A Plague of Unicorns Read online

  Though, of course, James knew he would be long gone by then.

  The first page said Fiat lux. Let there be Light.

  The illumination Alexandria had done was of a great shaft of golden light shooting down between two clouds onto the head of a boy with white-gold hair and a smudge on his nose.

  “That’s me,” James said, scarcely breathing. He packed the precious sheaf of papers between his tunics in the bag.

  But Nanny took the pen and ink away because, as she said, “It will get all over your freshly laundered clothes. Besides, if there is one thing abbeys have a lot of, it’s pens. And as for ink, they drink it, I hear.”

  Even James did not believe her.

  The men-at-arms, six of them, were already outside and standing at attention when James got downstairs. He could see them through the open door.

  “Breakfast first,” Mother said.

  He only toyed with his food, pushing the fresh hen’s eggs from one side of the plate to the other till they were all scrumbled around just the way he liked them.

  “Not hungry,” he mumbled.

  “Nonsense,” Uncle Archibald said. “You need sustenance for the trip.” But in this he was mistaken.

  James joined the men-at-arms soon after, with nothing in his stomach, but he carried a small satchel of food packed by Cook just in case. He wasn’t sure what case that would be. But he carried the satchel with him to his horse.

  Horse, of course, was too elevated a name for the size of it. Horse was what you called Alexandria’s great white gelding. Horse was what you called the master-at-arms’ brown destrier or the men-at-arms’ coursers. But James’ horse was a Moors pony, named Runwell, who was trained for long travels. It was James’ favorite of all the ponies in the stable. Runwell loved to nuzzle apples out of James’ hand, and there were plenty of apples to be had. Castle Callander had a lovely orchard.

  James had been careful the evening before to gather a few of the small young, hard apples, the kind the pony liked best. They were hidden between the extra shirts and hose that Nanny had packed, though she hadn’t noticed.

  Or if she had, she hadn’t said.

  Once James had been lifted onto Runwell, Master Henry, the master-at-arms, called out, “Mount up!” in his grumble of a voice, and as one the six men swung onto their own horses.

  James turned around once and saw Nanny holding a waving baby Bruce. The maids and Cook were standing behind, under the portcullis. And to the other side, almost as if she did not want to be seen, was Mother. She seemed to be weeping.

  He wondered why.

  8

  THE FIRST REAL REPORT OF JAMES’ ADVENTURE

  The trip wasn’t supposed to be difficult. It was only fifty miles, a mere three days and two nights. In fact, Uncle Archibald called it “straight as a bow shot.”

  It was anything but.

  That first day they were shadowed by a pack of wolves, grey as mist, who seemed to fade in and out of the woody paths.

  Runwell was all nerves by the time the wolves were sighted, and twice had threatened to run away with James, even though James had held him expertly with the reins.

  The troop stopped for a minute, and three of the men-at-arms fired arrows towards the pack, which served to hold them off, though no wolves were actually hit.

  James was happy. Runwell even more so.

  But James was less happy when, a few minutes later, James was told to dismount. It was said politely but firmly by the burly sergeant who handed him up with little ceremony to ride pillion behind Master Henry.

  As if I’m some fair lady needing rescue, James thought. But he was smart enough not to let Master Henry or the men know his thoughts.

  “Nothing to fear from the wolves,” Master Henry said brightly, turning around in the saddle. “It’s winter, when food is scarce, that wolves are a pestilence. And here it’s midsummer.”

  “Then why take me off Runwell?” James asked.

  “Because your pony has become too skittish and unpredictable,” Master Henry said in a voice that was much too jolly for the occasion.

  Grown-ups, James thought, often sound that way when they really mean just the opposite.

  “I thought I was handling him well,” James said, not letting too much of his disappointment show. “Callanders do their duty, and riding the pony was mine.”

  “Keeping Callanders safe is my duty,” Master Henry replied. “Especially the heir.” He didn’t mention that James was possibly already the duke.

  James had never thought of it that way — that Master Henry’s duty might trump his own.

  “And I wouldn’t like to be the one to have to tell her ladyship that I lost her son. Or her son’s horse.”

  James wondered if Master Henry knew Jane the maid, but thought better than to mention it. Instead he said, “What will happen to the pony?”

  “Last man-of-arms will tie the pony’s reins to his own. You will need the pony whole and hale at the abbey.”

  After a night sleeping by the fire in the forest, James slept in a tent by himself — which somehow made him more rather than less worried about wolves. But they saw no more of the pack.

  However, this didn’t mean they were trouble-free. The next morning, they came upon a great elk with horns that seemed to reach the sky. The elk chased them away from the meadow they’d meant to cross, for he was guarding his harem of cows.

  “We will go along to another crossing,” Master Henry said steadily. “No need to tussle with an elk in season unless we mean to pack the meat with us. And we do not have time to slaughter and dress it for travel. Nor can I spare the men to cart the meat home to Castle Callander.”

  “You could give it to the abbey,” James said.

  “Your mother is already giving the abbey its greatest gift,” Master Henry replied.

  “She is?” James tried to puzzle out what that might be.

