Well of the Unicorn

by Fletcher Pratt

  That was a question now that he put it, and no wavings from the shore were like to be of service, since they were like to be held an indication of Vulking ambush. The Shalland men were confused; they thought it might be possible to find one of the coracles used by the people of these parts when they venture on the water, and went off to try it with Erb, a couple of fishers, and Rogai as ambassador. Evadne said it was Airar's place to go, but now he was suddenly stricken with shyness over meeting to the person, and when so much hung on it, this renowned warrior and champion of Os Erigu. He made a ridiculous excuse about the kitten. Pleiander sneered, which Evadne saw and a moment later she picked up some remark of her brother's so the two began a pointless wrangle that drove Airar apart to seek Meliboe, while all round the men in little groups sat down to chatter of this and that and their hopes.

  The philosopher was set on a slope of sand with his back against a brush-clump and his cloak arranged to keep him clean. He was not wearing armor and his eyes were fixed out toward the sea, where ships were now clearly visible as ships, so graceful. Said Airar:

  "There's a matter I'd have you unriddle according to philosophy, for I do not like neither answer I can get by myself."

  "Well, then?" The enchanter's tone might be somewhat short.

  "Well, is't true there are no paths to follow but those that lead to Briella or Carrhoene?"

  "Fair young sir, your trouble I may unriddle, but not your riddles. What is you would say?"

  "Why, 'tis this and concerns me much—" Airar watched his kitten that scampered after a leaf while he sought for words. " 'Tis this; is there no way for men to live but to submit all one's self to the voice of the general, as that deserion said whom Pleiander slew? I'd rather be a pismire, running blind. Yet here's Evadne says there is but one escape, and that's to follow the rule of Carrhoene: let all beg whose fathers were blind—which is clean against our Dalecarle rule."

  From off at one side there was a shout, men began to run and point. Airar stood up; down the stream the coracle came loping crabwise and rocked when the ocean swell took it. Rogai put his head over the side; there was laughter when men could see the movement of the craft left him little well. Meliboe did not turn his head:

  "They have found a boat? Then our lives are safe for this time and I think for this time also your Dalarna will be safe from both these things you fear. But in the long she has right, the lass; as those who have right who say there's no escape from the old man that mows. For see —all's well to be free and labor together (this is the thought forward on which you look, as I take it); all's well when it's a matter of two or three to build a byre or hunt a bear, but when there are foemen in the land or something other where each man cannot see for himself what's to be done, why then all must take the guidance of a man they never have seen nor perhaps heard on. Can any give more than his own arm and confidence? Can any have authority to himself? No."

  "I do not see—"

  "You do not see, you do not see. Son of Alvar, I can but give you the book; read in it. Nay, I'll spell it out for you, rather." The magician lifted his head and beat with a finger. "Suppose then this leader for war has been chosen—no matter how. Here's your fountainhead of authority; but he's not immortal, and should he fall in battle, then all's broken unless there be another with authority to step into his honors and no delay. So there's your government permanent and paramount with authority atop and confidence below, and I know no way of keeping it so but the ways of Briella and Carrhoene. Ah, you'll find tricks and devices, given names in the books—that is what books are for, to call names—but it comes to the same in the end. There's a rule arbitrary for choosing your head, such as that he's of a certain family—that's Carrhoene, or the Empire, for that matter. Or there's no rule and the head's a figurehead and you have Briella. In either, those below are less than free."

  "There's Earl Mikalegon," said Airar, who wanted to ask which choice would be Meliboe's, but durst not for respect and shame.

  "Aye, there he is in his ships and see how they crowd toward the coracle. It must be clear that she bears tidings. Fortunate son of Alvar! There's your man that's free and all beneath him, with full choice to go elsewhere If the prospect not please. Mark him well."

  Meliboe leaned back against his bush and turned his eyes seaward. The conversation was ended, but Airar made one more effort. "And the danger of Gaspelnith?"

