by Jack Dann
"I mought, if ye made it worth me while."
"How much?"
After a haggle, Eudoric and Svanhalla agreed on a fee of sixty marks, half then and the rest when the unicorn was secured. Eudoric paid.
"First," said the witch of Hesselbourn, "ye must needs find a virgin, of above fifteen years. If the tales I hear be true, that may take some doing in Arduen, what with you and your lecherous brethren . . ."
"Madam! I have not carnally known any local lasses for nigh a year—"
"Aye, aye, I ken. When the lust becomes too great, ye fare to the whores of Kromnitch. Ye should be respectably wived by now, but the girls all think you a cold-blooded opportunist. Therein, they're not altogether wrong; for whilst ye love women, ye love your gold even more, heh!"
"You needn't rub it in," said Eudoric. "Besides, I seek advice on hunting, not love."
"Heh! Well then, your brother Olf doth cut a veritable swath amid the maids of Arduen. Not that I blame the lad overmuch. He's good-looking, and too many peasant maids think to catch a lordling with their coyntes for bait. They hope, if not for lawful wedlock, at least for affluent concubinage. So they all but shout: 'Come, take me, fair sir!' 'Tis a rotten, degenerate age we live in."
"Since you know so much about affairs in Arduen, who, then is still a virgin?"
"For that, I must needs consult my familiar." She issued further instructions on the mechanics of capture, ending: "Come back on the morrow. Meanwhile go to Frotz the rope-maker to order your net and Karlvag the wainwright for your wheeled cage. Be sure they be big and strong enough, else ye may have less luck than ye had with the dragon, heh!"
When Eudoric returned to Svanhalla's house, he found her talking to a bat the size of an eagle. This creature hung upside down from her rafters, along with smoked hams, bags of onions, and other edibles. When Eudoric jumped back, the witch cackled.
"Fear not Nigmalkin, brave and mighty hero! She's as sweetly loving a little demon as ye shall find in the kingdom, heh. Moreover, she tells me what ye be fain to know."
"And that is?"
"That in all of Arduen, there's but one wench that would fill your bill. True, there be other virgins in fact, but none suitable. Cresseta Almundsdaughter is ill and like to die; Greda Paersdaughter's father is a religious fanatic who won't let her out of his sight; and so on."
"Then who is available?"
"Bertrud, daughter of Ulfred the Unwashed."
"Oh, gods! She takes after her sire; one can detect her down-wind at half a mile. Is that the best you can do, Svanhalla?"
"So it is. Take it or leave it. After all, a proud, fierce adventurer like yourself shouldn't mind a few little stenches, now should he?"
Eudoric sighed. "Well, I shall imagine myself back in that prison cell in Pathenia. It stank even worse."
Bertrud Ulfredsdaughter would, if cleaned up, have been a handsome girl; some would say, even beautiful. Ulfred the Unwashed had once been told by a fortuneteller that he would die of a tisick caught from washing. He had therefore forsworn all external contact with water, and his daughter had fallen into similar habits.
Eudoric rode roundabout from Arduen back to the wilderness of Bricken. He avoided the demesnes of his old foe, Baron Rainmar of Hessel, and tried to keep on the windward side of Bertrud.
Besides Bertrud, with Eudoric rode Jillo's younger brother, a simple farm worker named Theovic Godmarson, to help with the heavy work. Jillo followed, driving the wheeled cage. Eudoric left Jillo with this vehicle at the edge of the forest, into which no road wide enough for it ran.
After a day of searching, while watching cautiously for the nearly-invisible webs of the giant spiders, Eudoric chose a spot. Here grew a giant beech, with enough boughs near the ground to make for easy climbing. It also stood near an affluent of the Lupa, by which they pitched their camp.
It took the rest of the day to rig the net, attaching it by slip knots to the higher branches of the beech and two nearby trees, so that one good pull on the release lanyard would bring the whole thing down. Leaden weights along the edges of the net assured that, when it fell, it would envelop the prey. They made the net heavy, and the summer day was hot. By the time they completed their task, Eudoric and Theovic were bathed in sweat. They threw themselves down and lay panting and listening to the buzz and chirp of insects.
"I'm for a bath," said Eudoric. "You too, Theovic? Bertrud, if you go round yonder bend in the stream, you'll find a pool where you can wash in privacy. 'Twould do you no scathe."
