"There now, dearie, what a to-do!" Strong, warm hands pulled up the covers, covered my hands with hers. "No need to take on so! Come, take your hands from your face-"
"They"ll see my ugliness! He will see . . ."
"Now, then! Ugliness is a state of mind, and there"s none wrong with that face of yours that fresh air and sunlight and a little extra feeding-up wouldn"t cure.
Got eyes like p.i.s.s-holes in snow, you have . . . Now, then: that"s better! Let Old Nan (what has been chosen to care for you because she"s born twenty and buried all but three, survived four husbands and the phlegm and the sores and the runs and vomits and scabs) let her comb out that nice, thick hair of yours and then Megan-she"s the youngest, touched a mite some would say, but a grand girl with the sheep-she will fetch some broth and bread. Been told to make a fuss of you, I has, by that nice tall fellow with the sword. Soon as I lets him know you"re better he"s to come and see you, he says, and all those animals you brought . . ."
Unlike most chatterers her actions were suited to her words and she had me combed and tidied and fed in no time at all, all the while her strangely accented voice, hovering like a salmon in leap on the vowels until you sometimes wondered whether she would ever reach the smooth waters of the consonants, burbled on like a busy brook, soothing and stimulating at the same time. At my insistence she fashioned me another mask, from kidskin, although I could see she was bewildered by the need. In truth her face was so seamed and pocked that it was difficult to identify any features, except for toothless mouth and red nose, so perhaps my physical deficiencies were not so strange to her after all. I made up some tale about being handfasted to Conn, but having made a vow not to uncover my face until we were wed. This made sense to her, full of superst.i.tion like all country folk, who must explain away disaster and joy, gain or loss somehow. Their "little people," for instance, seemed to have a hand in everything, from birth to death; and they seemed to prefer these household G.o.ds to any other, although Conn found a deserted Christian shrine in the woods to say his prayers by.
Once my mask was on I couldn"t wait to see the others again, and indeed the next time the door was left open Moglet was on the bed in a flash, and enthusiastically kneading my chest.
"Look! it"s much better . . ." She turned over her damaged paw and now there was only the smallest hollow and increased width among the pink and black pads. "Are you better, too?"
"Been a bit worried about you," said Puddy, from under the bed. "Thought you were . . . Nice to see you. My head is much improved."
"Caw! Bleedin" cold out there!" said Corby, actually managing a flapping ascent to the rafters, and landing safely. "Best off where you are . . ."
"Look at me, look at me!" bubbled Pisky, borne in by Conn. "Twice the size I was already, they say, and eating better all the time. Sir Knight says that if I don"t stop I shall have to have a bigger bowl, and the snails are complaining at the extra work-"
Conn sat down on the bed and took my hand. "How are you, Thingummy? We were all worried about you, but they said it was only a bad fever. Still, you"ve been away from us a whole week, and had it been but one day longer I should have insisted, infection or no, on taking a turn at minding you. How"s the back?"
"The back?" I had genuinely forgotten my other deformity with the trauma of the mask. So much had happened in my feverish tossings and turnings, happened, that is, to memory and understanding, that I had had no recall of my twisted and bent spine. Now I sat up as best I could and eased back my shoulders. There was a little crick! as another k.n.o.b in my spine straightened its alignment and I found that my eyes were on a level a good six inches higher. With Conn seated so near I could look almost straight into those kind, concerned brown eyes.
I saw him glance down in surprise at my front. "Why, you"ve-" He stopped, confused.
"Got a proper front," said Moglet happily, and pushed painfully against my budding b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"Er-it"s better, I think," I said, and I pulled away my hand, that had gone hot and sticky with embarra.s.sment. I pulled up the covers to my chin. "Where"s Snowy?"