  "A thing has been done that all your life will not be more than enough to change." He waved his hand and would not answer more, but chucked the catkin under the chin when it came to him. Out on the water the high ships crowding round with painted sails obscured the coracle; some of those sails came down and the ships stood still or moved so little that only by one could it be seen how another's position changed. A trumpet-sound drifted elfin across sea and shore. Airar wrinkled his eye-muscles and could see black specks move, the quarter-boats handled and now these separated to come flicking toward them over the wavetops like water-beetles. One of the Star-Captains shouted his name. He was a leader again and here was Sewald with a sore foot, and Gynnbrad that claimed another had taken his dag, and there was pressing to the shore, with Evimenes shouting and men taking the packs from horses.

  This was Airar's second sea-voyage but the first in so big a ship and he not a little bewildered on coming over the side to find stairs down and stairs up into the poop, men all round the waist of the ship and a very martial aspect, like a city afloat.

  "Mark the third step," said someone, but not quickly enough, as Airar stumbled on the broken tread. At the head of the stairs, with the grasshopper legs of a ballista rising behind him against the sky, a big man stood with his suite round him, and was made even taller by the fact that Airar came up to him from a level below. He was armed in rusty chain-mail with a couple of torn links at one shoulder, as though his massive frame had bulged right through it, seeking escape; uncovered, with a mat of rough black hair that hung loose to his shoulders and a beard that bristled in every direction back from a widespread nose and bushy brows.

  "This," said Rogai's voice, "is Master Airar of Trangsted in Vastmanstad, of noble blood, a very notable captain in battle, who has now done twice what the Star-Captains of Carrhoene could not accomplish the once— to wit, bring the red triangle down."

  "You are welcome," the big man boomed and came three steps forward to touch Airar's hand, as though he were a prince. "Not that to outdo Carrhoene is so very much, for I have raided their cities myself, but it is a good cragsman can climb over Briella Mountain."

  "The Carrhoene captains—" began Airar, but before he could go farther in their defense of his own modesty, the great Earl was already turned aside to see who came next to his place of command and it was Alsander to speak for himself. "Ha!" shouted Mikalegon, not touching this hand, but taking it in his. "Here's one that needs no herald! Old Bag-of-bones, we have spent one or two strokes on each other and I am happier to have you with me than opposed. Where's Alcides, that owes me good ship he took from me with his tricks?"

  "The damned Vulkings slew him." For the second time Airar was surprised to see a Carrhoene captain show heart; but now there were greetings to all to be made and returned and bustle across the decks, with sails set up again. Yet almost before the ships began to move, here came a hail from a vessel beyond and then one from their own masthead, and Airar, following the direction of fingers that pointed, could see where Vallingsveden wound back among its willows, all the flood dotted with small shapes that moved.

  "We made good our retreat none too soon," said Alsander with a meditative air. "It must be a very good baron who leads that tercia—who would have thought to see Vulkings afloat?"

  "Not I," said Mikalegon. "Yet you shall now see some aswim, to remind them whose element they tread. Shipmaster, ho! Bear us in toward those galleys if the wind will serve, and cast loose the catapults for using!"

  There were shouts of "By the left, rudder!" The sails flapped and the ship came round; but as she settled to the new co
urse it was clear that the commander of the row galleys had discovered his danger, for they were turned to shore. Earl Mikalegon stamped the deck. "We pay for our good luck with bad," he cried, "and here's an end of this raid, for they're ware of us at Lectis Minima, and I doubt we can reach Smarnaravida before news of our coming. Shipmaster, set our course for homeward—and you, sirs, follow me and be shown what I mean."

  24 The Northern Sea: A Bond Broken

  HE TURNED beneath the poop stairs to a door, so low that even Alsander, of far fewer inches than the Earl or Airar either, must stoop to enter. They were in an apartment from side to side of the vessel, with fenestrations in the walls and built-beds beneath them. An amass of gear clattered about the deck as the ship moved to the breeze. Earl Mikalegon ducked under the beams of the deck above and beat on a further door, "Wake, all!" crying. Airar heard no answer; but what there was seemed to satisfy; Os Erigu flung open the portal. Crowding behind Rogai and the Carrhoenes, Airar caught over their shoulders a flicker of color in the light from the stern-windows; Mikalegon swung to one side, bowed and swept out an arm like a showman:

  "The sea-eagle feeds on golden pheasant, oh-ho-ho-hoho! What? Down to your knee-knuckles, lawless dogs! Do you not know the most exalted Princess Aurea of the Empire?"

