The Very Best of F & SF v1 (59 page)

I was surprised.
“Well, I’m going to get him to come back to my village with me. All those
knights he keeps sending aren’t doing any good at all, so he’ll just have to
take care of that griffin himself. He’s the king. It’s his job.”

“Yes,” Molly
said, but she said it so softly I could barely hear her. She patted my arm
once, lightly, and then she got up and walked away to sit by herself near the
fire. She made it look as though she was banking the fire, but she wasn’t
really.

We started out
early the next morning. Molly had me in front of her on her horse for a time,
but by and by Schmendrick took me up on his, to spare the other one’s sore
foot. He was more comfortable to lean against than I’d expected—bony in some
places, nice and springy in others. He didn’t talk much, but he sang a lot as
we went along, sometimes in languages I couldn’t make out a word of, sometimes
making up silly songs to make me laugh, like this one:

Soozli, Soozli,

speaking loozli,

you disturb my oozli-goozli.

Soozli, Soozli,

would you choozli

to become my squoozli-squoozli?

He didn’t do
anything magic, except maybe once, when a crow kept diving at the horse—out of
meanness; that’s all, there wasn’t a nest anywhere—making the poor thing dance
and shy and skitter until I almost fell off. Schmendrick finally turned in the
saddle and
looked
at it, and the next minute a hawk came swooping out of nowhere and
chased that crow screaming into a thornbush where the hawk couldn’t follow. I
guess that was magic.

It was actually
pretty country we were passing through, once we got onto the proper road.
Trees, meadows, little soft valleys, hillsides covered with wildflowers I didn’t
know. You could see they got a lot more rain here than we do where I live. It’s
a good thing sheep don’t need grazing, the way cows do. They’ll go where the
goats go, and goats will go anywhere. We’re like that in my village, we have to
be. But I liked this land better.

Schmendrick told
me it hadn’t always been like that. “Before Lir, this was all barren desert
where nothing grew—
nothing
, Sooz. It was said that the country was under a curse, and in a way
it was, but I’ll tell you about that another time.” People
always s
ay that when you’re
a child, and I hate it. “But Lír changed everything. The land was so glad to
see him that it began blooming and blossoming the moment he became king, and it
has done so ever since. Except poor Hagsgate, but that’s another story too.” His
voice got slower and deeper when he talked about Hagsgate, as though he weren’t
talking to me.

I twisted my
neck around to look up at him. “Do you think King Lír will come back with me
and kill that griffin? I think Molly thinks he won’t, because he’s so old.” I
hadn’t known I was worried about that until I actually said it.

“Why, of course
he will, girl.” Schmendrick winked at me again. “He never could resist the plea
of a maiden in distress, the more difficult and dangerous the deed, the better.
If he did not spur to your village’s aid himself at the first call, it was
surely because he was engaged on some other heroic venture. I’m as certain as I
can be that as soon as you make your request—remember to curtsey properly—he’ll
snatch up his great sword and spear, whisk you up to his saddlebow, and be off
after your griffin with the road smoking behind him. Young or old, that’s
always been his way.” He rumpled my hair in the back. “Molly overworries. That’s
her
way. We are who we are.”

“What’s a
curtsey?” I asked him. I know now, because Molly showed me, but I didn’t then.
He didn’t laugh, except with his eyes, then gestured for me to face forward
again as he went back to singing.

Soozli, Soozli,

you amuse me,

right down to my solesli-shoesli.

Soozli, Soozli,

I bring newsli—

we could wed next stewsli-Tuesli.

I learned that
the king had lived in a castle on a cliff by the sea when he was young, less
than a day’s journey from Hagsgate, but it fell down— Schmendrick wouldn’t tell
me how—so he built a new one somewhere else. I was sorry about that, because I’ve
never seen the sea, and I’ve always wanted to, and I still haven’t. But I’d
never seen a castle, either, so there was that. I leaned back against his chest
and fell asleep.

They’d been
traveling slowly, taking time to let Molly’s horse heal, but once its hoof was
all right we galloped most of the rest of the way. Those horses of theirs didn’t
look magic or special, but they could run for hours without getting tired, and
when I helped to rub them down and curry them, they were hardly sweating. They
slept on their sides, like people, not standing up, the way our horses do.

Even so, it took
us three full days to reach King Lír. Molly said he had bad memories of the
castle that fell down, so that was why this one was as far from the sea as he
could make it, and as different from the old one. It was on a hill, so the king
could see anyone coming along the road, but there wasn’t a moat, and there
weren’t any guards in armor, and there was only one banner on the walls. It was
blue, with a picture of a white unicorn on it. Nothing else.

I was
disappointed. I tried not to show it, but Molly saw. “You wanted a fortress,” she
said to me gently. “You were expecting dark stone towers, flags and cannons and
knights, trumpeters blowing from the battlements. I’m sorry. It being your
first castle, and all.”

“No, it’s a
pretty
castle,” I said. And
it
was
pretty, sitting
peacefully on its hilltop in the sunlight, surrounded by all those wildflowers.
There was a marketplace, I could see now, and there were huts like ours snugged
up against the castle walls, so that the people could come inside for
protection, if they needed to. I said, “Just looking at it, you can see that
the king is a nice man.”

Molly was
looking at me with her head a little bit to one side. She said, “He is a hero,
Sooz. Remember that, whatever else you see, whatever you think. Lír is a hero.”

“Well, I know
that”
I said. “I’m sure he’ll
help me. I am.”

But I wasn’t.
The moment I saw that nice, friendly castle, I wasn’t a bit sure.

