A Plague of Unicorns Read online

  As if Abbot Aelian had suddenly become sensitive to James’ distress, he added, “If the heroes cannot help us, James, I do not see how you can.”

  The abbot’s fingers trembled as if he, and not James, was nervous.

  Just then James had an idea. It came out of nowhere, and yet even as he said it, he knew that — if it worked — it could solve many problems at once.

  “There is,” James began, “one hero who has not come to the abbey’s aid yet.”

  The abbot looked shocked, or at least he gave James that impression. “I am certain I have given dinner to every hero within the seven kingdoms and more besides.” His voice was dry — not dry like Cumbersome’s voice, but dry as if his throat just needed a good cough to clear it.

  “A small hero,” James said.

  “A small hero,” mused the abbot aloud, “would not eat much.”

  “I haven’t eaten anything . . . today,” James said.

  “We can remedy that,” the abbot said. He rang a small bell on the table, and a man — not Father Joseph — stuck his head in.

  “Your eminence?” he asked.

  “Some milk and some porridge for this boy. And one of your apple buns.”

  “Very good, sir,” the man said, and shut the door.

  Abbot Aelian cocked his head to one side and considered James. “Are you offering yourself as the small hero, young duke? That I cannot allow.”

  “Oh, no, not I,” James was quick to assure him. “I don’t have the courage for such . . . such an undertaking.”

  A ghost of a smile flittered across the abbot’s face but did not reach his eyes. “That is not the information I received about your work today in the orchard, my son. A false modesty is no modesty at all.”

  “Not modesty at all, sir. It was no courage I had. I gave it no thought at all. I just had to get my pony away from the unicorns. Did you know they have very sharp horns? One of them unseated the knight.”

  “Ah.” There was that ghosting smile again. “I wondered about that. He didn’t come back for his dinner.”

  James didn’t hear the abbot’s reply. He was too busy trying to think of a way to explain what he meant. And then it came to him. “Sir Abbot, in my father’s land there is a hero named . . .” He hesitated again, then went forward boldly. “Sandy.” But his face reddened as he said it.

  “An odd name for a hero,” remarked the abbot, somewhat suspiciously. “The others have been called things such as Sir Humphrey Hippomus of Castle Dire and Sir Sullivan Gallivant of the Long Barrow.”

  “And a very, uh, odd hero,” agreed James. “But surely an odd hero would choose an odd name. Like Lochinvar and Bradamont and . . .” He tried to remember the ballad heroes, but that was all he could come up with at a moment’s notice. “I could write Sandy . . . and . . . ask for help.”

  “Nonsense, child, I will write. But it is less than a month before the unicorns will be gone — along with all our apples. If this hero doesn’t come soon and save us . . .”

  “Begging your pardon, Lord Abbot,” said James, “but I don’t think Sandy will come if you write. Sandy is very, um, particular.”

  “Too particular for an abbot?” Abbot Aelian rubbed a long, elegant finger along his nose. “This Sandy would not be of a devilish nature?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” James said, shuffling his feet. “Not devilish at all. Only, um, different.”

  “I will think on this, but I am not certain,” the abbot said. “You may go now to my dining room and have some food. But, James, no more disappearing for an entire day. Or jousting with the unicorns without my leave. I have not the courage to face your dear mother.”

  “Yes, sir,” James said, doubting both the abbot’s lack of courage and his mother’s dearness to the old man.

  The abbot waved James out the study door.

  He went to the abbot’s dining room, took the apple bun and left the rest, and ate it happily on his way back to the dortoir.

  When he popped his head into the monks’ dining room, he was relieved to find a plate of green vegetables waiting for him, and all ten of the boys. As James ate the vegetables greedily, the boys introduced themselves around the table and asked if he would like to listen to stories that night with them.

  “Brother Daffyd is a wizard at telling tales,” the boy called George told James.

  “He knows hundreds of them. Maybe thousands,” Aiden added.

