THE LAST UNICORN

To Schmendrick he said curtly, "As my magician, you will entertain me when I wish to be entertained, in manners variously profound and frivolous. You will be expected to know when you are required, and in what guise, for I cannot be forever identifying my moods and desires for your benefit. You will receive no wages, since that is certainly not what you came here for. As for your drab, your assistant, whatever you choose to call her, she will serve me also if she wishes to remain in my castle. From this evening, she is cook and maidservant together, scrubwoman and scullery maid as well."

He paused, seemingly waiting for Molly to protest, but she only nodded. The moon had moved away from the window, but Prince Lнr could see that the dark room was no darker for that. The cool brightness of the Lady Amalthea grew more slowly than had Mabruk's wind, but the prince understood quite well that it was far more dangerous. He wanted to write poems by that light, and he had never wanted to write poems before.

"You may come and go as you please," said King Haggard to the Lady Amalthea. "It may have been foolish of me to admit you, but I am not so foolish as to forbid you this door or that. My secrets guard themselves – will yours do the same? What are you looking at?"

"I am looking at the sea," the Lady Amalthea replied again.

"Yes, the sea is always good," said the king. "We will look at it together one day." He walked slowly to the door. "It will be curious," he said, "to have a creature in the castle whose presence causes Lнr to call me 'father' for the first time since he was five years old."

"Six," said Prince Lнr. "I was six."

"Five or six," the king said, "it had stopped making me happy long before, and it does not make me happy now. Nothing has yet changed because she is here." He was gone almost as silently as Mabruk, and they heard his tin boots ticking on the stairs.

Molly Grue went softly to the Lady Amalthea and stood by her at the window. "What is it?" she asked. "What do you see?" Schmendrick leaned on the throne, regarding Prince Lнr with his long green eyes. Away in the valley of Hagsgate, the cold roar sounded again.

"I will find quarters for you," said Prince Lнr. "Are you hungry? I will get you something to eat. I know where there is some cloth, fine satin. You could make a dress."

No one answered him. The heavy night swallowed his words, and it seemed to him that the Lady Amalthea neither heard nor saw him. She did not move, and yet he was certain that she was going away from him as he stood there, like the moon. "Let me help you," Prince Lнr said. "What can I do for you? Let me help you."

X

"What can I do for you?" Prince Lнr asked. "Nothing very much just now," Molly Grue said. "The water was all I needed. Unless you want to peel the potatoes, which would be all right with me."

"No, I didn't mean that. I mean yes, I will if you want me to, but I was talking to her. I mean, when I talk to her, that's what I keep asking."

"Sit down and peel me a few potatoes," Molly said. "It'll give you something to do with your hands."

They were in the scullery, a dank little room smelling strongly of rotting turnips and fermenting beets. A dozen earthenware dishes were piled in one corner, and a very small fire was shivering under a tripod, trying to boil a large pot of gray water. Molly sat at a rude table which was covered with potatoes, leeks, onions, peppers, carrots, and other vegetables, most of them limp and spotty. Prince Lнr stood before her, rocking slowly along his feet and twisting his big, soft fingers together.

"I killed another dragon this morning," he said presently.

"That's nice," Molly answered. "That's fine. How many does that make now?"

"Five. This one was smaller than the others, but it really gave me more trouble. I couldn't get near it on foot, so I had to go in with the lance, and my horse got pretty badly burned. It was funny about the horse -"

Molly interrupted him. "Sit down, Your Highness, and stop doing that. I start to twitch all over just watching you." Prince Lнr sat down opposite her. He drew a dagger from his belt and moodily began peeling potatoes. Molly regarded him with a slight, slow smile.

"I brought her the head," he said. "She was in her chamber, as she usually is. I dragged that head all the way up the stairs to lay it at her feet." He sighed, and nicked his finger with the dagger. "Damn. I didn't mind that. All the way up the stairs it was a dragon's head, the proudest gift anyone can give anyone. But when she looked at it, suddenly it became a sad, battered mess of scales and horns, gristly tongue, bloody eyes. I felt like some country butcher who had brought his lass a nice chunk of fresh meat as a token of his love. And then she looked at me, and I was sorry I had killed the thing. Sorry for killing a dragon!" He slashed at a rubbery potato and wounded himself again.