A Plague of Unicorns

by Jane Yolen

  “They neither fell nor bled, but limped away,” said the cook boy. “Brother Luke said that their horns are magical, and one — the big stallion — put his horn on the spot where the unicorns were hit and, as he watched, the wound healed.”

  James sat there stunned into silence. He looked down at the breakfast. There was porridge and a coarse brown bread, but no eggs or meats or fruit, even though the monks had a fine orchard and a long row of gardens. He had seen them as he and the Callander men-at-arms had ridden in.

  He sighed.

  The boys all turned to him.

  “So who be you?” asked the redheaded boy.

  “James Callander,” James replied.

  “I’m Bartholomew,” the boy said. “I wager you’re the duke’s son.”

  James nodded and almost smiled before Bartholomew’s next words.

  “You’re not the leader of us,” he said.

  James was glad that he hadn’t held out his hand or said more than those few words. He just concentrated on the meal, or what there was of it. He didn’t like the brown bread or the rough, seedy jams. He missed Cook’s honey cakes and gingerbread. In fact, he missed Cook herself.

  And then there were the prayers. At every tolling of the bell, day and night, the priest, the monks, the abbot, and the boys had to pray. He had never prayed so much in his life with so little to pray about. Except praying to see his father again. And his home.

  To make matters worse, no one had the time or the energy or the will to answer his questions, because everyone — from the abbot down to the young oblate — was concerned about the golden apples.

  The golden apples and the unicorns.

  So James was miserable. And cold. And lonely.

  He was homesick. And heartsick. And hungry.

  10

  IN WHICH JAMES IS UP A TREE

  The monks were not unkind to James; they just treated him as if he wasn’t there. Once they learned he had his alphabet and could already read — and that he could write, too, though badly — he was turned over to Brother Luke.

  Brother Luke was the one who had taken him to his room that first day. He was soft-spoken and had a passion for italics.

  “What is italics?” asked James, hoping it was something good to eat.

  “It is a slant of the pen, a curl like an ocean wave,” Luke told him in that soft voice. “It is the best style in which to write the words of God.”

  James, who had read the latest of Alexandria’s Latin mottoes just that morning, responded, “Semper paratus,” which made Brother Luke smile.

  “If you are indeed semper paratus — always ready — then let us begin.”

  He showed James to a high desk with an inkwell and a goose-feather pen. “Write semper paratus,” he told James.

  With quite a bit of blots and splots and three tries at spelling paratus, James did as told. Then, on a whim, he made a squiggle that looked something like a horse’s head on the right side, with a spiral horn. The horn, at least, looked real.

  Brother Luke nodded. “A good first try. Now this is what it would look like in italics.” His hand held the pen steady and began to sweep the pen across the page. To James’ astonishment, the pen left not a spot or a blot. The ink flowed across the scroll like a river in flood, with waves capped by little curlicues.

  “Oh!” James said. It was quite the most beautiful writing he’d ever seen.

  And when Brother Luke swiftly added three or four lines, a little unicorn head of his own with its eyes black and shining, James thought he could almost see the beast’s breath floating on the page.

  “Will I ever be able to write like that?” he asked.

  “All it takes is a steady hand, a heart to God, and practice, practice, practice,” Brother Luke said.

  James put his hand over his heart. “Semper paratus,” he whispered.

  Brother Luke seemed pleased at how quickly James learned, though he didn’t overpraise him. All he ever said was “Commodus” in a low, even voice, meaning, “A good standard.”

  Alexandria would have cried out, “Excelsior!” when James wrote out his first alphabet by himself. And when James finished that first week’s long task, he himself cried out, “Excelsior!”

  Brother Daffyd, two desks away in the scriptorium, only shook his head slightly and muttered, “Excess of emotion and vanity is to be avoided.”

  But Brother Luke just smiled at James. “What motto have you today?”

  James tried to remember, but it was a fragment that seemed to be floating out of reach. Then, as he put his pen down carefully, he had it. Labor omnia vincit. Alexandria had sketched a pitchfork stuck upright in a mound of dirt to illuminate it.

  “Labor conquers all. That’s a good one,” Brother Luke said.

  But all was not just scripting and learning the italic hand. During the fortnight that the unicorns were off digesting and excreting, the monks were busy plotting traps for them.

  There was a meeting one evening of everyone in the abbey — and that included the cook and the potboys as well — in which Brother Daffyd showed a chart with three different kinds of traps on it. One was for catching a unicorn by the foot, using a rope and a knot that grew tighter the more a beast struggled. One was made of forged steel that had a set of steel teeth, so when a unicorn even so much as brushed by it, the trap snapped at its heels and held tight.

  Sitting with the ten boys at the meeting, right behind the redhead who was in the pew in front of him, James overheard him whisper, “I wager that will break a few bones!”

  The boys murmured with excitement, and even James got caught up in their fervor.

  The third trap involved digging ditches but, as the abbot pointed out, it could damage the trees themselves and so was without merit.

  The next morning in the scriptorium, James said suddenly to Brother Luke, “Won’t I be needed to help in the unicorn battle? What is making letters compared to that?”

