by Mary Brown
"Shurrup a minute, will you? Want the whole world to hear? Got hold of the wrong end of the stick, you has. Just sit up nice and quiet-like, and I'll explain. . . ."
I did as I was told, emptying my mouth of leaves and pulling twigs from my hair. The dog sat about six feet away, his head on one side. Close to he was even tattier. I felt like a feather mattress that has been beaten into an entirely different shape.
"Now then you says as how dogs don't talk. Well o' course they does. All the time. Mostly to each other, 'cos you 'umans don't bother to listen. You expects us to learn how you speak, but when we tries you tells us to shut up. Ain't that so?"
I nodded. I had had nothing to do with animals, except the goat, hens and bees—Mama wouldn't have a dog or cat in the house: she said they were messy, full of disease, and took up too much space. Some of the dogs in the village were used for hunting, others as guards, a couple as children's pets, but I had never heard anything from their owners save a sharp word of command, though I had seen kicks and cuffs in plenty. Certainly no one talked to them.
"We don' only talk, we sings, too. P'raps you heard us sometimes o' nights, when the moon is full and the world smells of the chase and we can hear the 'Ounds o' Eaven at the 'eels of the 'Unter?"
Indeed I had. Some nights it seemed that the dogs of the village never slept, and even where we lived we could hear the howling and baying and yelping.
"Lovely songs they are too," he said. "'Anded down from sire to dam, from bitch to pup. . . ."
"But why," I said carefully, "can I now understand what you say?"
"Now, I could spin you a yarn as fine as silk and tell you as 'ow I was the magickest dog in the 'ole wide world, and you'd believe me. For a while, that is, till you found as you could talk with other animals, too. No, I won't tell you no lies, 'cos I believe we got business together, you and I—" He nipped so quickly at whatever was biting him that I jumped. "Got the little bugger. . . . Truth is, lady, that why I can talk to you and you to me is all on account of that there bit o' Unicorn you carries round with you." And he scratched at his left ear, the floppy one, till it rattled like dry beans in a near-empty jar.
I was lost. "Bit of a Unicorn?" Unicorns were gone, long ago.
"The ring you wear, you great puddin'! That what you got on that finger of yours. Bit of 'orn off'n a Unicorn, that is. Now you can understand what all the creatures say if'n you pays a bit of attention. Din' you know what you got?"
I sat looking at the curl of horn on my finger in bemusement. It still looked like nothing more than a large nail-paring, almost transparent. I tried to pull it off but it wouldn't budge. Indeed, it now felt like part of my skin. I tried again. "Ouch!"
"Once it's on, it's on," said the dog. "Only come off if'n you don' need it no more, or don' deserve it. Very rare, these days. . . . Come by it legal?"
I nodded, remembering my mother telling me how my father had worn it round his neck. So perhaps he hadn't needed it anymore—or hadn't deserved it. But I wouldn't think about that. Nor that it wouldn't fit my mother. But why me? Perhaps I needed it more than them, specially now I was on my own. Indeed, it had a comforting feel, like something I had been looking for for a long time and had found at last.
"Well," said the dog. "We'd best be goin'. Day ain't gettin' any younger, and we've a ways to travel to the Road."
"I'm not sure I want . . . What I mean, is . . ." However I said it, it was going to sound ungracious, but I had no intention of sharing my dwindling rations with a smelly stray dog with an appetite even bigger than mine.
"Come on, now: you needs me. I can be your eyes and ears, I can. Best thief for fifty mile. Nab you a bit o' grub any time; never go 'ungry with me around. 'Sides, I'll be comp'ny, someone to talk to. Nighttimes I'll keep watch, so's you can sleep easy. No one creeps up on me, I can tell you!" He put his head on one side, in what I supposed he thought was an engaging manner. "What d'you say? Give us a trial. We can always part comp'ny if'n it don' work. . . ."
Some of what he said made sense, if he stuck to what he said. And I wouldn't really be any worse off, unless he decamped with all the food. He made it sound, too, as if all the advantages were on my side.
"And just what do you get out of it?"
