Peter Beagle - The Last Unicorn

"Five. This one was smaller than the others, but it really gave me more trouble. I couldn't get near it on foot, so I had to go in with the lance, and my horse got pretty badly burned. It was funny about the horse —"

Molly interrupted him. "Sit down, Your Highness, and stop doing that. I start to twitch all over just watching you." Prince Lír sat down opposite her. He drew a dagger from his belt and moodily began peeling potatoes. Molly regarded him with a slight, slow smile.

"I brought her the head," he said. "She was in her chamber, as she usually is. I dragged that head all the way up the stairs to lay it at her feet." He sighed, and nicked his finger with the dagger. "Damn. I didn't mind that. All the way up the stairs it was a dragon's head, the proudest gift anyone can give anyone. But when she looked at it, suddenly it became a sad, battered mess of scales and horns, gristly tongue, bloody eyes. I felt like some country butcher who had brought his lass a nice chunk of fresh meat as a token of his love. And then she looked at me, and I was sorry I had killed the thing. Sorry for killing a dragon!" He slashed at a rubbery potato and wounded himself again.

"Cut away from yourself, not toward," Molly advised him. "You know, I really think you could stop slaying dragons for the Lady Amalthea. If five of them haven't moved her, one more isn't likely to do it. Try something else."

"But what's left on earth that I haven't tried?" Prince Lír demanded. "I have swum four rivers, each in full flood and none less than a mile wide. I have climbed seven mountains never before climbed, slept three nights in the Marsh of the Hanged Men, and walked alive out of that forest where the flowers burn your eyes and the nightingales sing poison. I have ended my betrothal to the princess I had agreed to marry — and if you don't think that was a heroic deed, you don't know her mother. I have vanquished exactly fifteen black knights waiting by fifteen fords in their black pavilions, challenging all who come to cross. And I've long since lost count of the witches in the thorny woods, the giants, the demons disguised as damsels; the glass hills, fatal riddles, and terrible tasks; the magic apples, rings, lamps, potions, swords, cloaks, boots, neckties, and nightcaps. Not to mention the winged horses, the basilisks and sea serpents, and all the rest of the livestock." He raised his head, and the dark blue eyes were confused and sad.

"And all for nothing," he said. "I cannot touch her, whatever I do. For her sake, I have become a hero — I, sleepy Lír, my father's sport and shame — but I might just as well have remained the dull fool I was. My great deeds mean nothing to her."

Molly took up her own knife and began to slice the peppers. "Then perhaps the Lady Amalthea is not to be won by great deeds." The prince stared at her, frowning in puzzlement.

"Is there another way to win a maiden?" he asked earnestly. "Molly, do you know another way? Will you tell it to me?" He leaned across the table to seize her hand. "I like being brave well enough, but I will be a lazy coward again if you think that would be better. The sight of her makes me want to do battle with all evil and ugliness, but it also makes me want to sit still and be unhappy. What should I do, Molly?"

"I don't know," she said, suddenly embarrassed. "Kindness, courtesy, good works, that sort of thing. A good sense of humor." A small copper-and-ashes cat with a crooked ear jumped into her lap, purring thunderously and leaning against her hand. Hoping to change the subject, she asked, "What about your horse? What was funny?"

But Prince Lír was staring at the little cat with the crooked ear. "Where did he come from? Is he yours?"

"No," Molly said. "I just feed him, and hold him sometimes." She stroked the cat's thin throat, and it closed its eyes. "I thought he lived here."

The prince shook his head. "My father hates cats. He says that there is no such thing as a cat — it is just a shape that all manner of imps, hobs, and devilkins like to put on, to gain easy entrance into the homes of men. He would kill it if he knew you had it here."

"What about the horse?" Molly asked.

Prince Lír's face grew glum again. "That was strange. When she took no delight in the gift itself, I thought she might be interested to hear how it was won. So I told her about the view and the charge — you know — about the hissing and the naked wings and the way dragons smell, especially on a rainy morning; and the way the black blood jumped at the point of my lance. But she heard none of it, not a word, until I spoke of the rush of fire that nearly burned my poor horse's legs from under him. Then — ah, then she came back from wherever she goes when I talk to her, and she said that she must go and see my horse. So I led her to the stable where the poor brute stood crying with the pain, and she put her hand on him, on his legs. And he stopped moaning. That's a terrible sound they make when they're really hurt. When they stop, it's like a song."

The prince's dagger lay glittering among the potatoes. Outside, great gusts of rain growled round and round the castle walls, but those in the scullery could only hear it, for there was not a single window in the cold room. Nor was there any light, except for the meager glow of the cooking fire. It made the cat dozing in Molly's lap look like a heap of autumn leaves.

"And what happened then?" she asked. "When the Lady Amalthea touched your horse."

"Nothing happened. Nothing at all." Prince Lír suddenly seemed to become angry. He slammed his hand down on the table, and leeks and lentils leaped in all directions. "Did you expect something to happen? She did. Did you expect the beast's burns to heal on the instant — the crackling skin to knit, the black flesh to be whole again? She did — by my hope of her I swear it! And when his legs didn't grow well under her hand, then she ran away. I don't know where she is now."

His voice softened as he spoke, and the hand on the table curled sadly on its side. He rose and went to look into the pot over the fire. "It's boiling," he said, "if you want to put the vegetables in. She wept when my horse's legs did not heal — I heard her weeping — and yet there were no tears in her eyes when she ran away. Everything else was there, but no tears."

Molly put the cat gently on the floor and began gathering the venerable vegetables for the pot. Prince Lír watched her as she moved back and forth, around the table and across the dewy floor. She was singing.

The prince said, "Who is she, Molly? What kind of woman is it who believes — who knows, for I saw her face — that she can cure wounds with a touch, and who weeps without tears?" Molly went on about her work, still humming to herself.

"Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with their hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough."

But the prince stood up to bar her way, and she stopped, her apron full of herbs and her hair trailing into her eyes. Prince Lír's face bent toward her: older by five dragons, but handsome and silly still. He said, "You sing. My father sets you to the weariest work there is to do, and still you sing. There has never been singing in this castle, or cats, or the smell of good cooking. It is the Lady Amalthea who causes this, as she causes me to ride out in the morning, seeking danger."

"I was always a fair cook," Molly said mildly. "Living in the greenwood with Cully and his men for seventeen years —"