Well of the Unicorn

by Fletcher Pratt

  As they drew close all saw he wore the red badge of Vulk, and a glance whipped from eye to eye; but it was a very old man, somewhat vacant of face, who greeted them with the Peace of the Well, offering forage for their beasts with straw in the barns for the men to sleep on, "but I do not know that I have provision for so many, provision for so many," and shook his head.

  Evimenes bade him give no concern to that, and having signed Evadne to hold the gaffer under observation (lest there be some secret treachery intended) they went to see the men disposed. Fires were lit under the darkening branches; there was jollity and exchange of favors, for the Hestinga men had brought proviant of dried beef as was the custom of their country. But before Airar or Rogai or the Carrhoenes could think of their own night, here was Evadne back with word that the old guardian, too dim-wit to be dangerous, had told her stablished custom called the leaders to lie at the villa, and was preparing food.

  "Could it be poisoned?" said Rogai, and she laughed. They went in presently, taking Meliboe. The Vulking served them with his own hands, in silence and from good plate, a roasted kid with garlics, then sat with them before the fire and gazed around from somewhat lackluster eyes.

  "Sirs and gentles, I ask your indulgence," said he, "to the hearing of a tale; for I am set in this place under an ordinance as my father and grandfather were before me, pray everyone that comes to hear this tale, which is a memorial of the blessed Count Vulk, the ninth of the name, and now I have no son or grandson, but am the last of those called Boulard, so that who will keep the memorial beyond me, I do not know, yet—"

  "Well, then, the tale, old man," said Pleiander, "and let it be brief, for we must seek our rest, since weary men march ill."

  The ancient lifted both hands before his eyes, clutched at something invisible and drew them down, trembling slightly.

  —I crave your grace, gentle sir, said he, I do not mean with mine own affairs to interrupt this tale, which is a very moral relation and of great profit, as you shall see, therefore it is no small matter that it should be lost to the world through the failure of my flesh. This is the tale of Count Vulk the Ninth, the blessed, and the days when the heathen were still in the land, against whom he bore his banner with the love of the Church, and made much slaughter of them down among the Whiteriverdales, as has been told, but that is not this tale.—

  The door opened; Erb came in, and would have spoken, but Evadne motioned him silence, and made place for him next to her, which he took sheepish as a boy, but without halting the flow of words.

  —Now you must know that the Count Vulk was at this time young, having been elect to his dignity by his eighteenth year, which is a thing almost unheard-of and only because of the great valiancy and the high name of his father. It is said also that he was the handsomest of the Vulks, tall as a tree, with hair smooth and black like midnight, gay eyes and ever a laugh in his voice, a very fortunate and perfect prince. After the great battle in the Dales, he went up to Stavorna city, where thanks were offered in the church for deliverance, and there was a banqueting afterward in the hall of the syndics. Oh, the bright plate and the clean white napkins and the brave meats they served, with music among a thousand candle-flames at that banquet, and young Vulk the merriest of all, leading in song.—

  The old man cleared his throat and in a voice so quavering it could not be said to make a tune, intoned:

  Let us drink, drink, drink once again,

  Drink 'without thought of tomorrow;

  Let us love, love, love all the night,

  For love is alone without sorrow.

  —Sirs and gentles, you may easily believe that those of the Church who were present were not so well pleased with songs of this nature, for it has ever been the office of most holy Church to restrain the loose illicit passions such singings would encourage. Now fortune willed it that there should be seated at the left of the Lord of Briella a nun, it being the custom in those days (though the Church has a different rule now) for these brides of God to go forth into the world on such occasions as feastings, that they might learn the nature of the sins and temptations they were required to combat, and all the arts of the Devil, that they might the better refute his arguments. Moreover, this nun had by two a reason for attendance, being Egonilla and the daughter of the great Earl of Os Erigu, who had taken her residence in the monastery of Stavorna for the fame and holiness of its Abbot.