He hung his head, and I could scarcely hear what he was saying. "P'raps I'm tired o' bein' on me own. P'raps, just for once, I should like to belong. Never had a 'ome, nor one I could call boss." He looked up, and there was a sort of defiant guilt in the one eye I could see. He shook his head as if to free it of water. "Got me whinging like a sentimental pup, you has. C'mon, let's get started; with all that fat you're carryin' it'll take us twice as long. . . . Now what's the matter?"
Just exactly what he had said: that was the matter. The words were carelessly cruel but none the less accurate. He had put into words a fact that everyone—me, my mother, her clients—all knew but never mentioned. The children in the village shouted it out often enough, one of the reasons I hated shopping there, but I could always pretend they were just being malicious. That was one of the reasons the mayor last night would not have accepted me as Mama's replacement; the reason the kind miller had run out of compliments past hair, smile, teeth and the size of my hands and feet.
The fact was I was fat. Not fat, obese. No, admit it: gross. I was a huge lump of grease, wobbling from foot to foot like ill-set aspic. I couldn't see my feet for my stomach, hadn't seen them for years; I had to roll myself in and out of bed, was unable to rise from the floor without first going on hands and knees and grabbing bedpost or chair. I couldn't climb the slightest rise without panting like a heat-hit dog; had lost count of my chins and got sores on my thighs with the flesh rubbing together.
And I had been unable to stop eating, which made it worse. Surprisingly Mama had made no attempt to stop me: she had even encouraged my consumption of honey cakes, fresh bread and cream after that time I had asked her about a prospective husband—
"Missin' your Ma, eh?" said the dog sympathetically. "Understand how you feels; felt the same myself once . . . Are you all right, then?"
* * *
We had struggled on for perhaps another half mile when the dog stopped suddenly, his good ear cocked.
"Shurrup, and listen."
Gratefully I put down my burdens. I could hear nothing. Perhaps a kind of rustling and stamping far ahead, a sort of cry . . .
The dog was off through the undergrowth like a flash, his legs a blur of movement. He was gone what seemed like hours, but could only have been a matter of minutes, and arrived back literally dancing with impatience. "C'mon, c'mon! I got us transport!"
"A—a cart? Another sledge?"
"Nah! The real thin'! I got us a 'orse!"
Chapter Six
“That's—that's a horse? You're joking!"
A creature with four legs, sure, head and tail in the right place but the mess in between—was a mess. From what I could see, shading my eyes against the sun, it was swaybacked, gaunt, hollow-necked, filthy dirty and with a hopelessly matted mane and tail.
"Sure it's a 'orse. Got all the essentials. Needs a bit of a wash and brush-up, p'raps. . . ."
It would need more than that. As I walked cautiously forward, fearing it might run at sight of us, I saw that it wasn't going anywhere. It had got itself hopelessly entangled in the undergrowth by bridle, tail, hoof and the remains of a slashed girth and saddlebags that had ended up under its stomach. Its eyes widened with alarm as we approached and it made a token struggle against the bonds that held it, only to become more enmeshed than ever.
I halted a few feet away and spoke soothingly, using the words I had heard the villagers use to their workhorses, for I had never had cause to deal with one before and wasn't quite sure how to begin. The horse showed the whites of its eyes, as well as it could for the sticky tendrils of bindweed that clung to mane and ears.
"Speak to it nicely," said the dog. "Just like you would to me."
"You mean—it can understand me?"
/> "O-mi-Gawd!" he said. "Din' I tell you about the ring? 'Course it understands, but it's a bit scared right now and may not listen. Nice and easy, now." He walked nearer. "Now stand still, 'Orse, and 'er ladyship 'ere will see to you. . . ."
"Get away, get away! I'll kick you to death—"
"You an' 'oose army?"
I had understood this plainly enough, so I walked up to the horse more confidently and stretched out my hand. It made a halfhearted snap, but seemed quieter, though it still trembled till the branches and twigs which held it fast shook like wind-troubled water.
"Look," I said, "at my finger. I wear the ring of the Unicorn and that means we can understand each other. All I want to do is help. If I release you, will you promise not to run away till we have talked?"
It looked at the ring, at my face, and back at the ring. The shivering stopped, and I gathered it agreed, though I heard nothing definite.