  “You,” said Master Henry. “And she’s wept many a night with that decision.”

  James could scarcely credit it. I didn’t think Mother even liked me, with all my tiresome questions. Not now that she has Bruce, who is no trouble at all. But he was careful to keep that thought to himself, too. In fact, he was keeping rather a lot of thoughts to himself now that he didn’t have Alexandria to talk to.

  They spent the next night in the forest as well, and though James volunteered to stand guard with one of the men-at-arms, he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not to be foolish.

  “You are our lord’s oldest son, and you need to be well rested for the remainder of the trip,” Master Henry told him, a bead of sweat making a path down the side of his face, just in front of his right ear.

  James puzzled about this for a moment, but before he could ask outright, Master Henry continued. “Besides, Nanny would kill me if I let you get dirty from guard duty. And your mother would have my heart served up to the hounds if I kept you from your sleep.”

  Before it was truly dark, Master Henry escorted James to his single tent pitched next to the fire as if he were a child still in the nursery. James thought the elk — should it wander into their camp — would make quick work of the tent. Wild boar and a bear would be as quick to destroy it. But suddenly he was too tired to complain.

  Besides, the men-at-arms would take turns watching the perimeter. Perhaps they would shoot the elk anyway. He knew they were all excellent bowmen. And an elk was too big a target to miss. He knew he was safe.

  Master Henry turned and walked over to his men, but a tiny bit of their conversation drifted back to James as he lay half awake on his small camp bed.

  “The good Lord save me from nine-year-olds,” Master Henry said. “Luckily, I was away at war with the last duke when my twins were that age.”

  A small thread of laughter made its way through the men, tying them together in a knot.

  James felt unhappy to be both dismissed and laughed at. But even more, he was saddened at the thought that his own father — the last duke — had been a
way from him when James was even younger than Master Henry’s twins. And he’d never returned. That sadness suddenly overwhelmed him as he thought of his father, a tall man with a great golden moustache and a ready laugh.

  James was suddenly wide awake.

  Sorrow, he thought, a bit dramatically, can do that.

  He was determined to stay awake.

  When the moon was half obscured by a cloud, so no one could see him, he slipped out through the back flap of the tent, and suddenly saw a mist of white between the trees.

  For a moment, he worried it might be the wolves returning. But the mist was too high off the ground for them. Then he worried about the elk and its females. Elk, Alexandria had once told him, are not predictable creatures.

  But elk were dark, not light-colored animals. So the white mist could not be them.

  Then he wondered if he was seeing a fairy raid, which was when the fey folk rode out on their white horses. There were ballads about that. They were supposed to have bells on their saddles and reins, and he’d heard nothing that sounded like bells.

  Or perhaps, he thought, it’s the Wild Hunt headed by Herne the Hunter, who goes racing through the forest hunting down the souls of the damned, the Hounds of Hell baying at his horse’s feet. But just as there were no sounds of bells ringing, there was no sound of hounds. Just the huffing of the horses who were hobbled for the night, the warbling of night birds, and a single owl calling to a prospective mate.

  He peered silently into the white mist but could not make out what he was seeing. So he went back into the tent, lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes.

  After two more days in the saddle, James’ arms had grown tired of holding on to Master Henry’s armor, and his bottom was sore from riding all day. There’d been no more encounters with beasts or phantoms.

  James had learned one thing, and one thing only. Travel took a long time.

  And it was not as comfortable as being at home.

  By the time they got within sight of the abbey, looking down where it nestled in the bowl of a valley, surrounded by cultivated fields and orchards, James had been allowed back on Runwell.

  It made both James and the pony happy.

  And so by late afternoon, they arrived, with James riding secure at the very front of the little troop, suddenly feeling very grown up. He was grown up, he thought, because he’d ridden a long way and now knew what it was like to travel.

  And because he was en route to a place where he could ask questions of people who would have answers for him.

  And because he was a Callander, and his father’s son.

  They rounded the last switchback on the trail, and the gates of the abbey opened to him like a father’s welcoming arms.

  9

  IN WHICH JAMES IS HOMESICK AND ALONE

  Now, the afternoon James arrived at the abbey was a week before the last of the heroes had attempted getting rid of the unicorns. But as a new arrival, he wasn’t much considered, even though he was the local duke’s son, because everyone’s attention was on the wily beasts in the orchard.

  In fact, the master-of-arms had been more welcomed than James.

  Abbot Aelian greeted the troop with a broad smile and took Master Henry aside, ignoring James.

  “We have a small problem,” the abbot whispered, and pointed to the orchard.

  James was turned over to a round man, shaped rather like a barrel of wine and who had a badly shaved round spot in the middle of his head, called a tonsure, which looked like the lawn at Castle Callander after a long winter — stubbly and a brownish-grey. The monk took James’ satchel in hand and led him into a low stone house and along a straight corridor with doors opening on either side, his sandals hardly making a sound on the stone floor.

  James followed dutifully behind. Indeed, what else could he do? As they went along, he asked, “What is this place?”

  “The dortoir, where the lads stay.”

  “Are there many?”

  “Ten of them, mostly oblates.”