  She had to now been merry as any present, her heart being good and filled with the love of God, though without joining in the drinking. But at this revellous song she signed herself and cast down her eyes. It is related that Vulk looked at her in his gray mad humor and marked how long the lashes lay on her cheek.

  —By the Well, cried he, here's one that could love all night! How of it, sweetling, shall we make the song came true? And he clapped his arm round her—an evil deed, sirs and gentles, but he was young and without thought and from such we are given to learn.

  —Sir, she said, I love all the night and the day, too, the perfect love of God and for that you have clipped me, and so introduced to my thought, even if only a little and for rejection, the touch of another love, I must be on my knees. Therefore I beg you withdraw your arm.

  —The greater the temptation, the greater the victory, said Vulk, but he took away his arm and turned to answer someone who had pledged him a cup, but as he took his eyes from the bottom, the fiend sent him a thought and he turned again to Sister Egonilla.

  —Look you, said he, you of the monastery come from time to time to the world to learn what you cast away. I call that true philosophy; none so good as those who, knowing all that evil offers, will sell themselves at a higher price. But there's a flaw in your practice: if you know so little of secular love that its touch is sin, then say I, you are not good, but ignorant. Or riddle me, were you born of your parents' sin? For union is a sacrament, no sin.

  —Sir, said she, the sin of our first parents into which we are all born, yet through the blessed sacraments obtain absolution.

  —Yet if the sacrament itself lead to further sin, the absolution is not real, said he, and they debated thus like doctors in the midst of the banquet to the exclusion of all others, which conversation being reported to his Lordship the Abbot, he frowned and looked exceeding grave, declaring that the young Count was not far from horrible heresies. Yet shall one quarrel with the sword of the Church? He gave her permission to convince

  Count Vulk of his theological errors, she being of all the ladies of the monastery the most sweetly persuasive, and of rank sufficient.

  . . . Meliboe the enchanter laughed. "I can see what is coming," he said, but the old man only looked at him with pain as Airar thought the horse Pil had looked at him when he left Trangsted.

  —Sirs and gentles, the ways of God are mysterious and not to be accounted for of our poor minds. The Count and the lady met in the reception room of the monastery, agreeable to the rule, speaking across the gate-window in the wall. His Lordship the Abbot, thinking to take ' some part in this discussion, entered unannounced, and what did he find, O ta-li-iddle-daly? He found them kissing and fondling through that window. To her cell with a heavy penance he sent Sister Egonilla, while himself sought sweetly and with love to reason against Count Vulk. It was to little purpose; the Count did say aye, aye, but soon he was gone, and then she too, he having convinced her that she must first sin to be forgiven, as though the sin of our earliest parents had not convicted us all. The Count let build this villa even as it is here now, and on this very floor before this fire has sat the blessed Count Vulk, domptor of the heathen but unblessed in those days, with the damsel Egonilla.

  Sirs, that was a grievous time in the land, for if the heathen were dompted, the Earl of Os Erigu not so, an old man who held that his daughter had been raped away to the utter disgrace of his house, as the bishops and abbots held it was the disgrace of the Church. Therefore Os Erigu stopped the trade of the two cities Lectis, threatening war; and there was fire on the rooftree in Norby, wh
ere he let loose the barbarous Mictons that are for neither God nor man. Oh, sirs, a grievous time up out of the Whiteriverdales and down from Briella by the long road came divers to this place, with protests of this and that, and embassies from Os Erigu and the Empire, till the lovers could not spend a night alone, and at last the Chancellor of the realm himself, who said Os Erigu would have his daughter back or war, and at that Egonilla, who sat with Count Vulk, twisted in his arms, saying:

  —My lord and love, this is his death, his very death, for my father is old, and I know if you are forced to the field against him, it is he will fall. And she wept; oh, the tears of the lovely lady Egonilla on these very planks and stones.

  —Death and life and we two (said he). I have given my hope of greatness to find peace with you, and shall I now not have it? Nay, I'll lay down the countship.

  —It is the same. Do you think my father could stand against who would be chosen the tenth Count Vulk?

