Well of the Unicorn

by Fletcher Pratt

  "Shall I say why?" "If you will, gracious lady."

  "No titles. Aurea . . . but hear—" and she told him that tale, seating herself on the low bar of the big ballista with her back to the rail, wrapped warm against the fresh seabreeze that ever and again detached a lock of her hair across her face, which she put by without seeming to to notice.

  —The Well, the Well of the Unicorn, it is the profit of our kindred, so that you nobles of Dalarna look up across the sea and think how splendid it is for us to hold this treasure that is the heal of every unease. But at what price? Peace to one may be another's misery. I had a brother once, a little older than I; he was merry and gay when we were children together. According to the rule of the House we were brought up by peasant fostering, westaway in Scorby; for it is the custom among us Argimenids that those who are to rule must so learn the people and their needs. In those days it was planned for me to marry some great lord abroad, but for Princess Aurea my sister no marriage was seen but in the home counties, she being heir after my brother, and the House loves not to have its claims of inheritance spread abroad. Yet now it is a question if the House itself keep the inheritance.

  The stead was among the rolling low hills where everything is green—have you seen Scroby?—and the bonders who kept it were good fosterers, treating us in all respects as their own children, so there were even duties for us. I have played milkmaid—these hands have drained the warm white milk. My brother tied sheaves with the reapers and came in singing with them to drink cider when the first fires of autumn were comfortable at night.

  We were happy then! For the winter festival, which is the turning of the sun, it was mostly that we were taken back to the High House. We would ride through the snow on sledges with bells and an escort of horsemen, singing all the way. I mind once, when they let Bardis go up to the court with us, how he stood in the sledge as it dashed along and loosed an arrow that brought down a snow-fox that hurried from a thicket when the dogs barked. There was a splash of red on the snow and white fur, the only color in the world as it seemed, and my brother called out how it was lovely, but Bardis gave the pelt to Brodry and not to me. I was unhappy and cried to myself in bed. Certes, I would not do as much now; but I think that far more than Bardis, it was being in the cold marble hall of the High House, with its carving and tracery, lying on the great brocaded bed, rather than back where I had come to think it home. My mother was gentle, but always stately; she did not seem to listen when I spoke of the stead, and Aurea used to torment me, calling me her Sister Miaouw, and saying the only marriage I would make would be with one of the white heathen princes of Dzik.

  Airar made a movement.

  —Oh, Brodry and Bardis—I did not tell you of them. He was the son of the stead where we were fostered; I thought him more splendid than all the lordlings of court, so strong and fine, when they could only dance and giggle and say silly things to make a girl conceive they thought her a beauty. I knew I was no beauty—a gawky wench, as Bardis was gawky in his dealings at the High House. Aurea left me no doubt on my shortcomings, as legs like wheatstraws and the brown skin of a peasant —and Bardis gave the foxpelt to Brodry.

  She was Bardis' own cousin, from the stead nearest by that where we were fostered and there was much visiting and exchange of labor, as at seed-time and harvest. My chiefest friend among the girls of that part of Scroby— many a night have we shared the same bed, and all our secrets. One of those secrets was that my brother would oft be lover-like with her, as holding her hand to cross by stones in a stream, or lingering on the kiss of greeting when stead visited with stead. Such things girls do mark on; she used to speak of them and what she would say or do if he burst out with some word of love.

  —For he is a prince with a coronet and will be emperor of us all, she said.

  —Do, do, I said to her. What do you wish to do? If you would love him and bear his children, there's no bar. You know the law of our House that has stood since Argentarius the King, that the heirs shall never make marriages for policy alone, so that our mother the Empress was daughter to the poor Knight of Bremmery.

  —Ah, she said and flung her arms round me in the dark. If I but knew! Argyra—I think I am in love, but I do not know whether it is with your brother or Bardis. Is this not a very strange thing?