"Here, dear one," and he stepped daintily through the doorway. A shaft of late sunlight followed him in and ran in admiration down the beautiful spirals of his golden horn and over the waves of his luxuriant mane and tail. "I only come in the village when there are few about, for I reckon a dragon-memory is enough for these simple folk, without having to get used to a unicorn as well. I can make them unsee me for a while, but it is more convenient to stay out of sight in the forest. Glad to see you are recovering . . ."
"But-isn"t it awfully cold out there?"
He lifted his head in an unconsciously arrogant gesture. "Unicorns don"t catch cold," he said.
I suppose we were there for about another three or four weeks. Gradually I grew stronger in body, although my mind was still full of darkness. When I got up they brought me woman"s clothes, for another thing had happened that had sent me cowering to the floor in terror. Until Snowy explained. I had spent the day in bed, with intervals on the stool at the side, and had been feeling grumpy and unsettled all morning with a vague stomach-ache, then suddenly, as I stood up to practise walking a few steps, I was seized with one of the old pains I had thought gone forever. There was no one with me, as Old Nan was busy baking, Conn had gone hunting with Corby, and the others were holed up somewhere in the warm. The pain hit me again and of a sudden a bright scarlet plop! of blood hit the floor from beneath my shift and then another. In terror I flung open the door and rushed out into the snow, instinctively heading for the forest.
"Snowy, oh Snowy! The pain"s come back, worse than ever, and there"s blood .
Another moment and he was there, his warm breath on my face, his mane sheltering us both as he bent and snuffed at me gently.
"No, dear girl, it hasn"t, not in the way you think. Listen to me . . ." and he told me how I had become a woman, and that what was happening to me now was something I had been waiting for during the seven long years of the stone"s captivity. "That is why it hurts so much: it means you are catching up on all those years in one go. Now you are girl-child no longer." He looked sad and I remembered-so many things to remember!-that unicorns appear only to young virgins, never to mature women, and I suddenly understood a whole lot more.
He bent his head and touched my stomach with his healing horn. "There: the pain is gone, and never will be so bad again."
I kissed him, suddenly shy. "I won"t . . . I don"t mean to . . ."
"I know. I shall be with you till you don"t need me any more . . . Now, come: sit on my back and I will bear you to the hut, otherwise you will freeze to death!"
The pain disappeared, but when Snowy turned once more to return to his voluntary exile I noticed a small spot of blood on his otherwise flawless back, like the stain of a trodden berry . . .
At last the snow started to slide from roof and rick, the sun stayed longer with us, fingernails of ice fell with a tinkle from the swelling buds in the trees, and it was time to say goodbye to the village, for we all felt we should move on with the lightening days, though where we had no clear idea. Conn gave the headman three gold coins, a princely sum, for their care of us. He also told him that the dragon had left some treasure in the cave for them-silver and bronze armour, plates and cups (we had the gold coin)-as recompense for burnt thatch and general damage. I could see they could scarcely wait for the snows to melt. The coins and the antic.i.p.ated treasure were celebrated in our farewell party, which included a roasted steer, mock dragon-fights and much mead, so that it was with a thick head that I turned for my last look at where our quest had ended. The villagers stood a quarter-mile away, still watching us go. I waved once more and then glanced up at the Black Mountain. I could not see the cave, and of a sudden clouds from a warmer air frothed and spilt over the top like sc.u.m from a mess of new-boiling bones until all was hidden from view.
The road ahead lay downhill. Once again we heard the tentative song of birds, buds were thick and sticky, and catkins hung like lamb"s tails from the willow and everywhere there was promise and hope. Conn sang and the others grew strong and fat, but my heart still lay heavy and full of dread, for I had grown up.
Every day fresh memories arrived with the softening of the days. Sometimes I felt as though my heart would break, for I now knew who I was, where I had come from, some, not all yet, of what had happened in the twelve years before the witch abducted me. I remembered, too, what had befallen my parents and wept the inner tears of one who could only mourn too late. Conn kept glancing at me anxiously but I could not tell him, not yet. And there were the others: I began to appreciate fully what my "release" meant now for, as The Ancient had predicted, whole and free again, they spent far less time with me and I found my eyes and ears and touch and taste and smell not understanding them as before, as if a veil lay between us.
