Still the unicorn stood, head raised, staring at Anne.
No, oh, God, no. Anne had never imagined coming across a unicorn; nor that the legends spoke truly, and the unicorn would stand beside her and let herself be slain.
She imagined La Trémoille’s face triumphant, her white gown streaked with the unicorn’s blood. The horn chopped off, the skin flopping loose on a houndsman’s saddlebow, all of it to be carried straight to the court of France.
The dogs shattered the peace of the glade with their barking, and behind them came the lords of France and Brittany, hefting their spears. The unicorn kicked the first dog away, but the others were swarming. Anne snarled at her in Breton, “You must run!”
And when the unicorn still did not, she wheeled Jonquil and set the mare galloping away into the trees.
The unicorn followed.
Anne was a good rider. However much she would have preferred to stay in her castle, tidy and dry, with her gossiping court around her, a woman of birth must be able to course a stag and fly a goshawk in the field. Anne had dutifully learned. So she was not wholly unused to hurtling her horse into a thick forest, with dogs yelping at their heels and a swift-running creature in view. Nor was her mare unfit for the task; Jonquil had the heart of a courser, though she was not large.
But Anne had never ridden with the van, the reckless forefront of the hunt, where the brave leaped obstacles and dodged trees in pursuit of the stag, the sternest test in the world for riders and for horses. She had always cantered along happily in back.
This ride was like a nightmare. The unicorn hung close to her stirrup as the dogs leaped at their heels. Anne felt herself pursued, the terror of a wild thing run down, and though she tried to call to dogs and men to stop, the wind whipped away her voice. Jonquil’s ears lay flat against her straining neck and Anne feared that she’d take the bit between her teeth and bolt. A fall amid those trees, at that speed, would be fatal. Why would the unicorn not flee?
“Please,” shouted Anne. “Please, you have to go, you cannot die this way.”
But the unicorn only halted again. Anne sat back and Jonquil came to a shuddering stop. The Breton dogs were nowhere to be seen. She realized that they had stopped in a sunbeam; bright warmth pinned them like a blanket of golden sea-silk. The primroses under their feet were blue as the vaulting sky. But now the other hunting-horn sounded, shriller than theirs. Anne saw, disbelieving, that the first hunt, the other hunt had wheeled instantly onto their track.
The unicorn’s head hung low as she panted. She was being hunted in the mortal lands—and—could it be—in the Lost Lands? Anne stared disbelieving at the sky-blue primroses.
The other hunt was getting nearer.
“Come,” Anne cried. Jonquil bolted off her back legs, even lesscontrollable than before, and again the unicorn followed and there was that shift, back into the cool gray mist with the French dogs casting for their lost trail; they winded the unicorn and bayed. Anne was mortally sure at each stride that Jonquil was going to put a foot in a hole and somersault and kill them both. She clung to the mare’s neck, praying. The shift happenedagain,shadow to sunlight. Back to shadow. As though the Lost Lands were everywhere, for a beast who knew where to step. As though the false abbess had spoken true and the unicorn could walk both worlds at will, and show a hunter the way between.
Anne saw water shining between the trees. An idea struck and she urged Jonquil on. The mare answered, although Anne could feel her begin to flag. She herself was almost weeping with the ache in her arms and legs; only terror for the unicorn had allowed her to cling on so long. Foam flecked Jonquil’s breast and forelegs.
And now it seemed both hunts were converging, the voices of all the dogs mingled into one hell-bound chorus. The horns made music like none she’d ever heard.
Duchess and unicorn broke out of the trees; the baying pressed them on three sides. They’d come to a lake, marshy at the verges, thick with reeds, and quiet, still as glass.
Anne leaned forward. Jonquil plunged instantly into the silver-frigid water. The unicorn raised her head tiredly, hesitating. “Follow,” Anne whispered to her, with Jonquil hock-deep, her skirt already floating. “Please.” And after a frozen moment, the unicorn followed. Anne’s skirts ballooned and filled. She angled across a corner of the lake and hoped only that God would get them all across.
Jonquil could swim, but the mare was beginning to flounder under the waterlogged masses of Anne’s skirts. Anne herself could not swim. The unicorn seemed barely able to hold the great ivory crown of her horn above the water. The sounds of hunting came closer. Jonquil was starting to sink, her legs scrabbling. Anne drew breath, fighting panic, and then felt the heave as Jonquil’s hooves touched the bottom. The forest was before them, and the sounds of pursuit had fallen back.
Water streamed from Anne’s skirt and the unicorn’s mane, flicked like sparks from her horn.
“You must go,” Anne said.
The unicorn didn’t move.
“What is it you want of me?” Anne hardly recognized her own voice. She was soaked and shivering.
As if she’d been waiting for the question, the unicorn stepped forward. The horn came to a point like a lance without a coronel. Jonquil shied back. Anne slid down from the saddle.
The unicorn laid her neck lightly across Anne’s shoulder. She smelled like wild animal and unfamiliar flowers and even, a little, of the sea.
“What do you want of me?” Anne asked again, very softly now.
The unicorn lowered her head so that the mass of her mane filled Anne’s fingers. After a bewildered moment, Anne got out her belt-knife and cut a long, thick lock of it. The unicorn didn’t move. The hair lay sparkling in her palm. She sheathed her knife, reached to touch the horn. She expected it to be cold, but it was silky and warm. “Please go,” Anne whispered again.
The unicorn tossed her head and scraped the ground with an ivory-white hoof.
“Please.”
Abruptly, she was heeded. The unicorn wheeled and disappeared into the trees. With quick instinctive movements, Anne knotted the lock of unicorn-hair to keep it all together and thrust it into her soaked sleeve.
