The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(21)

The other hunt was getting nearer.

“Come,” Anne cried. Jonquil bolted off her back legs, even less controllable than before, and again the unicorn followed and there was that shift, back into the cool gray mist with the French dogs casting for their lost trail; they winded the unicorn and bayed. Anne was mortally sure at each stride that Jonquil was going to put a foot in a hole and somersault and kill them both. She clung to the mare’s neck, praying. The shift happened again, shadow to sunlight. Back to shadow. As though the Lost Lands were everywhere, for a beast who knew where to step. As though the false abbess had spoken true and the unicorn could walk both worlds at will, and show a hunter the way between.

Anne saw water shining between the trees. An idea struck and she urged Jonquil on. The mare answered, although Anne could feel her begin to flag. She herself was almost weeping with the ache in her arms and legs; only terror for the unicorn had allowed her to cling on so long. Foam flecked Jonquil’s breast and forelegs.

And now it seemed both hunts were converging, the voices of all the dogs mingled into one hell-bound chorus. The horns made music like none she’d ever heard.

Duchess and unicorn broke out of the trees; the baying pressed them on three sides. They’d come to a lake, marshy at the verges, thick with reeds, and quiet, still as glass.

Anne leaned forward. Jonquil plunged instantly into the silver-frigid water. The unicorn raised her head tiredly, hesitating. “Follow,” Anne whispered to her, with Jonquil hock-deep, her skirt already floating. “Please.” And after a frozen moment, the unicorn followed. Anne’s skirts ballooned and filled. She angled across a corner of the lake and hoped only that God would get them all across.

Jonquil could swim, but the mare was beginning to flounder under the waterlogged masses of Anne’s skirts. Anne herself could not swim. The unicorn seemed barely able to hold the great ivory crown of her horn above the water. The sounds of hunting came closer. Jonquil was starting to sink, her legs scrabbling. Anne drew breath, fighting panic, and then felt the heave as Jonquil’s hooves touched the bottom. The forest was before them, and the sounds of pursuit had fallen back.

Water streamed from Anne’s skirt and the unicorn’s mane, flicked like sparks from her horn.

“You must go,” Anne said.

The unicorn didn’t move.

“What is it you want of me?” Anne hardly recognized her own voice. She was soaked and shivering.

As if she’d been waiting for the question, the unicorn stepped forward. The horn came to a point like a lance without a coronel. Jonquil shied back. Anne slid down from the saddle.

The unicorn laid her neck lightly across Anne’s shoulder. She smelled like wild animal and unfamiliar flowers and even, a little, of the sea.

“What do you want of me?” Anne asked again, very softly now.

The unicorn lowered her head so that the mass of her mane filled Anne’s fingers. After a bewildered moment, Anne got out her belt-knife and cut a long, thick lock of it. The unicorn didn’t move. The hair lay sparkling in her palm. She sheathed her knife, reached to touch the horn. She expected it to be cold, but it was silky and warm. “Please go,” Anne whispered again.

The unicorn tossed her head and scraped the ground with an ivory-white hoof.

“Please.”

Abruptly, she was heeded. The unicorn wheeled and disappeared into the trees. With quick instinctive movements, Anne knotted the lock of unicorn-hair to keep it all together and thrust it into her soaked sleeve.

At that moment, a man alone came stumbling from the wood. Anne and Jonquil both startled back. She did not recognize him. Could he be one of the bright riders? The ones coursing under strong sunlight? But he was on foot. His clothes were torn. He was short and slender, his eyes light and dazed.

Then the stranger took another step, and it was like the unicorn in the glade. All the sunlight left him at once. His hair lay in tight, dark-copper curls, his face bloodless, his clothes heavy and archaic, trousers and surcoat instead of hose.

He crumpled slowly to his knees. “Lady,” he said in strange French, “who are you?”

Holding on to Jonquil’s rein, she said, “Nay, who are you, Monsieur? Were you in the Lost Lands? Were you hunting the unicorn?”

His reddened lids had opened all the way. His face was garish white. “I—am— I do not— No. I was told to say—not that either. I wanted a way back. But what does that mean? I misremember. What year is it?”

She stared. “Anno Domini fourteen ninety.”

His face went stark with horror. He dropped abruptly to his knees in the moss. “It cannot be.”

“Do not be distressed—” Anne began, but suddenly hoofbeats filled the wood again, and the barking of the dogs. To her inexpressible relief, she heard Henri’s booming voice calling her name. She answered.

Her own court burst into view. Henri dropped from his horse in an instant, already taking off his cloak to put over her wet gown, wrapping her tight, holding her in the crook of his arm. “Anne, what in Heaven’s name—?” The dogs were giving the call that meant they’d lost the unicorn’s trail. Anne hoped devoutly that they never found it.

De Rieux was off his horse an instant later. “Are you well? Highness? What happened? Who is this man?” He stood on her other side, another warm presence, full of concern.

She managed a smile for him. “Like mother hens, all of you. I am well.”