The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(4)
“Oh,” said the duchess confidingly. “It is only that we have had word that a unicorn has been sighted. In Brocéliande.”
All around the table, voices seemed to drop; the name Brocéliande itself breathed out dark mystery. Men told wild tales of that ancient forest. That the fair-folk, the korriganed, had lived long in its shadows. That an unwary traveler might stray into the Lost Lands, only to vanish forever, or return a century hence, still young while his whole world had spun out from under his feet. And they also did say, with more force than mere rumor, that Brocéliande was one of the last, best places for men to hunt unicorns.
A unicorn was the noblest and rarest prey in Christendom. The fire-drakes, if ever they had lived, had not been seen in living memory, and one could not hunt sea-drakes. Sea-drakes hunted men. At least, that’s what seamen said when ships did not come back. But now and again, one heard credible tales of a unicorn. Like his master the king, La Trémoille loved to hunt. “A unicorn, you say?”
The duchess threw a diffident glance at her brother. “We had a message from Trécesson. A lymerer with his dog, seeking stags for his master, came upon the beast in Brocéliande. Four days ago—or was it five? I thought—I mean, we thought—that perhaps we should try to hunt it. While I am—” She stumbled over the words, going modestly pink.
La Trémoille knew what she was trying to say. To hunt a unicorn required two things. The first was a virgin of high birth and unimpeachable virtue, for bait. And the other was a hunt so extravagant that the mere dazzle of it would tempt the vain beast near.
What better bait for a unicorn than this beautiful, high-born fool? And what nobler quarry for a man than a unicorn? La Trémoille hesitated, remembering his orders. Then he said, “It would be a fine thing, to hunt a unicorn.”
In a hectoring voice, Henri of Avaugour answered, drinking his wine, “Then why do we speak of marriage? Even the breath of coming unchastity might ruin all—it is said that unicorns know these things, Monseigneur.”
The duchess was blushing even more furiously, biting her lip.
La Trémoille considered. Just the chance of it fired his blood. A living unicorn, at bay…“A small delay before negotiations begin might be possible,” he said at last.
A small, odd smile came to Henri of Avaugour’s lips. “I knew you were wise, Monseigneur.”
The bastard was probably still holding out for a bribe, thought La Trémoille. Well, an estate in France could be found for him. But let it be a wretched estate.
The duchess, still scarlet, said, “I shall make of the unicorn’s horn a wedding present to the king of France. You shall take the hide, God willing, for all the world to marvel at, Monseigneur.”
Her look was soft, earnest. And when she put out her hand to be kissed, he did so with less than his usual coldness.
* * *
They got rid of La Trémoille at last. The general had unbent considerably at the thought of hunting a unicorn, though he stared daggers all the while at poor Henri. He even ate some marchpane, though he grimaced, and drank his cup of wine—Anne had made sure it was the sweet kind that gave you a headache—and then took his leave. The servants came in his wake to draw the cloth and clear away the boards and trestles. Soon there would be proper feasting in the great hall.
Anne finally gave in to the fit of laughter that had been trying to burst out of her all that while. When she looked up, wiping her eyes, Henri was grinning too, still wearing that ridiculous hat, and that started her off again. She said, “Let us hope the feast tonight contains a few bearable dishes; one cannot subsist on marchpane.”
“Lord, how do you do it? One moment my sister is there, and the next there is a ninny blushing on cue. And yon Frenchman’s no fool, yet he swallowed that nonsense about future unchastity.”
Anne said, “He was pleased with his own superiority. It makes people unwise.”
She had not let any of her councilors, not even Jean de Rieux, assist at the comedy she played for La Trémoille. Henri was the only one she needed, and a great crowd would merely increase the odds that someone would let something slip. But La Trémoille had not been gone a candle-mark when De Rieux hurried up the stairs. “What did the general say?” he asked urgently. “What does he want?”
Henri was still grinning. “He had no idea what struck him. The duchess has that effect. And, of course, I gave my sister vital assistance.”
Anne had resumed her accustomed chair and was putting minute stitches in the vast watered-silk sweep of an altar-cloth; she said austerely, “We have convinced the general to delay any talk of my marriage to the king of France until after we all go hunt unicorns in Brocéliande.” She turned her altar-cloth in the firelight, wishing for her favorite thimble. Being gold, it had been sold too.
De Rieux looked tolerably blank. “But—why? There are no unicorns. Or, there have been no sightings. Not these twenty years.”
“That,” said Anne, “is entirely beside the point. We have bought ourselves time.”
“To what purpose? You have bought yourself a week or two, no more; it will not make a difference.”
Anne laid the cloth aside. “That’s where you’re wrong. Consider only—” She broke off.
Her court diviner was called Calyx; no one recalled his birth-name, except for some dusty scribe in the Diviners’ Guild. Every diviner took a Latin name upon achieving his mastery. Calyx stumbled into the duchess’s garderobe now, three parts drunk. That was to be expected. Calyx was an oenomancer, who read his divination in the dregs of wine. With a bleared eye, carrying bottle and cup in his slack hands, he said, “You sent for me, Highness?”