Unicorn Ring - Here There Be Dragonnes Part 64

It was the fair Rosamund however who intrigued me most. "Fair" once I judged, but whatever she may have told Gill about her age, she must be at least four or five years older. Already fine lines radiated from the corners of her eyes when she smiled, which was seldom enough, and her mouth had a discontented droop. She was also missing two teeth; perhaps that was why she didn't smile much, that and the fear of deepening her lines.

She had pretty manners however, using her table napkin often to dab away grease from mouth or fingers. Her voice was pleasant enough, her figure good and her walk swaying and graceful and her hands were white and beautifully shaped. Her hair was rather thin-or mine was too thick-but it was her pale complexion I envied most of all; but, come to think of it, if she tramped the roads as we had, it would have reddened and blotched it a most unsightly way.

In all this I was fully aware that I was being over-critical, but I knew she didn't like me, and I hated the way she monopolized Gill, s.n.a.t.c.hing his attention if ever he glanced over at me, and giving exaggerated little "oohs" and "aahs" as he told of our adventures. And it didn't do any good for me to remind myself she had a perfect right to do so.

Several times during the next few days he tried to speak to me alone, and each time he was foiled, usually by her, sometimes by other interruptions.

Sometimes I would catch him gazing at me, and if I smiled at him he would smile back, but it was always an uncertain, puzzled smile. It got to the stage when I started worrying whether I had two noses or was covered in some disfiguring rash.

But life drifted by for a week in this lazy fas.h.i.+on, eating, sleeping, and I let it, for I was in no hurry to leave. A golden September would all too soon give way to October. The mornings even now held a hint of the chill to come, dew heavy on the millions of spiderwebs that carpeted the stubble till it glinted in the rising sun like diamonds; the swifts were long gone, but a few swallows still gathered on the tower tops, and martins on the slopes of the roofs like a scattering of pearls. The leaves of the willow were already yellowing, and across in the forest the trees were a patchwork of color.

Noons were still warm and heavy, the spa.r.s.e birdsong drowsed by heat, only the robins still disputing their territory in fierce red breastplates. Nights were colder and it was nice to snuggle under a blanket once more and listen to the tawny owls practicing their "hoo-hoos" across the empty fields.

I thought of Mistral; at this time of year, she had told us, the tide sometimes raced in and overwhelmed the fields till even the horses ran from it, their coats flecked with foam from the waves that roared in over the ribbed sands from the other side of the world. I thought of Traveler, safe I hoped in the ruined chapel tower; at this time of year there were still seeds and fruits in plenty, but soon would come the harsh winter, when the weakest would die. I thought of Basher: about now he would be looking for a soft, sandy place to dig himself in for the winter, till that funny sh.e.l.led body of his was safe for the long sleep. . . .

I thought of them all, I missed them all, I prayed for them all.

And what of the fourth of the travelers to find his "home"? The others had accepted less than they deserved: would Gill, too, be cruelly rewarded? I hoped not, but I sensed there was something amiss, in spite of the fact that he had regained his sight, his home, his beloved.

One night after supper he caught at my sleeve and murmured urgently, "At the back of the room you sleep in there is a stairway up to the walkway on the wall: meet me there in an hour. I need to talk to you."

My heart gave a great thump of apprehension: what was so important we couldn't discuss it openly?

I found the doorway he described, behind some stacked hurdles, but it was so small I could only just manage to squeeze my way up the dusty, cobwebbed spiral. Obviously it hadn't been used in years and there was a stout wooden door at the top, luckily bolted on my side, but it took all my strength to slide back the rusty iron.

Once out on the guarded walkway I felt a deal better; I had never liked confined s.p.a.ces, and now I took deep breaths of the welcome fresh air. Not that it was all that invigorating: the night was cloudy, the atmosphere oppressive, as though we waited for a storm. Down in the courtyard the little chapel bell rang for nine of night and I could see one or two going for prayers.

An owl hooted, far away in the forest; a dog barked from the cl.u.s.ter of huts beneath the wall. Somewhere a child wailed briefly, then all was quiet once more.

I leaned against the low parapet and rested my eyes on the darkness. I heard quick footsteps mounting the outside stair to my right but didn't turn; for a moment longer I felt I didn't want to know what Gill had to say, didn't want to become involved once more. Whatever it was, I had the feeling it would mean more heartache, one way or the other.

"Summer?"

