The Whim of the Dragon

by PAMELA DEAN

  “Nay,” said the unicorn. “None of ours.”

  “Were any of the ones that rescued us from betraying ourselves yours?”

  “How so, when we knew naught you might betray?”

  The unicorn’s words were impatient, but its tone was not. It sounded like somebody musing over his letters in a friendly game of Scrabble. Ellen decided that she could go on. “All right, then. The strange place, where the air is like a sheet of glass and the sky is the wrong color and you feel too small, the place Lady Ruth stood in to bargain with the Guardian of the River of King Edward’s life. She was there another time—”

  “Playing the fool with Shan’s Ring. We know.”

  “There was a cardinal singing in the yard.”

  “The burden of that song,” said the unicorn, rather grimly, “was ‘get thee gone.’”

  “Thank you,” said Ellen. “She did.” She fought down the desire to question the unicorn in detail about the strange place Ruth had visited. That wasn’t in the bargain. She would have to consider carefully just how much any information was worth to her, before she asked the unicorns for more of it. She had known what they were like; she had made much of it up. But, perhaps because she still felt them to be her own creations, even though she knew better, she had not really taken them seriously until now. She hoped her frivolity would not cost somebody else dear. “Just a few more,” she said. “What about the cardinal that brought Claudia to Laura, after the Unicorn Hunt?”

  “That cardinal did bring Chryse,” said the unicorn. “Did Claudia choose to come, blame not the cardinal.”

  “I’ll tell you something, then,” said Laura. Ellen had almost forgotten she was there. “Either Claudia or the cardinal wanted to make me think the cardinal brought her.”

  “The cardinal deceiveth not,” said the unicorn. “But Claudia is a tale-weaver.”

  It sounded definitely, thoroughly, unmistakably amused. Ellen was seized with irritation. “It’s nothing to snort at,” she said. “We are all tale-weavers too, and look what we’ve done. And we didn’t even know. Claudia knows. What if she weaves a tale about you?”

  “She hath,” said the unicorn, with a sort of rippling chuckle like somebody running a hand along the keys of an out-of-tune piano. “She did tell thy fair cousin that all our kind run south for the winter, as if we were the robin or the cuckoo. Yet here am I to jest with thee.”

  “No, no!” said Ellen, exasperated beyond bearing. “She only said that, off the top of her head. What if she wove a real tale about you, with all her mirrors and her little diamond windows, nudging you around the way she nudged Lord Randolph?”

  There was a very long silence. The forest about them was dark. Their clearing had still a thin gray light like that of a rainy afternoon. It was not coming from the unicorn precisely; if you looked at the shadows, it appeared to be coming from directly overhead; but up there were only the dark branches of the shadowy trees. Ellen could see Celia’s intent, somber profile, and the back of Fence’s untidy head, and Laura’s hunched figure with the braids unraveling down her back. Finally Fence stirred.

  “Forgive us,” he said, “but I fear me you must think on this.”

  “No,” said the unicorn. “Thou thinkst we must fear’t.”

  “’Twould serve,” said Celia, in the brisk tone of somebody telling you to take out the garbage, “if thou didst but answer the question.”

  “What if?” said the unicorn. “What then? Why, then we should see infinite jest and most excellent fancy.” It looked from one to the other of them, Celia, Fence, Laura, then Ellen, with its great purple eyes; and then back, very thoughtfully, at Fence. It bowed its head so low that the fringe of its mane trailed in the water. “Fare you well,” it said. “This meeting shall cost some dear.” It flung its head back and plunged down the stream, showering Fence and Laura with water, sprinkling Celia, and hitting Ellen with exactly three drops, one in each eye and the third smack on top of her head.

  “Smart-ass!” she muttered, and walked forward to join the others. The unicorn’s last statement was profoundly upsetting. “Fence? What did that mean?”

  “I know not,” said Fence, shaking water out of his hood.

