"It is our age," said the second man-at-arms. "When you are old, anything that does not disturb you is a comfort. Cold and darkness and boredom long ago lost their sharp edges for us, but warmth, singing, spring – no, they would all be disturbances. There are worse things than living like Haggard."
The third man said, "Haggard is older than we are. In time Prince Lнr will be king in this country, and I will not leave the world until I have seen that day. I have always been fond of the boy, since he was small."
Molly found that she was not hungry. She looked around at the faces of the old men, and listened to the sounds their seamy lips and shrunken throats made as they drank her soup; and she was suddenly glad that King Haggard always had his meals alone. Molly inevitably came to care for anyone she fed.
Cautiously she asked them, "Have you ever heard a tale that Prince Lнr is not Haggard's adopted nephew at all?" The men-at-arms showed no surprise at the question.
"Ay," the eldest replied, "we know that story. It may well be true, for the prince certainly bears no family resemblance to the king. But what of it? Better a stolen stranger ruled the land than a true son of King Haggard."
"But if the prince was stolen from Hagsgate," Molly cried, "then he is the man who will make the curse on this castle come true!" And she repeated the rhyme that the man Drinn had recited in the inn at Hagsgate.
But the old men shook their heads, grinning with teeth as rusty as their casques and corselets. "Not Prince Lнr," the third man said. "The prince may slay a thousand dragons, but he will level no castles, overthrow no kings. It is not in his nature. He is a dutiful son who seeks – alas – only to be worthy of the man he calls his father. Not Prince Lнr. The rhyme must speak of some other."
"And even if Prince Lнr were the one," the second man added, "even if the curse had marked him for its messenger, still he would fail. For between King Haggard and any doom stands the Red Bull."
A silence sprang into the room and stood there, darkening all faces with its savage shadow and chilling the good hot soup with its breath. The little autumn cat stopped purring on Molly's lap, and the thin cooking fire cowered down. The cold scullery walls seemed to draw closer together.
The fourth man-at-arms, who had not spoken before, called across the dark to Molly Grue, "There is the true reason that we stay in Haggard's employ. He does not wish us to leave, and what King Haggard wishes or does not wish is the only concern of the Red Bull. We are Haggard's minions, but we are the Red Bull's prisoners."
Molly's hand was steady as she stroked the cat, but her voice was pinched and dry when she spoke. "What is the Red Bull to King Haggard?"
It was the oldest man-at-arms who answered. "We do not know. The Bull has always been here. It serves Haggard as his army and his bulwark; it is his strength and the source of his strength; and it must be his one companion as well, for I am sure he descends to its lair betimes, down some secret stair. But whether it obeys Haggard from choice or compulsion, and whether the Bull or the king is the master – that we have never known."
The fourth man, who was the youngest, leaned toward Molly Grue, his pink, wet eyes suddenly eager. He said, "The Red Bull is a demon, and its reckoning for attending Haggard will one day be Haggard himself." Another man interrupted him, insisting that the clearest evidence showed that the Bull was King Haggard's enchanted slave, and would be until it broke the bewitchment that held it and destroyed its former lord. They began to shout and spill their soup.
But Molly asked, not loudly, but in a way that made them all be still, "Do you know what a unicorn is? Have you ever seen one?"
Of everything alive in the little room, only the cat and the silence seemed to look back at her with any understanding. The four men blinked and belched and rubbed their eyes. Deep, restless, the sleeping Bull stirred again.
The meal being over, the men-at-arms saluted Molly Grue and left the scullery, two for their beds, two to take up their night's vigil in the rain. The oldest of the men waited until the others were gone before he said quietly to Molly, "Be careful of the Lady Amalthea. When she first came here, her beauty was such that even this accursed castle became beautiful too – like the moon, which is only a shining stone. But she has been here too long. Now she is as beautiful as ever, but the rooms and roofs that contain her are somehow meaner for her presence."
He gave a long sigh, which frayed into a whine. "I am familiar with that kind of beauty," he said, "but I had never seen that other sort before. Be careful of her. She should go away from here."
Alone, Molly put her face in the little cat's random fur. The cooking fire fluttered low, but she did not get up to feed it. Small, swift creatures scuttled across the room, making a sound like King Haggard's voice; and the rain rumbled against the castle walls, sounding like the Red Bull. Then, as though in answer, she heard the Bull. His bellow shattered the stones under her feet, and she clutched desperately at the table to keep herself and the cat from plunging down to him. She cried out.
The cat said, "He is going out. He goes out every sundown to hunt for the strange white beast that escaped him. You know that perfectly well. Don't be stupid."
The hungering roar came again, further away. Molly caught her breath and stared at the little cat. She was not as amazed as another might have been; these days she was harder to surprise than most women. "Could you always talk?" she asked the cat. "Or was it the sight of the Lady Amalthea that gave you speech?"
The cat licked a front paw reflectively. "It was the sight of her that made me feel like talking," he said at length, "and let us leave it at that. So that is a unicorn. She is very beautiful."
"How do you know she is a unicorn?" Molly demanded. "And why were you afraid to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her."
"I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long," the cat replied without rancor. "I would not waste time in foolishness if I were you. As to your first question, no cat out of its first fur can ever be deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them. As for your second question -" Here he faltered, and suddenly became very interested in washing; nor would he speak until he had licked himself fluffy and then licked himself smooth again. Even then he would not look at Molly, but examined his claws.
"If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me, but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them – but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay."
Molly picked him up then, and he purred into her neck for such a long while that she began to fear that his moment of speech had passed. But presently he said, "You have very little time. Soon she will no longer remember who she is, or why she came to this place, and the Red Bull will no longer roar in the night for her. It may be that she will marry the good prince, who loves her." The cat pushed his head hard into Molly's suddenly still hand. "Do that," he commanded. "The prince is very brave, to love a unicorn. A cat can appreciate valiant absurdity."
"No," Molly Grue said. "No, that cannot be. She is the last."
"Well then, she must do what she came to do," the cat replied. "She must take the king's way down to the Bull."