The Lady and the Unicorn

by Tracy Chevalier

  ‘What did you do to her?’ Philippe asked. He has a quiet voice but we heard it well enough.

  ‘I tried to see her daughter.’

  ‘You fool,’ I muttered.

  ‘You wouldn't think so if you could see her.’

  ‘He has seen her,’ Philippe said. ‘We all have, in Taste.’

  ‘Now we're paying for your folly,’ I said. ‘If Léon were here I'd be able to talk over the terms properly. He could make Jean Le Viste see reason. But you, you're just the messenger. There's no business to be done with you.’

  ‘I'm sorry, Georges,’ Nicolas said, ‘but I doubt Léon Le Vieux could have helped. Jean Le Viste is a difficult man — once he's decided on something it's not so easy to get him to change. I did once, when these tapestries were meant to be a battle. But I don't think I or even Léon could manage it again.’

  ‘You had them changed to unicorns? I should have guessed, given how much you favour your ladies.’

  ‘It was his wife, really. En fait, you should blame her. Blame the women.’ He raised his mug to a whore in yellow across the room. She smiled at him. Brussels whores like strangers — they think a Paris man will pay better and be gentler. Perhaps they're right. Now they were beginning to circle Nicolas like gulls around fish guts. Myself, I was with a whore just once, before Christine, and then I'd had so much beer I couldn't remember what she did. Whores sit on my knee now and then, when there are no seats left or the night is slow. But they know there is nothing to be had from me.

  ‘ Écoute, Georges,’ Nicolas said, ‘I'm sorry about all this. I'll give you a hand in the workshop for a bit if that will help.’

  I snorted. ‘You — ’ Then I stopped. I could almost hear Christine hissing in my ear, ‘Take what help we can get.’ I nodded. ‘A new batch of wool has arrived that needs sorting. You can help with that.’

  ‘You've not asked about the first two tapestries,’ Philippe said. ‘Smell and Sound. Your Taste is not the only woman in the world, after all.’

  Smell and Sound were rolled up, with rosemary tucked into them to keep out moths, and locked in a long wooden box in the corner of the workshop. I never sleep so well when there are finished tapestries in the workshop. Even with Georges Le Jeune and Luc sleeping near them, to me every footstep outside is a thief come to take them, every cooking fire a blaze that will destroy them.

  ‘You didn't change them, did you?’ Nicolas said.

  ‘No, no, they are as we painted them. And they look very fine when hung. They are like little worlds unto themselves.’

  ‘Is that what noblewomen do all day?’ Georges Le Jeune asked. ‘Play music and feed birds and wear fine jewels out in the woods?’

  Nicolas snorted. ‘Some of them, perhaps.’ He reached for the jug and shook it. There was no sound of sloshing.

  ‘Luc, go and get more beer,’ I said. I had given up being angry at Nicolas. Perhaps he was right — Jean Le Viste wanted what he wanted, and there was naught we could do about it.

  Luc grabbed the jug and went to the keeper of the barrel in the corner. As he waited for the jug to fill the whore in yellow began to talk to him, gesturing at Nicolas. Luc's eyes widened — he's not yet used to the attentions of women — and he shook his head.

  ‘Have you ever seen a unicorn, then?’ Georges Le Jeune asked.

  ‘No,’ Nicolas said. ‘But I have a friend who's seen one, in woods a two days' ride from Paris.’

  ‘Really?’ I'd always thought unicorns lived far away to the East, with the elephants. But I am ignorant in such matters, so I held my tongue.

  ‘He said it ran very fast, like a bright white light through the trees, and that he could hardly make out its features beyond its horn — though he did say it seemed to smile at him. That's why I've made it look so content in the paintings.’

  ‘And are the women all content as well?’ Philippe said.

  Nicolas shrugged.

  The jug was full, but the keeper handed it to the whore rather than to Luc, who trailed behind as she hugged the jug to her chest and sauntered over to us. ‘Your beer, gentlemen,’ she said, planting herself in front of Nicolas and bending over to show off her bosom as she set the jug on the table. ‘Any space for me here?’

  ‘Of course,’ Nicolas said, pulling her down onto the bench next to him. ‘A table isn't complete without a whore or two.’