  The gray light lingered behind the unicorn, enclosing them in a cheerless sphere of illumination that made everybody look unhealthy, as fluorescent lights do. Fence’s round face was hollow with sheer worry. Ellen didn’t like to see him looking that way. She put her hand on his shoulder, which she could do easily, she had grown so much this summer. Fence patted the hand and said, “I’m yet revolving on an earlier wheel: if the man in red that sent you back in truth is the Judge of the Dead, wherefore should he send you but to ensure Randolph’s death? This Judge did give up Ted, for which Randolph is his payment; maybe he groweth impatient.”

  Ellen asked a question she had learned to ask. “Have I caused a lot of trouble?”

  “That’s the question,” said Celia. “Didst thou cause it, or didst thou but discover it?”

  Laura said, “It was a trap? I made Ted go; he didn’t want to follow the cardinal.”

  “Remember what the unicorn said,” said Fence, smiling at her. “Anyone may put on a name. But we shall warn Randolph, and walk warily.”

  “And tell Matthew,” said Celia.

  Go and tell Lord Grenville, said the distant voice, that the tide is on the turn.

  “Hold your tongue!” said Ellen; and for a wonder, it did.

  CHAPTER 17

  LAURA was very sleepy when they got back to camp. While she was gone, Matthew and Patrick had put up two tents whose shadows danced crazily in the firelight, like jigsaw puzzles falling and falling, on all the trunks of the trees. They were singing.

  “Lord Rameses of Egypt sighed / Because a summer evening passed, / And little Ariadne cried / That summer fancy fell—”

  “Matthew, for the love of heaven!” said Celia, coming forward. “The unicorn hath bid us sing more merry.”

  Matthew stood up to greet her. “If that’s the worst—no,” he said. “I see ’tis not.”

  Celia smiled at him. “Let’s sing more merry, and then we’ll tell you,” she said.

  “More merry?” said Fence, in tones of disgust. “We’ll give them more merry. An they’ll rant, we’ll mouthe as well as they.”

  Celia sat down next to Laura, Fence on the other side of the fire.

  “It isn’t funny,” said Ellen, in a stifled voice.

  “I know,” said Fence. “Matthew, wilt thou sing Terence?”

  Matthew sat down again, between Celia and Fence, and grinned. “Gladly,” he said. “Celia?”

  “I trust you know what you’re about,” said Celia, very dryly. “Let’s sing and be done with it.”

  Matthew said, not altogether seriously, “Spite the unicorn and drown thyself.”

  “That saying,” said Fence, “was made by a unicorn for the jest of watching folk obey it. Sing.”

  And all the grown-ups did.

  “Terence, this is stupid stuff:

  You eat your victuals fast enough;

  There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,

  To see the rate you drink your beer.

  But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,

  It gives a chap the belly-ache.”

  It was a long song and not, except for the rollicking tune, what Laura would have called merry. It had Milton in it, which was disconcerting. The whole song was disconnected. First they sang about drinking, which was where Milton came in, for some odd reason; then they sang about how the world had far more ill in it than good, so that making verse that gives a chap a belly-ache constituted “friending” said chap “in the dark and cloudy day”; and then they sang a creepy story about a king who ate poison and thus immunized himself against the plots of his enemies.

  “They put arsenic in his meat

  And stared aghast to watch him eat;

  They poured strychnine in his cup

  And shook to see him drink it up.” />
  Thank goodness, thought Laura, that Randolph’s not here. She heard Fence’s light voice falter, when it was he who had proposed the song; he should have remembered what was in it.

  “They shook, they stared, as white’s their shirt:

  Them it was their poison hurt.”

  Laura remembered Ted’s account of how Randolph had looked after the poisoning. The trouble was, it wasn’t only Randolph his poison had hurt; the King was dead. Too bad Fence hadn’t sung him this song. But nobody expected Randolph to do such a thing. The Hidden Land was not the East where kings get their fill, before they think, of poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

  “—I tell the tale I heard told.

  Mithridates, he died old.”

  “What a gruesome song!” said Ellen.

  “ ’Twill like the unicorns well,” said Fence.

  Matthew said, “Now, Celia, thy tale?”

  “Fence’s, I think,” said Celia.

  “Nay, I did tell the last tale needed telling,” said Fence; “my purse is empty.”