I think perhaps I realized more was to come, so I was not unduly surprised when one spring day we found ourselves in a countryside of rolling downs and there, sitting on a rock as coolly as if he had only wandered a little way ahead five minutes ago, was The Ancient.
Part of me wanted to run and embrace him, part to refute his very presence, to blame him in some obscure fashion for my private world of misery, so I stood and did nothing as the others crowded round him. Conn"s sword, Snowy"s horn, Puddy"s forehead, Corby"s wing, Moglet"s paw, Pisky"s mouth were all exhibited and admired: he did shoot one piercing glance at Conn"s armour and then at me, but had the sense not to make any remark.
That night we spent round his campfire and ate better than we had for weeks.
The only question he raised was, where were we bound? Had we thought of this? Yes. Come to any decision? No. It seemed everyone thought everyone else was leading the way . . .
At last Conn voiced all our thoughts. "We-we all thought there must be something else. What, we did not know. Perhaps it was you?"
"Not me," said The Ancient, taking off his red-and-white striped hat, decorated with sh.e.l.ls, and scratching his head. "I"m merely here to see the fun . . ."
"The fun!" I exploded, exasperated at last into coherent speech. "What fun do you think it has been for us? Where have you been, that you think that cold and hunger and fear and illness const.i.tute fun? What makes you think that the traumas, the tiredness, the soul-searchings, have been fun? You"re just a stupid, uncaring, flippant old man who is concerned with nothing but his vicarious pleasures, and has merely learnt enough so-called "magic" to think himself immune from us mortal creatures! You are complacent, narrow- minded, cold-" I ran out of words.
The others, except Snowy who merely looked amused, stared at me in varying degrees of horror.
"Magician," reminded Puddy.
"Bit strong," added Corby.
"Special case," remarked Moglet.
"I really don"t think-" Puddy.
"Hang on, Thing dear, moderate it a bit," from Conn.
More or less all together.
"No," I said. "I won"t moderate or anything! I meant it!" and burst into tears.
Huffily pushing them all aside, I retired to a corner, wrapped myself in my cloak and pretended to go to sleep.
The next morning I arose very early and wandered off among the dunes to where the land sloped away into a haze of forest and fields. It had turned cold again, so the streams were marked by twisting snakes of mist that followed the waters and trees held a shadow-self of clear earth beneath their branches and the rest was tipped and branched and swathed with fingers of frost. I shivered.
"I"m sorry," said The Ancient. "Forgive me, Fleur?"
I remembered what he had called me before. "You knew . . . All the time?"
"Of course. And now you do, too?"
"Most of it. Some of it won"t come yet."
"It has made you sad . . . And bitter."
Of course it had. To lose your parents, home, nurse, childhood all in one day, to lose your memory for seven years and then to remember everything at once, more or less, was like being forced to swallow huge doses of bitter herb- medicine. I felt disorientated and most of all, alone. Remembering nothing, I had had my friends: the comradeship, their love, and my pa.s.sion for Conn.
Now it was all coloured differently but, in spite of my new knowledge I was not sure who I was, what I felt, where I should be . . .
"I warned you."
"Yes, I know: but I didn"t know it would hurt so much!"
"Don"t forget that your friends are in exactly the same boat."
"The same?"
"Of course the same. As if it were yesterday. Your cat now remembers the home she was stolen from, the warm fire, the loving mother; the toad remembers his pond, the crow his treed brethren and the fish his capture and long travel from abroad while his kin died one by one in neglect . . . Don"t you think that they, too, have regrets and memories? Are you unique in suffering just because you are a human being?"
"But they didn"t say . . ."
"Of course not. You"ve been ill. You recover to look like a wet Lugnosa! What did you expect? You have always been something special to them, something that to them was better, more able to cope-of course they are uneasy when you appear to go to pieces."