  Then redheaded Bartholomew said, as if conferring a great honor on James, “You can have the second choice of story, after me.”

  James kept on eating and nodded without comment. But new questions ran through his mind.

  What was the full agreement the abbot had with his mother?

  Why had the Green Knight forgone his free dinner?

  What would Alexandria think of all this?

  At the thought of Alexandria, and how she would have answered his questions or led him by the hand into the library to find out what she did not already know, the homesickness took hold again and shook him like a barn cat shakes a rat, till he felt it down in his bones.

  He looked at the boys around the table waiting eagerly for his answer. But when he spoke, it was directly to Bartholomew, who was clearly the leader. “I think I am too weary after that fight with the unicorns. Can I listen to the stories another night?”

  Bartholomew stared at him as if looking for a hidden meaning in James’ words, some insult, but at that moment James yawned, quickly covering his mouth with the back of his right hand.

  “Right. That kind of battle can take it out of you,” Bartholomew conceded. “Took it out of your cape, too. Give it over to George here. He’s good at darning and will have it fixed for you by morning.”

  When George looked ready to protest, Bartholomew gave him a look and swatted him with an open hand. “Do it!” he warned.

  George’s protest died unsaid, and he reached out for James’ cloak.

  James shrugged out of the garment and only then realized how rent and torn it was. All of a sudden, he began to shake. If the unicorn horns had come even a hand’s span closer, he could have died.

  He rose from the table on shaky legs. “Thank you, George,” he said, not realizing how much he sounded like his uncle talking to the gardener or the stableman. Then before his knees could buckle, he walked out of the dining hall and headed towards his room and his small cot.

  12

  IN WHICH JAMES NOTICES HOW TIME FLEES

  The very next morning, having gone over the abbey’s accounts one last time, Abbot Aelian summoned James from the scriptorium, where he was beginning his study of Greek.

  The sallow-faced monk who came with the message looked down at James, who was hard at work on the new alphabet, which was much trickier than the one he already knew. Hebrew, he’d been warned, would be the hardest of the lot, and so was to be left to the last.

  The monk said with a scowl, “Himself wants to see you.”

  James looked up. He didn’t know the name of this monk, nor did he much like his looks. Besides, he hated being brought out of his concentration. “Himself?”

  “The abbot,” the monk said sourly. “Who else?”

  Who else indeed, James thought, and set the piece of practice scroll aside. He said nothing more to the monk, or the monk to him. Was he being summoned because he’d broken some new rule of the monastery and was to be scolded or put on bread and water, as his uncle had said would happen?

  Or — he suddenly hoped — maybe I’m being sent home?

  He squared his shoulders and stood, because he knew that, being a Callander, whatever the reason he’d been summoned, he’d do his duty, because that’s what a Callander did.

  Still, he didn’t dare question the monk, just wrapped the newly darned cloak around him. George had done a very good job setting in patches, for it turned out that his father and brothers were all tailors, and he had learned as a small boy to sew a fine seam before being sent to the monastery as an oblate.

  Jam
es followed the bleak, brown-robed presence across the lawn and through the palace’s front door.

  He wasn’t sure what to expect.

  Abbot Aelian was sitting by the fire in a pillowed chair, a prayer book in his hand.

  When the sour-faced monk cleared his throat, the abbot looked up, stuck his left pointer finger on the page of the book to mark it, and dismissed the monk with a wave of his right hand.

  The bleak monk turned and left.

  Then the abbot gazed for a long moment at James.

  James felt that all his virtues and faults were being calculated and balanced.

  Finally Abbot Aelian said, without any greeting or preamble, “Very well, James . . . write to this hero, Sandy. You do know how to write?”

  “Oh yes, Father Abbot,” said James, relieved that he was not being scolded for anything.

  The abbot waved him off as well, turning back to his prayer book, and James opened the heavy door and went back to the scriptorium, his heart singing in his chest like Great Tom, the abbey’s bell that tolled the hours.

  He found Brother Anselm in the scriptorium storeroom, counting out the unused scrolls.

