by Jack Dann
Now of all times was the time for a lover to receive, to take from the loved one his pain, his trouble, his fear. "Oh, hush, hush," she whispered, her hands touching his bruised face like swift feathers. "It's all over now. It's all over."
She turned him over on his back and knelt to bring him up sitting. She lifted one of his thick arms around her shoulder. He was very heavy, but she was very strong. When he was upright, gasping weakly, she looked up and down the road in the waning moonlight. Nothing, no one. The Great House was dark. Across the road, though, was a meadow with high hedgerows which might break the wind a little.
"Come, my love, my dear love," she whispered. He trembled violently.
All but carrying him, she got him across the road, over the shallow ditch, and through a gap in the hedge. She almost fell with him there. She gritted her teeth and set him down gently. She let him lean against the hedge, and then ran and swept up great armfuls of sweet broom. She made a tight springy bundle of it and set it on the ground beside him, and put a corner of her cloak over it, and gently lowered his head until it was pillowed. She folded the rest of the cloak about him. He was very cold.
There was no water near, and she dared not leave him. With her kerchief she cleaned some of the blood from his face. He was still very cold. He said, "You devil. You rotten little devil."
"Shh." She crept in beside him and cradled his head. "You'll be warm in a minute."
"Stand still," he growled. "Keep running away."
"I won't run away," she whispered. "Oh, my darling, you've been hurt, so hurt. I won't leave you. I promise I won't leave you."
He lay very still. He made the growling sound again.
"I'll tell you a lovely thing," she said softly. "Listen to me, think about the lovely thing," she crooned.
"There's a place in the bog, a pool of pure water, where the trees live beautifully, willow and aspen and birch, where everything is peaceful, my darling, and the flowers grow without tearing their petals. The moss is blue and the water is like diamonds."
"You tell me stories in a thousand voices," he muttered.
"Shh. Listen, my darling. This isn't a story, it's a real place. Four miles north and a little west, and you can see the trees from the ridge with the two dwarf oaks. And I know why the water is pure!" she cried gladly. "I know why!"
He said nothing. He took a deep breath and it hurt him, for he shuddered painfully.
"The unicorn drinks there," she whispered. "I saw him!"
Still he said nothing. She said, "I made a song about it. Listen, this is the song I made:
And He—suddenly gleamed! My dazzled eyes
Coming from outer sunshine to this green
And secret gloaming, met without surprise
The vision. Only after, when the sheen
And Splendor of his going fled away,
I knew amazement, wonder and despair,
That he should come—and pass—and would not stay,
The Silken-swift—the gloriously Fair!
That he should come—and pass—and would not stay,
So that, forever after, I must go,
Take the long road that mounts against the day,
Travelling in the hope that I shall know
Again that lifted moment, high and sweet,
Somewhere—on purple moor or windy hill—
Remembering still his wild and delicate feet,
The magic and the dream—remembering still!
His breathing was more regular. She said, "I truly saw him!"
"I'm blind," he said. "Blind, I'm blind."
"Oh, my dear . . ."
He fumbled for her hand, found it. For a long moment he held it. Then, slowly, he brought up his other hand and with them both he felt her hand, turned it about, squeezed it. Suddenly he grunted, half sitting. "You're here."
"Of course, darling. Of course I'm here."
"Why?" he shouted. "Why? Why? Why all of this? Why blind me?" He sat up, mouthing, and put his great hand on her throat. "Why do all that if . . ." The words ran together into an animal noise. Wine and witchery, anger and agony boiled in his veins.
Once she cried out.
Once she sobbed.
"Now," he said, "You'll catch no unicorns. Get away from me." He cuffed her.
"You're mad. You're sick," she cried.
"Get away," he said ominously.
Terrified, she rose. He took the cloak and hurled it after her. It almost toppled her as she ran away, crying silently.
After a long time, from behind the hedge, the sick, coughing sobs began again.