  He was thinking of the traps, of course, and the excitement that had coursed through the boys as Brother Daffyd had explained how to build them and how they worked.

  Brother Luke’s usually smiling face turned serious. The twinkle in his eye was gone. “We were not set down on this earth to fight unicorns but to make peace with all that lives. You and I will work on your handwriting. If the others wish to work on traps, they will answer for it in heaven.”

  James thought that making traps might actually be more fun, and maybe make the boys like him, but he didn’t want to say so. He liked Brother Luke and did not want to disappoint him. So he nodded and settled down to work, because once his mind and hand were on the curls and whorls of the letters, he wasn’t thinking of unicorns or of home.

  Every once in a while he’d look up from the smudges on the practice scroll and wipe his hand across his cheek. He didn’t even know he had made the gesture.

  And each time, Brother Luke wiped the ink mark on James’ cheek with the sleeve of his robe, just as Nanny had done when James had smudged himself.

  “Thank you,” James muttered. “Thank you.”

  “Nehil est,” Brother Luke would respond, meaning — so James discovered — “It is no problem.”

  That night, instead of saying the evening prayers as the other boys were doing, down on their knees by their hard beds with the thin blankets, James whispered to himself:

  Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee,

  Harry, Dick, John, Harry three . . .

  If he’d thought it would make him any less homesick, he was wrong, because it brought back Alexandria even more clearly. Misery, large and tasseled, hung over his shoulders like a Hebrew shawl.

  The next morning, without actually counting which day it was, he went outside by himself before dawn and climbed up a green Plainsong tree that stood on the edge of the first line of golden Hosannahs. He found the perfect protruding limb, and as the sun rose over the orchard, he looked west, his back to the rising sun, gazing longingly in the direction of home.

  W
ith the red sky behind him and the shadows of the trees stretching before him, he felt — for the first time since coming to the abbey — a kind of peace.

  And then he heard a sound behind him. Startled, he turned, expecting it to be Brother Luke scolding him for missing prayers. Instead it was a straggle of unicorns, not a herd but a few outliers who had not had their fill of the apples. They came trotting almost silently through the orchard and were coming his way. They were like a white mist threading through the trees.

  He remembered seeing that mist on his way to the abbey, thinking it was wolves or the fairy raid or Herne the Hunter and the Wild Hunt.

  Excelsior! he thought.

  Just then he heard another sound, a high, piercing whistle.

  James looked for the sound and saw it was the redheaded boy, Bartholomew, with another boy riding pillion, coming through the Plainsong trees. The horse they were riding was Runwell, and Bartholomew was sawing away at the reins while the other boy was simultaneously kicking the poor pony forward. That was not the way to ride Runwell, who was a sweet creature, and James was furious. He was just about to shout out to them to get off his horse when he saw they were accompanied by a knight in green armor with a helmet sporting a bright green feather. The green hero’s hunting hawk flew above, soaring through the lightening sky with its great wings. There were three brindle hounds by the knight’s side, two on the left and one on the right.

  The knight’s whistle, meant for the hounds, had alerted the unicorns, who lifted their heads as one. He laughed and rode right under the limb where James perched. It was to be the last time the knight laughed at the white creatures.

  As the knight lifted his lance ready for a throw, the two boys on Runwell charged the unicorns from behind, herding them forward toward the waiting knight.

  The knight carried a huge quiver of arrows over his shoulder, and his bow lay across his lap — one of those longbows that had just come into Callanshire for the first time the year before. However, instead of showering the unicorns with the arrows, he stood in his stirrups and aimed at the lead unicorn, a scrawny creature with one gold eye and one brown eye.

  But before the lance left his hand, a unicorn stallion, with a toss of its head and long white mane dancing in the wind, struck the warhorse from behind, dislodging the green knight.

  The would-be hero tumbled into the grass, lost his lance, lost his helmet, lost his bow and arrows, lost his temper, and almost lost his right leg.

  He backed away, eyeing the trees, but seemingly realized he was too heavily armored to climb. But not — it turned out — too heavily armored to run.

  Run he did, back the way he’d come, his dogs and horse running with him, the hawk screaming above them as they ran. Once he’d retreated well into the green apple territory, the unicorns lost interest in him, the stallion disappeared back into the thicket of apple trees, and the younger, smaller unicorns turned to finish off Runwell.

  Bartholomew and the other boy slid down the pony on opposite sides and began to run in two different directions as James took action.

  Without thinking it through, he leaped down from the tree, tearing his cloak as he did, and landed on the back of the scrawny unicorn, shouting as he did so, “Not my pony, you horned imp of Satan! Not my Runwell!” His voice rose in pitch till he was screaming like a pig in labor.

  The knight didn’t notice James leaping from the tree. He didn’t seem to notice anything but the path of his retreat. And he was making so much clanking and huffing noises as he ran, he didn’t hear anything either.

  But Bartholomew did. When he realized the unicorns were not chasing him, he stopped and turned. Hands on hips, he watched as James seemed to bewitch the small troop of unicorns with his passionate cry.

  Once the unicorns had stopped, James managed to get himself atop Runwell and race off towards the abbey. If he saw the knight, Bartholomew, or the other boy, he did not stop for them. All he wanted to do was to make sure his pony was safe and in its stall again.

