Year of the Unicorn (6 page)

I could hear his breathing, heavy as that of a man who had tried to outrace enemy horse and then been cornered in some rock hole. But, though his passions were hot, I had read him aright as one of those men who had full control when that was needed to further his plans. Now he came to me, moving with deliberation, holding up the lamp. However I knew that the moment of greatest danger was past. Imgry might hate me for my deception, but he was greater than some men, able to swallow that which might have been humiliation at being befooled, because it best suited. His mind was already working ahead, chewing upon what I said.

"Gillan." My name was flat from his lips, sounding harsh and dull. "And you fulfil the condition?"

"I am maid, and I think I am some twenty years of age. I was fosterling to Lord Furlo of Thantop and his wife, having been found as a small child a prisoner of Alizon. Since the Hounds had preserved my life Lord Furlo believed me of some consequence-thus you might deem my birth worthy."

He was surveying me insolently from head to foot and back again. It was shameful, that raking stare, and he knew it, making it so deliberately. I knew anger and kept it leashed, and I think he understood that also. Though what my inner defiance meant to him I could not tell.

"You are right-time presses. Twelve and one brides they shall have. You may not find this will be as you hope, girl."

"She who expects neither good nor ill has an equal chance of either." I replied as sharply as I could.

A faint shadow of expression crossed his face, one I could not read.

"From whence did the Hounds have you?" There was interest in that, in me as a person, not just one of the play-pieces he pushed about his private board.

"I know not. I remember only a ship in a storm, and after that the port where Lord Furlo's raiders found me." I gave him the truth.

"The Hounds war also overseas. Estcarp!" He flung that last word at me as if to provoke response, perhaps betrayal.

"Estcarp?" I repeated, for the word meant nothing, though I added a guess as a question. "That is enemy to Alizon?"

Lord Imgry shrugged. "So they say. But it is of no moment to you now. You have made your choice. You shall abide by it."

"I ask no more than that, my lord."

He smiled and it was not a good smile. "To make sure-just to make sure-"

Thus he brought me back to the sleeping chamber, pushed me inside. I heard him summon the guard to stand outside that door. Then I came back to my pallet and lay down. That which I dreaded since I had left the Abbey was now behind me. I had overleaped the second of the walls between me and what I sought. And the third-now my mind turned to the third-he who might wait for me at the Throat of the Hawk.

Mankind was known only at the Abbey-stead through speech, and now and then, at long intervals, by the kin of those refugee ladies who made visits. At such times I had 'been classed among the Dames and had seen such visitors only at a distance. I knew of men, but I did not know man. Though, this too was a custom among those of gentle blood.

Marriage is a far off thing which lies in a maid's mind but is not early brought to the surface, unless she is among those to whom it is of importance. Perhaps in this way I was far younger than those, or most of those I rode among. For to the Dames marriage had no existence, and they did not discuss it. Now, when I tried to think of what my choice might lead me to, I had little to build upon. Even the fears of my companions were not real to me, since an ordinary man seemed as equally strange as one of the Were Riders with his dark reputation. And I needs must apply my own advice-that which I had so easily given to Solfinna-not to seek trouble until its shadow could not be denied.

There was no mention in the morning between Lord Imgry and me of our night meeting. I used my masking veil prudently, lest others in the company remark that I was not Marimme. But I believe that the closer we drew to the end of our journey, the more each turned inwards, dealing with her own hopes and fears to the best of her ability, and the less attention they spared for those about them. We were very quiet during that day's riding.

As far as I knew the world about us we had ridden off the map of the Dales. The road was a track along which two might file, ponies shoulder to shoulder, and it brought us down again from the heights to a plain, brown with winter. Dark copses of trees looked smaller than those of the Dales, as if they were stunted in growth. There was little underbush. Sere grass showed in ragged tuffs through snow which lay thinly here.

We crossed a river on a bridge, man-built of timbers rudely cut and set in hardened earth. But there had been no recent travellers on this way, no tracks broke the snow. Again we moved through a deserted world which would lead one to believe that mankind had long passed away.

Once more we began to climb a slope, a little steeper than before. And our way led now to a notch between two tall cliffs. We came out on a level space where stones had been built into a rude half shelter and a pit, lined with rocks, was marked with the black of past fires. There we came to a halt. Lord Imgry joined with one of our guards and the guide before he faced us to say:

"You will rest here."

No more. He was already riding off with those two. Stiff and tired, we dismounted. Two of the escort built a fire in the hold and then shared out trail provisions, but I do not think that any of us ate much. Kildas touched my arm.

"The Throat of the Hawk-" she motioned towards the cut. "It would seem that the brides are more willing than their grooms. There is no sign of any welcome."

As she spoke the gathering dusk was broken, deep inside that cut, by light. Not the yellow of lamp shine, nor the richer red of fire, but with a greenish glow strange to me. Outlined blackly against it were the three who had left us-just then-no one else appeared in the pass.

"No," Kildas repeated, "one can not name them eager."

"Maybe," there was hope in Solfinna's voice, "maybe they have decided-"

"That they do not want us after all, child? Never think it! In a songsmith's tales such an ending might be granted us-in real life I have found it always goes differently." As on the day previous her face of a sudden had an aged, pinched look. "Do not hope. You will only be dashed the deeper when you know the truth."

We stood within the range of the fire where there was warmth, but perhaps all of us shivered within as we looked upon the Throat of the Hawk and that ever-steady green fire within it.

