The Book of Horses and Unicorns

by Jackie French

  The giant lifted her great hands, wide as pitchforks, brown as any field hand’s, though the nails were clean. ‘Maybe I’ll have the little mousie stewed, or fried. It be most tender boiled inside my pot …’

  The giant cackled. It bent down and snapped the thongs that bound her ankle. The giant stood back. ‘I will cook the little mousie and suck her bones. I will hang her like a wombat in my larder till she be soft. She’ll be a delicate little morsel for such as me.’ The giant blinked and folded her arms. ‘For mercy’s sake, why aren’t you running girl?’ the giant said in a normal voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ethel truthfully.

  ‘Look child, if a giant catches you in her snare and talks about turning your bones into soup, it’s prudent to run, run as fast as you can, then tell everyone about your narrow escape. You understand me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethel.

  ‘Well, go on then. Scamper.’

  Ethel shook her head.

  ‘Stubborn,’ grinned the giant, showing her too-white, too-long teeth. ‘Stubborn as … well, I know of only one thing as stubborn and that’s me, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. What am I to do with you if you don’t run?’

  ‘Turn me into soup?’ offered Ethel.

  ‘Don’t joke about it child, it’s no joking matter. I only have two options up on my hill. I can hurt people or I can scare them, and big as I am, I couldn’t defend this place myself if a whole mob came at me. So I’m left with scaring people. Sensible people, who allow themselves to be scared.’

  ‘I was scared,’ objected Ethel.

  ‘But you still didn’t run. Why didn’t you run?’ inquired the giant, as though she really wanted to know. ‘Maybe I can improve my performance next time.’

  ‘Because I was more interested than scared,’ decided Ethel.

  The giant leant against a chunk of weathered concrete, her wide hands almost dropping against the ground. Her fingers were broader at the tips than below, like fattish spoons, thought Ethel.

  ‘So,’ remarked the giant. ‘Scared but not running. Curious. Lonely perhaps? So lonely you would dare even a giant?’

  ‘I’m not lonely,’ objected Ethel. ‘I’m the Lady of the Unicorn.’ She waited for the giant’s face to change. The giant looked unimpressed.

  ‘Don’t you know who the Lady of the Unicorn is?’ demanded Ethel.

  ‘More or less,’ said the giant. ‘I’ve never been much interested in who is what in the villages down below my hill. How did you become the Lady? Was there a competition?’

  Ethel shook her head. ‘When the old Lady died, they sent out searchers to find a new unicorn because hers wouldn’t go to anyone else, of course. And when they found one they took it to the Hall, and sent it out to find an owner.’

  ‘And it found you?’

  Ethel nodded. ‘I was up a tree picking apples. The unicorn stopped under my branch. I threw him an apple. He looked hungry … and sort of lonely. I didn’t know they were choosing a new Lady. I just thought — I don’t know what I thought. And so I slid down the tree and the unicorn butted my arms for more apples, so I fed him more, even though Uncle Maddox would be angry. And then, and then … I sort of slid onto his back. I don’t know why I did that either. And suddenly these six old men and women were racing up to us and they bowed and called me “my Lady” and they’ve called me “my Lady” ever since.’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  Ethel shrugged. ‘I don’t remember them. The T’manians killed them down south in a raid when I was small. I moved up here with Uncle Maddox and my cousins; but there were a lot of cousins and I was just a nuisance. They made a great fuss of me of course when I became the Lady — I think they thought I’d have them at the Hall. Or give them presents. But why should I? They didn’t want me when I was just Ethel. Why should I want them when I became the Lady?’

  ‘No reason that I can think of,’ said the giant matter-of-factly. ‘So now you have a great Hall and people to do whatever you want … and yet you still come looking for a giant.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethel slowly. ‘But I’m not lonely. I can’t be lonely. I’ve got Ma’m Margot — she’s sort of the steward, in charge of everything at the Hall. And the Grand Marshal, he’s building walls to keep out the T’manians if they ever decide to come up north again, and all the servants — everything I do has to be what the Lady does,’ she went on in a rush. ‘I wanted to do something for myself.’