Three weeks later Rita was in the market when a hard hand took her upper arm and pressed her into the angle of a cottage wall. She did not start. She flashed her eyes upward and recognized him, and then said composedly, "Don't touch me."
"I need you to tell me something," he said. "And tell me you will!" His voice was as hard as his hand.
"I'll tell you anything you like," she said. "But don't touch me."
He hesitated, then released her. She turned to him casually. "What is it?" Her gaze darted across his face and its almost-healed scars. The small smile tugged at one corner of her mouth.
His eyes were slits. "I have to know this: why did you make up all that . . . prettiness, that food, that poison . . . just for me? You could have had me for less."
She smiled. "Just for you? It was your turn, that's all."
He was genuinely surprised. "It's happened before?"
She nodded. "Whenever it's the full of the moon—and the squire's away."
"You're lying!"
"You forget yourself!" she said sharply. Then, smiling, "It is the truth, though."
"I'd've heard talk—"
"Would you now? And tell me—how many of your friends know about your humiliating adventure?"
He hung his head.
She nodded. "You see? They go away until they're healed, and they come back and say nothing. And they always will."
"You're a devil . . . why do you do it? Why?"
"I told you," she said openly. "I'm a woman and I act like a woman in my own way. No man will ever touch me, though. I am virgin and shall remain so."
"You're what?" he roared.
She held up a restraining, ladylike glove. "Please," she said, pained.
"Listen," he said, quietly now, but with such intensity that for once she stepped back a pace. He closed his eyes, thinking hard. "You told me—the pool, the pool of the unicorn, and a song, wait. 'The Silken-swift, the gloriously Fair . . .' Remember? And then I—I saw to it that you'd never catch a unicorn!"
She shook her head, complete candor in her face. "I like that, 'the Silken-swift.' Pretty. But believe me—no! That isn't mine."
He put his face close to hers, and though it was barely a whisper, it came out like bullets. "Liar! Liar! I couldn't forget. I was sick, I was hurt, I was poisoned, but I know what I did!" He turned on his heel and strode away.
She put the thumb of her glove against her upper teeth for a second, then ran after him. "Del!"
He stopped but, rudely, would not turn. She rounded him, faced him. "I'll not have you believing that of me—it's the one thing I have left," she said tremulously.
He made no attempt to conceal his surprise. She controlled her expression with a visible effort, and said, "Please. Tell me a little more—just about the pool, the song, whatever it was."
"You don't remember?"
"I don't know!" she flashed. She was deeply agitated.
He said with mock patience, "You told me of a unicorn pool out on the Bogs. You said you had seen him drink there. You made a song about it. And then I—"
"Where? Where was this?"
"You forget so soon?"
"Where? Where did it happen?"
"In the meadow, across the road from your gate, where you followed me," he said. "Where my sight came back to me, when the sun came up."
She looked at him blankly, and slowly her face changed. First the imprison
ed smile struggling to be free, and then—she was herself again, and she laughed. She laughed a great ringing peal of the laughter that had plagued him so, and she did not stop until he put one hand behind his back, then the other, and she saw his shoulders swell with the effort to keep from striking her dead.
"You animal!" she said, goodhumoredly. "Do you know what you've done? Oh, you . . . you animal!" She glanced around to see that there were no ears to hear her. "I left you at the foot of the terrace steps," she told him. Her eyes sparkled. "Inside the gates, you understand? And you . . ."
"Don't laugh," he said quietly.
She did not laugh. "That was someone else out there. Who, I can't imagine. But it wasn't I."
He paled. "You followed me out."
"On my soul I did not," she said soberly. Then she quelled another laugh.
"That can't be," he said. "I couldn't have . . ."
"But you were blind, blind and crazy, Del-my-lover!"
"Squire's daughter, take care," he hissed. Then he pulled his big hand through his hair. "It can't be. It's three weeks; I'd have been accused . . ."
"There are those who wouldn't," she smiled. "Or— perhaps she will, in time."