  “Abbot Aelian has set me the task of writing a letter to my household at Castle Callander. I will need a bit of paper, a quill and dark ink, and —”

  “Slow down,” Brother Anselm said. He never moved or spoke quickly. Indeed, he was so round, James worried he would roll rather than run anytime he was called on to hurry.

  James repeated the message, but more slowly.

  “Are you certain?” Brother Anselm asked. “I only question this because you still have many months of practice ahead of you. And writing letters to go outside the abbey is what Brother Malcolm does. He has the best hand.”

  “It’s a request to a particular hero that we house in Callander,” James said carefully, slowly, and suddenly conscious that here in the house of the Lord he was doing a lot of . . . improvising.

  That troubled him. But only a little. The destruction by the unicorns, and the possible destruction of the unicorns, troubled him more.

  After a long pause, Brother Anselm asked, “Ah, well — a large letter or a small one?”

  James thought a minute. The monks were very careful of their paper, which was precious. And this letter didn’t need to be long. Or done in large italics. Just written persuasively. And done soon.

  “Quite small, Brother Anselm,” he said. “Almost a note.”

  “Good lad,” Brother Anselm said, and found him a small piece of vellum that had been scraped once or twice and had a jagged edge.

  James sat down at the desk and first gave a great deal of thought about what he needed to say in the letter before he ever dipped the quill into the ink pot. Only after he had the words completely in mind did he begin writing. Even with his careful planning, the letter was still full of ink blots because — while he knew his alpha and omega — his calligraphy, as Brother Luke had said, was a long way from being perfected yet.

  But the blots and spots did not bother him. He knew italics, and a smattering of Latin, and was learning Greek. And though no one much answered his questions, the ones he had now were so much more important than any he had ever asked at home, and he was beginning to figure them out on his own.

  And besides, he thought, putting false modesty aside, my courage really has been tested. And I have even convinced an abbot to do my bidding. In just two short weeks, he had grown years older. He was sure of it.

  He read the letter over.

  When the abbot read the letter, he actually smiled and remarked, “Very concise and to the point, though you are not an actual brother of the abbey yet, nor — as the heir to the dukedom — will you be allowed to do so. Also, you have misspelled my name. But, I admit, it is a difficult one.” The smile that had so quickly come was gone by the end of his speech.

  The letter was sent by a courier monk on one of the two horses in the abbey’s stable. James wondered how long it would take for the hero to get the letter, how long for the hero to come to Cranford. Time mattered. Or, as one of Alexandria’s Latin mottoes said, Tempus fugit. Time flees.

  And then he put those thoughts aside and went back to perfecting his Greek and italic.

  13

  IN WHICH THE HERO SANDY ARRIVES AND FACES THE UNICORNS

  As James learned later, it took the letter two and a half days to get to Castle Callander, for the courier monk rode dawn to dusk and ate as he rode.

  As soon as he delivered the message and received a packet of food from Cook, he rode the two and a half days back. So he told Abbot Aelian, who passed the word along to James.

  Then it took the hero Sandy nearly three days to prepare for the journey.

  It took four days on the road, because along the way Sandy had to rescue a maiden from an angry dragon of a would-be husband.

  The maiden was not really in danger, only having an argument with her husband-to-be. Sandy counseled putting off the wedding until they could talk things through.

  The maiden then suggested marrying Sandy instead.

  That’s when Sandy suddenly discovered an actual nearby dragon that needed dispatching — or so it was said — and after that a marauding giant in the next kingdom to contain. Well, a very big man, anyway, who had a score to settle with the king.

  By then the maiden and her almost husband had talked things through and gotten married, much to the later regret of both of them. The dragon — who looked a lot like a crocodile brought back from the Crusades — was dispatched to the next kingdom, where he got a moat of his own. The giant was taken to a priest who held an exorcism, which helped the giant give up his addiction to marauding. Then he and the king made up, and in turn the giant helped with the church’s soup kitchen.