  “As empty as the ocean when three little boats have brought home a good catch,” said Celia, rather sharply, “but as you will.”

  As Celia spoke, Laura watched Matthew’s face, with its sardonic bones and deep eyes. He was utterly impassive until Celia came to the part where the unicorn said that Randolph should have a care. Then he put a hand over his eyes.

  “Shan’s mercy!” said Matthew. “What hath Randolph done?”

  “He hath made an unwise bargain with the Judge of the Dead,” said Fence, with a perfect tranquility that made Laura’s eyes prick with tears. Celia looked up with a stricken face.

  “The bargain for Edward’s life,” said Matthew, in a throttled voice. “No; for Ted’s?”

  “’Twas for Edward’s life,” said Fence.

  “And Randolph did agree?” said Matthew.

  “Randolph,” said Fence, bitterly, “did suggest it.”

  “And Edward did agree?”

  “No,” said Fence. “Nor Ted neither.”

  “How then call this a bargain?”

  Patrick made a restless movement; Ellen thrust an elbow into his side; he turned his head and gave her a steady, opaque look. Underlit by the fire, his face was much older.

  “Ted’s alive,” said Fence.

  “But Randolph did promise for Edward’s life?”

  “Now look,” said Ellen.

  “Hush,” said Matthew. “They err but seldom. Cannot we turn this to some good account?”

  “Randolph may do so, at the Gray Lake,” said Fence.

  “But the unicorn saith, he must have a care?”

  Somewhere nearby, muffled, two notes sounded, as if someone had begun to play a flute and given up. Celia jumped up and ran for the pile of baggage, from which she returned carrying the flute of Cedric and a large, flat leather pouch. The flute played two more notes as she sat down, and two more. Laura recognized, with resignation, that it was playing “The Minstrel Boy.” “The minstrel boy to the war” was as far as it had gotten.

  Celia took a sheet of thick paper from the pouch and flattened it out on the rock she had been sitting on. Then she removed, to Laura’s astonishment, a little jar of ink and a pen. She filled the pen, held it ready over the paper, and with her other hand held out the flute. “Come, Laura,” she said.

  Laura got up, walked slowly around the fire, and took the flute. It was as cold as if it had been carved out of ice. She said, “Do I play ‘The Minstrel Boy’?”

  “Aye,” said Celia. “As many times over as thou art moved.”

  This turned out to be six, by which time Laura’s fingers were numb and her lips burned.

  “There!” said Celia, laying down the pen and shaking her hand.

  Laura followed this example. There was a constriction in her chest like the feeling a bout of bronchitis had once given her. She wondered if they had antibiotics here.

  Celia waved the paper in the air gently, and laid it down on the rock again. Fence and Patrick joined her. Matthew pressed gently on Laura’s shoulder until she sat down, and then handed her a tin cup of tea.

  “Something’s amiss,” said Celia.

  “Read it,” said Matthew; he was watching to see if Laura would drink the tea, so she drank some hastily.

  Celia read it.

  “Belaparthalion lived alone.

  The wind blows the sand about.

  Belaparthalion cracked dry bones.

  The waves on the shore run in and out.

  Belaparthalion cracked dry jests.

  The unicorns rhyme in Griseous Lake.

  Three wizards came at his behest.

  The dry bones in the desert bake.”

  “That doesn’t fit the tune!” said Laura.

  “Not well, no,” said Celia. “Sometimes that can’t be helped. But look you, all the message is but those verses, writ thrice o’er.”

  “Belaparthalion,” said Matthew, thoughtfully. “Think you it likes him not that we flute his name hither and yon?”

  “Why should they flute his name in the first place?” demanded Patrick. “I thought they were going to the Gray Lake and then to the Dragon King.”

  “Griseous Lake!” said Ellen.

  “Aye; ’tis the same,” said Celia. “They will not arrive there for some several days.”

  “But Belaparthalion?” said Patrick.

  “What makes you think the real message was about Belaparthalion?” said Ellen.

  “The very alteration of such a message,” said Matthew, “doth feed on its original. None may alter it into utter falsehood.”

