Unicorn Ring - Here There Be Dragonnes Part 13

"Never is a long time . . . Ah me, I'm getting old: another c.l.i.tch."

"What's a c.l.i.tch?" I asked, trying not to let the thought of losing Conn and Snowy at the end of it all, if ever we got to the beginning, upset me too much.

"A c.l.i.tch?" He sn.i.g.g.e.red. "It's like 'It always rains before it pours' or 'Every cloud has a silver lining'-you know, the sort of hackneyed phrase everyone says over and over again until it becomes boring and predictable and-and a c.l.i.tch. Cliche," he amended.

Although I had heard neither phrase before, I tried to look wise. "Comme: 'Toujours la politesse,' ou 'chacun a son gout'," I suggested, then was shocked when I realized I didn't know where the words had come from, let alone what they meant.

"Exactly," he said, glancing at me sharply from under thatchy brows.

"Exactement, p't.i.te . . . Couldn't have put it better myself . . ."

Conn looked as if he was going to say something, but didn't.

"Well," said The Ancient. "It's midday: supposing we meet again at supper, and you can tell me what you have all decided. Think about it carefully, mind, and don't forget what I told you." But he sighed: it must have been clear to him even then that none of us believed his dire predictions.

We all spent the intervening hours characteristically, I suppose.

Snowy disappeared into the wood and every now and again I saw his shadow flickering among the trees. Conn went to a little knoll, got out his broken sword and, holding it up before him hilt uppermost, prayed with his eyes open, face to the sky. Pisky spent the time rearranging his bowl to his liking, pulling the weed this way and that, nudging the poor snails all over the place.

Corby went into a corner by himself, walking about in circles and muttering.

Puddy found another corner and sat quiet, looking as though his head were aching. Moglet chased a b.u.t.terfly or two, then washed herself from ears to toe and tail, then went and sharpened the claws on her good paw. And I? I, I regret to say, did none of these useful, constructive things. Instead, I crept closer till I could see Conn's profile, then lay back in the long gra.s.s and watched the clouds pa.s.s, then rolled over on my stomach to regard the busy ants scurrying to and fro. I listened to the ascending lark, smelt the cowslips, stroked Moglet and ate wild raspberries. And fell asleep and dreamt of nothing- Conn shook my shoulder. "Suppertime, Thingumabob . . . Made up your mind?"

We all had, as I found out when we rejoined the others. We were determined to set out on this perilous venture, keep together and risk whatever came.

The Ancient heard us out, Conn the spokesman.

"Then all I can do, my friends, is to prepare you for your journey as best I can-and wish you luck. You'll need it . . ."

I was dreaming, a long, slow, wordless, placeless dream, and there were people I knew but could not know, and then someone was pulling me away and I was rus.h.i.+ng faster and faster until the wind howled in my ears with the speed of my pa.s.sing, and I was being pulled upwards to a hole in the ceiling, and then I b.u.mped my head and fell back with a thud and- "Wake up, child!" said The Ancient. "The others are almost ready, and you'll want a bite to eat before you set off."

I stumbled out into a mist that curled round my feet like an attenuated cat.

Everything looked unreal, almost as though I were still dreaming, or had missed out on a day somewhere. I rubbed my eyes and Conn was busy loading up Snowy and the others were waiting, more or less patiently, for their turn.

A hand appeared at my elbow: a hunk of bread with a slice of cheese tucked inside. A mug of goat's milk followed and I munched and drank, then moved forward to help the others.

Besides the meagre provisions we had brought with us there were flour and salt, apples, cheese and a large jar of honey, and the water-bottle was fresh- filled from the spring. Poor Snowy looked very laden, so I took Moglet in my arms and Puddy in my pocket and, to my surprise, Conn put Corby on his shoulder and strung Pisky's bowl round his waist.

Catching my look, he grinned. "We'll swap later! Besides, as we eat the provisions the old horse-sorry, unicorn-will find his burden that much lighter."

The Ancient was in his best today: a purple robe sewn with silver stars and his beard in three shades of blue, although his conical hat with a crescent moon on its tip was crooked and threatened to slip over his ears, protruding though they were. In his hand was a roll of soft leather.

"Your map," he announced. He unfolded it and we stared at squiggles, arrows, letters: it didn't look like a map at all.

I pointed to some humps and b.u.mps. "What are those?"

"What do they look like?" snapped the magician. "Hills, mountains, that's what!"

"And the squiggles?"

"Rivers, streams . . ."

"The dotty places?" At least the forests were shown by recognizable trees.

"Waste land: moors, heaths, bogs . . ."