  It was, all in all, a fine hero’s day.

  But that’s why it wasn’t until a full week had gone by — a full week where the unicorns had done their worst on the apple trees before retiring for their week of digesting and their further week of excreting — that James’ small hero Sandy entered the courtyard of Cranford Abbey.

  James had been watching through the window every day since sending the letter, waiting for Sandy to arrive. He’d neglected his lessons. His Latin had suffered and likewise his Greek. And his calligraphy had not improved one whit since he’d written to ask for help.

  Brother Luke was not pleased, nor was the abbot. Bartholomew and his crew teased James unmercifully about everything from his white-gold hair to his name. (Evidently “Callander” sounded so much like calendar that they said he was pitted like dates, and was a weakling as well.)

  But James kept to his watch, waiting until he saw the great barrel-chested white horse with the forelock plaited with a red ribbon, and the hero in armor sitting atop the horse in the abbey garden. He ran from the dortoir shouting, “Sandy! Sandy!”

  “Hush, Brother James,” said Sandy, dismounting and speaking in a remarkable tenor voice more suited to a bard than a fighting man. “I came as soon as I could.”

  Forgetting he was supposed to be learning monkish ways, James ran into the hero’s arms.

  “There, there,” said Sandy, rubbing James’ head with unrelenting knuckles, “I missed you, too.”

  At that moment, Abbot Aelian appeared.

  “Sir,” said Sandy, executing a remarkably fluid bow for someone in full armor, “I have come to do you ser vice. I will rid you of this plague of unicorns.”

  The abbot was impressed because Sandy’s armor was burnished by dragon’s fire and dented in odd places from battles. “If you can do that, you are welcome indeed to have dinner with me this evening.”

  “Thank you, but no, my lord abbot,” said Sandy. “I will stay here within the garden walls till the deed is done. That’s how I work. Apart and alone.” Another bow, and then Sandy remounted the white horse.

  James turned to the abbot. “May I camp out with Sandy?”

  “Non licet,” said the abbot sternly. “It is not allowed.” />
  “May James be my messenger?” asked Sandy. “And my helper?”

  “Certes,” said the abbot. “Yes, certainly.”

  “Gratia, domine,” Sandy said — Latin for “Thanks, Abbot.”

  If the abbot was surprised the hero spoke Latin, a language not usually known to knights, only monks, well-bred ladies, and scholars, he didn’t mention it. As it had been a long, hard season of heroes who had asked for much and given nothing in return but unwanted advice, Abbot Aelian was not about to make a fuss.

  So the hero Sandy stayed in the orchard, creating a series of high wooden pens and gates of oak, and then making a maze out of rowan boughs, that most magical of woods.

  James helped carry the wooden staves and dig postholes, and at the last festooned the palings with bright golden ribbons that had been blessed with holy water. He never minded the hard work — so hard, in fact, that he and Sandy had little time for conversation.

  Building the pens and gates took a full week, building the maze a week more.

  Brother Gregory, the cook, brought out their meals, staying only a moment to wonder at the small hero who was even smaller without armor and helm. Sandy labored in a strange mixture of a gardener’s trews, a long shirt and tunic, and a cape that nearly touched the ground, despite the warmth of the mid-autumn.

  Each day at noon, Abbot Aelian came to check the progress, and each time he asked, “Will you dine with me tonight?”

  “Non licet,” Sandy answered each time. “It is my promise to God that I stay apart and alone. If I break such an oath, I will get no help from above.” Sandy pointed a finger at the sky.

  Abbot Aelian crossed himself and left, pleased with the pens and maze but puzzled, too. They looked sturdy enough for perhaps one unicorn, but not an entire herd.

  “Please bless this hero,” he muttered under his breath as he left.

  As for James, he was so pleased to have Sandy there, a reminder of home, that he worked extra hard at his studies in the evening, and soon caught up to the other boys in Latin and Greek, and was far ahead of them in developing a fine calligraphic hand as well.