Well of the Unicorn

by Fletcher Pratt

  "You are not wedded yet," said Airar, but the words lacked fire.

  "Why, for that matter, you make yourself my enemy and my sister's by the oath you gave. She is a child of the Well and the Empire, and you are under its ban." She looked at him.

  "I had thought—" said Airar.

  "Nay, as I feel it, you had not thought at all, or only thought of lording it over these free companies of Os Erigu, cut from the great world. You are a very romantical thinker, Lord Airar. Who seeks his bride among those born to politic must deal in things political."

  Airar gathered himself desperately. "Bright lady," said he, "do you tell me my quest is vain unless I give over my hope to see all that I love free and happy?"

  "By no means, silly fellow. I am your advocate as much as the old wizard." She reached forward to tap his wrist, and there was another knock at the door, a double rap. Argyra flashed by as Airar looked at her hungrily, there was a low murmur of voices at the outer door, and Meliboe the enchanter slid in along the wall, the low light from the lamp making him look as though his eyes were, closed. He did not speak. The Princess Aurea gave him a glance of recognition and once more addressed herself to Airar, Trangsted's son.

  "In politic all can be done. I tell you secrets which you must never breathe—" she looked at him closely "—but the chancellery of the Empire is none too happy over the dealings of this Vulking lordship. That they should make conquest of foul Salmonessa was well done. Even the bishops applauded. It is tolerable that this hold should be assailed, since our persons lie in it and the place not under Imperial allegiance; but there was no right to such dealings as were held at Mariupol city, and in the White-riverdales —nay, nor that this matter of Os Erigu should be carried through by the strong arm with no negotiation."

  "But this is all the doing of Count Vulk, is it not? I have heard they—"

  "Nay, but that half-attainted traitor and very perfect scoundrel, Bordvin Wildfang, who intrigues to be himself the count. So we are allies after all, you and I, our enemy's the same."

  Airar would have said, but could not find to say.

  "Why cannot we have then an alliance in form? For the honor of the House my sister must have an Imperial dower; why not that city of Mariola where Bordvin has behaved so ill—with whatever suzerainties in Vastmanstad are needed to uphold the dignity? Look how this ruins Bordvin, while my intended stands on the gain over Salmonessa and nothing has been lost. We become kinsmen, you and I—a pleasant thing."

  Said Airar: "What of Earl Mikalegon?"

  "As Count of Mariola, you're his equal. Treat with him as one. I'll warrant composition remember that he wars for gain."

  "And Hestinga—the Whiteriver dales?"

  "You bargain too close, Lord Airar. I cannot but feel they must remain in the Countship of Vulk and Lacia."

  For a moment he contemplated the dazzling prospect of Airar the youth taxed out of the little stead, Airar leader of fifty, then Airar Count of Mariola, with more than all, husband of the Princess Argyra, and his mouth came open a little. Then his thought slid past Rogai, past his own father and Leonce Fabrizius (and here it burned) to old Rudr the free-fisher. He closed his mouth to lip-biting"

  "No," he said.

  "Nay—" she began, but before another word was interrupted by Meliboe, eyes closed against the wall, speaking without accent or tone:

  "Some philosophy is needed to see why patriotism, though praised as a virtue among men, must be so carefully inculcate in children before they will have it. Indeed it is not a natural virtue at all, but only a substitute for that love of mankind which the bishops recommend. It's a love which recognizes only one kind of man as man, have he blond hair or a dialect of Lacia."

  Said Airar: "I will not, though you make me duke."

  Aurea's face, the princess of Carrhoene, surprised by holding less of anger than of rueful smile. "One might say— " she said; "—that is, it's well we did not fall in with Lord Airar's hint of a city greater than Mariola. Patriotism, you named it, sir wizard? I call it a small and narrow thing, not worth such high names, which speaks the interest of a little part of Dalarna against that of the Empire, great and universal."

  "Bright lady," said Airar, stoutly, "can the whole be great if the parts are broke?"

  Meliboe the enchanter, in the same voice that had no change of sound: "I told you he would not."

  "It is true? You will not, really?" Aurea came to her feet in a swirl of garments. "You have our leave to withdraw. My sister will be sorry."