  ‘So you came giant hunting,’ said the giant.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Ethel.

  The giant looked at her consideringly. ‘As it happens,’ she said, ‘I’m lonely too. Come on then. What’s your name?

  ‘Ethel.’

  ‘Come then, Ethel. Let’s see how you like a giant’s company for a change.’

  Her ankle hurt now the thong had been removed, but not enough to slow her down. Ethel followed the giant through the piles of rubble. The crows had vanished now, as though they recognised who had the rights to the dead animals on the hill.

  ‘Are you … are you really a giant?’ Ethel asked.

  The giant turned and grinned her toothy grin. ‘What kind of a question is that?’ she demanded. ‘Look at me! What do you see? Am I a giant or not? Or maybe you think I’m an elf in disguise, just pretending to be big.’

  ‘Well, of course you’re big,’ said Ethel. ‘I just thought giants would be different.’

  ‘Giants are giants,’ said the giant. ‘We’re big, that’s all. If you’re big you’re a giant.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ethel. ‘You mean there are more of you? More giants? But I thought giants didn’t exist. The old books say giants don’t exist.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t then,’ said the giant. ‘I bet those olden days writers said unicorns didn’t exist either. And geep. But they do now.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Ethel.

  The giant shrugged. ‘All I know is that once there were many horses and now there are hardly any horses and every so often one is born as a unicorn. And once there were many people but now there are fewer, and every so often one is born who becomes a giant … or something else.’

  ‘Weren’t you always a giant?’

  The giant shook her head above the heaps of rubble. ‘Once I was a baby just as you were a baby. I was a child just like you are a child. But I grew. I kept on growing. I grew till my father could no longer pretend I might change back to true proportions. I became a giant.’

  The giant trudged between the final circle of rubble, out into the clearing. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘The door is on the other side.’

  Ethel gazed around. The world below was flat, and marked like a game of noughts and crosses. There was the village, with its paddocks of corn and pumpkins and seedy wattles and potatoes. There was a square that must be the Hall, a smudge that was the coast, a green haze that was the forest, a sweep of blue that was the sea and a wider arch that was the sky. She hadn’t noticed how high the giant’s hill was before. ‘You can see everything from here!’ she breathed.

  The giant smiled a little sadly. ‘See everything and be part of nothing,’ she answered. ‘I can see the boats on the sea and the travellers on the road and the children playing hay fights after harvest.’

  ‘How come you didn’t see me coming then?’ asked Ethel.

  ‘Because I was inside,’ said the giant simply. ‘Most days I’m outdoors in the garden. Nothing much escapes me then. Though I don’t know whether it makes you more or less lonely to watch others. But if the T’manians ever come to this part of the world I’ll be the first to see them; and if a battle’s fought I’ll watch it too; and weddings and processions and funerals and harvests …’ The giant’s voice trailed away.

  ‘You said …’ began Ethel hesitantly. ‘You said there were more giants. Why don’t you live with them?’

  ‘And make a land of giants?’ The giant laughed a little shrilly. ‘There aren’t enough of us for that, child. If we were together where folk could see us they’d be sca
red, and scared people do all sorts of things they wouldn’t otherwise. No, we’re safest by ourselves, most of the time at any rate; monsters that people can forget, unless they want a reason to be scared. This way, child. This way.’

  Ethel followed the giant through the garden. It was very like the enclosed garden at the Hall, she thought, sheltered from frost and harsh salt winds, though the Hall’s garden was surrounded by a neat stone wall and this wall was … she grinned to herself. She had been going to say like a giant had just dropped great chunks of rubble round the edges, which was probably exactly what had happened.

  But these gardens flourished, even more than the Hall’s. There were beds of white flowered beans, tall as her knees, and beds of parsley, kumera, medi-grass, thyme and sage, and rows of purple cabbages, and green ones, fat as Sam the Miller’s belly, and a high stone bed with tomatoes, red and yellow and green striped, trailing over its edges, and tall plants with slightly furry leaves that looked like weeds to Ethel but were too carefully placed to be weeds. Perhaps the giant liked to eat weeds, she thought; or maybe the plants were just hardier up here on the hill than many of those that grew at Uncle’s or the Hall.