"Me, wash?" said the girl. " 'Tis an unwholesome habit. An ye'd risk your death of cold, 'tis your affair."
During the night, Eudoric heard the snort of a unicorn. The next morning, therefore, he caused Bertrud to sit at the base of the beech, while he and Theovic climbed the tree and waited. Peering through the bronze-green leaves, Eudoric held the lanyard that would release the net. Bertrud languidly waved away the cloud of flies that seemed to follow her as a permanent escort.
When it arrived, in the afternoon, the unicorn did not look much like the dainty creatures, half horse and half gazelle, shown on tapestries in the Emperor's palace. Its body and limbs were like those of a buffalo, six feet at the shoulder hump, while its huge, warty head bore some resemblance to that of a gigantic hog. The twisted horn sprouted from its head above the eyes.
The unicorn approached the great beech, under which Bertrud sat. The beast moved cautiously, one step at a time. When it was almost under the net, it halted, sniffing with big, flaring nostrils.
It sniffed some more. Then it threw up its head and gave a colossal grunt, like a lion's roar but more guttural. It rolled its eyes and pawed the earth with cloven forehooves.
"Bertrud!" Eudoric called. "It's going to charge! Get up the tree, forthwith!"
As the unicorn bounded forward, the girl, who had watched it with increasing dismay on her soil-caked face, scrambled to her feet and swarmed up the low branches. The beast skidded to a halt, glaring about with bloodshot eyes.
Eudoric pulled the lanyard. As the net began to fall, the unicorn sprang forward again, swerved to miss the tree, and continued on. One of the leaden weights of the net struck the unicorn's rump as the net settled to the ground.
With a frightful bellow, the unicorn whirled, champing its great dog-teeth or tusks. Seeing no foe, it galloped off into the forest. The crashing and drumming of its passage died away.
When the unicorn-hunters were back on the ground, Eudoric said: "That settles it. Baldonius said these creatures are sensitive to odors. You, my dear Bertrud, have odor for six. Theovic, you shall go to Hessel Minor and buy a cake of soap and a sponge. Here's money."
"Wouldn't ye rather go and leave me to guard the lass, me lord?" said Theovic with a cunning gleam.
"Nay. If I were recognized, Rainmar would have his bully boys after us; so keep a close mouth whilst there. Go, and with luck you'll be back for dinner."
With a sigh, Theovic saddled his horse and trotted off. With a trembling lip, Bertrud asked: "What—what will ye do to me, sir? Am I to be beaten or raped?"
"Nonsense, wench! I won't hurt a hair of your head. Don't think that, because I have a 'Sir' before my name, I go about bullying the commonality. I try to treat folk as they merit, be they serf or king."
"What will ye do, then?"
"You shall see."
"Ye mean to wash me, that's what! I'll not endure it! I'll run away into the wildwood—"
"With unicorns and other uncanny beasts lurking about? Methinks not."
"I'll show thee! I go—"
She started off at random. Eudoric imitated the grunt of the unicorn. Bertrud shrieked, ran back, and threw her arms around Eudoric's neck. Eudoric firmly unpeeled her, saying:
"When you're cleaned up and the unicorn's caught, then, if you're fain to play such games, we shall see."
Theovic returned at sunset, saying: "Here's your soap and all, me lord. Jillo asked after you, and I told him all went well."
Since Bertrud
was cooking their supper, Eudoric let the bath go until morning. Then, stripped to his breech clout and with gleeful help from Theovic, he pushed and hauled Bertrud, struggling and weeping, down to the branch of the Lupa. They pulled off her skirt and blouse and forced her into the water. She shrieked:
"Gods, that's cold!"
" 'Tis the best we have, my lady," said Eudoric, scrubbing vigorously. "By the Divine Pair, wench, you have layers of dirt over layers of dirt! Hold still, damn your arse! . . . Hand me the comb, Theovic. I'd get some of the tangles out of this hair. All right, I can manage the rest. It's time you fed the horses."
Theovic started back towards the camp. Eudoric continued soaping, scrubbing, and ducking his victim.
"Now," he said, "does that feel so dreadful?"
"I—I know not, sir. 'Tis a feeling I never have felt ere now. But I'm cold; let me warm myself against you. My, beant you the strong fellow, though?"
"You're no weakling yourself," said Eudoric, "after the struggle I had to get you in here."
"I work hard. There's none to do the chores, since me mother ran away with that pedlar, but me father and me. What thews!"