Unicorn Morn

"KNOW YOU what night this is?" She who tossed back her veil and loosed her hood so that fair hair strayed limply from beneath its edge was Aldeeth who had lain to my left the night before. From the southlands she had come, and her blazon of salamander curled among leaping flames was one I did not know.

Kildas made answer. "If you mean we stand at year's end, to greet a new one with the dawn-"

"Just so. We pass now into the Year of the Unicorn."

"Which some might take as a good omen, " Kildas. responded, "since the unicorn is the guardian of maidens and the banner of the innocent."

"Tonight-" Solfinna's voice was very low, "we would gather in the great hall, with ivy and holly on the board so each might have a sprig for wearing-holly for the men, green ivy for us. And we would drink the year's cup together and feed the Strawman and the Frax woman to the flames, burning them with scented grasses, so that the crops would be fair and plentiful and luck would take its abode under our high roof tree-"

I had memories of the household meeting she put tongue to-a simple one, but carrying meaning for those who lived upon the fruits of the soil. Each silent and dark farmstead we had passed would be doing likewise this night, as would they with more revelry in a great hall. Only at the Abbey there would be no feasting nor burning of symbols, as the Dames allowed no such pagan ceremonies within their austere walls.

"I wonder whether our lords-and-masters-to-be welcome in the year's beginning in some such manner." Kildas broke the silence of our memories. "They worship not the Flames, since. Those by their very nature are alien to the Riders' world. To what gods do they bow? Or have they any gods at all?"

Solfinna gave a little gasp. "No gods! How may a man live without gods, a power greater than himself to trust upon?"

Aldeeth laughed scornfully. "Who says that they are men? They are not to be judged as we judge. Have you not yet bit full upon that truth, girl? It is time to throw away your cup of memory, since you and we were born under ill-fated stars which have determined we pass so out of one world into another, even as we pass from the old year into the new."

"Why do you deem that that which is unknown must likewise be ill?" I asked. "To look diligently for shadows is to find them. Throwing aside all rumour and story, what evil do we know of the Riders?"

They spoke then, several together, and Kildas, listening to that jumble of speech, laughed.

" 'They say'-'they say'-this and that they say! Now give full name and rank to they I'll warrant that this, our sister-comrade has the right of it. What do we know save rumour and ill-wishing? Never have the Were Riders lifted sword or let fly arrow against us-only have they ravaged the enemy in our behalf, after making covenant and bargain with our kin. Because a man grows black hair upon his head, wears a grey cloak, likes to live in a land of his own choosing, is he any different in blood, bone and spirit from he who had fair locks beneath his helm, goes with scarlet about his shoulders, and would ride in company along a port town street? Both have their part to play in the land. What evil of your own knowing has ever been from Rider hand?"

"But they are not men!" Aldeeth wished to make the worst of it.

"How know we that, either? They have powers which are not ours, but do all of us have talents alike? One may set 'broidery on silk so as to make one wish to pluck the stitched flowers and listen to the singing of the birds she has wrought. Another may draw her fingers across lute strings and voice such a song as to set us all a-dreaming. Do we each and every one of us do these things in a like measure? Therefore men may have gifts beyond our knowing and yet be men, apart from those talents."

Whether she believed what she spoke or not, yet she was doing valiant service here against the fear which sucked at us all.

"Lady Aldeeth," I broke in, "you wear upon your tabard a salamander easy among flames. Have you seen such a creature? Or does it not have a different meaning for you and your house-and its friends and enemies-than a lizard encouched on a fiery bed?"

"It means we may be menaced but not consumed." she replied as if by rote.

"And I see a basilisk here, a phoenix, a wyvern-do these exist in truth, or do they stand for ideas which each of your houses have made their guiding spirits? If this is true, then perhaps those we go to, have also symbols which may be misunderstood by those who are not lettered in their form of heraldry." So did I play Hildas' game, if game it was.

But still the green light glowed unchanged in the pass and Lord Imgry and his companions did not return. While waiting always frays the nerves of those who have only time to think.

We were sitting on stones, still huddled around the fire, when he who was Imgry's lieutenant returned with the message that we were to move on, into the Throat. And while I can not answer for the others, I believed that each of them shared what I was feeling, an excitement which was more than half fear.

But we rode not into any camp of men prepared to do us welcome. Rather did we find at the end of the pass a wide ledge and on that set shelter-tents of hide. Within were couches covered with the skins of beasts, and some so carpeted also. There was a long, low table in the largest tent and it was spread with food.

I stroked a fine silver-white fur, beautiful enough to form a mantle for the lady of a great lord. It was dappled with a deeper grey and so well cured that it was as soft in my hands as a silken shift. Though all about us was leather red or fur, still there was a magnificence which spoke of honour offered and comfort promised.

Lord Imgry stood at the foot of the table as we finished those viands left for us, a bread with dried fruit baked therein, smoked meat of rich flavour, sweets which had the taste of wild honey and nutmeats. He had a shadow about him, I suddenly thought, as if between him and our company was forming a barrier-that indeed we were already forsaking our kind. But there was this time no fear in that thought, only again did I feel that prick of eagerness to be away-to be doing-where and what? I could not name either.

"Listen well." his voice was unduly harsh, sending us all into silence. "In the morn you shall hear a signal-the calling of a horn. Then will you take the marked path leading from this tent, and you will go down to where your lords await you-"