She ran to it, and it began to make the sound again. It was a man, and he was weeping.
It was her love, her love, who was tall and straight and so very alive-her love, battered and bleeding, puffy, broken, his clothes torn, crying.
Now of all times was the time for a lover to receive, to take from the loved one his pain, his trouble, his fear. "Oh, hush, hush," she whispered, her hands touching his bruised face like swift feathers. "It's all over now. It's all over."
She turned him over on his back and knelt to bring him up sitting. She lifted one of his thick arms around her shoulder.
He was very heavy, but she was very strong. When he was upright, gasping weakly, she looked up and down the road in the waning moonlight. Nothing, no one. The Great House was dark. Across the road, though, was a meadow with high hedgerows which might break the wind a little.
"Come, my love, my dear love." she whispered. He trembled violently.
All but carrying him, she got him across the road, over the shallow ditch, and through a gap in the hedge. She almost fell with him there. She gritted her teeth and set him down gently. She let him lean against the hedge, and then ran and swept up great armfulls of sweet broom. She made a tight springy bundle of it and set it on the ground beside him, and put a corner of her cloak over it, and gently lowered his head until it was pillowed. She folded the rest of the cloak about him. He was very cold.
There was no water near, and she dared not leave him. With her kerchief she cleaned some of the blood from his face. He was slill very cold. He said, "You devil. You rotten little devil."
"Shh." She crept in beside him and cradled his. head.
"You'll be warm in a minute "
"Stand stilt," he growled. "Keep running away."
"I won't run away," she whispered. "Oh, my darling, you've been hurt, so hurt. I won't leave you. I promise 1 won't leave you."
He lay very still. He made the growling sound again.
"I'll tell you a iovely thing," she said softly. "Listen to me, think about the lovely thing," she crooned.
"There's a place in the bog, a pool of pure water, where the trees live beautifully, willow and aspen and birch, where everything is peaceful, my darling, and the flowers grow without tearing their petals. The moss is blue and the water is like diamonds."
"You tell me stories in a thousand voices," he muttered.
"Shh. Listen, my darting. This isn't a story, it's a real place. Four miles north and a little west, and you can see the trees from the ridge with the two dwarf oaks. And I know why the water is pure!" she cried gladly. "I know why!"
He said nothing. He took a deep breath and it hurt him, for he shuddered painfully.
"The unicom drinks there," she whispered. "I saw him!"
Still he said nothing. She said, "I made a song about it.
Listen, this is me song I made: ' 'And He-suddenly gleamed! My dazzled eyes Coming from outer sunshine to this green And secret gloaming, met without surprise The vision. Only after, when the sheen And Splendor of his going fled away, I knew amazement, wonder and despair, That he should come-and pass-and would not stay, The Silken-swift-the gloriously Fair!
That he should come-and pass-and would not stay, So that, forever after. I must go, Take the long road that mounts against the day, Traveling in the hope that 1 shall know Again that lifted moment, high and sweet, Somewhere-on purple moor or windy hill- Remembering still his wild and delicate feet, The magic and the dream-remembering still!''
His breathing was more regular. She said, "I truly saw him!"
"I'm blind," he said. "Blind, I'm blind."
"Oh, my dear…"
He fumbled for her hand, found it. For a long moment he held it. Then, slowly, he brought up his other hand and with -them both he felt her hand, turned it about, squeezed it.
Suddenly he grunted, half sitting. "You're here."
"Of course, darling. Of course I'm here "
"Why?" he shouted. "Why? Why? Why all of this? Why blind me?" He sat up, mouthing, and put his great hand on her throat. "Why do all that if…" The words ran together into an animal noise. Wine and witchery, anger and agony boiled in his veins.
Once she cried out.
Once she sobbed.
"Now," he said, "you'll catch no unicorns. Get away from me." He cuffed her.
"You're mad. You're sick," she cried.
"Get away," he said ominously.
Terrified, she rose. He took the cloak and hurled it after her. It almost toppled her as she ran away, crying silently.
After a long time, from behind the hedge, the sick, coughing sobs began again.
Three weeks later Rita was in the market when a hard hand took her upper arm and pressed her into the angle of a cottage wall. She did not start. She flashed her eyes upward and recognized him, and then said composedly, "Don't touch roe."
"1 need you to tell me something," he said- "And tell me you will!" His voice was as hard as his hand.
"I'll tell you anything you like," she said. "But don't touch me."
He hesitated, then released her. She turned to him casualty.
"What is it?" Her gaze darted across his face and its almosthealed scars. The small smile tugged at one comer of her mouth.
His eyes were slits. "I have to know this: why did you make up all that… prettiness, that food, that poison… just for me? You could have had me for less."
She smiled. "Just for you? It was your turn, that's all."
He was genuinely surprised. "It's happened before?"
She nodded. "Whenever it's the full of the moon-and the squire's away."
"You're lying!"
"You forget yourself!" she said sharply. Then, smiling,
"It is the truth, though."
"I'd've heard talk-"
"Would you now? And tetl me-how many of your friends know about your humiliating adventure?"
He hung his head.
She nodded. "You see? They go away until they're healed, and they come back and say nothing. And they always will."
"You're a devil… why do you do it? Why?"
"I told you," she said openly- "I'm a woman and I act like a woman in my own way. No man will ever touch me, though. I am virgin and shall remain so."
"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.