  Meliboe stood still as a blank-eyed statue as Airar brushed past, burning hope and wild despair a whirlpool in his mind. "My sister will be sorry—" he clutched at; was it true? Or was all lost, not only the unaccepted proffer? She did not come to let him out; behind, as the door left him in dark, he heard only a step and the bar fell behind him. Off to the northern, seaside flank of the Courtyard a girl's voice ran on a trill of laughter to high point before breaking in a little squeal. The moon had gone; the keep toward which he turned stood outlined against the intricate summer stars. A moment he gazed; something touched, then gripped lightly his arm, and he swung round, hand on dag. Little mice ran up and down his spine at the realization it was herself. Argyra.

  "What will—" he began, and saw her hand flash white to cut him off as she spoke hurriedly: "Lord Airar, it is not just. Only I must let you know that my sister's plan was none of mine. I do assure—"

  Now 'twas his turn to break in. "Hark, no lord I," said he, almost fiercely, "but a simple peasant of upland Dalarna; yet one that dares to say he will love you more than a day, as a mole may love the star it cannot see."

  "You hurt my arm. I know—they use the title to make you of their party. I'll call you so no more." She turned, held out her hand again, which he felt slightly quiver, and in the dim starshine her head was lowered, though feet shifted in eagerness to be gone. "And I do accept of your true service."

  He held her yet. "I'd lineate the earth for you, halt Saturn, steal a horn from Capricorn, or raise the ghastly dead with Mercury—"

  "Now you do unconvince me. No need for all these flowers if you're sincere; only falsity needs poetry." "Why, love—all love itself—is poetry, and here—" From beyond the keep came a booming thud, then a shout muted by obstacles, and another. They turned; the thud again. Someone waved a torch against the sky at the keep, and a trumpet cried harshly across the thick dark. The siege had truly begun.

  28 Os Erigu: Ramp of the Cat

  THE VULKINGS had mounted a heavy catapult behind cover atop the wooden tower they were jacking forward at the end of their growing causeway. Airar stumbled over a smallish stone, with shards still clinging of the clay ball that had been baked round it, to where Pleiander stood by one of their own catapults in steel cap and target shield. His face seemed to change expression as the torches moved. Os Erigu's riposte had -fallen short and the men were toiling at the windlass.

  Another of the balls came past overhead, crashing against the pave and a man of Carrhoene clutched his wrist with a cry. Pleiander rapped out an oath. "They shoot for the lights," he said. "Diades! Gonatas! Take a pair of those torches a few paces down the wall and fix there to give 'em a target. Come, lads, pull her home merrily, hai! hai! Are your muscles made of water?"

  "What's to do?" asked Airar.

  "Arm yourself if you'd stay here," snapped the Carrhoene, short and savage. "This is long-range work; idea against idea, not crash to crash; he wins who rouses dismay with a few hurts.—Release!"

  The Vulkings had a ligh up there behind their shot-window. Airar saw it occluded as those within let go another of their stone-hearted balls. There was a wait, then the thud-shatter as it struck down along the battlement where the torches were placed, with mocking yells from the men of Carrhoene. Pleiander was unpleased. "They overreach us from their height," he cried. "Relax winding! Astyanax, get me three of four crossbow bolts; we'll leash them together and try a fire-shaft from the catapult; the wings may carry it high enough to tiddy
them a trifle." He turned, saw Airar: "What, still here? Go, I said; begone until you come caparisoned. All lives are valuable, even yours, since that Baron Carina yonder's evident a pretty fellow that knows his leaguers, and there'll be sword-play for all before we're done."

  Someone laughed among the shadows. Airar turned away, half-consciously in his irritation twisting fingers and pronouncing the first words of a spell that would put an itch on the Star-Captain, till he remembered and stopped just in rime. His conscious thought was all brimming with the glory of Argyra, the peasant-fostered princess, and whether she had meant it as he wished it to be meant, saying she did accept his service. No use to the wall again; he sought bed and lay long unable to find ease, his mind going round till the window above turned pale grey and there was a truce to the clamors exterior, when unexpectedly and for the first time since parting with Gython of Gentebbi he found himself in the land of dream.