It took a long time, and I was sweating as much as the horse by the time it was released and stood free. I picked away the last of the bramble and bindweed, and tried to comb out the worst tangles from mane and tail with my fingers. Standing free it didn't look much better. There was a long gash across its rump where someone had tried to slash the girths that held the now-empty saddlebags, but these had only loosened, not broken. I slid them up from under the belly and restrapped them.
"There, that's better. . . . Stand still a moment and I'll put some salve on the cut and the graze on your shoulder." In my belongings, dragged along behind as I followed the dog to his "'orse," was a pot of one of the apothecary's favorite healing balms, a mixture of spiderwebs, dock-leaf juice and boar's grease. I smeared some gently on the broken hide, and found another gash on one hock, which I treated the same way.
"There," I said, standing back. "Near as good as new. . . ."
"I thank you, bearer of the Ring," said the horse. It had a soft, gentle voice, quite unlike the dog's raucous voice. "I am in your debt—"
"Then you can help us carry 'er things," said the dog, who had been remarkably quiet during the last half hour or so, not surprising when I found he was chewing on the rest of the cheese I hadn't packed well enough.
"Thief!"
"There was ants on it . . . All right, all right! Won't do it again. Well, what about it, 'orse? Gonna 'elp?"
The horse glanced from one to the other of us. "I don't know. . . ."
"Of course I can't ask you to help if you belong to someone," I said. "That would be stealing. Is your master hereabouts?"
"All gone, all gone . . ." It started shivering again. "I ran away."
Obviously some disaster. "Calm down! Well, if you don't belong to anyone, what did you plan on doing, boy?"
I was interrupted by a loud snigger from the dog. "Blind as a bat, you is! 'E's a she. . . ."
I felt as though I had been caught in a thicket with my drawers down, and apologized profusely.
"My name is Mistral," said the horse, "and among my own people I am a princess. I wish to go back to where I came from, of course."
Anything less like a princess of anything I had yet to see, but I hadn't had much experience of horses. "And where was that?"
The horse hung her head. "That I do not know. They stole my mother when she had me at her side, and would not leave me to escape. She told me of our people, of how we lived, and of my inheritance. But she died, they killed her with overwork, and I was sold as a packhorse. That was a year, two, ago. All I want now is to find my way back to my people. . . ."
"And you have no idea where that is?"
"No, except that south and west feels right."
"Well," said the dog, "if'n you goes on your own you could be picked up by anyone; best you can get from that is 'eavier burdens or a knock on the 'ead for the glue in your bones and a tough stew or two. Then there's wolves if'n you're thinkin' o' goin' the long way round. Now we offers you a bit o' protection-like, a step or two in the right direction, reg'lar food and all in exchange for carryin' a light load for this lady. What d'you say?"
"And you go south, south and west?"
The dog must have seen my mouth open to say we had decided nothing like that, for he jumped in before I could say anything. "'Course we is! With winter comin' on, 'oo'd be idiot enough to go north? North there is snow, west there is storms, east there is icy winds, so south we goes. Right, lady?"
Weakly I nodded. Put like that it seemed like the only road to take.
"Right," I said. "And—and if you agree to come with us, then I will care for you as best I can and try and put you on the right road for your home. Is that fair?"
"Without you I should probably have starved to death, or worse," said Mistral. "I accept. And now, perhaps, we should load up. The sun starts to go down."
Indeed it was well past its zenith. Hastily I started to pack our belongings on the horse, only to be brought up short by her patient explanation of weight distribution, top-heavy loads, etc., so the light was already reddening as we set off. Even then she seemed curiously reluctant to go the way I wanted, the way the dog assured me led straight to the High Road.
"We'll have to go past there," she said. "There, where it happened."
"Where what happened?"
"Yesterday . . . sun-downing. Men, horses, swords. Panic, fighting, blood . . . No, I can't go that way again!"
"Windy," muttered the dog.
"They came out of the trees, the sun behind them. Couldn't see . . . Noise and pain. I ran this way. . . ." Indeed I could see we were now following the road she must have taken: branches broken, shrubs torn by her wild progress, grass trampled and leaves scattered.
"Look," I said. "Whatever happened, happened yesterday. It sounds as though it was an ambush, but they will all have gone by now. It's perfectly safe, I promise. . . . Go forward, dog, and reconnoiter."