"But we no longer talk as we used to . . ."
"I told you that would gradually go as well."
"But I don"t want it to!"
"You said a lot of things last night that were true-about me being immune from reality, from mortality-well, I"ll say the same to you, but in reverse. You are mortal, and being so must accept that mortality, with all it implies. You wished to escape from a painful and confining enchantment, but now you refuse to accept the responsibilities that go with the release!" His tone softened. "Being a human is hurtful at times but it can also be wonderful, more wonderful than the immortals can ever experience."
"How can that be? You have life everlasting, if you want it-"
"For that very reason! Quite apart from life itself becoming boring when one has lived it two, three, four times as long as anybody else, it is rather like always having enough money to buy whatever you desire. If you can always have what you want, on demand, it ceases to be desirable. In the end there is nothing left to experience." He frowned, and his look dared me to probe further.
"But do you-can you-never die?"
"Oh, yes. But only by our own choice, by our own hand. There is another way, but that involves the Powers I told you of once. They are stronger than all."
"The powers of good and evil, you mean?"
"I have told you, there are no such things. There is Power, there are so-called Forces. They are like-oh, like a team of strong horses, harnessed and ready for a driver. It is up to their user, whether he or she directs it to plough a field or ride down innocent bystanders." He nodded. "Mmm."
"I still don"t quite see . . ." I hesitated. "This question of immortality: surely the promise of a life eternal, dependent on your own decision to terminate, must far outweigh our little lives, that are bound by the certainty of death?"
"That very thought of mortality adds spice to what you do, don"t you see? A summer"s day is all the more beautiful for the knowledge that storm could blight the blossoms and frost surely will; a child is all the more precious for the perils of growing-up and the winter of old age; love is all the more glorious for its very ephemerality, the pain of parting or disillusion." He frowned. "But perhaps worse than this is when immortal loves mortal . . ."
His face darkened, and all at once in his place was a grim warrior standing: illusion, for the image pa.s.sed and he was once again an untidy old man. "Ask Snowy . . ."
"Snowy?"
"He will tell you one day, perhaps."
"I don"t understand . . ."
"You will, sooner or later."
My mind went off on another tack, perhaps inspired by all this talk of love.
"And that"s another thing: when I was-was hunched and miserable it didn"t matter that I loved Conn, because he was so far out of reach. It seemed right.
But now-" and I gestured to my nearly upright stance "-now I am nearly a respectable woman (except for my face, of course). I find I want more, desire more, need more. When it was impossible I could bear it: now, I can"t!"
"So that"s it . . ."
"No! Not just that-"
He grinned at me.
"It"s not!"
"To me it"s simple. Then, you loved like an idealistic twelve-year-old; now you are nineteen and a woman grown. At twelve one is allowed to worship from afar, because one"s thoughts don"t usually encompa.s.s anything physical, real .
. . Now you are suddenly grown, the pa.s.sions you feel are different. You have missed the years from twelve to now that would have made you someone"s lover, wife, mistress, and now it is all coalescing into an unbearable desire that you think-"
"Know!"
"-cannot be satisfied, because under that mask of yours lies ugliness."
"Right."
"Wrong!"
I stared at him. "What do you mean-"wrong"?"
But he seemed to change his mind, became a grumpy old man again: even his hands started to dither and fuss among his brooches and fastenings till he seemed the very dotard I knew he was not.
I persisted. "What do you mean "wrong"? My body may have changed, I can see and feel that, but my face hasn"t. I know: I feel it all over every day when no one"s looking, hoping against hope, but it feels exactly the same as it did when we lived with-Her."
He steepled his fingers and considered me under eyebrows like thatches.
"What you need-what you all need-I reckon, is a bathe in the Waters of Truth."
"And where and what are they?"
"They are in the centre of the world that you know, and they have the gift of clearing your mind, making you see things as they really are."
I suppose I must have sounded wearily disbelieving. "And just how do we find these-these magical waters?"