  A single star rose over a twilight sea, while somewhere a bell rang slowly. He felt a rush of what must be mighty wings and the ground of the dream shifted, so that he was no longer rocking among seawaves, but in an immemorial colonnade of trees that pillared up to make another and perpetual twilight on the forest floor. Far among those lofty trunks flashed something white—a unicorn that galloped, lifting dainty legs high. To Airar in the dream came the thought that only a virgin may tame this beast, yet he desired it much and called to it, using the words of old tongues that are magic for friendship to all enchanted creatures, as his father had taught him. The unicorn halted, sniffed the air friendlily, and then came toward him; but as it approached, instead of a horn in its forehead, there stood a naked sword, and he was being shaken by Erb the Lank.

  "Come, young master, there be council for all but slugabeds."

  They were already together when Airar arrived, with the air of men among whom previous sayings had not gone well—Pleiander by a window, hand on hilt and humming one of his Carrhoene airs, Alsander looking at his shoe-tips, and Evadne staring straight before her with a spot of red in her cheek. Just opposite was the Earl; he was gathering handfuls of his black beard in one fist to stuff them in his mouth and chew before he spat them out again, an odd habit indeed (thought Airar) but one that made him look ugly enough to bite a viper to death. Poe was not among the captains who watched him. At one side a peasantlooking man with a braggart- cap in his hands shifted feet.

  "Here's now your famous captain and justiciar," sneered Evadne. " 'Ware him, though; he'll sell you all to Stassia for a milkmaid's kiss."

  "That was not well said, brother," said Alsander. "This sits on all our shoulders." He turned to Mikalegon: "May I set this matter forth, lord?"

  "Bedamned little to say. Unresolvable. Hell's fires—"

  "Under your leave, lord—" Then to Airar: "Os Erigu's master and commander here; so grant we all. Yet by his own rule are not we free companions? Now we are split past curing on how to save from these Vulkish men, hence would exercise our freedom to withdraw even into Micton country. But his lordship says an obligation taken must be worked out to the end, even free spirits depending on each other till obligation's over. Where lies the line? Can you but point?"

  Airar could have wished to be anywhere but there. "Will you handsel me a judgment?" he said.

  "Not on the terms of that among the Hestinga mountains," said Evimenes. "This is too deadly."

  "Nor I," said the Earl, spitting out a tangle of beard. "What! What! Handsel in mine own castle?"

  "The freedom of your free companions must be a very little thing then," said Airar, "if 'twill not bear the first stress put upon it."

  "I do not know for that," growled the Earl, "but I do know I'll have none of oath-breakers that run yammering for help with mouths full of promises, then say nay, when all's not as they wish."

  "Oath-breakers!" cried Pleiander, his sword flashing out like blue lightning, and up leaped all the Os Erigu captains with a metallic clang, but Airar's listening had brought him between the two parties, and he held up both hands to keep them back.

  "What's here?" he cried. "Handsel or no, they beat with stones on the wall there, and now's the time for composition within. Who gains by hard word or sword in this room save those curst Vulkings?"

  A little silence in which muscles almost creaked, relaxing. Pleiander put up his blade; Alsander spoke:

  "Well, here's the thing more closely: our brother Pleiander, who knows more about siege than any other here, says the castle must fall unless somehow we make an effort naval. Yet Earl Mikalegon will not waste his ships."

  "We have nothing but by sea," said Mikalegon; and "If they reach the walls with their tower, we're sped," Pleiander together with him.

  "I am uninstruct," said Airar. "Will not firebrands from your catapult hold them at bay?"

  "They've hung the thing with rawhides; will not bite."

  "Rogai in Korosh on their rear?"

  "Ah-wah-ha-ha-ha-whoop!" roared Mikalegon, fingers in his beard. "Here's your Korosh man; quiz him. Nay, saves time to tell. Your Rogai has the mountain men up, but now two tercias and a half are before us; another half in march. Their convoys are too strong to be cut, all provisions come down from Briella with full guard and grisly enchantments to make the Korosh tremble in their shoon. Little help there."