  “What’s an oblate?” It sounded strange to James.

  “Boys given by their parents as gifts to the abbey to be raised by us and to honor the Lord.”

  “Am I an oblate?”

  “For certain, you are a gift. But not an oblate, for you shall return home when called to become duke if God wills it early, or on your fifteenth birthday.”

  “And when will I meet the abbot?”

  The round monk turned to James. “We dinna speak in the halls, lad. Though we are nae a totally silent order, we practice quiet in our daily lives.”

  “But . . .”

  “Nae buts.”

  James shivered. It wasn’t that the dortoir halls were particularly cold or damp. But still he shivered. Perhaps the other boys would answer his questions. He wondered what they’d be like.

  He’d never had much to do with other boys, that is, except for his brother, Bruce, who was still a baby, and the gardener’s sons, who were older than him. And besides, they all worked.

  As he was contemplating the long hallway and wondering which might be his room, the monk stopped before a doorway and opened it. Inside there was a small cot on a wooden base, a mattress stuffed with straw, and a thin blanket at the bedfoot. At the bed’s head was a wooden table on which stood a candle, a prayer book, and a mug for water. On the bed were a rough brown tunic that had a brown cord to tie around the waist, a heavy brown cloak, and a pair of brown hose.

  “But I have my own clothes,” James said to the monk, pointing to his satchel.

  “We’ve nae frills here,” the monk said. Though as he was rather round, James assumed he meant in clothing but not in food. “However, as the duke’s son, you will be allowed to keep the bag here with you. Now climb into your oblate clothes, and I will wait out in the hall while you do.”

  Dutifully, James got into the brown clothes, but the tunic itched around the neck, and the cord was much too long, so he had to knot it three times. The cloak was badly sewn and too bulky over his thin shoulders. Patches covered the hose.

  All at once, James was incredibly aware that he was far from home. He suddenly missed everyone in the castle, even Cumbersome, with his dry voice. Even Uncle Archibald and his disdain.

  James was aware that his eyes were filling up, and he pressed his fist in his right eye to keep from weeping, but he must have let out a little cry, because the round monk came in shaking his head. “Tha poor lad, never far from home before, I wager.”

  At this, James burst into tears, and the monk patted him clumsily on the back, saying, “Better to get it out now, lad, before the others come in from their chores. Tha dinna want to be seen as a sniveling bairn.”

  James recognized this as Geordie talk for a weeping baby, as one of his tutors had been a Geordie. He used the sleeve of the tunic to wipe his tears away. Then he smiled up at the monk. “I’m James,” he said.

  “Oh, we all know about thee,” the round monk said. “But thee will have a time learning all of us. So best start here.”

  “Fiat lux,” said James, remembering the first page of the illuminated notes Alexandria had sent.

  “Ah, a Latin scholar!” said the monk. “That’s excellent. I am Brother Luke, Master of Illuminations.”

  James did not bother to set him right about the Latin. Just grinned and asked, “What does a master of illuminations do?”

  “Why, I make pictures to bring color and light to the Word of God,” said Brother Luke. “And now let us go to dinner.” He patted his belly. “I’m starved.”

  James followed Brother Luke in silence down the hallway, though in his head were still many questions. And the greatest of these was whether he would be allowed to say good-bye to Master Henry and the men, the only people at the abbey who knew anything about him at all.

  But Master Henry’s men had been asked to help the monks defend the orchard. The men-at-arms had fired off their arrows, some even hitting their marks, and the unicorns had chased them up the trees, where
the six men and Master Henry spent a miserable dusk to dinnertime up in the branches of the golden apple trees.

  As soon as the sun set and the unicorns departed, their bellies full of apples, Master Henry had gathered his defeated troops and left the abbey for home, not even stopping in the dining hall for a meal that the cook had made especially for them.

  It was clear that Master Henry was less frightened of the duchess’s wrath than he was of another encounter with the unicorns.

  He left James in the abbey without a farewell.

  And since the other boys were yet to come back from their chores, James ate in silence with Brother Luke and then was escorted by the monk to his room.

  “Tha will get the lay of the land soon enough,” Brother Luke said. “And I’ll no walk ye back again, as it will make you the mock of the boys if I do.”

  James nodded and went into his small room, which was less than a quarter of the size of the bedroom in Castle Callander. He lay down in the narrow cot, thinking he would never get sleep. But no sooner did he blow out the candle and close his eyes than he began to dream.

  In his dream, his father came riding down the path to the abbey on a white unicorn, and when he reached the abbey door, James was waiting for him. His father bent down and gathered him up in his arms, laughing.

  “Good to be home,” his dream father said. “Good to have you in my arms again, my favorite lad.”

  James slept so soundly on the narrow cot that he didn’t even hear the boys coming to bed in the rooms next to his. But he met them in the morning, a rough-and-tumbling crew of ten, who were only a bit curious about him and rather more interested in what had happened when the men-at-arms had fired off their arrows.

  One of the cook boys said, “I heard they hit the mark with three of the beasts. Right here.” And he pointed to his chest.

  “And what happened next?” asked a redheaded boy who seemed to James to be the leader of the pack.