Well of the Unicorn Page 3

  The words roused in Airar not only sympathy, but a memory lost among the events of the night. "My name's my own," he said, "but if that's the matter, I'll even go with you. I know an archer who'll make all right."

  Squint-eye gave him a long, squinting glance, now clearly confirmed in his suspicions. "I thank you, young sir. You are gracious. But there's none to leave with my shop. You know how to reach it, no doubt? To your right the first street and follow it straight around."

  He made a half-bow over a smile of pure malice and it would have been Airar's pleasure to thrust a fist into it, but he restrained and strode out with no more words. The street gave on a wide cobbled square with a stockade at the far end, and the road to the rock of the castle winding up out of it; he had not been there before. At the gate of the stockade a man in jack and sallet held a bill in the crook of his arm and attentively examined some small spot on his hand.

  "What d'you want?"

  "Is Permit the archer within?"

  He looked Airar up and down as the shopkeeper had done, less friendly, there being no money involved; balanced bill, turned head, and shouted: "Louche! Louche! Tell old Cowface there's a snotty here to see him." It was Airar's first contact with the guard, save Pertuit himself and the friendly stupid men who kept order at the market.

  Pertuit came down capped and sworded, yawning gustily and scratching himself, a burr of new beard round his chin; somewhat shamefast and hoity-toity of look over the glance and whistle his comrade gave to see him called for by a handsome Dalecarle youth. "What's now?" he said, and Airar would have walked away but that there is no loneliness like that of a countryman in town.

  "I had thought you might help me find a tavern where we could pick a bone," he said. "Having money—" and dandled one of his aurar.

  The archer's ill humor vanished. "Bless you, younker!" he said. "We'll make a Vulking of you yet, that are good to an old fighting man who has spent all his life in service. None has offered any here aught since Prince Aurareus came over in the imperial viceroy's train and sent every man of the castle guard six bottles to drink his health."

  He had taken Airar by the arm and was leading him rapidly across the square from the wicket-guard, who stood looking after with his mouth watering. "Not that—" Pertuit glanced round sharply, and gave a kind of snort. "Ha, stinking Imperials, all perfume. But you never see old Redbeard buying wine for the archer guard and I don't care who knows I said it. Here's a good place."

  To Airar's eyes the room stretched back illimitable, smoking with cressets, deaf with sound. A whole row of spits turned; the smell was delicious. He blinked as the host came forward, smiling at the red triangle on Permit's shoulder, but looking with a somewhat anxious eye as the archer said, "We'll have a stall, a bird, and Carrhoene —not the kind with resin, ha? It's all right, the young lord's rich. Show him the color of your shield, filair."

  "My name is Airar," but he clinked gold for the man, whose smile became a smirk as he led toward the rear and a place where the pair could sit beside on a thing like a church pew with arm-rests once carved in the heads of curious beasts, now knifehacked out of recognition. The pot-boy brought the bottle; Pertuit took a long draft and looked not unkindly at the young man.

  "It's a matter of employ, is't not, younker?" he asked, willing enough to pay for entertainment in what coin he could muster.

  Airar felt himself blush. "As for that, I'm not so urgent —that is, I would spend a day or two to see— I—"

  "Oho, already? Is she fair? Take a veteran's advice and look at the breasts; that's where you have to lie. The face is only the shingle before the shop. Is that her ring you wear?" He laughed loud and now Airar blushed in good earnest, for he was a decent lad.

  "Nor that either." Pressed to the point of saying something to cover Meliboe's mission, Airar burst out with the story of his effort to buy the dag, and Pertuit whistled as he took another long drink. "Faith, younker, you fall foul of the law like a dog chasing ducks in a barnyard. Were you truly ignorant of the ordinance?"

  "For long weapons, aye, I knew. But a mere dag?"

  "A dag is long in Naaros city by order of his worship the Baron Vanette-Millepigue. What's to do on this?" He drummed fingers. "Best devance the matter, say I, by going before a magistrate to confess the fault. But you'll need three compurgators. I'll stand willing for one —swear I never saw a chick more harmless—but where's the rest? D'you suppose Fabrizius would speak for you?"

  "No doubt." Airar laughed short. "But the price would be to sail in his curst ship."

