She was afraid of them at first. "Are they yours?" she asked him. "Did you make them? Can you do that now – just make things?" The king's whisper echoed her wonder.
"I found them," the magician answered. "But what I mean by finding is not what you mean. Ask me no more." He lifted her into the saddle, and then leaped up himself.
So the three of them rode away, and the men-at-arms followed on foot. No one looked back, for there was nothing to see. But King Lнr said once, without turning, "It is strange to have grown to manhood in a place, and then to have it gone, and everything changed – and suddenly to be king. Was none of it real at all? Am I real, then?" Schmendrick made no reply.
King Lнr wished to go swiftly, but Schmendrick held them to a leisurely pace and a roundabout road. When the king fretted for speed, he was admonished to consider his walking men – though they, marvelously, never tired for all the length of the journey. But Molly soon understood that the magician was delaying in order to make Lнr gaze long and closely at his realm. And to her own surprise, she discovered that the land was worth the look.
For, very slowly, spring was coming to the barren country that had been Haggard's. A stranger would not have noticed the change, but Molly could see that the withered earth was brightening with a greenness as shy as smoke. Squat, snaggly trees that had never yet bloomed were putting forth flowers in the wary way an army sends out scouts; long-dry streams were beginning to rustle in their beds, and small creatures were calling to one another. Smells slipped by in ribbons: pale grass and black mud, honey and walnuts, mint and hay and rotting applewood; and even the afternoon sunlight had a tender, sneezy scent that Molly would have known anywhere. She rode beside Schmendrick, watching the gentle advent of the spring and thinking of how it had come to her, late but lasting.
"Unicorns have passed here," she whispered to the magician. "Is that the cause, or is it Haggard's fall and the Red Bull's going? What is it, what is happening?"
"Everything," he answered her, "everything, all at once. It is not one springtime, but fifty; and not one or two great terrors flown away, but a thousand small shadows lifted from the land. Wait and see."
Speaking for Lнr's ear, he added, "Nor is this the first spring that ever has been in this country. It was a good land long ago, and it wants little but a true king to be so again. See how it softens before you."
King Lнr said nothing, but his eyes roved left and right as he rode, and he could not but observe the ripening. Even the valley of Hagsgate, of evil memory, was stirring with all manner of wildflowers – columbine and harebell, lavender and lupine, foxglove and yarrow. The rutted footprints of the Red Bull were growing mellow with mallow.
But when they came to Hagsgate, deep in the afternoon, a strange and savage sight awaited them. The plowed fields were woefully torn and ravaged, while the rich orchards and vineyards had been stamped down, leaving no grove or arbor standing. It was such shattering ruin as the Bull himself might have wrought; but it seemed to Molly Grue as though fifty years' worth of foiled griefs had struck Hagsgate all at once, just as that many springtimes were at last warming the rest of the land. The trampled earth looked oddly ashen in the late light.
King Lнr said quietly, "What is this?"
"Ride on, Your Majesty," the magician replied. "Ride on."
The sun was setting as they passed through the overthrown gates of the town and guided their horses slowly down streets that were choked with boards and belongings and broken glass; with pieces of walls and windows, chimneys, chairs, kitchenware, roofs, bathtubs, beds, mantels, dressing tables. Every house in Hagsgate was down; everything that could be broken was. The town looked as though it had been stepped on.
The people of Hagsgate sat on their doorsteps wherever they could find them, considering the wreckage. They had always had the air of paupers, even in the midst of plenty, and real ruin made them appear almost relieved, and no whit poorer. They hardly noticed Lнr when he rode up to them, until he said, "I am the king. What has befallen you here?"
"It was an earthquake," one man murmured dreamily, but another contradicted him, saying, "It was a storm, a nor'easter straight off the sea. It shook the town to bits, and hail came down like hoofs." Still another man insisted that a mighty tide had washed over Hagsgate; a tide as white as dogwood and heavy as marble, that drowned none and smashed everything. King Lнr listened to them all, smiling grimly.
"Listen," he said when they were done. "King Haggard is dead, and his castle has fallen. I am Lнr, the son of Hagsgate who was abandoned at birth in order to keep the witch's curse from coming true, and this from happening." He swept an arm around him at the burst houses. "Wretched, silly people, the unicorns have returned – the unicorns, that you saw the Red Bull hunting, and pretended not to see. It was they who brought the castle down, and the town as well. But it is your greed and your fear that have destroyed you."
The townsfolk sighed in resignation, but a middle-aged woman stepped forward and said with some spirit, "It all seems a bit unfair, my lord, begging your pardon. What could we have done to save the unicorns? We were afraid of the Red Bull. What could we have done?"
"One word might have been enough," King Lнr replied. "You'll never know now."
He would have wheeled his horse and left them there, but a feeble, roupy voice called to him, "Lнr – little Lнr – my child, my king!" Molly and Schmendrick recognized the man who came shuffling up with his arms open, wheezing and limping as though he were older than he truly was. It was Drinn.
"Who are you?" the king demanded. "What do you want of me?"
Drinn pawed at his stirrups, nuzzling his boots. "You don't know me, my boy? No – how should you? How should I deserve to have you know me? I am your father – your poor old overjoyed father. I am the one who left you in the marketplace on that winter night long ago, and handed you over to your heroic destiny. How wise I was, and how sad for so long, and how proud I am now! My boy, my little boy!" He could not quite cry real tears, but his nose was running.
Without a word, King Lнr tugged at his horse's reins, backing him out of the crowd. Old Drinn let his outstretched arms drop to his sides. "This is what it is to have children!" he screeched. "Ungrateful son, will you desert your father in the hour of his distress, when a word from your pet wizard would set everything right again? Despise me if you will, but I have played my part in putting you where you are, and you dare not deny it! Villainy has its rights too."
Still the king would have turned away, but Schmendrick touched his arm and leaned near. "It's true, you know," he whispered. "But for him – but for them all – the tale would have worked out quite another way, and who can say that the ending would have been even as happy as this? You must be their king, and you must rule them as kindly as you would a braver and more faithful folk. For they are a part of your fate."
Then Lнr lifted his hand to the people of Hagsgate, and they pushed and elbowed one another for silence. He said, "I must ride with my friends and keep them company for a way. But I will leave my men-at-arms here, and they will help you begin to build your town again. When I return, in a little time, I also will help. I will not begin to build my new castle until I see Hagsgate standing once more."