"The straightish lines?"

"Roads. Such as they are. Roman mostly: the straight ones are, anyway.

Probably a bit out of date . . ."

Conn put his finger on the middle of the map, on a thing that looked like a cross between a star and a spider. "What's this?"

"A compa.s.s: north, south, east, west-"

"I've seen something like that before," said Conn. "Only they didn't call it a compa.s.s: a magic needle, I think. I was. .h.i.tching a trip cross-channel on a Skandia galley-and d.a.m.ned uncomfortable it was too, full of great sweaty fellows splas.h.i.+ng everyone with their oars-and they had this little sliver of metal suspended in a stone bowl of oil. They reckoned they could find their way in dark, fog, storm because the thin end of the metal pointed always north, whichever way they turned. The captain said he had it from a trader from the east, in exchange for a bale of furs. Swore he had the best of the bargain, too."

"There you are, then!"

"But we've no piece of metal," I said. "And if we are to go in any special direction . . . And what's that, round the edge?" I looked closer. "That says 'ENE,' or something: I've never heard of that word . . ."

"It's initials," said The Ancient impatiently. "East-north-east: those letters are your direction-finders. And you have got a magic needle, of sorts: the White One knows one way from t'other, and come to that so does the raggedy bird."

"Roughly," said Corby, looking slightly offended at the adjective. "As the crow flies, of course . . ."

"There are some tiny circles marked as well," said Conn, peering closely.

"There is one on its own, and there's three together, and four-"

"Those are your markers," and the old man looked at each of us in turn. "And you have to go their way. One, then two, then three and so on up to seven.

They are all standing stones, some higgledy-piggledy, some straight, some in circles. You go by the directions I have marked in the margin: there is the letter one, and a direction. Follow that and you come to the first stone, then letter number two and its direction et cetera."

"Sounds simple enough," said Conn, but he was frowning.

"It is simple: just follow your noses. And the directions, of course," he added hastily. "Now: are you all ready?"

"Thank you," I said, "from all of us. For the hospitality and the help and the food and-and everything."

He pinched my cheek, not hard, but I could feel it through my mask just the same. "Think nothing of it, Flower: it has been vastly amusing, so far. I was out of practice . . ."

I didn't quite understand what he meant. "Shall we see you again?"

"Very likely, if you follow the instructions and remember what I said about staying together. Don't look so gloomy: you will have your sunny days too, you know . . . Now, see that wood over there? Well that's a good enough marker for your first direction, east by south. That's your way. Goodbye, and good luck . . ."

The mist had thinned, and so had his voice: it sounded now like an echo.

We had all been straining our eyes to the wood, answered "Goodbye," and then turned to wave, but he had gone. So had the glade, the cave, the stream.

We were standing on the highest point of a bleak moor in the burning-off of a summer mist that rolled away from our feet as rapidly as Brother Jude-the- Less's ma.n.u.scripts rolled up across the table if they weren't weighted down.

Nearby was what might once have been a ring of stones, but there was nothing else recognizable for miles: even the wood was a half-day's walk. It was as if something had picked us up from somewhere and dumped us down again nowhere.

"Well, I'll be . . . blest!" said Conn, scratching his head. "However did he manage that?"

But n.o.body had an answer. There was the illusion-bit, which I thought might help, but even I was uneasy about this. If I explored it too deep I should have to explain how it was we seemed to have only been with the magician a couple of days, reaching him in early spring, while now we were standing in countryside that was- "High summer," said Moglet. "How nice. Didn't know we'd been there so long . . .".

There: where was there? What about all the anachronisms of season? The strange sleep that had fallen so easily on us all, a blanket of time-consuming dream so that one woke unsure whether one still slept? I should have pinched myself, but didn't, I don't know why.

We all felt the same, I could see that, but no one wanted to talk about it: a bit like suspecting there might be a wasp in the preserve, but hoping it will fly out of the window before you have to disturb it.

It was Snowy who pulled us together. "The wood is indeed east by south, and that is our first direction, is it not? Come, my friends, this quest is for all, and better to start at once than to question too much. We are together, that is what matters. Friend Corby, do you confirm the direction?"

Corby shuffled on Conn's shoulder. "As the crow flies, unicorn, as the crow flies. Not that crows allus fly straight, mind . . ."