We didn’t have
any trouble getting in. The gate simply opened when Schmendrick knocked once,
and he and Molly and I walked in through the market, where people were selling
all kinds of fruits and vegetables, pots and pans and clothing and so on, the
way they do in our village. They all called to us to come over to their barrows
and buy things, but nobody tried to stop us going into the castle. There were
two men at the two great doors, and they did ask us our names and why we wanted
to see King Lir. The moment Schmendrick told them his name, they stepped back
quickly and let us by, so I began to think that maybe he actually was a great
magician, even if I never saw him do anything but little tricks and little
songs. The men didn’t offer to take him to the king, and he didn’t ask.

Molly was right.
I
was
expecting the castle to
be all cold and shadowy, with queens looking sideways at us, and big men
clanking by in armor. But the halls we followed Schmendrick through were full
of sunlight from long, high windows, and the people we saw mostly nodded and
smiled at us. We passed a stone stair curling up out of sight, and I was sure
that the king must live at the top, but Schmendrick never looked at it. He led
us straight through the great hall—they had a fireplace big enough to roast
three cows!—and on past the kitchens and the scullery and the laundry, to a room
under another stair.
That
was dark. You wouldn’t have found it unless you knew where to look.
Schmendrick didn’t knock at that door, and he didn’t say anything magic to make
it open. He just stood outside and waited, and by and by it rattled open, and
we went in.

The king was in
there. All by himself, the king was in there.

He was sitting
on an ordinary wooden chair, not a throne. It was a really small room, the same
size as my mother’s weaving room, so maybe that’s why he looked so big. He was
as tall as Schmendrick, but he seemed so much
wider.
I was ready for him
to have a long beard, spreading out all across his chest, but he only had a
short one, like my father, except white. He wore a red and gold mantle, and
there was a real golden crown on his white head, not much bigger than the
wreaths we put on our champion rams at the end of the year. He had a kind face,
with a big old nose, and big blue eyes, like a little boy. But his eyes were so
tired and heavy, I didn’t know how he kept them open. Sometimes he didn’t.
There was nobody else in the little room, and he peered at the three of us as
though he knew he knew us, but not
why.
He tried to smile.

Schmendrick said
very gently, “Majesty, it is Schmendrick and Molly, Molly Grue.” The king
blinked at him.

“Molly with the
cat,” Molly whispered. “You remember the cat, Lír.”

“Yes,” the king
said. It seemed to take him forever to speak that one word.

“The cat, yes,
of course.” But he didn’t say anything after that, and we stood there and stood
there, and the king kept smiling at something I couldn’t see.

Schmendrick said
to Molly,
“She
used to forget herself like that.” His voice had changed, the same way it
changed when he was talking about the way the land used to be. He said, “And
then you would always remind her that she was a unicorn.”

And the king
changed too then. All at once his eyes were clear and shining with feeling,
like Molly’s eyes, and he
saw
us for the first time. He said softly, “Oh, my friends!” and he
stood up and came to us and put his arms around Schmendrick and Molly. And I
saw that he had been a hero, and that he was still a hero, and I began to think
it might be all right, after all. Maybe it was really going to be all right.

“And who may
this princess be?” he asked, looking straight at me. He had the proper voice
for a king, deep and strong, but not frightening, not mean. I tried to tell him
my name, but I couldn’t make a sound, so he actually knelt on one knee in front
of me, and he took my hand. He said, “I have often been of some use to
princesses in distress. Command me.”

“I’m not a
princess, I’m Sooz,” I said, “and I’m from a village you wouldn’t even know,
and there’s a griffin eating the children.” It all tumbled out like that, in
one breath, but he didn’t laugh or look at me any differently. What he did was
ask me the name of my village, and I told him, and he said, “But indeed I know
it, madam. I have been there. And now I will have the pleasure of returning.”

Over his
shoulder I saw Schmendrick and Molly staring at each other. Schmendrick was
about to say something, but then they both turned toward the door, because a
small dark woman, about my mother’s age, only dressed in tunic, trews, and
boots like Molly, had just come in. She said in a small, worried voice, “I am
so truly sorry that I was not here to greet His Majesty’s old companions. No
need to tell me your illustrious names—my own is Lisene, and I am the king’s
royal secretary, translator, and protector.” She took King Lír’s arm, very
politely and carefully, and began moving him back to his chair.

Schmendrick
seemed to take a minute getting his own breath back. He said, “I have never
known my old friend Lír to need any of those services. Especially a protector.”

Lisene was busy
with the king and didn’t look at Schmendrick as she answered him. “How long has
it been since you saw him last?” Schmendrick
 didn’t answer. Lisene’s
voice was quiet still, but not so nervous. “Time sets its claw in us all, my
lord, sooner or later. “We are none of us that which we were.” King Lír sat down
obediently on his chair and closed his eyes.

I could tell
that Schmendrick was angry, and growing angrier as he stood there, but he didn’t
show it. My father gets angry like that, which is how I knew. He said, “His
Majesty has agreed to return to this young person’s village with her, in order
to rid her people of a marauding griffin. We will start out tomorrow.”

Lisene swung
around on us so fast that I was sure she was going to start shouting and giving
everybody orders. But she didn’t do anything like that. You could never have
told that she was the least bit annoyed or alarmed. All she said was, “I am
afraid that will not be possible, my lord. The king is in no fit condition for
such a journey, nor certainly for such a deed.”

“The king thinks
rather differently.” Schmendrick was talking through clenched teeth now.