  I would never say such a thing to a woman, not even a whore herself, but she in yellow just laughed. ‘I'll call my friends over, then,’ she said. In a moment two others had joined us and our corner became the noisiest in the tavern.

  I didn't stay long after that. Whores are a young man's game. As I left the yellow whore was sitting in Nicolas' lap, one in green had her arm around a red-faced Georges Le Jeune, and a third in red was teasing Luc and Philippe.

  I pissed away most of the beer on the way back. When I got in Christine was sitting up waiting for me. She didn't say anything — I knew what she wanted to hear.

  ‘Then you will weave,’ I said. ‘It's the only way we can finish them. Not a word to anyone, though.’

  Christine nodded. Then she smiled. Then she kissed me and pulled me towards our bed. Yes, whores are best left to the young.

  ALIÉNOR DE LA CHAPELLE

  I never thought I would be alone with Nicolas des Innocents again in the garden. My parents left us there, so concerned with the news Nicolas brought from Paris that Maman didn't even tell me to come away. I sat back on my heels, careful not to squash the lily of the valley growing nearby. It dangled near my legs, and whenever it brushed against them a sweet scent filled the air.

  When he'd left last summer I thought Nicolas would never come back. He had been comfortable with us at first, but had suddenly stopped flirting with me and become short with Maman and Papa. At the same time he began to paint more quickly. Then one day he didn't come to the workshop, and Philippe told us that Nicolas had gone and left him to finish painting the last cartoon. Perhaps we had offended him with our plain Brussels ways. Perhaps we didn't hand out enough fair words about his work. Friends of Papa's sometimes came and stood behind him as he painted and pointed out mistakes — the unicorn looked too much like a horse, or too much like a goat, or the lion looked like a dog, or the genet like a fox, or the orange tree like a walnut tree. Nicolas hated that.

  He was standing over me now. I got to my feet. I did not move away but stood very close to him — so close that I could feel the heat of his tunic, smell the leather of his horse's reins on his hands and the sweat in his hair and the sun-warmed skin of his neck.

  ‘You look tired, beauty.’

  ‘I'm up half the night with the sewing. Now with your news I'll be up all night.’

  ‘I'm sorry for that. I don't like bringing bad news to anyone.’

  I stepped back. ‘Why did you leave without saying goodbye last summer?’

  Nicolas snorted. ‘You are like your father — blunt to a fault.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘I had work that took me back to Paris.’

  ‘I can hear in his voice when a man is lying.’

  Nicolas scraped his feet on the path. ‘What do you care, beauty? I was just a bothersome Paris artist to you and your family.’

  I smiled. ‘That may be, but we expect the good grace of a farewell.’

  Though I would never tell him, after he'd left I did not speak for three days. No one noticed — I am a quiet girl — except Maman, who said nothing but kissed my forehead when I finally opened my mouth again. She rarely kisses anyone.

  Nicolas sighed. ‘I found out things then I would rather not know. Maybe I'll tell you one day. Not now.’

  Before we could say more, Maman called us in for our meal. Afterwards Nicolas went off and didn't come back till evening bells had rung the end of our work. Papa and the boys took him off to the tavern while Maman sewed Taste and I sewed À Mon Seul Désir. We were very quiet — Maman was worrying about the tapestries, and didn't even ask what I thought of Nicolas returni
ng to us.

  Later Papa came back and he and Maman went into the house while I stayed up sewing. Much later, Georges Le Jeune and Luc returned. Luc was very sick with the beer and kept going out into the street.

  I didn't want to ask but couldn't help myself. ‘Didn't Nicolas come with you?’ I said to Georges Le Jeune, who had thrown himself down onto his pallet near my feet. He smelled of beer and smoke from the tavern fire and — I wrinkled my nose — a cheap flower water the whores buy from the market.

  My brother laughed — loudly, as he'd drunk too much to know he was being loud. I shushed him so that he wouldn't wake our parents or Madeleine. ‘He's not likely to be back tonight. He's found his own pallet, and it's yellow.’ Georges Le Jeune began to laugh again.

