Peter Beagle - The Line Between

Me, I tried to write a letter home, with pictures of the king and the castle, but I fell asleep like him, and I slept the rest of that day and all night too. I woke up in a bed I couldn't remember getting into, with Schmendrick looking down at me, saying, «Up, child, on your feet. You started all this uproar — it's time for you to see it through. The king is coming to slay your griffin.»

I was out of bed before he'd finished speaking. I said, «Now? Are we going right now?»

Schmendrick shrugged his shoulders. «By noon, anyway, if I can finally get Lisene and the rest of them to understand that they are not coming. Lisene wants to bring fifty men–at–arms, a dozen wagonloads of supplies, a regiment of runners to send

messages back and forth, and every wretched physician in the kingdom.» He sighed and spread his hands. «I may have to turn the lot of them to stone if we are to be off today.»

I thought he was probably joking, but I already knew that you couldn't be sure with Schmendrick. He said, «If Lir comes with a train of followers, there will be no Lir. Do you understand me, Sooz?» I shook my head. Schmendrick said, «It is my fault. If I had made sure to visit here more often, there were things I could have done to restore the Lir Molly and I once knew. My fault, my thoughtlessness.»

I remembered Molly telling me, «Schmendrick has trouble with time.» I still didn't know what she meant, nor this either. I said, «It's just the way old people get. We have old men in our village who talk like him. One woman, too, Mam Jennet. She always cries when it rains.»

Schmendrick clenched his fist and pounded it against his leg. «King Lir not mad, girl, nor is he senile, as Lisene called him. He is Lir, Lir still, I promise you that. It is only here, in this castle, surrounded by good, loyal people who love him — who will love him to death, if they are allowed — that he sinks into … into the condition you have seen.» He didn't say anything more for a moment; then he stooped a little to peer closely at me. «Did you notice the change in him when I spoke of unicorns?»

«Unicorn," I answered. «One unicorn who loved him. I noticed.»

Schmendrick kept looking at me in a new way, as though we'd never met before. He said, «Your pardon, Sooz. I keep taking you for a child. Yes. One unicorn. He has not seen her since he became king, but he is what he is because of her. And when I speak that word, when Molly or I say her name — which I have not done yet — then he is recalled to himself.» He paused for a moment, and then added, very softly, «As we had so often to do for her, so long ago.»

«I didn't know unicorns had names," I said. «I didn't know they ever loved people.»

«They don't. Only this one.» He turned and walked away swiftly, saying over his shoulder, «Her name was Amalthea. Go find Molly, she'll see you fed.»

The room I'd slept in wasn't big, not for something in a castle. Catania, the headwoman of our village, has a bedroom nearly as large, which I know because I play with her daughter Sophia. But the sheets I'd been under were embroidered with a crown, and engraved on the headboard was a picture of the blue banner with the white unicorn. I had slept the night in King Lir's own bed while he dozed in an old wooden chair.

I didn't wait to have breakfast with Molly, but ran straight to the little room where I had last seen the king. He was there, but so changed that I froze in the doorway, trying to get my breath. Three men were bustling around him like tailors, dressing him in his armor: all the padding underneath, first, and then the different pieces for the arms and legs and shoulders. I don't know any of the names. The men hadn't put

his helmet on him, so his head stuck out at the top, white–haired and big–nosed and blue–eyed, but he didn't look silly like that. He looked like a giant.

When he saw me, he smiled, and it was a warm, happy smile, but it was a little frightening too, almost a little terrible, like the time I saw the griffin burning in the black sky. It was a hero's smile. I'd never seen one before. He called to me, «Little one, come and buckle on my sword, if you would. It would be an honor for me.»

The men had to show me how you do it. The swordbelt, all by itself, was so heavy it kept slipping through my fingers, and I did need help with the buckle. But I put the sword into its sheath alone, although I needed both hands to lift it. When it slid home it made a sound like a great door slamming shut. King Lir touched my face with one of his cold iron gloves and said, «Thank you, little one. The next time that blade is drawn, it will be to free your village. You have my word.»

Schmendrick came in then, took one look, and just shook his head. He said, «This is the most ridiculous … It is four days' ride — perhaps five — with the weather turning hot enough to broil a lobster on an iceberg. There's no need for armor until he faces the griffin.» You could see how stupid he felt they all were, but King Lir smiled at him the same way he'd smiled at me, and Schmendrick stopped talking.

King Lir said, «Old friend, I go forth as I mean to return. It is my way.»

Schmendrick looked like a little boy himself for a moment. All he could say was, «Your business. Don't blame me, that's all. At least leave the helmet off.»

He was about to turn away and stalk out of the room, but Molly came up behind him and said, «Oh, Majesty — Lir — how grand! How beautiful you are!» She sounded the way my Aunt Zerelda sounds when she's carrying on about my brother Wilfrid. He could mess his pants and jump in a hog pen, and Aunt Zerelda would still think he was the best, smartest boy in the whole world. But Molly was different. She brushed those tailors, or whatever they were, straight aside, and she stood on tiptoe to smooth King Lir's white hair, and I heard her whisper, «I wish she could see you.»

King Lir looked at her for a long time without saying anything. Schmendrick stood there, off to the side, and he didn't say anything either, but they were together, the three of them. I wish that Felicitas and I could have been together like that when we got old. Could have had time. Then King Lir looked at me, and he said, «The child is waiting.» And that's how we set off for home. The king, Schmendrick, Molly, and me.

To the last minute, poor old Lisene kept trying to get King Lir to take some knights or soldiers with him. She actually followed us on foot when we left, calling, «Highness — Majesty — if you will have none else, take me! Take me!» At that the king stopped and turned and went back to her. He got down off his horse and embraced Lisene, and I don't know what they said to each other, but Lisene didn't follow anymore after that.

I rode with the king most of the time, sitting up in front of him on his skittery black mare. I wasn't sure I could trust her not to bite me, or to kick me when I wasn't looking, but King Lir told me, «It is only peaceful times that make her nervous, be assured of that. When dragons charge her, belching death — for the fumes are more dangerous than the flames, little one — when your griffin swoops down at her, you will see her at her best.» I still didn't like her much, but I did like the king. He didn't sing to me, the way Schmendrick had, but he told me stories, and they weren't fables or fairy tales. These were real, true stories, and he knew they were true because they had all happened to him! I never heard stories like those, and I never will again. I know that for certain.

He told me more things to keep in mind if you have to fight a dragon, and he told me how he learned that ogres aren't always as stupid as they look, and why you should never swim in a mountain pool when the snows are melting, and how you can sometimes make friends with a troll. He talked about his father's castle, where he grew up, and about how he met Schmendrick and Molly there, and even about Molly's cat, which he said was a little thing with a funny crooked ear. But when I asked him why the castle fell down, he wouldn't exactly say, no more than Schmendrick would. His voice became very quiet and faraway. «I forget things, you know, little one," he said. «I try to hold on, but I do forget.»