  But that I could not tell her. My brother so gladsome and gay, who could read and cipher better than a magician and knew old tales—many an evening did we sit round the fireplace of the stead eating nuts and roasted apples till long after the hour for rest, nor marked the hour while my brother told some story. Yet he was not behind in other things I did not see how anyone on whom he cast his eye could fail to love him. I would go so far in my thoughts and then see how Bardis, too, was so desirable a companion, and Brodry the luckiest of women, while I must go and wed unloved with some faraway lord. All four of us did in truth hold each other dear and could not bear the thought of choosings among the fellowship.

  So matters rested and no more said till after the sun-turning festival when Bardis gave Brodry the fox-pelt. We were all sad as we homed to the stead, for we knew this was the last time we should be there and together, our fostering being done with the seedtime moon of spring. My brother would go on some embassy to learn court manners while I must sit at home and wait for the coming of some princeling who would swallow a gawky peasant girl if she were sugared with an Imperial dower. We were not long at the stead this time before I marked how Brodry was changed, no more giving me her full heart. Oh, nothing to make reproach on, but now when she spoke to me of Bardis or my brother, it was as though a bar came down and she spoke of almost-strangers.

  She has made up her mind (I thought) and does not wish to tell me which it is, lest either choice give me a hurt. But I was wrong in that and only right in seeing how a mist of some kind had clouded the friendship of us four. There came a day at the break of spring when my brother had gone early to the stead where Brodry lived, while I had some small task that kept me, and Bardis, too. We started out to join them not long after nooning, taking a path through a little wood on a hill between the two places, and it was that hill that kept our voices from sounding. As we topped it and came round an old oak-tree, here were Brodry and my brother in each other's arms and kissing, while from one of her hands there trailed crushed to the ground the violets she had been gathering.

  She saw us first and pulled free, then stretched a hand to her cousin.—Oh, Bardis, she said, forgive me.

  —Wherefore? asked my brother. Is it not a joy to the friends that friendship is made forever by two of them? Nay, I publish it before the world and all.

  He reached for her hungrily, but Bardis went on one knee and I noticed how his face was white and strained round the mouth.—You are my lord and prince and I rejoice for you, he said.

  But Brodry broke free, crying—Nay, nay, what have I done? and put her hands to her face. Forgiveness is needed (she said after a long minute while Bardis remained with his head bowed down), for now I have given my pledge of love to you both and it can be kept but to one . . . but which one I do not know.

  I could see a change on my brother's face; never did one see such a change.—Is this true? he asked Bardis.

  —My lord, he began, but my brother interrupted him.

  —Nay, I'll have no rank; I thought we were friends. But you—he turned fiercely toward Brodry and I thought he would strike her, but she looked on him so proud and pitiful together that his hand lowered. He said,—No, you have done this in honesty, that I see; which is to say that the friendship has been true. But now the friendship's broken.

  None of us said so much as a word, but he after another minute—You set a hard problem to your prince, friends. Then somewhat hardly to Brodry—Well, have you now made your choice, now that you have your woman's victory of breaking friends for you?

  —No victory, she said and shook her head.

  —Even that I almost credit; and believe me it is no victory I seek neither, but the keeping of t
he friendship of us four, a precious thing if we may keep it. Now there is only one resource that I can see and that is we shall all go to the Well of the Unicorn forthwith and drink a draught together.

  —I know, you are for renown as a soldier and champion, to fight along the windy borders of the world. We have taled on it together. Here's the choice then, which will you have? School me if you can see how Brodry falls to either of us without breaking the fellowship unless by the brink of that Well where the unicorn will dip his horn.

  —It is true, said Brodry. It is my fault. I will go.

  —And you, puss? My brother spoke to me.

  —If you desire; but am I a party to your trouble? said

  —You could be a party to the curing of it. I saw how his thought was that the peace of the Well would turn Bardis to me instead of to Brodry. I knew how little was the hope of such an issue, but—I will go, I said.

  Now Bardis had risen and stood frowning.—It is in my mind (he said) that this is not a lucky enterprise; for love's a thing not changed or commanded even by the Unicorn's Well. But I will not hold back when you there go forward.

