moved. He still looked at her, and at last she looked aside, diffidently, and arranged a fold of her skirt.
They were not any kind of human creature at all.
"Rose." Nicholas touched my shoulder. I swung around to him and wrapped my arms tight about his neck. Without even a word or a question he carried me away, good man, away to the long walk under the rose arbor. I lay there with my head in his lap, crying like a fool. How I wished, how I wished I were a mortal girl.
"Ah. There she is." Joseph, at the end of the walkway. Hurriedly I sat up. He strolled in and knelt on the grass beside us. Nicholas sat straight and squared his shoulders.
"My poor child. This nasty business hath unsettled thee quite, I see. Please do not be frightened, Daughter. All, I promise thee, shall be well."
"So we trust, sir," Nicholas said. Joseph just smiled at him.
"It is an act of loving charity to comfort my child that is so distraught. I must offer my profound thanks, young man."
"Why, sir, I accept them with a good will," said Nicholas coolly. "And must express my admiration, in good sooth: there were hounds on your track just now, and you faced them down as boldly as any fox God ever made."
Joseph's smile quirked up into his beard. His gaze, though, was flat and assessing.
"Come, come, young man, your metaphor! Any fox that faced down his enemies would be torn to pieces where he stood. The fox hath more discretion: he hath speed, he dodges and feints, he hath a thousand places to hide himself."
"And leaves a stink wherewith he may be tracked, alas; and so is slain," added Nicholas.
"It seems thy young man is hostile, daughter." Joseph cocked an eyebrow at me.
"By no means, sir." Nicholas took my hand in his. "But I do grieve for the kits of the fox, who are slain with him though they have stolen no hens. Nor unicorn's horns."
"My young friend, what should a fox want with such a thing?"
"What indeed, since surely such a fox hath the wit to see that the creature was only a goat!"
Joseph blinked. "Aye."
"What a comedy! And I would have laughed, but that you were nearly murdered before your daughter's eyes."
There was a long silence. "You are a clever boy." I didn't like Joseph's smile at all. He settled into a more comfortable position, and his voice took on an edge like cutting glass. "Loquere mihi, puere."
"Facio libens." Nicholas matched his Latin without a second's hesitation. "Senex."
"You have a bright and questing mind. Why have you turned its light on my personal affairs?"
"I did so at first because I perceived you to be a threat to my master, my faith, and my nation. Having satisfied myself that you were not such, or at least not directly, I continued in the second place because I fell in love with your daughter, whose unlikely talents, remarkable opinions, and charming lies present an enigma I feel compelled to understand. Not merely to know the truth about her, but also better to comprehend the strange events taking place under Sir Walter's roof." Nicholas leaned forward to emphasize the last point.
Joseph looked very calm. He stroked his beard a moment before inquiring:
"What conclusions have you drawn, may I ask?"
"None that I think you would care very much to have spoken aloud. I will not judge your life; but I will say that it has not agreed much with your daughter. Accordingly, I had determined to ask you for her hand."
Oh dear. Oh dear. How sweet, but oh dear. Joseph looked vastly amused.
"In light of your present sleeping arrangements, this is a generous offer indeed, but I am afraid you have overlooked the fact that I am not the only man in this rose arbor whose past does not bear close examination."
Nicholas went pale.
"Oh, yes, my young friend, you have enemies. Talkative ones. And you and I have something else in common, you see: I too am fascinated by mysteries. I suspect my sources have told me a great deal more about you than my daughter has told you about me."
"Rose…" Nicholas glanced at me. He ran his tongue over his lips.
"Now, my child, as you pointed out, is of remarkable opinions and doubtless would not be very shocked if I told her of your intimate connection with a group t
hat interpreted Holy Scripture in a highly… original way. In fact, I think she would find the allegations of your personal stamina and appetites quite amusing. And, having experienced it herself, she would well understand that your considerable personal charm drew not a few converts to a fairly disreputable sect."
Nicholas winced deeply. He turned and took me by the shoulders. "Rose. What he is saying is the truth. But I…"
"I know." I glared at Joseph. "I don't care." I turned and put my arms around Nicholas's neck and kissed him. He returned my kiss in confusion. Joseph leaned back, watching us.
"There, my friend, you see? She has a forgiving nature."
Shut up, I transmitted.
"But I am somewhat more cautious. Call it the point of view of an old fox, perhaps, watching from the safety of his den as a young fox makes a stand before an oncoming pack of hounds. This is a valiant young fox, surely, but he is soon to be a dead fox as well.
"I will not grant my daughter's hand to such a fool. However, I trust that we may still remain good friends. Good day, young man. Daughter, when you are sufficiently composed, you may wish to speak to me privately, but there is no immediate need to do so." He made his exit.
Nicholas was distraught, and I was furious, but please note what Joseph had just accomplished: my panic horror, brought on by the vision of the inhuman force he really was, had vanished. I now wanted to kill the smug little son of a bitch, but I wasn't afraid of him. Further, he had just spared me the ordeal of explaining to Nicholas why I couldn't marry him. I could no more marry him than I could believe in his God, could I? I was no more human than Joseph was.
As soon as Joseph's back was out of sight, Nicholas cleared his throat. "Rose."
"What?" I turned to him, almost irritable. He was watching me closely.
"Shall I plead my case?"
"It matters not." I jumped up and shook rose petals out of my skirt. It had become cold in the garden. "All his talk was lies and ill will."
"I'll will, yes, but not lies." He got up to follow me. "I must confess I did such things."
"I knew it before. Master Ffrawney came to me with just such a story," I announced.