  I got up and stepped over him towards the house. I would rather go to my bed than stay in the workshop with his stink and silliness, no matter how much sewing there was yet to do. I would get up early and work while the men were still asleep.

  Nicolas didn't return till late the next morning, when we'd already been working many hours, except for Luc, who'd been so sick that he was still no use to us, and was asleep in the house. The weavers were at the looms. Maman and I were working with the batch of new wool that had just arrived — some of it for the tapestries we were weaving now, the rest to be prepared for the last two tapestries. Maman was sorting it, using a waist-high wooden mill to wind the wool thread into hanks, then hanging those by colour on rollers. I was preparing bobbins by pulling strands of thread together from the rollers and winding them onto the little wooden sticks, ready for the weavers to use.

  ‘Where is he?’ Maman kept saying as she pulled at the wool.

  Papa didn't seem bothered. ‘He'll come when he's ready.’

  ‘We need him now.’

  I didn't know why she was so angry. Nicolas owed us nothing, nor did we need him. If he wanted to sleep the morning away with his whore, that was his choice. We did not have to care where he was.

  Then he arrived, stinking almost as much as Jacques Le Bœuf. He was still merry after a night at Le Vieux Chien, where others were silent with their sore heads. He thumped Papa and Georges Le Jeune on their backs and called out to Maman and me.

  ‘Did you know,’ he said, ‘that Philippe is now a man of the flesh? He found his way with a whore last night, or rather, she showed him the way. He'll know what he's doing now.’ Those last words seemed to be aimed like an arrow that flew straight across the room at me. I bowed my head over the bobbin and wound faster.

  Maman put her hand over mine to slow me down. I could feel her fury in her touch. ‘Don't talk of such sinning in front of Aliénor,’ she muttered. ‘You can take your whoring straight back to Paris.’

  ‘Christine —’ Papa said.

  ‘I won't have such muck in my house, I don't care how much we need his help.’

  ‘Stop now,’ Papa said.

  Maman stopped. When Papa uses a certain voice she always does stop. He cleared his throat and I stopped winding the bobbin — he usually makes that noise when he is going to say something worth hearing.

  ‘So, Nicolas,’ Papa began, ‘you said last night that you would help us for a bit. Perhaps the beer has washed away those words, so I'm repeating them for you to remember. You can help with this new batch of wool — you and Aliénor will sort it so that Christine doesn't have to. Aliénor will show you what needs doing, and you can be her eyes.’

  I sat back in surprise. I didn't want him sitting next to me, smelling of other women.

  Then Papa surprised us even more. ‘Christine, you weave at Luc's place for the moment. When he's well again you'll take your son's place. Georges Le Jeune, you're to do the figures in À Mon Seul Désir.’

  ‘The figures?’ my brother said. ‘Which parts?’

  ‘All of them. You can start on her face once the wool is prepared. You're ready for such work without me standing over you.’

  Georges Le Jeune pushed the pedals under his feet with a crash. ‘Thank you, Papa.’

  ‘Go on, Christine,’ Papa said.

  The bench creaked as Maman and Georges Le Jeune sat down side by side. Otherwise the room was silent.

  ‘We have to make this change,’ Papa said. ‘Otherwise we'll never finish the tapestries in time. Not a word of this outside the workshop. If the Guild hears of her weaving it could fine us, or even shut down our looms. Christine will always work at the back loom by the garden door so that anyone looking in the front window won't see her. Joseph and Thomas, there'll be extra pay at the end for you to keep your mouths shut.’

  Joseph and Thomas said nothing. What could they say? Their jobs depended on Maman working as well. As Papa had explained, we had no choice.

  Nicolas came over to me. ‘Well, beauty, what am I to do? Show me. Here are my hands.’ He put his on mine. He smelled of a used bed.

  I pulled my hands back. ‘Don't touch me.’

  Nicolas laughed. ‘You're not jealous of a whore, are you? I thought you didn't even like me.’

  ‘Maman!’

  But Maman was chuckling about something with Georges Le Jeune. She had already forgotten her anger at Nicolas, she was that pleased to be weaving. I would have to fend him off alone.