  We made the pilgrimage in spring. Under the marble arch we four joined hands and drank, sipping from each other's cups as the regulation is; and afterward we sat at the gate together and made a plan, which was to let all lie till my brother returned from his embassy, when the wondrous water should have worked in us. I remember how we were calm and happy, all contention spent, and sure of a glad issue, except that perhaps Bardis did not quite believe, for he was less spoken than we others and we chided him for it. Unjustly—for that afternoon by the gate of the Well was our last, and I never again saw my brother—

  Said Airar, amazed: "But how can that be so? I have never heard that the Well gave death for peace."

  "Death, death, who spoke of death? The embassy was to Naaros and that foul court of Salmonessa, where my brother Aurareus caught such manners and airs as you have seen, and came back no more my brother at all, but a stranger—so little an Argimenia that there's talk (though he does not know it) of setting aside the successsion and making Aurea queen."

  Airar searched for words of sympathy and could find none for such a case. "But the rest—did not you and they draw a better peace than that from this draught of the Well?"

  "Bardis and Brodry are wedded, I think. I have not seen them since Aurareus came back from the embassy. As for myself, the matter's not decided how I shall find peace. It may be I shall have it when I make my marriage—or that I have it in not making the only one yet offered, which is with Sthenophon, spadarion and tyrant of Permandos. I told them I'd slay myself before Id be given to him, and they sent me on this voyage, which is no more than an exile."

  26 Os Erigu: The Cup of War

  OS ERIGU CLIMBED slowly out of the sea at them, a shadow first on the horizon rim and then a grey finger pointing skyward, with the shoreline behind a lighter grey. It was the castle of Meliboe's picture in a dream; the sea-waves washed round its foot and one could hardly tell which was man-made stone and which the rocky promontory from whence it sprang. At its rear or eastward face piled rocks lay in a waste with water lashing through them, but above against the middle wall sprang joyously a bridge poised on slender arches, and midmost of it was a draw. This was lifted, thrusting a blank outstretched hand toward the land. Earl Mikalegon frowned:

  "It could be that we have unwelcome guests," said he. "The order was to keep the drawbridge down."

  But Pleiander of Carrhoene gave a long breath of delight. "I have not seen your hold before, Lord," said he, "but I am thought to know something of buildings and siegecraft and will say that this is surely one of the notablest and stoutest castles within the ring of the world."

  The wind came down from the east; the ships swung to it round the seaward face where the wall was lower and waves leaped up. Above the inner buildings rose step by step to the tall baillie at the citadel's heart. It was all built of black ironstone from the mountains behind and seemed to leer, squat as a huge dark toad in the clear sunbeam, though the height was far from small. No banner flew as they swung past the cape and fell into the calm from the rising hills landward, with in sails and out sweeps for entrance to the bay on the northward face where ships are sheltered. A quay had been built there, also of the gloomy dark joined the refrains, beating with his knife-handle; when the singer had done he gave a shout and stood up:

  "Drink! to the old gods of battle and an end to the cursed Well!"

  The singer struck a sounding chord from his harp; all down the hall men stood and shouted, disorderly and discordant. Airar stood with them but barely touched lip to his own cup and sat down with a tingle in the hair at the back of his neck, for this was only a little less than sacrilege. The man on his right marked this, one of Mikalegon's officers, with a lined hard face and a scar that almost involved an eye.

  "No disrespect to you Imperials," said he, friendly enough; "it's but our custom on the peak of Erigu when wars begin." "I'm a Dalecarle."

  "Sssh. Now comes the word and the swearings." Earl Mikalegon's cup had been filled again; he beamed through his beard with mountainous jollity. "We are besieged!" he cried. "Beyond our bridge there sits Baron Carina with the 4th Tercia of Briella and will have only this eagle's nest itself, no compromise, war to the end. His summons came this morning, his messenger hangs by the neck over our outer-guard at this hour."

  He paused to let them shout again and, when they had finished, lifted his cup:

  "Now we swear. I swear by the cup of war that I will make no peace with any, nor give any quarter, till this fourteenth Count Vulk is pulled from his place and his Baron Carina slain. Now let all who would hold to the fellowship of Os Erigu follow me."