  Pleiander added: "They build faster in wood and rubble than we can with stone within. Overtop us; clear our battlements with catapults. A ram—"

  "What's then to do?" asked Airar.

  All spoke at once, but out of the babble a certain sense. Earl Mikalegon's will was to give up, go, all ships to sea and make a new home, Uravedu or the Spice Islands, where the blue men would be easily dominate, or Dzik if need be; but Evadne, no, it was stand or fall here, Carrhoene would never forgive their defeat—

  "Nor Dalarna ours, neither," said Airar. "What do we fight for? Our advancement or the hope of the land?" and if Mikalegon thought elsewise, he was ashamed to say. Airar waited across half a minute of silence and added: "Yet I fail understanding how you'd beat them off with a sea-effort, Master Pleiander."

  "Clear enough," the Carrhoene. "Load our people in the ships with scaling ladders, bridges, and similar; run them against this causeway, carry it with escalade and burn their tower. Belike part of the causeway would go down, too; there's much timber in it and binding the flanks. But attack we must, or a long good-bye."

  Earl Mikalegon growled. "It is just this plan that's not to be thought on. For look—they'll knock my ships to pieces with their stone-throwers and firepots before we ever come close, not to say that we can only reach the causeway by bridge or ladder that every boat's bottom would be beat out on the ripraps. Even so, burn me the tower; such a thing might daunt play-warriors from the Twelve Cities, but Vulkings are made of stiffer stuff. They'll build anew, and where will we be then with no means of egress from here? If that's the sole plan this famous siege-captain can make, I say damn all and abandon all. What?"

  "I would hear Alsander's word on it," said Airar.

  Evadne made a sound but Alsander cut across it to say: "In point of planning, his lordship's most reasonable, since we shall soon be penniless if we must spend the fleet for the tower, which cost so much less to build. Yet reason's self turns coward before necessity."

  "Not if they may touch hands," said Airar. "It seemed to me his lordship said a thing that showed how this might be done. The causeway reachable by a ship among the rocks, to wit."

  Earl Mikalegon called peace to his beard-chewing for the moment and all stood dumb to hear Airar's word.

  "Would we put men on the tower? Nay: fire. Thenwhy not use a single ship, build out your bridges and ladders, but let them at the outer arms carry pots of combustible, so when the ship's driven there, these pots would ignite the tower? If she's brought home fierce enough they may attack and take her as they will, but can by no means pry her loose."

  "I'll do it!" cried Mikalegon. Pleiander, more cautious, fingered his sharp chin with a scowl of concentration and said
after a pause he believed the trick might be made good, but not alone—it would require an annex of other attacks, as one by small boat and ladder against the flank of the causeway, another across the broken rocks and archers under mantlets to what remained of the high bridge connecting Os Erigu with the mainland. He was much taken with the deep draw of these northern bowmen, never seen in Carrhoene.

  Now the Earl's voice boomed hearty again, giving detail to his captains for carrying out the plan, the selected ship in the harborage to be screened by others while she was prepared. They let him make the plot precise, which in truth chiefly made itself with a word from Pleiander now and again on some such small matter as substituting for Airar's firepots baskets in withy wood that could burn through and shed their cargoes. Airar found himself with the fisher-spearmen assigned to one of the most singular parts of all—the advance in small boats to cover the flank of the fireship, since his men were good boaters. There was not much of pitch or like material in the castle but it is a thing the men of the Iron Mountains make when they are not mining; the Korosh messenger said such should be collected at the Fjord of the Bear if a ship were sent in a week's time, which set the date of the effort at a week plus two days. With this messenger, Meliboe the enchanter held long converse for the finding of some protection against the witcheries by which the Vulkings surrounded their road convoys.

  Airar did not hear how this was done or if it were done, though it interested him much, since a protection general could not be laid in such a case through any magics he knew; but he had more urgent affairs in hand, to wit, seeking Argyra. In vain that day; the next and next there was war-work to do, for every hand was now in need at the wall, where Carina had more than one catapult going and the tower closer daily as his men poured more on the causeway from the shelter of the machine's lower levels.