THE LAST UNICORN

The magician nodded. "Aye, and she cursed him for his greed – cursed the castle, rather. But what had that to do with Hagsgate? The town had done the witch no wrong."

"No," Drinn replied. "But neither had it done her any good. She could not unmake the castle – or would not, for she fancied herself an artistic sort and boasted that her work was years ahead of its time. Anyway, she came to the elders of Hagsgate and demanded that they force Haggard to pay what was due her. 'Look at me and see yourselves,' she rasped. 'That's the true test of a town, or of a king. A lord who cheats an ugly old witch will cheat his own folk by and by. Stop him while you can, before you grow used to him.'" Drinn sipped his wine and thoughtfully filled Schmendrick's glass once more.

"Haggard paid her no money," he went on, "and Hagsgate, alas, paid her no heed. She was treated politely and referred to the proper authorities, whereupon she flew into a fury and screamed that in our eagerness to make no enemies at all, we had now made two." He paused, covering his eyes with lids so thin that Molly was sure he could see through them, like a bird. With his eyes closed, he said, "It was then that she cursed Haggard's castle, and cursed our town as well. Thus his greed brought ruin upon us all."

In the sighing silence, Molly Grue's voice came down like a hammer on a horseshoe, as though she were again berating poor Captain Cully. "Haggard's less at fault than you yourselves," she mocked the folk of Hagsgate, "for he was only one thief, and you were many. You earned your trouble by your own avarice, not your king's."

Drinn opened his eyes and gave her an angry look. "We earned nothing," he protested. "It was our parents and grandparents whom the witch asked for help, and I'll grant you that they were as much to blame as Haggard, in their way. We would have handled the matter quite differently." And every middle-aged face in the room scowled at every older face.

One of the old men spoke up in a voice that wheezed and miaowed. "You would have done just as we did. There were crops to harvest and stock to tend, as there still is. There was Haggard to live with, as there still is. We know very well how you would have behaved. You are our children."

Drinn glowered him down, and other men began to shout spitefully, but the magician quieted them all by asking, "What was the curse? Could it have anything to do with the Red Bull?"

The name rang coldly, even in the bright room, and Molly felt suddenly lonely. On an impulse, she added her own question, though it had nothing to do with the conversation. "Have any of you ever seen a unicorn?"

It was then that she learned two things: the difference between silence and utter silence; and that she had been quite right to ask that question. The Hagsgate faces tried not to move, but they did move. Drinn said carefully, "We never see the Bull, and we never speak of him. Nothing that concerns him can be any business of ours. As for unicorns, there are none. There never were." He poured the black wine again. "I will tell you the words of the curse," he said. He folded his hands before him, and began to chant.

"You whom Haggard holds in thrall,
Share his feast and share his fall.
You shall see your fortune flower
Till the torrent takes the tower.
Yet none but one of Hagsgate town
May bring the castle swirling down."

A few others joined in as he recited the old malediction. Their voices were sad and far, as though they were not in the room at all but were tumbling in the wind high over the inn's chimney, helpless as dead leaves.

What is it about their faces? Molly wondered. I almost know. The magician sat silently by her, rolling his wine glass in his long hands.

"When those words were first spoken," Drinn said, "Haggard had not been long in the country, and all of it was still soft and blooming – all but the town of Hagsgate. Hagsgate was then as this land has become: a scrabbly, bare place where men put great stones on the roofs of their huts to keep them from blowing away." He grinned bitterly at the older men. "Crops to harvest, stock to tend! You grew cabbages and rutabagas and a few pale potatoes, and in all of Hagsgate there was but one weary cow. Strangers thought the town accursed, having offended some vindictive witch or other."

Molly felt the unicorn go by in the street, then turn and come back, restless as the torches on the walls, that bowed and wriggled. She wanted to run out to her, but instead she asked quietly, "And afterward, when that had come true?"