  ‘You were lucky,’ said the giant conversationally. ‘Usually anything that comes this way is caught in my traps long before they reach as high as you did. Maybe I need to set more snares.’

  ‘Do you catch a lot of people?’ asked Ethel, skirting a bed of strawberries, fruit dark red against the darker leaves.

  ‘For mercy’s sake, no,’ said the giant. ‘It’s been … how long has it been? Three years at least since I last caught a person, and that was just a geepherder who had wandered up this way. I caught his geep too, but that I kept. Fear is the best barrier, better than any moat or wall. The snares are mostly to catch animals, wallabies and rabbits and geep, and sometimes even a cow … ah yes, I do like the taste of cow. Meat to eat and meat to keep on a cow, if it’s not too old and bony.’

  ‘I saw cow bones,’ offered Ethel.

  The giant nodded. ‘I throw the big ones down,’ she said. ‘They smell a bit, but they help keep people off. There’s nothing as frightening as a good sun-bleached skull. Speaking of smells …’

  They rounded the corner of the hut. The giant nodded towards a barrel. ‘I’m sorry about the stench. I keep my pottings and the leavings of the animals and soak them well, then pour them down the hill. It makes the grass grow green, and green grass lures the animals. More than I need mostly. Are you hungry?’

  Ethel nodded.

  ‘It won’t be what you’re used to at the Hall,’ the giant warned.

  ‘I don’t mind. Um … excuse me please for asking …’

  ‘Yes? What is it child?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Ethel.

  The giant paused. ‘Do you know how long it is since I had a name?’ she asked. ‘I’m the giant on the hill …’ She looked down at the world below for a moment, then back at Ethel. ‘My name is Alice,’ she said finally. ‘Alice of … Alice of the Hill.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma’m Alice,’ said Ethel. She hesitated. ‘My name is Ethel.’

  The giant blinked at the word ‘Ma’m’. And then she smiled.

  The interior of the hut was larger than Ethel had thought it would be from the outside. Ma’m Alice must have had some skill in piling chunks of rubble together, she thought. The walls sloped gradually up to the tree trunk ceiling, the crevices packed with mud and hay to stop the draughts. A blackened smoke hole at one end covered a broad flat hearth, with a spit for roasting meat and a thick pot of precious iron swung on a hob.

  A line of smoked meat hung from the tree trunk beam above the fireplace: legs of geep and wallaby, shoulder of cow, even whole rabbits with their paws hanging down like they were preparing to dive into the fire, all greyed and hard-fleshed from long smoking, and glistening slightly from old fat. The hut smelt of old fires and charred bone and bunches of bay leaves, mint bush, tea tree and lavender — not an unpleasant smell, thought Ethel.

  The floor was dirt, but so hard-trodden it seemed like stone. A broom of tea tree branches leant against the wall.

  There was little furniture in the room — a flat-topped chunk of debris that served as a table, a pile of untrimmed furs that must be Ma’m Alice’s bed; a wooden chest, once finely carved but now charred at one edge, to keep cloth from the damp and moths perhaps, if indeed Ma’m Alice had any clothes other than what she wore. Another flat-topped rock that must be her scriptorium, with leather flask for ink and magpie feather pen and a large flat book still open.

  A book … Ethel stared in the dim light. How would a giant have a book?

  Ma’m Alice followed her gaze. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a book before?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Yes … of course … there’s a whole room of old books at the Hall. Wonderful books. I bought a new book for the Hall just last month, too. I have the money now to buy books.’ She approached the book slowly.

  ‘Can you read?’ asked Ma’m Alice suddenly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethel, her eyes still on the book.

  ‘How did you learn?’

  Ethel looked up guiltily, till she remembered that there was no reason to feel guilty now. She was the Lady of the Unicorn. She could do anything she wanted, even read.

  ‘A storyteller came to Uncle’s village. He had three books — not genuine old ones, but rewritten with pen and ink, not magic-print from olden days. And he had another book too, one that he’d written himself, stories that were all his own.’

  ‘And he taught you to read?’