  Airar caught a glimpse of a tall fair girl with a spoiled mouth and a green-and-golden gown, a small red gold coronal atop piled braids of pale gold. The color of her lips was not her own—but so much of the old Imperial reverence held that Alsander went slow to one knee and Pleiander and the rest, so that Airar could not avoid imitation, at the price of being boorish.

  She laughed like a tinkling bell and her voice had an edge of sneer. "I thank you your obeisance. If 'twere meant, I'd say out sword and cut down this famous conqueror that wars on women, but that's too much to ask, not so?"

  The big man laughed in his beard. "They had as well not. Or is there a champion of the Empire here who'd give me a knock? I'll offer him fair duello, man for man and no interference from any. But before the play begins, mark that you fight not for the Empire, but for the affianced bride of Count Vulk the Fourteenth, the Unreasonable. Ah, bah! These debates eat our hours and should be conducted by glee-singers. Come, doves, chicks—a promenade a-deck for you, while I've a word or two to say to these masters."

  "No courteous thing to order women so," began the blonde girl and stamped her foot as though to go in a tirade as the Earl firmly gripped her arm, but Airar missed half of what was said, for he had risen like the rest from knee to feet and at the plurals looked—then lost his breath. For there was another girl in the room besides the princess, and as he saw, he knew that all his life long he should follow that other, feeling in a flash that this was somehow infidelity to Gython and his life's ideal, yet— false though it make him—he could not deny that this was his hope forever. . . . Not tall, yet not so short neither, and eyebrows that missed the perfect arch over eyes whose color he could not have named; a fine, thin nostril, a shapely chin—no, no, can one tell the form of the lightning-stroke? A tune rang through his head:

  How shall I know her? What shall I give for her?

  Lift your eyes to her eyes and sing—

  Many will die that a few may live for her—

  Oh, yes, and yes; if the Earl's challenge had been for her it would be easy to fight him and his ship and his whole fleet; or if she were the damsel voyaging to wed the Count of Vulkings, it were time to abandon all Dalarna and join them to serve her.

  "Mi-e-e-e," wailed the kitten from in the pouch at his side.

  Just brushing past she turned. "A kitten! May I see?"

  Trancelike, Airar fumbled the pouch fastening open, conscious only of the perfume of her nearness. The small frightened animal leaped past his groping hand with claws outspread; past hers, and in another leap lit clinging on the bare arm of Evadne of Carrhoene.

  "Phlegeos!" cried the shield-girl, flinging her arm round furiously. There was a thud as the kitten detached was thrown against a beam. Evadne was nursing a scratched arm, mouthing curses, and Airar leaping across the room, not noting how a light-brown head was beside his own as he picked up the poor little body that kicked twice and went limp in his hands. A mist of tears swept past his eyes and his jaw muscles set; the girl beside him gave a wordless cry, and from behind the mist Earl Mikalegon said:

  "Noble sir, sorrow that you lose your pet through accident in my cabin; but neither mice nor men are immortal and now we have men's work to do."

  "No accident!" cried Airar wildly. "This was prepense and I'll have repair." His hand was on his dag, hardly noting how the Earl did frown.

  Said Meliboe the enchanter: "There is something more in this than a small matter, my lord. The cat is in some sense Master Airar's luck and banner, his people bearing the head of a great cat before them to battle, so that to lose this small one is not merely of evil omen, but despite as well."

  "Ha! So? There must be a satisfaction." The Earl slid behind a table bolted to the deck and beat his fist for attention. "My judgment: you, Evander of Carrhoene, shall make full acknowledgment of fault, paying such fine as Master Airar shall fix; or, since here is a question of more than value, lowering your standard to the cat-standard of Trangsted; for he has noble birth and you none. Or if Master Airar will not accept this, then both parties shall take weapons and fight it on the deck of this vessel till blood is drawn according to the rule of the free company of Os Erigu; but afterward, all shall touch hands and be friends."

