"You're what?" he roared.
She held up a restraining, ladylike glove. "Please," she said, pained.
"Listen," he said, quietly now, but with such intensity that for once she stepped back a pace. He closed his eyes, thinking hard: "You told me-the pool, the pool of the unicorn, and a song, wait- 'The Silken-swift, the gloriously Fair…* Remember? And then I-I saw to it that you'd never catch a unicorn!"
She shook her head. complete candor in her face. "I like that, 'the Silken-swift.' Pretty. But believe me-no! That isn't mine."
He put his face close to hers, and though it was barely a whisper, it came out like bullets. "Liar! Liar! I couldn't forget. I was sick, I was hurt, I was poisoned, but I know what I did!" He turned on his heel and strode away.
She put the thumb of her glove against her upper teeth for a second, then ran after him. "Del!"
He stopped but, rudely, would not turn. She rounded him, faced him. "I'll not have you believing that of me-it's the one thing I have left," she said tremulously.
He made no attempt to conceal his surprise. She controlled her expression with a visible effort, and said, "Please. Tell me a little more-just about the pool, the song, whatever it was."
"You don't remember?"
"I don't know!" she flashed. She was deeply agitated.
He said with mock patience. "You told me of a unicorn pool out on the Bogs. You said you had seen him drink there.
You made a song about it. And then I-"
"Where? Where was this?"
"You forget so soon?"
"Where? Where did it happen?"
"In the meadow, across the road from your gate, where you followed me," he said. "Where my sight came back to me, when the sun came up."
She looked at him blankly, and slowly her face changed.
First the imprisoned smile struggling to be free, and then- she was herself again, and she laughed. She laughed a great ringing peal of the laughter that had plagued him so, and she did not stop until he put one hand behind his back, then the other, and she saw his shoulders swell with the effort to keep from striking her dead"You animal!" she said, good-humoredly. "Do you know what you've done? Oh, you… you animal!" She glanced around to see that there were no ears to hear her. "I left you at the foot of the terrace steps," she told him. Her eyes sparkled. "Inside the gates, you understand? And you…"
"Don't laugh," he said quietly.
She did not laugh. "That was someone else out there.
Who, I can't imagine. But it wasn't I."
He paled. "You followed me out."
"On my soul I did not," she said soberly. Then she quelled another laugh.
"That can't be," he said. "I couldn't have…"
"But you were blind, blind and crazy, Dei-my-lover!"
"Squire's daughter, take care," he hissed. Then he pulled his big hand through his hair. "It can't be. It's three weeks;
I'd have been accused…"
"There are those who wouldn't." She smiled "Or-perhaps she will, in time."
"There has never been a woman so foul," he said evenly, looking her straight in the eye. "You're lying-you know you're lying."
"What must I do to prove it-aside from that which I'll have no man do?"
His lip curled. "Catch the unicom," he said.
"If I did, you'd believe I was a virgin?"
"I must," he admitted. He turned away, then said, over his shoulder- "But-you?"
She watched him thoughtfully until he left the marketplace.
Her eyes sparkled; then she walked briskly to the goldsmith's, where she ordered a bridle of woven gold. if the unicorn pool lay in the Bogs nearby, Rita reasoned, someone who was familiar with that brackish wasteland must know of it. And when she made a list in her mind of those few who traveled the Bogs, she knew whom to ask. With that, the other deduction came readily. Her laughter drew stares as she moved through the marketplace.
By the vegetable stall she stopped. The girl looked up patiently.
Rita stood swinging one expensive glove against the other wrist, half-smiling. "So you're the one." She studied the plain, inward-turning, peaceful face until Barbara had to turn her eyes away. Rita said, without further preamble, "I want you to show me the unicorn pool in two weeks."
Barbara looked up again, and now it was Rita who dropped her eyes. Rita said, "I can have someone else find it, of course. If you'd rather not." She spoke very clearly, and people turned to listen. They looked from Barbara to Rita and back again, and they waited.
"1 don't mind." said Barbara faintly. As soon as Rita had left, smiling, she packed up her things and went silently back to her house.
The goldsmith, of course, made no secret of such an extraordinary commission; and that, plus the gossips who had overheard Rita talking to Barbara, made the expedition into a cavalcade. The whole village turned out to see; the boys kept firmly in check so that Rita might lead the way; the young bloods ranged behind her (some a little less carefree than they might be) and others snickering behind their hands. Behind them the girls, one or two a little pale, others eager as cats to see the squire's daughter fail, and perhaps even… but then, only she had the golden bridle.
She carried it casually, but casualness could not hide it, for it was not wrapped, and it swung and blazed in the sun. She wore a flowing white robe, trimmed a little short so that she might negotiate the rough bogland; she had on a golden girdle and little gold sandals, and a gold chain bound her head and hair like a coronet.
Barbara walked quietly a little behind Rita, closed in with her own thoughts. Not once did she look at Del, who strode somberly by himself.
Rita halted a moment and let Barbara catch up, then walked beside her. "Tell me," she said quietly, "why did you come? It needn't have been you."
"I'm his friend," Barbara said. She quickly touched the bridle with her finger. "The unicom."
"Oh," said Rita. "The unicom." She looked archly at the other girl. "You wouldn't betray all your friends, would you?"
Barbara looked at her thoughtfully, without anger. "If- when you catch the unicom," she said carefully, "what will do you with him?"
"What an amazing question! I shall keep him, of course!"
"I thought I might persuade you to let him go."
Rita smiled, and hung the bridle on the other arm. "You could never do that."
"I know," said Barbara. "But I thought I might, so that's why I came." And before Rita could answer, she dropped behind again. The last ridge, the one which overlooked the unicorn pool. saw a series of gasps as the ranks of villagers topped it, one after the other, and saw what lay below; and it was indeed beautiful.
Surprisingly, it was Del who took it upon himself to call out, in his great voice, "Everyone wait here!" And everyone did; the top of the ridge filled slowly, from one side to the other, with craning, murmuring people. And then Del bounded after Rita and Barbara.
Barbara said, "I'll stop here."
"Wait," said Rita, imperiously. Of Del she demanded,
"What are you coming for?"
"To see fair play," he growled. "The little 1 know of witchcraft makes me like none of it."
"Very well," she said calmly. Then she smiled her very own smile- "Since you insist, I'd rather enjoy Barbara's company too."
Barbara hesitated. "Come, he won't hurt you, girl," said Rita. "He doesn't know you exist."
"Oh," said Barbara, wonderingiy.
Del said gruffly, "I do so. She has the vegetable stall."
Rita smiled at Barbara, the secrets bright in her eyes.
Barbara said nothing, but came with them.
"You should go back, you know," Rita said silkily to Del, when she could. "Haven't you been humiliated enough yet?"
He did not answer.
She said, "Stubborn animal! Do you think I'd have come this far if I weren't sure?"
"Yes," said Del, "I think perhaps you would."
They reached the blue moss. Rita shuffled it about with her feet and then sank gracefully down to it. Barbara stood alone in the shadows of the willow grove. Del mumped gently at an aspen with his fist. Rita, smiling, arranged the bridle to cast, and laid it across her lap.