She felt his biceps, inching closer until her big, firm teats rubbed his chest. Eudoric felt a familiar stirring in his loin cloth.
"Now, now, my dear," he said. "I said, after the brute's captured, not before." When she continued her attentions and started to explore Eudoric's person, he barked: "I said nay!" and pushed her away.
He pushed harder than he intended, so that she fell backwards and got another ducking. When she scrambled up, her expression had changed.
"So!" she said. "The high and mighty knight won't look at a poor peasant lass! Too grand for aught but them perfumed, painted whores of the courts! Ye may take them all to Hell with you, for all of me!"
She strode out of the pool, picked up her garments, and vanished towards the camp.
Eudoric looked after her with a troubled smile. He devoted himself to his own bath until the smell of breakfast reminded him of the passage of time.
He and Theovic rigged the net again. This time, the unicorn came around noon. As before, it seemed about to approach the seated Bertrud but then went into a frenzy of rage. Again, Bertrud had to scramble up the tree to safety.
This time, the unicorn did not even wait for Eudoric to pull the lanyard. It blundered off into the forest at once.
Eudoric sighed. "At least, we shan't have to haul that damned net up into the trees again. But what could have gone wrong this time? . . . " He caught a faint smirk on Theovic's face. "Oho, so thither lies the wind, eh? Whilst I was bathing this morn, you were futtering our frail, so she's no more a virgin!"
Theovic and Bertrud giggled.
"I'll show you two witlings!" howled Eudoric.
He whipped out his hunting falchion and started for the pair. Although he meant only to spank them with the flat, they fled with shrieks of mortal terror. Eudoric ran after them, brandishing the short, curved sword, until he tripped over a root and then fell sprawling. When he had pulled himself together again, Theovic and Bertrud were out of sight.
On the borders of the wilderness, Eudoric told Jillo: "When that idiot brother of yours comes in, tell him, if he wants his pay, to return to finish his task. Nay, I won't hurt him, for all his loonery. I should have foreseen what would happen. Now I must needs leave these nags with you whilst I ride Daisy back to Svanhalla's hut."
When Eudoric came again to the cabin of the witch of Hesselbourn, Svanhalla cackled. "Ah, well, ye did your best. But, when the devil of carnal desire reaves a youth or a maid, it takes one of monkish humor to withstand it. That's something neither of those twain possesses."
"All very true, Madam," said Eudoric, "but what next? Where shall I find another virgin, sound of wind and limb?"
"I'll send me familiar, Nigmalkin, out to scout the neighboring holdings. Baron Rainmar's daughter Maragda's a filly unridden, but she's to wed in a month. Besides, I misdoubt ye'd find her suitable."
"I should say not! Rainmar would hang me if he could lay hands on me. But . . . Harken, Madam Svanhalla, would not you qualify for the part?"
The witch's bony jaw sagged. "Now that, Sir Eudoric, is something I should never have hit upon. Aye, for all these years—an hundred and more—I have forsworn such carnal delights in pursuit of the highest grades of magical wisdom. For a price, mayhap. . . . But how would ye get an ancient bag of bones like me to yonder wildwood? I'm spry enough around this little cabin, but not for long tramps or horseback rides."
"We'll get you a horse litter," said Eudoric. "Bide you here, and I shall soon be back."
Thus it came to pass that, half a month later, the aged witch of Hesselbourn sat at the foot of the same beech tree on which Eudoric had rigged his net. After a day's wait, the unicorn approached, sniffed, then knelt in front of Svanhalla and laid its porcine head in her bony lap.
Eudoric pulled the lanyard. The net fell. As Svanhalla scrambled to safety, the unicorn surged up, shaking its head and snorting. Its efforts to free itself only got it more entangled. Eudoric dropped down from the branches, un-slung the hunting horn from his back, and blew a blast to summon Jillo.
Eudoric, Jillo, and the forgiven Theovic rolled the beast, exhausted, but still struggling, on an ox hide. Avoiding thrashing hooves and foaming jaws, they lashed it down. Then the hide was hitched to three horses, which towed the ungainly bundle along the trail to where they had left the wheeled cage.
It took most of a day to get the animal into the cage. Once it almost got away from them, and a soaking thunderstorm made their task no easier. At last the brute was securely locked in.
Eudoric and his helpers shoved armfulls of fresh-cut grain stalks through the bars. The unicorn, which had not eaten in two days, fell to.