  “Could we send them a message back asking what the hell they think they’re doing?” said Ellen.

  Celia looked around and grinned at her. “Not this night,” she said. “Laura and I are weary. We must send the warning to Randolph, that’s more urgent. Laura, canst thou play ‘Heat o’ the Sun’? One verse only; that one begins, ‘No exorciser harm thee.’ Randolph will know what’s meant by’t.”

  “I think so,” said Laura, reluctantly.

  “No!” said Fence. “Not that. ’Twill be misconstrued.”

  “What, then?” said Celia; she was clearly puzzled, but willing to let Fence have his way since he spoke so vehemently.

  Fence pressed his fingers to his eyes, the way Laura’s mother would do when she had a headache. “Laura, canst thou play ‘What if a Day’?”

  Laura thought about it, and the fingerings rose from the bottom of her mind like fish coming up in clear water when you drop the breadcrumbs in. “Yes,” she said. She was very tired.

  “The second chorus,” said Fence. “As slowly as liketh thee.”

  Laura picked up the flute and almost dropped it, it was so cold and her fingers so sore. But once she had gotten them placed for the first note, they played of themselves. The words ran along in her mind. All is hazard that we have, / There is nothing biding; / Days of pleasure are like streams / Through fair meadows gliding. / Weal and woe, time doth go, / Time is never turning; / Secret fates guide our states, / Both in mirth and mourning.

  “Many thanks,” said Fence, and he picked up the hand from which the flute was drooping and kissed it, with a flourish. Laura would have enjoyed this more if he had not also deftly taken the flute from her and given it to Celia.

  “Fence,” said Celia. “This bargain for Ted’s life.”

  “It’s done,” said Fence.

  Matthew looked at him. “Let’s consider this false message,” he said.

  Patrick suggested that it was in fact the true beginning of the message Randolph had sent; Celia said Claudia was too canny for that. There was an argument concerning whether it was Claudia who had interfered. The only conclusion Matthew, Fence, and Celia could agree on was that Belaparthalion had had some jest with Randolph and that Belaparthalion had not been at his best when he had it. Their reasoning was obscure, and their attempts to explain it worse.

  “Explain something else to me,” said
Patrick, who had been pestering them the most, and who usually knew when it would be best to stop.

  “Ask it,” said Fence.

  “How could you forget the Judge of the Dead’s name?”

  Fence’s face cleared; Laura wondered what he had thought Patrick would ask. “The Judge of the Dead hath a hundred names,” he said. “I learned them when I was ten years old, and have had little enough use for them since. Also, Apsinthion is a jesting name, by which you would not address or invoke that power; and so ’tis of little matter.”

  “He would use it outside, to the children,” said Celia, in the tone Ruth would use to say, “That’s just like Patrick.”

  “Is the Judge of the Dead a unicorn?” asked Ellen.

  “Nay, naught so solid,” said Fence.

  “He seems to have the same sort of sense of humor.”

  “The unicorns did choose the name,” said Fence.

  “Why’d he let them?” said Ellen.

  “Ask him when thou meetest him,” said Fence. “I did undertake to answer one question, and that from thy brother.” He spoke lightly; but Laura shivered.

  Ellen returned to the previous subject. “Can’t we just send a quick message asking what they meant to tell us?”

  “You,” said Celia, rounding on her, “are in no case to ask for favors. Do you consider yourself under the same stricture as your brother touching experimentation.” She rolled the word around in her mouth as if it tasted sour.

  That tone of voice and the use of the rebuking “you” would have shrivelled Laura up like a raisin. Ellen said, “But—”

  “Do you so consider yourself.”

  “Yes! I won’t meddle anymore. But can’t we just—”

  “Tomorrow,” said Celia.

  “Grown-ups everywhere,” said Ellen. “You’re all alike.”

  “To bed,” said Celia, whereupon both Ellen and Laura burst out laughing.

  “Aren’t we going to set a watch?” asked Patrick.

  “Against what?” said Fence. “Canst thou prevent a pouring of poetry into the porches of our dreaming ears, by all means make thy dispositions.”