  "You are somewhat free with your judgments, Lord Mikalegon," said Pleiander. "Who gave you authority to judge over us?"

  "None, truly enough. All are free to go their own path among the free companies. Do you wish it? I'll call the quarter-boat and have you set ashore again where you were found."

  Pleiander looked black murder and Evadne too, but neither of them had more to say. Evimenes had out a kerchief and was dabbing at his sister's arm, but could make little of that, for the wounds were truly scratches. Said Airar, brushing the edge of a sleeve across his eyes: "I'll take no fine; not a fining matter." He reached a hand to touch that of Alsander, but Evadne did not offer, nor he to her, for it seemed that if he did so in such a moment, he must either have screamed or driven a dagger into her to break the peace.

  Now there was a council, with the reflected light from the water swaying back and forth across the ceiling as the ship moved. The travellers exposed all their story and Earl Mikalegon listened as the tale shifted from one to the other, tempers somewhat cooling as each remembered the good help the others had given in urgency. Os Erigu heard them more quietly than one would have looked for in so booming a man, at the end, saying:

  "That you may know what passes in the world and how these come aboard, I'll say: we sailed a raid, hoping to harry the trade that passes up the rivers toward Briella. Well, off the capes that shield Lectis Minima, what do we find? A great nef becalmed under the lee of the land, bearing the Imperial standard. I rowed over to make my ruty, but found the shipmaster an ill-conditioned rogue with a cast in his eye, who warned me away and hove up a cantle of stone to drive it through the bottom of the shallop. 'Tis not so done in the waters where Mikalegon rules; one of my people let him have a crossbow bolt through the shoulder to teach him manners, and I went aboard, with a few of my brisk boys behind. As soon as we reached the deck there was a hurry like a hen-yard under hawks, so instead of making bows and taking leave, I'd a look around. It was not long before I discovered these two pigeons and that brother of theirs—what's his name?"

  "Prince Aurareus," said one of the Earl's officers.

  "I name him Pretty-boy. He's forward. Well, as soon as I found him, there was weeping and wailing that an Imperial ship with the members of the family in it needed no let-pass from me. Though in Os Erigu we care not much for the house of Argimenes, we keep the peace of the Empire and it's true enough no harm comes from me to Stassia; but it failed explanation of why there was such eagerness to keep us distant at the beginning
. Pretty-boy would say no more, so we went back to the shipmaster, and between his wound and an applied bowstring, he turned reasonable enough to tell us the tale, which is that this Princess Aurea was given in marriage to Count Vulk. His possession, not the Empire's; therefore I seized the ship and its cargo. Lawmen may argue the point; I'll take that up when Vulk sues for peace and his bride.

  Airar swallowed once and said, "Who is the other?"

  "What other? Oh, the lesser girl that took your fancy and made you gawk so. She's the cadette—Argyra. Be warned; she's proud and contentious like all the Argimenids; has refused a marriage with one of the greatest lordships in Dodekapolis, which is why she was sent hither—in the hope that she might marry off one of the Vulking counts or barons, thinking to spite her family, whereas it is precisely what they wish. I joy to be a daughterless man; but now you have all my tidings and there's much mystery in these muddy waters, though mayhap one of you can see the pearl-oyster at the bottom."

  "Where's the mystery?" asked Alsander. "It seems a plain tale to me."

  "Nay, Bag-of-Bones, cozen children with that sugar, but not your old opponent. You know as well as I it's more than strange that the great County Vulk affords no convoy to a ship that brings him a bride Imperial."

  Alsander looked down with black lashes on his cheek, but it was Meliboe the magician that spoke. "I can tell you the reason for that."

  "Say on, old man. Pest! If I'd a beard like that, I'd paint it to give at least the appearance of life. What says your woman when you bed her?"

  "There are those who would think white hairs came with wisdom. . . . But touching the other, here's the thought: who's Chancellor to this Vulk that is so unreasonable as to have it for a by-name?"

  "The marshal, Bordvin Wildfang, unless there be a new one."

  "And the Vulks are counts elective, not so?"

  "It is thus credibly reported."