"Here . . ." I turned and was immediately taken into an urgent, awkward embrace that had my nose squashed against his shoulder and the breath knocked out of me. I pushed him away as hard as I could.

"Are you mad-?"

He stepped back, but regained possession of my hands. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean . . . Look here, Summer, I can't stand this much longer, not being able to see you and speak to you! There is so much we must talk about, and I-"

"Hus.h.!.+" I pulled my hands from his grasp. "If you yell like that you'll have everyone up here!" for his voice had risen with his anxiety. I looked down into the courtyard but all was quiet. "Now, just tell me-quietly-what on earth's the matter?"

"Everything."

"Don't be so dramatic! You are back home, safe and comfortable, you have your sight back, and are reunited with your betrothed-so what could possibly be wrong?"

He hesitated. "I don't know. . . . It's just that-that everything, everybody's changed. It's not what I expected. . . ."

My breathing slowed down a little. Silly fellow! "You've been away for over a year, you know! But they haven't done anything drastic like moving the house or burning down the forest, have they? Perhaps there are some new faces, old ones gone, different fields plowed, but-"

"It's not that. How can I explain it?" He ran his hand through his close- cropped hair. "Everything looks somehow smaller, shabbier, meaner!" he burst out.

"Shhh . . . That's easily explained. While you were away you'd built up a picture in your mind, that's all-like a dream. Things always look larger in dreams."

"But what about the people? My mother looks older, sort of-defeated. And I don't remember my father's beard having so much grey in it."

"But they are older: over a year older. So are you. . . . Life didn't just stand still, waiting for you to come home. They probably feel the same about you.

You are thinner, browner, more restless, and have had enough adventures and mishaps to change anyone. You've got to have patience, time to settle in once again." I patted his arm. "There: lots of good advice! I'm afraid there's no other way I can help. . . ."

He turned away, gripped the parapet, stared out into the darkness. "Yes. Yes, there is."

"How? Do you want me to talk to them? I don't think they would take much notice of me."

"It's not that. . . . It's Rosamund." He exhaled heavily, as though he had been holding his breath, and turned back to me. "You see, I just don't love her anymore."

I was speechless. Of all the things I had expected him to say, this was the last.

"It happened as soon as I saw her again," he hurried on, as if now eager to tell everything as fast as possible. "Perhaps, as you say, I had built up an idealized picture of things in my mind, and especially her. It wasn't only that she looked-looked older, harder; it seemed she had changed in other ways, too. I hadn't remembered her as so overpowering and at the same time sickly- sweet. And I had forgotten her little mannerisms; things that I found once so enchanting now did nothing but irritate me. You must have noticed them, too."

Of course I had. But let him tell it in his own way.

"You know the sort of thing: the little cough to get attention, the way she keeps smoothing her throat to draw notice to its whiteness, how she holds her head to one side when she listens to you and opens her eyes wide like an owl's, the way she sucks her teeth. . . . She's stiff, unreal, mannered, like one of those jointed wooden puppets you can buy. . . . I can't explain it any better."

What could I say? I tried the same arguments I had used before, how it took everyone time to adjust, that he had changed too and there were probably things about him that annoyed her too, and all the while I had the horrible feeling that I knew just what he was going to say next, and I hadn't the slightest idea how to deal with it.

"But you are not like that, Summer! You are young, younger than I, and so full of life! If I had had the slightest idea what you were really like, if I hadn't been blind in more ways than one, then-then I should never have come back! Not unless and until I could have brought you back with me as my wife!"

He couldn't mean it! Not now; it was too cruel a twist of fate! For how many months had I wors.h.i.+ped him in secret, never once letting him know how I felt? If only . . . He couldn't see the tears on my cheek but I tried to keep them from my voice.

"You know it wouldn't have worked. I'm not your kind, would never fit into this kind of life. No, wait!" For he had moved forward to embrace me.

"Besides, you could never have broken your betrothal vows. They are sacred things, as sacred as marriage itself, and you know it. The dowry has been paid, she has been accepted into your family, there is no going back now. In the eyes of G.o.d you are already wed."

"G.o.d could not be so cruel, not now when I have found my one, my true and only love! To h.e.l.l with the dowry, that can be paid back. . . ." He took me in his arms, and I could smell the acrid sweat of emotion and anxiety. "The contract can be canceled. Come away with me, Summer! We can go back on the road, we managed before. Now I can see again I can find work somewhere farther south where no one will follow us." He tipped up my chin with one hand.