The Binding: Unicorn The Castle of Fair Delights And so we went south by east and past the wood, and on to a different mark as we pa.s.sed through it. The going was easy, the foods of the wayside plentiful, and both Conn and I found we had more money than we thought in our pockets, so it was easy to keep us all provisioned. It was almost dream-like, that progression, from the high heathlands to the downs, the plain to the valleys: everywhere they were bringing in the first cutting of hay, and the air was full of the sun-warmed smell of the drying gra.s.ses, the honey-heavy perfume of may, the bruise of wild garlic. Lambs, colts, calves, kids were younglings now, no longer babes, and the birds were feeding their second brood; sweet cicely pollen-powdered my knees, keck-parsley my hips, angelica my shoulders; corn-poppies, Demeter's bane, bled at my feet and elder laced my hair, and all day and every day the sun walked with us. There may have been days when it was cold or cloudy or it rained, but in truth I do not remember.

It was, therefore, something of a shock to all of us when we were brought abruptly back to the realization of our quest by finding the first standing stone. Bare, ragged as a sore tooth, twice man-height, it stood alone on the crest of a little hill and pointed with afternoon's shadow finger to the valley beneath, a valley ringed by forest and bearing in its midst a fair castle, towered and beflagged. The building lay in greensward; at the front a wide driveway led to the ma.s.sive doors of the courtyard and at the back was what looked like a jousting-yard. From the four corners of the main building where little wooden towers rose like siege-toys, fluttered pennants, banners, flags in stripes of yellow and gold, seeming to beckon us down to this place that might have been painted onto the landscape one moment since, a scene from some legendary tale. Indeed I blinked twice, to make sure it was really there, and it was only on the second blink that I saw something I had missed before: the crescent-shaped lake that lay to the left of the castle. Even at this distance it was dark and deep and still, a black scar on the green.

"Ah!" exclaimed Conn. "And isn't that a sight to gladden the heart? There we shall surely find a warm welcome and hospitality of the finest if I'm not mistaken, Thingummy. And as the finger of the stone points that way and the direction on the map says the same . . . Well, then?"

I frowned. For no reason I felt s.h.i.+very.

"If it's so fair . . ." said Puddy.

"And we're supposed to face great danger?" supplemented Moglet.

"What the h.e.l.l's wrong with it?" added Corby. "Must be something we can't see from here."

"My great-great-great-grandfather was fond of remarking that the prettiest flies often hid the sharpest barb," contributed Pisky, helpfully.

"Oh, come on now! You're just a bunch of confirmed pessimists!" exploded Conn. "You see something nice and welcoming and all you want to do is run away from it, just because it is pleasant! That old magician did say that the sun would sometimes s.h.i.+ne on our endeavours, didn't he? Well it is, and down there is a castle as fair as any I've seen, and I'm longing to sit at a table bearing venison pasties and beef and oyster pies and drink a decent Frankish burgundy. And when I've eaten and drunk I should like to be shown to a chamber containing a man-sized bed laid with real linen sheets and pull a bear-pelt over my toes-not lie out under the stars itching with hay-ticks and walked over by hedgepigs! Down there is civilization and that's where I'm going, and you can come or not, as you please!" He tugged at Snowy's bridle.

"Well?"

"It is as The Ancient said," he replied cryptically. "This is the way we must go."

"Told you," exulted Conn. "Now, are you others coming or not?"

He knew we would, if only because we remembered what the old magician had said about the importance of keeping together, and indeed, as we descended the gentle path that led to the fringe of woods surrounding the castle, we all began to wonder-us pessimists, that is-what foundation, if any, our fears were grounded upon, for the day was fair and the sun indeed shone, and little fluffy clouds deliberately either missed it or else hid it for a moment only, just to remind us how beautiful it beamed uncovered; bees fed on deep trumpets of creaming honeysuckle, gra.s.shoppers made a raspy music and above us larks climbed to their pinnacle of song- Then we descended to the wood.

The trees closed in, the sun was a sullen greenish glow; there were no flowers for the bees, no gra.s.s for the gra.s.shoppers and no bird sang. Silence, and only our footsteps on the loamy track that led, straight and true, through the heart of the trees. I felt as though I were in a bowl of silence, as confining as Pisky's crock; drowning, oppressed unbearably by the lack of sound. Conn had stopped whistling the merry tune he had had on his lips a moment since and even the echoes had fled without memory. We all trod softly, as if some terrible thing lurked asleep in the shadows, only waiting a snapped twig to waken to attack.

It was Moglet who voiced our fears: "Why no birds? Where are all the creatures who should be here? Are they all frightened of something?"

I could not have answered, but luckily there was no need for at that moment a half-dozen men-at-arms appeared on the path before us, clad in blue and yellow, spears at the slope, and at their head a knight, mounted on a black palfrey. He was elderly, moustached and bearded, and his hand was held up and open in the universal gesture of greeting.