  He drank; all down the table till the torch-flames rocked, the fighting men of Erigu, aye Dalarna and Carrhoene, leaped to their feet and roared with brandished weapons and this time Airar fully joining. But as the shouting somewhat died and men were seated, Scarface beside him remained on his feet, cup high:

  "By the cup of war I swear," he shouted; "that I will follow Earl Mikalegon in this contest to its very end and I will not sleep under roof till I have met Baron Carina in personal combat or till he is dead." He drank; the hall sounded again (not so loudly as before, but as in politeness for a thing expected) as Alsander of Carrhoene rose:

  "Though I be a stranger and sometime your foe, I will swear with you by this cup of war to be in this battle with Earl Mikalegon; and not to know peace or take peace till he gives peace, and I swear it not for myself alone but for the six brothers of Carrhoene, born in two births miraculously. But as for our own dear land ever unforgotten, I swear that I will not enter the High House of Carrhoene till the leaders of the People's Party have cleared the floor with their beards. This I swear by your cup of war."

  "We swear it!" cried Pleiander and Evimenes together, and before the hall could shout at them, the last raised up his hand saying; "And to it I add that I swear to slay Sthenophon of Permandos and lie with his sister Lycaonike without his permission."

  Now did the hall roar again, with men bearing on the table, pledging cups to the Carrhoenes and saying that had sworn well as the cupbearers scurried, for all that these northern sea-kings were wont to speak less than good of the captains from the isles. Into that sound others leaped up to swear by the cup of war, free captains of Os Erigu— one that he would plant a white spear on Briella's topmost tower, which was thought to be a boast and not a good oath; but another that he would bring home the triangles of three Vulking deese, and that was shouted at for the best. Rogai stood up; he swore on the cup of war to serve Baron Vanette-Millepigue as the Red Baron had served the syndic's children of Mariupol city, and his voice snarled as he said it, so the hubbub drooped a trifle. Erb would have risen; but Earl Mikalegon motioned him away and waved a hand at Airar.

  Though Alvar's tall son had taken so much less of these strong northern beers than some that this business of swearing and shouting to do
what would be done in any case came to him somewhat silly as he saw wizard Meliboe's lip curl, yet drink and excitement worked high in his mind, and there was no escape:

  "I swear by this cup of war," he said, "that I will not leave this war till Dalarna's free as Os Erigu—" he checked and for a moment all waited, and with sharp inward surprise young Airar heard his own voice shout: "—and that I will love and wed no woman but Argyra of Stassia, and she shall escape never though she flee across the world!"

  There was the shout and they pledged him cups, but over the sound out bayed Earl Mikalegon's laughter— "Yee-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Aurareus' face set in a nasty sneer, Pleiander looked like a sulky boy, and dark Evimenes flung back so fast his seat was upset and he half rose, one fist on the table and eyes intent. Airar caught a glimpse of Meliboe; beneath his beard the enchanter was looking down thoughfully and it might have been a trifle sad.

  "Well pledged," said Airar's seat-mate, and another of the Erigan free companions stood to swear to eat naught but stockfish till he had fed a deserion to the fishes. Sound filled the hall like a tide; the place seemed slightly to sway by a pivot as the word swept round, one and another swearing some deed, but Airar of Trangsted wondering whether he had done well or ill.

  The siege began in effect next morning, when heads were still thick and tempers short from the waters of the night before. At the shore end of the bridge, where the westmost tip of the Iron Mountains cascades down into the rocks out of which Os Erigu presently rises, a road winds among pine trees round a peak to reach the span. Here a man as sharp-eyed as Airar might see at dawning under the drizzly spring rain the red triangle of Briella flame on its marching-pole; and if that same had ears as good as his eyes, might have heard, through the mist that deadens sound, the thin high piping of the Vulking flutes. The terciaries marched. "What will they do?" growled Mikalegon. "Leap the gap?"