"I don't blame him for not paying her," Molly Grue said scornfully. "I could jump on that place myself and scatter it like a pile of leaves. Anyway, I hope the witch has something interesting to do while she waits for that curse to come home. The sea is greater than anyone's greed."
Bony birds struggled across the sky, screeling, "Helpme,helpme,helpme!" and small black shapes bobbled at the lightless windows of King Haggard's castle. A wet, slow smell found the unicorn. "Where is the Bull?" she asked. "Where does Haggard keep the Bull?"
"No one keeps the Red Bull," the magician replied quietly. "I have heard that he roams at night and lies up by day in a great cavern beneath the castle. We'll know soon enough, but that's not our problem now. The nearer danger lies there." He pointed down into the valley, where a few lights had begun to shiver.
"That is Hagsgate," he said.
Molly made no answer, but she touched the unicorn with a hand as cold as a cloud. She often put her hands on the unicorn when she was sad, or tired, or afraid.
"This is King Haggard's town," Schmendrick said, "the first one he took when he came over the sea, the one that has lain longest under his hand. It has a wicked name, though none I ever met could say exactly why. No one goes into Hagsgate, and nothing comes out of it but tales to make children behave – monsters, werebeasts, witch covens, demons in broad daylight, and the like. But there is something evil in Hagsgate, I think. Mommy Fortuna would never go there, and once she said that even Haggard was not safe while Hagsgate stood. There is something there."
He peered closely at Molly as he spoke, for it was his one bitter pleasure these days to see her frightened in spite of the white presence of the unicorn. But she answered him quite calmly, with her hands at her sides. "I have heard Hagsgate called '_the town that no man knows_.' Maybe its secret was waiting for a woman to find it out – a woman and a unicorn. But what's to be done with you?"
Schmendrick smiled then. "I'm no man," he said. "I'm a magician with no magic, and that's no one at all."
The foxfire lights of Hagsgate grew brighter as the unicorn watched them, but not even a flint flared in King Haggard's castle. It was too dark to see men moving on the walls, but across the valley she could hear the soft boom of armor and the clatter of pikes on stone. Sentinels had met, and marched away again. The smell of the Red Bull sported all around the unicorn as she started down the thin, brambly path that led to Hagsgate.
VII
The town of Hagsgate was shaped like a footprint: long toes splaying from a broad paw and ending in the dark claws of a digger. And indeed, where the other towns of King Haggard's realm seemed to scratch like sparrows at the mean land, Hagsgate was well and deeply dug in. Its streets were smoothly paved, its gardens glowed, and its proud houses might have grown up out of the earth, like trees. Lights shone in every window, and the three travelers could hear voices, and dogs barking, and dishes being scrubbed until they squeaked. They halted by a high hedge, wondering.
"Do you suppose we took a wrong turn somewhere, and this isn't Hagsgate at all?" Molly whispered. She brushed foolishly at her hopeless rags and tatters. "I knew I should have brought my good dress." She sighed.
Schmendrick rubbed the back of his neck wearily. "It's Hagsgate," he answered her. "It must be Hagsgate, and yet there's no smell of sorcery, no air of black magic. But why the legends, then, why the fables and fairy tales? Very confusing, especially when you've had half a turnip for dinner."
The unicorn said nothing. Beyond the town, darker than the dark, King Haggard's castle teetered like a lunatic on stilts, and beyond the castle the sea slid. The scent of the Red Bull moved in the night, cold among the town smells of cooking and living. Schmendrick said, "The good people must all be indoors, counting their blessings. I'll hail them."
He stepped forward and threw back his cloak, but he had not yet opened his mouth when a hard voice said out of the air, "Save your breath, stranger, while you have it." Four men sprang from behind the hedge. Two of them set their swords at Schmendrick's throat, while another guarded Molly with a pair of pistols. The fourth approached the unicorn to seize her mane; but she reared up, shining fiercely, and he jumped away.
"Your name!" the man who had first spoken demanded of Schmendrick. He was middle-aged or more, as were they all, dressed in fine, dull clothing.
"Gick," said the magician, because of the swords.
"Gick," mused the man with the pistols. "An alien name."
"Naturally," the first man said. "All names are alien in Hagsgate. Well, Mr. Gick," he went on, lowering his sword slightly to the point where Schmendrick's collarbones converged, "if you and Mrs. Gick would kindly tell us what brings you skulking here -"
Schmendrick found his voice at that. "I hardly know the woman!" he roared. "My name is Schmendrick, Schmendrick the Magician, and I am hungry and tired and unpleasant. Put those things away, or you'll each have a scorpion by the wrong end."
The four men looked at one another. "A magician," said the first man. "The very thing."
Two of the others nodded, but the man who had tried to capture the unicorn grumbled, "Anyone can say he's a magician these days. The old standards are gone, the old values have been abandoned. Besides, a real magician has a beard."
"Well, if he isn't a magician," the first man said lightly, "he'll wish he were, soon enough." He sheathed his sword and bowed to Schmendrick and Molly. "I am Drinn," he said, "and it is possibly a pleasure to welcome you to Hagsgate. You spoke of being hungry, I believe. That's easily remedied – and then perhaps you will do us a good turn in your professional capacity. Come with me."
Grown suddenly gracious and apologetic, he led them toward a lighted inn, while the three other men followed close behind. More townsfolk came running up now, streaming eagerly from their houses with their own dinners half-eaten and their tea left steaming; so that by the time Schmendrick and Molly were seated, there were nearly a hundred people wedged together on the inn's long benches, jamming into the doorway and falling through the windows. The unicorn, unnoticed, paced slowly after: a white mare with strange eyes.
The man named Drinn sat at the same table with Schmendrick and Molly, chattering as they ate, and filling their glasses with a furry black wine. Molly Grue drank very little. She sat quietly looking at the faces around her and noting that none seemed any younger than Drinn's face, though a few were much older. There was a way in which all the Hagsgate faces were very much alike, but she could not find it.
"And now," Drinn said when the meal was over, "now you must permit me to explain why we greeted you so uncivilly."
"Pish, no need." Schmendrick chuckled. The wine had made him chuckly and easy, and had brightened his green eyes to gold. "What I want to know is the reason for the rumors that have Hagsgate full of ghouls and werewolves. Most absurd thing I ever heard of."
Drinn smiled. He was a knotty man with a turtle's hard, empty jaws. "It's the same thing," he said. "Listen. The town of Hagsgate is under a curse."