  "If 'twere to Dzik or Uravedu you might make a fortune, but I misdoubt this Fabrizius trades only with the Twelve Cities, and in essence Carrhoene, where you have asTnuch chance to draw wine from a well as you have to win a solvar. Ah, well, give tomorrow's problem to the dawn, as the song says." He drank another draft, tilted back his head and sang:

  "When I was young and in my prime

  I thought on age and the end of time;

  But now my hair and beard are grey,

  I know that time is here to stay.

  There are seven other verses, but they all come to the same thing."

  The host brought their bird and toothsome it was, with a sauce of little shrimps from the Naarmouth but Airar found to no pleasure his companion drinking uneasy fast and talking faster even though with the best of spirits and wit. For there were guests in the other stalls who looked and laughed, and the young man could not but think on how he might deliver the enchanter's message at a place where Pertuit would sure be no welcome guest. He was a fool for the invitation and the room seemed slightly to blur as with distance which was a sensation he knew, so at last burst out: "Sir archer and friend, this has been joyous, but as you forgive me, I must even bid good-night. A matter of business—"

  "Aha!" roared the archer before Airar could pick up from that hesitation. "The young cock wants to rut." He leaned forward and wagged a finger. "Hark, younker, I'll go with you. Every girl should have two lovers, one to keep guard at the door."

  "I do assure you—"

  "You assure me of nothing. On the contrary, I assure you against all interruption. What! Am I not an archer of the guard of his lordship, the bastardly Red Baron? Gurion!" He swept up arm in a beckoning gesture for the landlord. "The slate. Pay it clear, younker; I'll leave drink-money for the lad, and let's begone."

  It could have been the wine that somewhat dulled Airar's perceptions; yet at the best, what could he do with one so masterful and moreover in authority, but go on and trust that those to whom he was bound would set a guard to screen out archers? He paid then, and rose. Pertuit took his arm, clapped the boniface on the back, saluted some in a neighboring stall, and led Airar magniloquently toward the door. The night air smelled good, with a salty tang the young man remembered coming to Trangsted only when the wind was strong southerly.

  "Where are we bound?" asked the archer.

  "I go to the Street of the Unicorn. But are you not required to be at the barrack by a named hour?"

  "Pish. Never mention it. Is not my trade being guard? And who better to guard than an old friend at his adventures? I'll answer for all—all, to any nightwatch. Does she have a sister?"

  The city was quiet and echoing after the noise of the day, the moon low in the sky and shadows everywhere with only a lighted window now and then, so that presently even Pertuit gave over his chatter. They met few and those mostly cloaked, seeming unanxious for company; but as they passed the Lady-Chapel there seemed to be movement among the darkness, and where the Inn of The Old Sword was, one of these shadows stepped forward and from under a cloak thrust a tallow-lantern in their faces.

  "Where do you go?" he asked gruffly, and beyond the light Airar thought he caught a glimpse of the surly big-boned man who had lounged there earlier.

  "Where I please and answer to none," said Pertuit, voice suddenly metal-hard, and reached round to tap the badge on his shoulder. "Archer of the guard." A light flashed on suddenly within the inn and was
quickly out.

  "Pass, archer," said the fellow, and lowering the lantern, stepped back a half-pace, but as he did so Airar caught from the tail of his eye a flick of motion that sang danger. Pertuit saw it first and—all one movement with a speed Airar would not have credited in a man half-drunken still—whipped out his shortsword and thrust, shouting, "Watch! Watch! A pax! A pax!"

  The big man glided like smoke before the blow and Airar heard a sound of ripping cloth. He half-turned at some touch; at the same moment a laurel-leaf spearhead whipped past his shoulder, the shape forever fixed in memory during that fraction of a second. It dipped and caught his companion full under the shoulder-blade from behind. The last shout died in bubbles; there was a rush of blood on the young man's hand, something clipped him hard behind the ear, and down he went in a tangle with the body of Pertuit the archer.

  4 Naaros: Men Meet at Night

  "HOLD," Airar dreamily heard someone say in a high voice. "This one wears the ring."

  "Give him the question, then." The second voice was gruff from the big man. "No safety for any till we find how he came by that."