"And don't tell me you have no fondness for me: I know you have!" and he bent his head and kissed me, at first soft and then hard and hungry.

It was my first real kiss; I had always wondered where the noses went, how the faces would fit, what it felt like to taste someone else. Now I knew, but even as my whole body seemed to melt against him, part of me knew it was wrong, wrong!

"Stop it, Gill! Let me breathe, let me think. . . . Please!"

He released me and I had to cling to the parapet, I was shaking so much. He took my hand. "I know it's sudden, my dearest one, but don't you see? It's the only way. Please say you will at least consider it. I have some moneys, not a lot, but enough to find us a safe haven for the winter. I swear to you that I will make it worth your while. Why shouldn't we both be happy instead of both miserable?"

There were a hundred, a thousand reasons why, but I couldn't think straight.

"Give me time to think. . . . I don't know, right now I don't know." And then the words that must have been spoken so many times in the past by women far less surprised than I: "This is all so sudden!"

He bent and kissed my hands, one after the other.

"Of course, my love, but not more than a couple of days. I am being pressed already by Rosamund to name the wedding date. Tonight is Tuesday; I'll meet you here for your answer the same time on Thursday. In the meantime," he added, "I shall find it extremely difficult to avoid grabbing you and kissing you in front of everyone! I love you, my dearest. . . ."

I staggered back to my room down the stone stairs in a complete daze. At the bottom, by the light of a candle I had left burning, I saw two pairs of eyes staring up at me accusingly. Too much to expect that, between them, they didn't know exactly what had happened.

"I'm going to bed," I said firmly. "Right now. We'll talk in the morning, if you have anything you want to say."

The truth was that for a few precious hours, just a few, I wanted to hug to myself everything he had said, everything he had done, without dissipating the secret joy a jot by sharing or discussing it. If you leave the stopper off a vial of perfume it soon evaporates, and this love potion I had received tonight was the sweetest perfume in the world, and I had every intention of staying awake all night to conserve and savor every drop. . . .

"Breakfast," said the Wimperling succinctly, "is outside the door. As we didn't turn up for breakfast, they brought it to you."

I opened bleary eyes, for a moment lost to the day and hour. Then I remembered. But surely I couldn't have fallen asleep- "What time is it?"

"Getting on for two hours after dawn, I reckon."

So much for spending the night awake, relis.h.i.+ng the declaration of Gill's love!

I must have fallen asleep almost at once and been tireder than I thought, for now I was grouchy, headachy, scratchy-eyed. The storm that had threatened last night hadn't broken after all and, like most animals, I still felt the oppression in the air, like a hand pressing down on the top of my head. And there was so much to do, so much to think about. . . .

We ate, what I don't remember, but I know the others had most of whatever it was. All the while the thoughts in my head danced up and down, round and about, like a cloud of midges, and as patternless.

"I'm going for a walk," I said abruptly. "You can come or stay as you wish."

We left the courtyard and pa.s.sed the cl.u.s.ter of huts below the wall. Ahead stretched the long, straight road that led through the fields and orchards, past the fringes of the forest, to the gates of the demesne. I walked, not even noticing the surrounding landscape, just thumping my feet down one after the other, my mind a hopeless blank. It was an unseasonably hot day and at last sheer discomfort made me turn off to the shade of one of the still- unpicked orchards. I sank down on the long gra.s.s, leaned back against one of the gnarled trunks and sank my teeth into one of the small, sweet, pink- fleshed apples they probably used for cider. The Wimperling wandered off in search of windfalls, and the breeze brought faint and faraway the sound of the chapel bell ringing for noon.

Even Growch knew what that meant. "We've missed the midday meal," he said plaintively, sucking in his stomach.

"I know," I said unsympathetically.

"Ain't you got nuffin with you? Bit o' crust, cheese rind?"

"No. You had most of my breakfast, remember? Go away and look for beetles or bugs or something and don't bother me. I need to think," and promptly fell asleep once more, to awake only when the lengthening shadows brought with them a chill that finally roused me from sleep. The Wimperling lay by my side, the freshening breeze lapping his hide with the dancing shadows of the leaves above; Growch was lying on his back, snoring, his disgraceful stomach, pink, brown and black-patched, exposed to a bar of suns.h.i.+ne.

