A Saucer of Loneliness (41 page)

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 imprisoned 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, good-humoredly. “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.

There was a majestic sadness in the way he turned then, and dropped his shining head, and stepped daintily to Rita. She sighed, and rose up a little, lifting the bridle. The unicorn lowered his horn to receive it—

—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
!”

Barbara’s face was wet. “You weren’t to know,” she choked. “You weren’t ever to know … I was so glad you were blind, because I thought you’d never know.”

He fell on his knees beside her. And when he did, the unicorn touched her face with his satin nose, and all the girl’s pent-up beauty flooded outward. The unicorn rose from his kneeling, and whickered softly. Del looked at her, and only the unicorn was more beautiful. He put out his hand to the shining neck, and for a moment felt the incredible silk of the mane flowing across his fingers. The unicorn reared then, and wheeled, and in a great leap was across the bog, and in two more was on the crest of the farther ridge. He paused there briefly, with the sun on him, and then was gone.

Barbara said, “For us, he lost his pool, his beautiful pool.”

And Del said, “He will get another. He must.” With difficulty he added, “He couldn’t be … punished … for being so gloriously Fair.”

T
HE POLICEMEN AND THE DOCTORS MEN
and most of the people outside, they all helped me, they were very nice but nobody helped me as many-much as Elena.

De la Torre liked me very nice I think, but number one because what I am is his work. The Sergeant liked me very nice too but inside I think he say not real, not real. He say in all his years he know two for-real amnesiacs but only in police book. Unless me. Some day, he say, some day he find out I not-real amnesiac trying to fool him. De la Torre say I real. Classic case, he say. He say plenty men forget talk forget name forget way to do life-work but
por Dios
not forget buttons forget eating forget every damn thing like me. The Sergeant say yes Doc you would rather find a medical monstrosity than turn up a faker. De la Torre say yes you would rather find out he is a fugitive than a phenomenon, well this just shows you what expert opinion is worth when you get two experts together. He say, one of us has to be wrong.

Is half right. Is both wrong.

If I am a fugitive I must be very intelligent. If I am an amnesiac I could be even intelligenter as a fugitive. Anyway I be intelligent better than any man in the world, as how could conversation as articulo-fluent like this after only six days five hours fifty-three minutes?

Is both wrong. I be Nemo.

But now comes Elena again, de la Torre is look happy-face, the Sergeant is look watch-face, Elena smile so warm, and we go.