  There was a light outside Airar's lids, which the headache made as much as he could bear, his hands felt sticky, and he misdoubted his ability to move.

  "Nay, Gallil," said still a third. "Here's no Vulking. Look at that hair and those inches."

  "By the Well! The question then, for a traitorous lizard. How came he running with the Red Dog's pup?"

  Airar opened his eyes and immediately shut them again to the wave of light and pain, but in that evanescent glance caught the fact that there was a circle of faces and he was lying on a floor under a dark, low-beamed ceiling.

  "The animal's awake," growled the Gallil-voice. "Question him quick before the syndic comes, or that old fool will be out the door, leaving nothing behind but a bad smell. Naught more ogresome than the thought of death to a man who's near it."

  "Nay." Airar tried to sit up and the effort set all the stars of heaven crashing through his head. He lifted a hand, saw that it was drenched with blood, felt sick, and would have fallen back but that one long-nosed and cleanshaven, in the costume of a mountainhunter, put an arm around him. "Hold the way!" he cried, and it was the third speaker, who had remarked Airar's hair and size. "Some water—or aquaviva."

  "True," said a man with a bald head and an iron beard that bristled out from his face like the prickles of a porcupine, passing over a bottle of something that stung

  Airar's lips. "Let's hear what tune he pipes for himself before making him dance to ours."

  Airar coughed, gasped, shook free of the supporting hand, and with an effort heaved himself up, but had to grip a side pillar to face the circle of maybe a score, skeptic to unfriendly.

  "Well, man, what's your business, say?" cried someone impatiently, and the hunter: "Give him time for life," but Gallil, "Time for lies, rather."

  The son of Alvar looked at his hand. "It's all blood," he said foolishly. "You killed my friend." Then, gaining strength with speed as the sense of danger hit home: "You of the Iron Ring for sure make rude enough welcome for those delegated with messages to your ears."

  There was a stir on that. "Messages from whom?" cried one, and "Proof, proof!" another. Gallil threw back his torn cloak to show he was grasping hilt beneath, and a voice asked if the Korosh speaker had come. But Airar faced them till he had all their eyes, having some experience with folk-meetings in Vastmanstad, then hummed through his teeth:

  Geme, plange, moesto mori—

  letting it drop at the end of the line, and without waiting for the answer, said, "If you'll but give me the means to cleanse myself, you shall hear the rest. Sirs, if I were indeed contrarious to you, would I have come to your meeting with a single archer? It is too many or too few."

  The mountain-hunter laughed clear. "Aye, Gallil. there's your proof," said he. "It's a true Dalecarle— bad argument and good heart. Why . any archer at all he says not, you'll remark. Let's to full meeting and hear in form this maker of conditions." He gripped Airar by the arm and led him half-staggering through another room, where there was a long table with places for many, to a buttery where he could wash, remarking not unkindly as he waited, "Give them name and station at once; no need to trick out with speech. We're fair to all of Dalecarle blood. I'm Rogai of Mariola." He touched hands for friendship and led the way in.

  The group were all in places round the table, as he could see now with clearing head an assembly in all the costumes of Dalarna. This Gallil, now that one got him in the light, was evidently from the peasantry of Vastmanstad itself; there was one who snorted with asthma from a fisherman's beard and a leather jerkin that tall man with the wind-red face bore a doublet that was surely never fashioned other where than on the boundless plains of Hestinga; and a man with delicate hands on the table, wearing a knight's hacqueton beneath a sharp triangular chin, might well be that Sir Ludomir Ludomirson of whom Airar had so often heard.

  The young man gripped the back of a chair. "Sirs," said he, seeing they were attendant upon him, "I will show you my affair without concealment. I am Airar Alvarson, now of no place, being taxed out of my father's stead no earlier than yesterday by Leonce Fabrizius." Murmurs, and the fisher cried, "That's what we're for to cure."

  "Well then, as I made my way to town last night, I fell on an encounter with a certain doctor philosophicus, one Meliboe. He told me you would gather here tonight, gave me this ring and your song as passports and waged me to bear a message."