  Vulk's brow went frown and arms relaxed.—There is the ninth Vulk and I am he. But the Lord Chancellor cleared his throat.—I am he, he said again, and will not make wars on the father of my love. I'll raise the standard—

  —Against whom? said she, sliding wholly free from his grasp to stand.—Now I will give you a choice; nay, an end—I'll not be kissed from my purpose. I'll give you a choice and there is no third way. Either I shall return forthwith and accept whatever penalties are due for this sweet sin; or we shall go and drink together at the well of wonders, the Well of the Unicorn, so winning its peace.

  —I am a warrior and by office leader of the Vulking tercias.

  —A moment since you had left hope of that greatness for peace with me.

  Now it was she who had the better of the disputation, and though he might turn from storm to pleading or play cold, the end was that he must give way. The Vulking lords thought ill when they heard of him going to the well and there were not a few that wished to unseat him and sweep Os Erigu into the sea, but there were enough of the other view to withhold them this time, and the more so since the heathenry saw in the land's troubles their delight and began a raising of diversions. Of those pilgrims to the Well, it is told that they were received with all honor in Stassia, and did drink as others before them; yet, when the draught was drained, could find themselves no different in thought or condition, so that when they voyaged back there lay upon them a certain strangeness and expectancy of what this peace might be that they had won.

  There were few to greet Vulk when he finished that journey, and when he came again to this very villa of the Count's Pillow none but my grandfather and a single guest, the Abbot of Stavorna to wit, that saintly man. It is not told what was said at first among them, but no word of return to the monastery and the Abbot gave them joy of their new peace, whereat a shadow crossed both their faces together.

  —It is a long voyage, said the lady Egonilla, and Vulk:

  —With a cold welcome here. Where is this "peace? With Os Erigu still threatening wars, but now it is the lords in council make all the answers and I am as good as uncoronate.

  —Yet the promise of the Well is sure, said the Lord Abbot. Did you not on the ship hither find that peace and joy together which you sought?

  —Oh, aye, said Vulk and seemed about to say more, but let his voice drop.

  —The promise is sure, but you shall not say what manner the peace may take, said the Abbot, for that is to presume to dictate to God how He shall accomplish His ends. It is for us to seek what way He would have us go.

  The lady Egonilla had said nothing since the first. Now she looked up and there was a light in her face.—I see it now, she said, and it was the lack of it that has turned our love to weariness and ashes. There is no peace or love but the perfect love of God, which is the essence of every other. Father, forgive me; and she knelt before the Lord Abbot.

  Sirs and gentles, my grandfather (who was in the room) said that Vulk's face flushed like wine and he seized out a deadly dag, crying—You shall not take Egonilla from me or I will slay her and you too.

  —Hush, said the Abbot, there is no Egonilla here, and taking a vial of holy water he sprinkled her where she _ knelt.—I give you a new name, he said, that is Deodata, which is given of God and to God returned. As for you, Sir Count, you may indeed slay us; but remember that you have drunk from the Well, seeking peace. Peace you shall have; but if you will not have it, be beaten with whips and rods till you accept your gift.

  Soon he was gone and Deodata, too, as Egonilla had gone from the monastery, Vulk left alone. But is told that he, somewhat repenting of his fury, rode after to give her some token or small object of farewell. Now the gentle Abbot was an old man and the way down through the Whiteriverdales beset with landslides, therefore he and the lady had taken the easier route, east into Hestinga. But when Vulk reached the first crofts in the dales and found they had not passed that way, all his devilish rage came back on him, doubled and trebled.—I have been tricked, he cried, and they think to escape me with another trick, but it is not so. He turned rein and rode like a madman across the Dragon's Spine up the brakes and down the other way, and coming on the Abbot and the lady at the issue of the pass, struck that good man down out of hand. Oh, sirs and gentles, the Abbot lying with his blood all spattering the horse's back! But the lady Deodata looked on him coldly, coldly.