"You what?"
I explained, and he ran on ahead. The ground started to slope downwards towards a little dell and Mistral was breathing anxiously.
"Down there . . ." she whispered.
The dog came running back, his tail between his legs. "You ain't goin' to like this, lady: 'old your nose. . . ."
But I could already smell the stench of death, and hear a great buzzing of flies, the flap of carrion crow. There were four of them, lying sprawled in the random carelessness of sudden death, naked except for their braies. Their eyes had already gone, and the crows rose heavily gorged, the men's wounds torn still further by cruel beaks. I shouted and ran at the birds till they flapped to the nearest tree; they would be back, and there was nothing I could do about the clouds of flies, the ants, the beetles. I moved among the corpses, holding my nose, but there was nothing to say who they were, where they had come from, save a scrap of torn pennant under one twisted leg—
My heart gave a sudden, sickening lurch. Staring at the scrap of silk I suddenly recalled what I had completely forgotten until this moment: a tall, beautiful knight on a huge horse, who had smiled a heart-catching smile and called me "pretty." So much had happened since that encounter that he had not crossed my mind again—until this bitter moment. And I had sent him down this road. . . . No, no, it couldn't be! Life couldn't be that cruel!
Frantically I ran among the corpses in the dell, no longer squeamish, turning the lolling heads from side to side, seeking my knight. One head, already severed from the body, came easily to my hand, and I was left holding something that was shaped and heavy as a cabbage, but crawling with maggots. . . .
He wasn't there, he wasn't there! I ran up from the dell, farther into the forest, but there was no other stink of death, nor flies, nor carrion. I ran back to the horse, Mistral.
"What happened to him, where is he? Where is your master, Sir—Sir . . ." But I had forgotten his name.
"Who? What man?"
"He was a knight and rode a black horse—you must remember!"
"They killed the men and took the horses and the baggage. I ran away. That's all I know."
"All of them?"<
br />
"I don't know. I only saw my corner of it."
Maybe they had taken him for ransom. Perhaps they had ridden him away into the forest on his fine black horse, to bargain with his folks for far more than the horses and baggage they had stolen—I held the tattered piece of blue silk in my hand and prayed for his safety.
The dog nudged my knee. "Better find a place to kip for the night soon: near sundown."
I gestured towards the bodies. "We can't just leave them like this. . . ."
"You gotta spade and a coupla hours? No. Don't worry 'bout them. This track is used by those in the village; they'll deal with the remains. Bury them the way you 'umans do things. To my way o' thinkin', better leave bodies to the birds and the foxes to pick clean."
I muttered a prayer, crossed myself. "Right: lead on, dog."
About a half-mile farther along, as it grew too dark to see underfoot and my feet felt swollen to twice their usual size with the unaccustomed walking, the trees suddenly thinned and we found ourselves at the top of a steep bank. The moon rode out from behind some scummy clouds and there beneath us was a luminous strip of roadway, wide enough for six horsemen to ride abreast.
"Is that it?"
"Well, it's a road," said the dog. "Give or take . . ."
"It runs north/south," said Mistral.
"Come on, then," and in my eagerness I started to slide down the bank towards the shining expanse.
"Not so fast, lady," said the dog behind me. "You doesn't travel a road like this at night—"
"Scared?" and I slid down to the bottom, giving my right ankle a nasty jar, but determined to continue our journey now we had found what we were looking for.
"—'cos it's too dark to see," continued the dog, as the moon disappeared again.
"Neither do you travel alone," said Mistral. "There is safety in numbers. Look what happened to me."
A night-jar churred above my head and I lost one of my shoes in the scramble back. The dog retrieved it for me, all slathery from his mouth.
Scrabbling around in the dark, for I was now afraid of the risk of a lantern, I found the ham and the rest of the honey cakes, sharing a third, two-thirds with the dog. Afterwards, snugged down in my blanket, I listened to Mistral cropping the grass, sounding in the night like the tearing of strips of linen, and felt strangely comforted by the proximity of the two animals, even though the promised guard-dog, alert to every danger, the one who had promised to stay awake so I could sleep easy, was snoring heavily long before I closed my eyes.