"Peace, friends," he called, and we halted. At that moment I had Corby on my shoulder, Moglet in my arms, Puddy in my pocket, head out, and Pisky's bowl dangling from my elbow, and I could feel their united suspicion as they turned to the stranger.

Conn and I confirmed his gesture of greeting, and he dismounted, waving back the men-at-arms to stand easy.

"Greetings: name's Egerton de Ruys. Glad to welcome you, Sir Knight," and he strode forward to clasp arms with Conn. He had a nasal, pinched sort of voice and clipped his words off short; one eye socket was empty: a retired knight, if I was not mistaken. "You and y'r servant very welcome, by'r Lady!

Saw you from the west tower, don't y'know, and m'niece, the Lady Adiora, sent me to beg you to take advantage of our hospitality in the Castle of Fair Delights and sojourn awhile. Be glad of y'r company."

"Well, and that's gracious enough," said Conn. "Hear that, you disbelievers?"

But seeing that he was apparently talking to a broken-down pony, a hunched servant carrying a scrawny crow, a frightened kitten and a small fish, he pinched his lips together and stroked his moustache, trying to look nonchalant. It was evident that the time spent in our exclusive company had made him forget that, to anyone else, talking to animals and a mere servant like that would be considered eccentric, to say the least.

"Sir Egerton: your servant," he said formally, and introduced himself. "My- my servant and I would be glad to accept your hospitality . . ." and he turned and scowled at us, as if daring us to contradict.

So we came through that last fringe of wood, silent still save for the jingling of harness on Sir Egerton's horse, the plod-plod of the men-at-arms and the thudding of my heart.

The track broadened as we left the trees, and as we approached it I was better able to admire the grandeur of the castle. The bottom storey-and-a-half was built of stone, perhaps fifty or so years ago and, I guessed, founded on an earlier structure, Roman perhaps. The upper storey-and-a-half was completed in wood, as were the four towers, the whole gilded and pierced and painted in blue and gold and decorated with carved and sculpted figures of knights, ladies and mythical beasts with three heads or a dozen feet, and there were many little narrow windows, like surprised eyes. A bit draughty in winter, I thought. However, it was difficult to remember snow and ice on so pleasant a day, though paradoxically it certainly seemed cooler down here in the valley. Once more for no reason I s.h.i.+vered, and glanced sideways at the lake: it should have sparkled with suns.h.i.+ne and glinted in the breeze that cracked and snapped the pennons and flags atop the towers, but instead it lay dark and still, dead, and I felt the others s.h.i.+ft and press closer as we pa.s.sed through the heavy wooden gates into the courtyard. This was paved with white cobbles, and to left and right were stables and sheds, and servants in a scurry: one boy's task, I noticed, seemed to be solely that of picking up any stray leaf, straw, or other piece of rubbish that might mar the otherwise pristine approach. I hoped Snowy wouldn't disgrace us by relieving himself, because that would obviously have meant shovels, buckets and mops almost before he had finished.

The stable to which we were a.s.signed was, again, almost too clean and, apart from two palfreys, clear of horses. Sir Egerton indicated the end stall, away from the other mounts.

"Can put your-er, nag, here, don't y'know. The other creatures-er, pets?"

"Er . . . yes," said Conn, his swift glance at us coloured by his suddenly luxurious surroundings to the extent that we obviously appeared to him suddenly exactly as we were: dirty and disreputable. "And my-my servant, er-Thingummy . . ."

"Well," said Sir Egerton, rubbing at the white whiskers on his chin. "Can see you have problems, yes indeed. Never can remember their names meself!

Like to leave the animals here, and you and your er, servant can be housed within? M'niece don't care much for cats, or birds come to that, and that fish don't look big enough for eating."

I was frowning dreadfully at Conn, but he affected not to notice. "Why, of course, of course! Just leave the-the animals comfortable, Thingy, and follow me."

Making sure there was fresh fodder and water for Snowy and stowing the others in the manger, I wiped my grubby hands ineffectively on my jacket.

"I'll be back," I said shortly. "Just spy out the land."

"Don't like this place," wailed Moglet.

"Neither do I," said Corby. "Summat wrong somewheres . . ."

Puddy hunched up. "Don't be long."

Pisky was at the very bottom of his bowl and said nothing.

I turned to Snowy. "Keep an eye on them, dear one."

He shook his head. "I agree with the crow. Listen hard when you are in that place, watch closely. All is too fair, too clean. And guard the Rusty One: we don't want to lose him."