  It is not told what was said there or if he besought her to return to the Count's Pillow. But if this were the case his beseechings were without success, for she rode on and away. And now came troubles manifold on Count Vulk and his realm, since the Empire placed its ban upon him for that he had violated the peace of the Well, and the Church its excommunication for that he had slaughtered the good Abbot, and the naughty Dalecarles rose and some Vulkings fell away to join them, and when Count Vulk buckled on his harness again, he that had been so mighty had no more heart nor hand for war, so that he was driven back at last to the home counties. There was a battle in north Hestinga, which battle he lost, and flying into the Korsor hills saw one after another of his men drop away into the hands of the pursuit till at last he was left alone and they ranging on his track. It would be toward an evening that he saw what might be a faint path leading to one side and following it, came to a cave with a fount running down beside it. His horse was wholly spent, he unbridled it, and, thinking he might find some defense or means of escape at the cave, went toward it, but as he did so, a hanging at the entrance was drawn aside, and he found himself facing the nun, Deodata.

  It is said that she was even more lovely than when he first had seen her, yet now with an expression of joy and calm that was somewhat disturbed at seeing this armed man she had known in another world.—Can you not let me live my life as I have let you lead yours? she said, but he laughed bitterly.—You are as ever, too vain, he said. Would I come for you wounded and alone, from a lost battle? Stand aside and let me fight for my life; is there another entrance to this cave?—A shout was borne to them from down the valley; she looked at him for a long moment and said,—Will you have peace? He looked at her a longer one and saying aye to that, dropped to his knees before her, where those who followed found them.

  —Lady, they said, for all in that land had respect to the holy nun, now let us take this Count Vulk, this most approved traitor, from your sight.

  —Be still, said she, there is no Count Vulk here, and taking a handful of water from the spring, she sprinkled it on him. I have given him a new name, she said; it is Theophilon from the old tongues, which is to say the lover of God. They were of the Bishops' party and did not offense her, so left them. It is told that after Count Vulk entered the Church he became no less famous than she, like one of the blessed saints; but there was an ordinance made that this place should stand forever as a memorial, with one to offer guesting and the tale to all who came through the pass of the Count's Pillow, and that is my narration, O ta-li-iddledaly.

  18 Issue of the Pass: Captains Gather

  THE DESCENT, as not unexpected, was far w
orse than the climb, for they had not only the height of the pass itself to lose, but all that of the high plateau of Hestinga, so far upborne on the bones of the Dragon's Spine which look across the rough Whiteriverdales. One or two horses were lost on the breakneck ledges, as Evimenes had foreseen; but Rogai of the mountains, now thoroughly at home, rode forward to survey each passage and, at one where the way went round a cliff with a steep to water far below, had his Mariolans set stakes interwoven with branches at the edge, so a chance step might not send a man down.

  How could he foresee, as they camped in a cleft and owls ghosting past the fire, that Evadne of Carrhoene would rise from her place and motion Airar to follow? Should he go? But indeed, why not? And with a murmured word to the rest about taking an easement, did step after her. Among the trunks there was flickering light from the blaze; not too cold, for it had cleared during the day, and even at this height all the buds were shouting spring. She led the way, they both stumbling, to a tree-root for sitting, and "Hark, friend Airar," she said, "what do you seek in Dalarna?" "Why, liberation from these Vulkings. They are not our blood, yet rule over us with a hard rule. When I was a lad, the steads around were happy, with good friends and honest neighbors and gatherings on the holydays. But now? Ours was the last, all under some Vulking magnate now, who lives fat and lets graze them with Micton slaves." "Ah, tsa, you preach like a dog-smeller. It was yourself I meant on. Whether are you personally bound?"

  He was a long time answering. "Truth tell, I had not thought of it, and—"

  "You'd have me credit that you take up these wars for pure highmindedness and others' benefit, like a priest or an Imperial? Come, no cant; give a true reply. Are you for a coronet—to be a fighting man and daunt the heathen—or do you war some lady-love and you two apart, like the foolish Count in the old dodderer's tale?"