  Once out of the orchard and on his way to the mews where the horses were kept, James smiled. I will write and tell Alexandria all about this adventure, he thought, if Brother Luke will allow me a piece of paper and a pen.

  By the time he’d gotten Runwell settled, rubbed down, and fed, James was hungry enough to eat anything put before him.

  He found everyone atwitter at his morning-long absence from studies and prayer. And the boys — especially Bartholomew — proclaimed him the one true hero of the day.

  11

  IN WHICH JAMES FORMS A PLAN

  Before James could eat anything, he was summoned to the scriptorium by a monk whose name he didn’t know, a short man, hardly out of his boyhood, James guessed.

  So he ran off to the other end of the dortoir, where the scriptorium was housed. When he entered, Brother Luke looked up, pen in hand, disappointment clearly etched on his face. He shook his head at James and said, “Tibi non licet.” That was not allowed.

  James stared down at his feet for a minute, trying to look reasonably contrite before asking about the paper and pen for the letter to Alexandria.

  For the first time, Brother Luke snapped at him. “They are too precious for such trivial pursuits,” he said.

  “But . . .” James began. It was not a good start to a convincing argument.

  Brother Luke added, “You have been ordered — not invited — to the abbot’s palace to explain yourself, and I am to bring you.”

  The abbot has a palace? James had seen no palace on the abbey grounds. Nothing tall and turreted like Castle Callander or even a tower house like Battenberg, where his mother had been born and raised. There was a tapestry at Castle Callander she had done by memory when she was first a bride at the castle.

  “Come with me.” Brother Luke turned, and James was forced to follow without eating anything at all. He wasn’t afraid, just hungry.

  Quickly, they walked down the shadowy corridor and out of the low, blocky building that looked more like a stable than a house for monks and boys.

  For all that he was a round man, used to sitting long hours in the scriptorium, Brother Luke could move at a fast pace when he needed to. They were soon at the abbot’s palace, which was — in James’ considered opinion — not a palace at all, just a two-story building with whitewash on the outer walls. Inside he found it decorated with several awkward tapestries of the Crucifixion and the Annunciation.

  The little James knew about tapestries came from watching his mother work on them. Still, to his untutored eye, these old, unraveling wall hangings were nowhere near as well sewn as hers, or as pretty.

  Castle Callander is much handsomer in every way, he thought, and another wave of homesickness washed over him like a tide.

  Brother Luke left James at the abbot’s study door. And only now did James have the time to wonder why he’d been called to see the abbot who had — rather steadfastly — not asked for him in all the days he had been at the abbey. Odd indeed, since James was the son and heir of the duke, the abbey’s greatest benefactor.

  Was it, James thought, just about his spying on the unicorns, or was it more about skipping his lessons? Or does it have to do with challenging the other boys who took my pony without asking? He feared he would be put on bread and water for breaking a rule. Though, he thought ruefully, at least it will be some food.

  He knocked a little tentatively on the study door and, when no one answered, knocked louder.

  Brother Joseph opened the door and looked down at James without a word, his long face made longer by the silence. He led James into the study, where Abbot Aelian sat by the fire.

  “You,” the abbot began without preamble, “have a duty to your mother and to me, and putting yourself in danger is not part of my agreement with her.”

  “What agreement is that, sir?” James blurted out, suddenly blushing at his own boldness.

  The abbot didn’t answer immediately, but the fire snapped out a hot rejoinder.

  At last A
bbot Aelian, in his careful way, said, “To educate you, to teach you Latin, Hebrew, Greek, and the Scriptures. To show you how to write a good hand. To lead you into an understanding of the world. And . . .” The abbot hesitated.

  James held his breath, wondering if it was his turn to speak. He waited some more.

  But the abbot seemed to be finished.

  “Sir,” James said, trying to shift the subject, desperately thinking what to say, and then blurting out the first thing that came to mind: “What is the full moon full of?”

  The abbot smiled as if he was unused to doing any such thing. “Not green cheese.”

  James relaxed. He smiled back then — his face reddening with the effort of speaking to such an imposing person. “Sir, can I . . .” He took a deep breath and then said the very last thing he should have said. “Can I help?”

  “With the full moon?”

  It took a moment for James to realize the abbot was teasing him, since the man’s face had returned to its usual dour expression, the thin lips clamped shut.

  “Oh, no, sir.” James felt his tongue was suddenly too large for his mouth. This had never happened before, certainly not at home, where he just said anything he wanted to. He bit his lip and — oddly — the pain of it gave him courage to speak further. “I mean help with the unicorns. I watched them closely, you know. For the whole of today.” He knew it was a bit of an exaggeration, but the abbot wouldn’t know that.

  “A whole day?”

  James knew he couldn’t repeat the exaggeration. He wondered what he could possibly say next, but Abbot Aelian went on as if ignoring James’ confusion. He raised his left point finger and said, “We have been watching the unicorns for a whole three years, my son. Though perhaps not from your vantage point.”

  James could feel his face get cold and then hot. He stuttered. What came out were not words exactly but sounds: “Ahhh, ummm . . .”