  Now there was stir indeed, Gallil leaping up so fierce his chair crashed to the floor, crying, "Said I not so? Give him the question at once!" and mountainhunter Rogai, pale under brown, "How came that old vulture by our song and sign?" with many other confused voicings till the knight stood up, lifting his hands, and only when there was peace, saying:

  "A moment." He addressed Airar: "Young sir, this is a very astounding and dangerous thing to tell us, for among all the enemies of our race none is worse than this same Meliboe, and if he be ware of our intimate doings, we are not far from sped. Therefore—" "That is my message. I—"

  "You will be still till we give you leave to speak, since you stand here in no good odor. Moreover, you will address me as sir; I am a dubbed knight. I continue: we would be satisfied that you do indeed come as the plenipotentiary of this wizard and demon. Where did you encounter him?"

  "In a cot at the foot of a hill where a small road turns off, some eight to ten thousand paces beyond the last bridge as one takes the great high toward the two Lacias out from Naaros—sir."

  "Gallil, you're our delegate of Vastmanstad. Is this plausible?"

  The big man nodded gloomily behind his beard. "Veritable, even, Sir Ludomir. Few know it, but Meliboe has a pleasaunce there, where he works his dirty witcheries with the help of a dwarf called Cobbo, offspring of a mismating between a seademon and a Micton wench."

  Sir Ludomir turned back to Airar. "We will take it as proved that you have seen Sir Doctor Meliboe. Have you any proof that you bear his word?"

  For answer Airar stepped to the window of the buttery where the water was, thrust his hand into the bucket, then held it aloft. "Sir, and you, sirs," he said, "I ask you to look whether this be not an iron ring such as I see some of you wear. But now look." He rubbed it dry and threw it on the table, where it caught the light in multiplex reflection of the twined silvery design.

  Rogai the mountain-hunter laughed. "Sorcery!" cried someone, but Airar: "I could remove the enchantment myself if I had a book here."

  The knight picked up the ring, rolled it between his fingers, examined it closely, and looked up with raised eyebrows: "And the message?"

  "Sir, that this Doctor Meliboe finds the world wagging ill under Count Vulk and would fall in with you to change it. As proof of good will, he offers this—that he knows what you propose with the guilds of Mariupol; but says a scorpion without a head may sting but not bite, yet through certain arts he might find you a hand to lift a banner."
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  Once again there was babble and Sir Ludomir looked forth like a hawk from shadowed eyes. "And what think you—" he began, but before he could achieve the word, there came from the door a knock double and triple. The knight slid the ring down the table to Airar, Rogai-of-the-mountains motioned him to a place, and the portal was unbarred to admit a man.

  He was clad in furs, so richly that at a glance one missed the person himself, yet on second sight there was nothing remarkable in this, since it was an ancient, so bleached and colorless as to be without personal existence, with a thin, solemn face, like a priest's.

  Rogai of Mariola sprang up. "This is Wigrak," he said in a loud voice, "syndic of the great guilds of Mariupol, to hear whom we are convoked tonight." The old man smiled thanks as Sir Ludomir offered him a chair and said in a voice silver-clear, "With your permission, I will sit and talk."

  "We are all one in the Iron Ring, with no rules of sit or stand," said the knight, in the tone of one repeating a formula, which the elder capped with:

  "In some measure it is precisely for that that I have come. How long are we of Dalarna to lie under the Mountain? I will give you a hard saying on that if you are men enough to hear it— till there are rules of sit and stand, and a captain over us."

  He paused for a moment to let them grasp it, and the prickle-beard man said slowly, "So told us Meliboe through the mouth of the youngling messenger."

  Wigrak did not look at him even. "When's peace and amity we can talk of no man better than his neighbor, but, gentles, I do assure you we are now in the midst of most desperate war, though with no standard lifted, which will not end till we are all made Vulkings or the servants of Vulkings—you were not met here else. You were not else bearing that iron band by which Count

  Vulk proclaims that Dalecarle and barbarous Micton are one."

  He paused again. In answer to some signal Airar had not caught, a chubby girl came in from the pantry and set mead round the table, while one and another exchanged low-voiced words; though none drank but a stoop-shouldered man near Sir Ludomir, dressed fancily in the style of the Korsor hills; but Rogai, who seemed in some sense the old man's sponsor, said: "And the rest?"