  Ethel shook her head. ‘He taught Katerina the Pig Keeper’s daughter. They were wealthy from the pigs and could afford to keep the storyteller for a half year. Katerina taught me. She was a good friend, the only person who ever liked me when I was just Ethel.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ asked Ma’m Alice gently, as though she guessed.

  ‘She died of the flushed cough the winter before the unicorn chose me. She would still be my friend now that I’m the Lady, if she’d lived. But it was her who taught me to read.’ Ethel looked up a little shyly. ‘You’re the first person I’ve met since I became Lady who likes me just because I’m me. You have nothing to gain from my being the Lady.’

  ‘But you must have other friends now?’ asked Ma’m Alice.

  Ethel shook her head. ‘Someone who wants something from you can’t be your friend,’ she said.

  ‘You may be right,’ said Ma’m Alice. ‘Friends give both ways. The Ma’m Margot that you spoke of …’

  Ethel shrugged. ‘She likes the Lady, not me. If I wasn’t the Lady she’d pay no attention to me. And she’s always telling me what to do, what the last Lady did.’

  ‘And you resent it?’

  ‘I am the Lady!’ cried Ethel. ‘They are my lands, my Hall, my people. The unicorn chose me — but it’s always Ma’m Margot who decides what I should do.’

  ‘And you think a girl of your age should decide what to do?’

  ‘Of course. I’m the Lady of the Unicorn.’

  The giant shook her head and stepped carefully to the other end of the hut. Her head nearly touched the ceiling, Ethel realised. A room that was tall for her was cramped for a giant. The giant reached over to the hob.

  ‘Listen to me, girl. Maybe the day will come when your people will follow you. Maybe it won’t. But it will depend on you, not on whether a unicorn chose you or not.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How would you know about these things?’

  ‘How would a giant on a hilltop know about people? I was a person too once.’ The giant nodded towards the book. ‘And I read. Books are the essence of people. I know more people on my hilltop than you do in your Hall.’

  ‘Where … where do you get the books?’ asked Ethel tentatively.

  ‘How do you think?’ asked Ma’m Alice with a touch of aggression. ‘I steal them. I sneak down from my hill at night, down to Halls and churches, and I rip the doors off their hinges and grab the books
, the old-steel goblets, the precious plastic relics, the hangings from the walls …’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Ethel.

  Ma’m Alice grinned. ‘As to that,’ she said, ‘I don’t know where they come from.’

  ‘You mean a dragon just drops them from the sky?’ demanded Ethel scornfully.

  ‘Some were always here. Some a friend brings. He knows I like books. He’s better than I am at scavenging from farms and villages. I’m too big. No one could fail to notice me. But I don’t know where the books come from.’

  ‘Maybe he steals them,’ Ethel pointed out. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  The giant laughed. ‘It would do no good. He does what he wants. Maybe one day you’ll meet him. Then you’ll understand.’

  ‘I would be honoured to meet a friend of yours, Ma’m Alice,’ said Ethel politely, though in truth she wasn’t sure.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe,’ said Ma’m Alice. She pulled the pot from the hob, then two plates from beside the hearth. They were ordinary earthenware plates, roughly glazed, the sort you’d find in any cottage, thought Ethel, with high rimmed sides to stop the gravy spilling. Ma’m Alice poured a mess into both of them and handed one to Ethel.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ethel.

  ‘No spoons,’ said Ma’m Alice. ‘My friend hasn’t brought me spoons, though he brought me a knife once. Maybe he doesn’t know what spoons are for. I use a stick to stir my pots. It serves well enough.’ She shrugged. ‘If my fingers were nimbler I could carve a spoon. But my hands are better at tossing boulders than carving.’

  Ethel scooped up a little of her stew in her fingers. The meat was unfamiliar and strongly flavoured. Wallaby perhaps, thought Ethel, certainly not cow or geep, flavoured with onions and some kind of herb, and thick with beans and wattleseed and carrots.

  Ma’m Alice ate hungrily, the gravy dripping down her arm. She licked it clean, then saw Ethel watching. She shrugged. ‘It’s been a long time since I shared a meal with a person,’ she apologised.