"There has never been a woman so foul," he said evenly, looking her straight in the eye. "You're lying—you know you're lying."
"What must I do to prove it—aside from that which I'll have no man do?"
His lip curled. "Catch the unicorn," he said.
"If I did, you'd believe I was virgin?"
"I must," he admitted. He turned away, then said, over his shoulder, "But—you?"
She watched him thoughtfully until he left the marketplace. Her eyes sparkled; then she walked briskly to the goldsmith's, where she ordered a bridle of woven gold.
If the unicorn pool lay in the Bogs nearby, Rita reasoned, someone who was familiar with that brackish wasteland must know of it. And when she made a list in her mind of those few who travelled the Bogs, she knew whom to ask. With that, the other deduction came readily. Her laughter drew stares as she moved through the marketplace.
By the vegetable stall she stopped. The girl looked up patiently.
Rita stood swinging one expensive glove against the other wrist, half-smiling. "So you're the one." She studied the plain, inward-turning, peaceful face until Barbara had to turn her eyes away. Rita said, without further preamble,"I want you to show me the unicorn pool in two weeks."
Barbara looked up again, and now it was Rita who dropped her eyes. Rita said, "I can have someone else find it, of course. If you'd rather not." She spoke very clearly, and people turned to listen. They looked from Barbara to Rita and back again, and they waited.
"I don't mind," said Barbara faintly. As soon as Rita had left, smiling, she packed up her things and went silently back to her house.
The goldsmith, of course, made no secret of such an extraordinary commission; and that, plus the gossips who had overheard Rita talking to Barbara, made the expedition into a cavalcade. The whole village turned out to see; the boys kept firmly in check so that Rita might lead the way; the young bloods ranged behind her (some a little less carefree than they might be) and others snickering behind their hands. Behind them the girls, one or two a little pale, others eager as cats to see the squire's daughter fail, and perhaps even . . . but then, only she had the golden bridle.
She carried it casually, but casualness could not hide it, for it was not wrapped, and it swung and blazed in the sun. She wore a flowing white robe, trimmed a little short so that she might negotiate the rough bogland; she had on a golden girdle and little gold sandals, and a gold chain bound her head and hair like a coronet.
Barbara walked quietly a little behind Rita, closed in with her own thoughts. Not once did she look at Del, who strode somberly by himself.
Rita halted a moment and let Barbara catch up, then walked beside her. "Tell me," she said quietly, "why did you come? It needn't have been you."
"I'm his friend," Barbara said. She quickly touched the bridle with her finger. "The unicorn."
"Oh," said Rita. "The unicorn." She looked archly at the other girl. "You wouldn't betray all your friends, would you?"
Barbara looked at her thoughtfully, without anger. "If—when you catch the unicorn," she said carefully, "what will you do with him?"
"What an amazing question! I shall keep him, of course!"
"I thought I might persuade you to let him go."
Rita smiled, and hung the bridle on her other arm. "You could never do that."
"I know," said Barbara. "But I thought I might, so that's why I came." And before Rita could answer, she dropped behind again.
The last ridge, the one which overlooked the unicorn pool, saw a series of gasps as the ranks of villagers topped it, one after the other, and saw what lay below; and it was indeed beautiful.
Surprisingly, it was Del who took it upon himself to call out, in his great voice, "Everyone wait here!" And everyone did; the top of the ridge filled slowly, from one side to the other, with craning, murmuring people. And then Del bounded after Rita and Barbara.
Barbara said, "I'll stop here."
"Wait," said Rita, imperiously. Of Del she demanded, "What are you coming for?"
"To see fair play," he growled. "The little I know of witchcraft makes me like none of it."
"Very well," she said calmly. Then she smiled her very own smile. "Since you insist, I'd rather enjoy Barbara's company too."
Barbara hesitated. "Come, he won't hurt you, girl," said Rita. "He doesn't know you exist."
"Oh," said Barbara, wonderingly.