The Archduke Rolgang said: "Sir Eudoric, ye've done well. The Emperor is pleased—nay, delighted. In sooth, he so admires your beast that he's decided to keep the monster in his own menagerie, 'stead o' sending it off to the Cham of the Pantorozians."
"I am gratified, Your Highness," said Eudoric. "But meseems there was nother matter, touching your daughter Petrilla, was there not?"
The fat Archduke coughed behind his hand. "Well, now, as to that, ye put me in a position of embarrassment. Ye see, the damsel's no longer to be had, alas, no matter how noble and virtuous her suitor."
"Not dead?" cried Eudoric.
"Nay; quite otherwise. I'd have saved her for you, but my duty to the Empire overbore my private scruples."
"Will you have the goodness to explain, my lord?"
"Aye, certes. The Grand Cham paid his visit, as planned. No sooner, howsomever, had he set eyes 'pon Petrilla than he was smitten with a romantical passion. Nor was she 'verse.
"Ye see, laddie, she's long complained that no gallant gentleman of the Empire could ever love a squatty, swarthy, full-bodied lass like her. But here comes the mighty Cham Czik, master of hordes of fur-capped nomads. He, too, is a short, stout, swart, bowlegged wight. So 'twas love at first sight."
"I thought," said Eudoric, "she and I had exchanged mutual promises—not publicly, but—"
"I reminded her of that, also. But, if ye'll pardon my saying so, that was a hard-faced commercial deal, with no more sentiment than a turnip hath blood."
"And she's—"
"Gone off with the Grand Cham to his home on the boundless steppes, to be his seventeenth—or mayhap eighteenth, I forget which—wife. Not the husband I'd have chosen for her, being a heathen and already multiply wived; but she'd made up her mind. That's why my 'perial brother did not deem it necessary to send the Cham your unicorn, since Lord Gzik had already received from us an unthridden pearl of great price.
"But, even if Petrilla be no longer at hand, my brother and I mean not to let your service go unrewarded. Stand up, Sir Eudoric! In the name of His Imperial Majesty, I hereby present you with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Unicorn, with oak leaves and diamonds."
"Ouch!" said E
udoric. "Your Highness, is it necessary to pin the medal to my skin as well as my coat?"
"Oh, your pardon, Sir Eudoric." The Archduke fumbled with fat fingers and finally got the clasp locked. "There ye are, laddie! Take a look in the mirror."
"It looks splendid. Pray convey to His Imperial Majesty my undying thanks and gratitude."
Privately, Eudoric fumed. The medal was pretty; but he was no metropolitian courtier, swanking at imperial balls in shining raiment. On his plain rustic garb, the bauble looked silly. While he could let Petrilla go without uncontrollable grief, he thought that, if they were going to reward him, a neat life pension would have been more to the point, or at least the repayment of his expenses in unicorn-hunting. Of course, if times got hard and the order were neither lost nor stolen, he could pawn or sell it. . . .
He said nothing of all this, however, endeavoring to look astonished, awed, proud, and grateful all at the same time. Rolgang added:
"And now, laddie, there's the little matter we spake of aforetime. Ye are authorized to extend your coach line to Sogambrium, and beyond, if ye can manage it. By a decree of His Imperial Majesty, howsomever, all fares collected for such scheduled carriage shall henceforth be subject to a tax of fifty per centum; payable monthly. . . ."
Introduction to Larry Niven's "The Flight of the Horse":
When is a horse not a horse? This is a metaphysical question obscure enough to baffle a medieval theologian, let alone Svetz, the hapless, harried, and overworked Time Retrieval Expert who must deal with it in the fine and funny story that follows.
Larry Niven made his first sale to Worlds of If magazine in 1964, and soon established himself as one of the best new writers of "hard" science fiction since Heinlein. By the end of the seventies, Niven had won several Hugo and Nebula Awards, published Ringworld, one of the most acclaimed technological novels of the decade, had written several best-selling novels in collaboration with Jerry Pournelle, including the well-known The Mote in God's Eye, and had also established himself as a fantasy writer of some note with his novel The Magic Goes Away. His other books include the novels Protector, World of Ptavvs, and A Gift from Earth, and the collections Tales of Known Space, Neutron Star, Inconstant Moon, The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton, and The Flight of the Horse. His most recent books are Ringworld Engineers, Oath of Fealty (with Jerry Pournelle), and the collection Convergent Series.