I sat up, suddenly feeling rested, alert, alive once more. I stretched until my bones cracked and tw.a.n.ged, then bounced to my feet and s.n.a.t.c.hed another apple, sucking at the juice thirstily, then another, not caring whether I got stomachache. Time to walk back, or we should miss another meal, and now I felt hungry.

I realized I was enjoying the leisurely walk back, and spoke without thinking.

"It'd be nice to be back on the road again. . . ."

Then began the Great Campaign, as I called it later, though the first few words were innocuous enough.

"Nice enough when the weather is like this," said the Wimperling. "But it's autumn already. All right for those with stamina and guts."

"Remember how cold it was last winter?" said Growch. "His Lords.h.i.+p- beggin' your pardon, lady-caught a cold what turned to pew-money?"

"Certainly doesn't like cold weather," said the Wimperling. "His sort are used to riding: never liked walking far."

"Remember how he used to complain about his feet?" said Growch. "Used to whinge about the food, too. . . ."

"That's the trouble with knights," said the Wimperling. "Only trained for one life. Give them a sword, a charger, a battle, and they're happy. In civilian life they can loose a hawk, sing a ballad-"

"Or flatter a lady . . ." said Growch.

"Easy enough for them to get accustomed to being waited on, having the best of everything-"

"Soon enough blame anyone what robs 'em of it-"

At last I realized where all this was leading, refused to listen, stopped up my ears. How dared they try and influence what I was going to do! It had nothing to do with them, it was between me and Gill.

The trouble was, their words remained in my consciousness, as annoying and insidious as the last of the summer fleas and ticks. And what they had said, exaggerated as it was, still held a grain of truth. Gill had grumbled a lot-but then he had had a right to. But would choice make it any easier for him to bear a simple life? Yes, he did catch cold easily, yes he was a bit soft, but he hadn't been used to the traveling life. Would he be any better prepared now?

A small voice inside me whispered that it had been a new way of life for me, too, though perhaps I had made a better job of it, but I brushed the thought aside impatiently: everyone was different.

It was true, too, that the only life he had known was that of a knight, and that in spite of his brave words he would find it difficult to turn his hand to anything else. And that bit about flattering ladies: were the words he had spoken to me merely the courtesies he thought I would like to hear, not meant to be taken seriously? If he found it so easy to be turned from his betrothed, would a week or so in bad weather have him feeling the same way about me?

I got through the rest of the day somehow or other, but at dinner that night I found myself studying Gill's face for signs of what he was really like. Was his chin just a little bit weak, compared with his father's? Had he always looked so petulant when something displeased him, as it did that night when a particular dish was empty before it reached him? And if he now disliked his fiancee so much, why was he paying her such great attention? His fine new clothes certainly suited him: that was the third new surcoat I had seen him in.

Who would carry all his gear if we were on the road once more?

That night I couldn't sleep at all. Hoping a little fresh air would help, I crept up the spiral stair to the walls again, but just as I drew back the bolts, greased earlier in antic.i.p.ation of my meeting with Gill on the following night, I saw that the walkway was already occupied, although it must be near midnight. A man and a woman stood close by, talking softly. I was about to descend again when something about her stance made me believe I recognized the woman, and curiosity kept me where I was.

" . . . that makes it so important to risk being seen?" I couldn't identify his voice, and he had his back to me.

"I had to see you! As things are, I have to be with him all the time. . . ."

Rosamund's face was as pale as the moon that rode clear of cloud as she turned fully towards the man before her. "Robert, what are we going to do?

I'm at least two months pregnant!"

Chapter Twenty.Eight.

I couldn't help a gasp of horror as I realized the implications of what she had just said, but they were so intent on each other that they didn't hear. Once again I knew I should retreat without further eavesdropping, but how could I?

This concerned Gill's and my future so closely I had to listen.

"Two months, you say?" said Gill's father, after a pause. His voice never faltered: he might have been discussing the gestation period of a favorite horse.

"I have missed two monthly courses, yes. One could have been ignored perhaps, but I have always been as regular as an hourgla.s.s, and now there are further signs. . . ." A shrug of those cloaked shoulders. "It will start to show soon."

"Let me think. . . ." He started to pace up and down the walkway, up and back twice, his arms folded across his chest. How like Gill he walks, I thought. He came back to face her. "You were no virgin when I took you," he stated flatly.

"How do I know . . . ?"