Edward Hoch: Isaac Asimov's Worlds of Fantasy. Book 6: Mythical Beasties

That he should come-and pass-and would not stay, So that, forever after. I must go, Take the long road that mounts against the day, Traveling in the hope that 1 shall know Again that lifted moment, high and sweet, Somewhere-on purple moor or windy hill- Remembering still his wild and delicate feet, The magic and the dream-remembering still!''

His breathing was more regular. She said, "I truly saw him!"

"I'm blind," he said. "Blind, I'm blind."

"Oh, my dear…"

He fumbled for her hand, found it. For a long moment he held it. Then, slowly, he brought up his other hand and with -them both he felt her hand, turned it about, squeezed it.

Suddenly he grunted, half sitting. "You're here."

"Of course, darling. Of course I'm here "

"Why?" he shouted. "Why? Why? Why all of this? Why blind me?" He sat up, mouthing, and put his great hand on her throat. "Why do all that if…" The words ran together into an animal noise. Wine and witchery, anger and agony boiled in his veins.

Once she cried out.

Once she sobbed.

"Now," he said, "you'll catch no unicorns. Get away from me." He cuffed her.

"You're mad. You're sick," she cried.

"Get away," he said ominously.

Terrified, she rose. He took the cloak and hurled it after her. It almost toppled her as she ran away, crying silently.

After a long time, from behind the hedge, the sick, coughing sobs began again.

Three weeks later Rita was in the market when a hard hand took her upper arm and pressed her into the angle of a cottage wall. She did not start. She flashed her eyes upward and recognized him, and then said composedly, "Don't touch roe."

"1 need you to tell me something," he said- "And tell me you will!" His voice was as hard as his hand.

"I'll tell you anything you like," she said. "But don't touch me."

He hesitated, then released her. She turned to him casualty.

"What is it?" Her gaze darted across his face and its almosthealed scars. The small smile tugged at one comer of her mouth.

His eyes were slits. "I have to know this: why did you make up all that… prettiness, that food, that poison… just for me? You could have had me for less."

She smiled. "Just for you? It was your turn, that's all."

He was genuinely surprised. "It's happened before?"

She nodded. "Whenever it's the full of the moon-and the squire's away."

"You're lying!"

"You forget yourself!" she said sharply. Then, smiling,

"It is the truth, though."

"I'd've heard talk-"

"Would you now? And tetl me-how many of your friends know about your humiliating adventure?"

He hung his head.

She nodded. "You see? They go away until they're healed, and they come back and say nothing. And they always will."

"You're a devil… why do you do it? Why?"

"I told you," she said openly- "I'm a woman and I act like a woman in my own way. No man will ever touch me, though. I am virgin and shall remain so."

"You're what?" he roared.

She held up a restraining, ladylike glove. "Please," she said, pained.

"Listen," he said, quietly now, but with such intensity that for once she stepped back a pace. He closed his eyes, thinking hard: "You told me-the pool, the pool of the unicorn, and a song, wait- 'The Silken-swift, the gloriously Fair…* Remember? And then I-I saw to it that you'd never catch a unicorn!"

She shook her head. complete candor in her face. "I like that, 'the Silken-swift.' Pretty. But believe me-no! That isn't mine."

He put his face close to hers, and though it was barely a whisper, it came out like bullets. "Liar! Liar! I couldn't forget. I was sick, I was hurt, I was poisoned, but I know what I did!" He turned on his heel and strode away.

She put the thumb of her glove against her upper teeth for a second, then ran after him. "Del!"

He stopped but, rudely, would not turn. She rounded him, faced him. "I'll not have you believing that of me-it's the one thing I have left," she said tremulously.

He made no attempt to conceal his surprise. She controlled her expression with a visible effort, and said, "Please. Tell me a little more-just about the pool, the song, whatever it was."

"You don't remember?"

"I don't know!" she flashed. She was deeply agitated.

He said with mock patience. "You told me of a unicorn pool out on the Bogs. You said you had seen him drink there.

You made a song about it. And then I-"

"Where? Where was this?"

"You forget so soon?"

"Where? Where did it happen?"

"In the meadow, across the road from your gate, where you followed me," he said. "Where my sight came back to me, when the sun came up."

She looked at him blankly, and slowly her face changed.

First the imprisoned smile struggling to be free, and then- she was herself again, and she laughed. She laughed a great ringing peal of the laughter that had plagued him so, and she did not stop until he put one hand behind his back, then the other, and she saw his shoulders swell with the effort to keep from striking her dead"You animal!" she said, good-humoredly. "Do you know what you've done? Oh, you… you animal!" She glanced around to see that there were no ears to hear her. "I left you at the foot of the terrace steps," she told him. Her eyes sparkled. "Inside the gates, you understand? And you…"

"Don't laugh," he said quietly.

She did not laugh. "That was someone else out there.

Who, I can't imagine. But it wasn't I."

He paled. "You followed me out."

"On my soul I did not," she said soberly. Then she quelled another laugh.

"That can't be," he said. "I couldn't have…"

"But you were blind, blind and crazy, Dei-my-lover!"

"Squire's daughter, take care," he hissed. Then he pulled his big hand through his hair. "It can't be. It's three weeks;

I'd have been accused…"

"There are those who wouldn't." She smiled "Or-perhaps she will, in time."

"There has never been a woman so foul," he said evenly, looking her straight in the eye. "You're lying-you know you're lying."

"What must I do to prove it-aside from that which I'll have no man do?"

His lip curled. "Catch the unicom," he said.

"If I did, you'd believe I was a virgin?"

"I must," he admitted. He turned away, then said, over his shoulder- "But-you?"

She watched him thoughtfully until he left the marketplace.

Her eyes sparkled; then she walked briskly to the goldsmith's, where she ordered a bridle of woven gold. if the unicorn pool lay in the Bogs nearby, Rita reasoned, someone who was familiar with that brackish wasteland must know of it. And when she made a list in her mind of those few who traveled the Bogs, she knew whom to ask. With that, the other deduction came readily. Her laughter drew stares as she moved through the marketplace.

By the vegetable stall she stopped. The girl looked up patiently.

Rita stood swinging one expensive glove against the other wrist, half-smiling. "So you're the one." She studied the plain, inward-turning, peaceful face until Barbara had to turn her eyes away. Rita said, without further preamble, "I want you to show me the unicorn pool in two weeks."

Barbara looked up again, and now it was Rita who dropped her eyes. Rita said, "I can have someone else find it, of course. If you'd rather not." She spoke very clearly, and people turned to listen. They looked from Barbara to Rita and back again, and they waited.

"1 don't mind." said Barbara faintly. As soon as Rita had left, smiling, she packed up her things and went silently back to her house.

The goldsmith, of course, made no secret of such an extraordinary commission; and that, plus the gossips who had overheard Rita talking to Barbara, made the expedition into a cavalcade. The whole village turned out to see; the boys kept firmly in check so that Rita might lead the way; the young bloods ranged behind her (some a little less carefree than they might be) and others snickering behind their hands. Behind them the girls, one or two a little pale, others eager as cats to see the squire's daughter fail, and perhaps even… but then, only she had the golden bridle.