Del said gruffly, "I do so. She has the vegetable stall."
Rita smiled at Barbara, the secrets bright in her eyes. Barbara said nothing, but came with them.
"You should go back, you know," Rita said silkily to Del, when she could. "Haven't you been humiliated enough yet?"
He did not answer.
She said, "Stubborn animal! Do you think I'd have come this far if I weren't sure?"
"Yes," said Del, "I think perhaps you would."
They reached the blue moss. Rita shuffled it about with her feet and then sank gracefully down to it. Barbara stood alone in the shadows of the willow grove. Del thumped gently at an aspen with his fist. Rita, smiling, arranged the bridle to cast, and laid it across her lap.
The rabbits stayed hid. There was an uneasiness about the grove. Barbara sank to her knees, and put out her hand. A chipmunk ran to nestle in it.
This time there was a difference. This time it was not the slow silencing of living things that warned of his approach, but a sudden babble from the people on the ridge.
Rita gathered her legs under her like a sprinter, and held the bridle poised. Her eyes were round and bright, and the tip of her tongue showed between her white teeth. Barbara was a statue. Del put his back against his tree, and became as still as Barbara.
Then from the ridge came a single, simultaneous intake of breath, and silence. One knew without looking that some stared speechless, that some buried their faces or threw an arm over their eyes.
He came.
He came slowly this time, his golden hooves choosing his paces like so many embroidery needles. He held his splendid head high. He regarded the three on the bank gravely, and then turned to look at the ridge for a moment. At last he turned, and came round the pond by the willow grove. Just on the blue moss, he stopped to look down into the pond. It seemed that he drew one deep clear breath. He bent his head then, and drank, and lifted his head to shake away the shining drops.
He turned toward the three spellbound humans and looked at them each in turn. And it was not Rita he went to, at last, nor Barbara. He came to Del, and he drank of Del's eyes with his own just as he had partaken of the pool—deeply and at leisure. The beauty and wisdom were there, and the compassion, and what looked like a bright white point of anger. Del knew that the creature had read everything then, and that he knew all three of them in ways unknown to human beings.
—and tossed his head, tore the bridle out of her grasp, sent the golden thing high in the air. It turned there in the sun, and fell into the pond.
And the instant it touched the water, the pond was a bog and the birds rose mourning from the trees. The unicorn looked up at them, and shook himself. Then he trotted to Barbara and knelt, and put his smooth, stainless head in her lap.
Barbara's hands stayed on the ground by her sides. Her gaze roved over the warm white beauty, up to the tip of the golden horn and back.
The scream was frightening. Rita's hands were up like claws, and she had bitten her tongue; there was blood on her mouth. She screamed again. She threw herself off the now withered moss toward the unicorn and Barbara. "She can't be!" Rita shrieked. She collided with Del's broad right hand. "It's wrong, I tell you, she, you, I . . ."
"I'm satisfied," said Del, low in his throat. "Keep away, squire's daughter."
She recoiled from him, made as if to try to circle him. He stepped forward. She ground her chin into one shoulder, then the other, in a gesture of sheer frustration, turned suddenly and ran toward the ridge. "It's mine, it's mine," she screamed. "I tell you it can't be hers, don't you understand? I never once, I never did, but she, but she—"
She slowed and stopped, then, and fell silent at the sound that rose from the ridge. It began like the first patter of rain on oak leaves, and it gathered voice until it was a rumble and then a roar. She stood looking up, her face working, the sound washing over her. She shrank from it.
It was laughter.
She turned once, a pleading just beginning to form on her face. Del regarded her stonily. She faced the ridge then, and squared her shoulders, and walked up the hill, to go into the laughter, to go through it, to have it follow her all the way home and all the days of her life.
Del turned to Barbara just as she bent over the beautiful head. She said, "Silken-swift . . . go free."
The unicorn raised its head and looked up at Del. Del's mouth opened. He took a clumsy step forward, stopped again. "You!"