  I turned from him and placed my hands on the wool mill Maman had left, plucking the taut lines of thread with my fingers. ‘We're winding this wool into hanks,’ I said briskly. ‘Then we prepare bobbins from them. Tiens, we'll have to unwind what Maman has done and start again. Hold here and wrap the thread around your hands while I unwind. Don't let it drop to the floor, or it will get dirty.’

  Nicolas took up the thread and I began to turn the mill, faster and faster so that he couldn't keep up. ‘Steady!’ he cried. ‘Remember, I've never handled wool. You'll have to be patient with me.’

  ‘We've no time for you to be slow. You and Jean Le Viste have made sure of that. Keep up with me.’

  ‘All right, beauty. As you wish.’

  At first I was careful to stay as far from Nicolas as I could, and did not let our hands touch — not easy when working with wool. I didn't chatter to him, and answered his questions with few words. I was quick to find fault, and never praised him.

  Instead of making him angry or aloof, my distance seemed to please him all the more. He began to call me Mistress of the Wool, and asked more questions the shorter my answers became. Even after he had learned to make a smooth hank on the wool mill he often got his threads tangled just so that I would have to help him unpick the knots and touch his fingers. He was a good pupil. Within a few days he could make hanks and prepare bobbins almost as well as Maman and me. Sometimes I could even leave him to work alone while I tended my plants — May is no time to neglect a garden.

  Nicolas had a keen eye for colour and separated the wool into more hanks of different shades than Maman would have. He even noticed that a red wool lot was two lots dyed separately and mixed together so that they didn't quite match. Papa sent the whole lot back and demanded a fee of the dyer not to complain to the dyers' guild. That night he took Nicolas to the tavern again to celebrate. Nicolas didn't come back till late the next morning. This time no one scolded him. I simply handed him the bobbin I had been winding and escaped to the garden so that I wouldn't have to smell the whore on him.

  Maman was less worried about Nicolas being with me now that he was staying to help us and she was able to weave. I've never known her so happy as when she was working at the loom. She paid little attention to Madeleine, nor me either unless Nicolas and I asked for her help with the wool. During the day she sat quietly at the loom, working as hard as any of the other weavers, and at night when I sewed her weaving I could feel that it was good, taut and even. In the evenings she would sit with Papa and talk about what she had done, and what more she might do. Papa never spoke much when she talked thus, except to say No when she asked to learn hachure.

  Nicolas went most nights to Le Vieux Chien, though he didn't always stay out all night. Sometimes Georges L
e Jeune went with him, but not Luc, who'd been put off beer that first night. Most often Nicolas went alone, though. Later I would hear him coming down the street, singing or talking to men he'd met at the tavern. I was surprised that he found his place among people here so readily. When he'd been with us last summer he was not so friendly and easy with others, but had acted the arrogant Paris artist. Now he had men — and women too — calling for him and asking after him in the market.

  I was often still sewing when he came back. I had even more work, for Maman was no longer helping — she was tired after the day's weaving and needed to save her eyes for the next day. Nicolas was staying with us this time, to save on the cost of an inn, and when he returned from the tavern he would lie on his pallet near the loom where Taste was being woven. Whenever I worked on that tapestry he was lying almost at my feet. Night after night we were together in the dark like that. We did not talk much, for I didn't want to wake Georges Le Jeune and Luc. But sometimes I could feel that he had turned towards me. If seeing is like a warp thread tied between two beams of a loom, I could feel his thread, taut.

  One night Nicolas came back very late. Everyone was long abed but me. I was sewing the Lady's face in Taste, making careful stitches around one eye. The face was half done — soon enough Nicolas would get his wish to see her.

  When he lay down on his pallet at my feet I felt the thread between us tighten. He wanted to say something, but didn't. The silence was very heavy. I waited until I couldn't any longer. ‘What is it?’ I whispered into the still room, feeling as if I were finally scratching a flea bite.

  ‘Something I have long wanted to tell you, beauty. Since last summer.’

  ‘The thing that made you leave?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I held my breath.

  ‘Jacques Le Bœuf came to the tavern tonight.’

  My mouth tightened. ‘Alors?’

  ‘That man is a boor.’

  ‘That is not news.’

  ‘I can't bear to think —’