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"None," Schmendrick gurgled, bowing over the table and spilling his wine. "None, pardon me, none, none at all." Under the angry gaze of two hundred eyes, he managed to recover himself and reply seriously to Dri
"So it would seem." Dri
He stopped, and Molly Grue said eagerly, "You took the child home with you, of course, and raised it as your own." Dri
"I chased the cats away," he said, "and went home alone." Molly's face turned the color of mist. Dri
Schmendrick was drawing pictures with his finger in a puddle of wine, and might have heard nothing at all. Dri
Schmendrick licked the tip of his finger and looked up. "Lнr," he said thoughtfully. "Prince Lнr. But was there no other way to account for his appearance?"
"Not likely," Dri
The magician calmly held out his glass, and filled it himself when Dri
Dri
"I hope he is," Molly broke in. "I hope Prince Lнr is that baby you left to die, and I hope he drowns your town, and I hope the fish nibble you bare as corncobs -"
Schmendrick kicked her ankle as hard as he could, for the listeners were begi
"You are on your way to Haggard's castle, I believe." Schmendrick nodded. "Ah," Dri
"For a meal?" Schmendrick stood up, knocking his chair over. He leaned on the table with both hands, breathing harshly. "Is that the going rate these days? Di
Molly Grue gripped his arm, crying, "What are you saying?" The magician shook her hand away, but at the same time he lowered one eyelid in a slow wink. Dri
They haggled for half an hour, Schmendrick demanding a hundred gold pieces, and Dri
But the magician shook his head. "I think not. We will go on to the castle, since we're so near it now. The sooner there, the sooner back, eh?" And he gri
"Haggard's castle is always dangerous," Dri
"They say that about Hagsgate too," Schmendrick replied. "You mustn't believe everything you hear, Dri
Outside, the night lay coiled in the street, cobra-cold and scaled with stars. There was no moon. Schmendrick stepped out boldly, chuckling to himself and jingling his gold coins. Without looking at Molly, he said, "Suckers. To assume so lightly that all magicians dabble in death. Now if they had wanted me to lift the curse – ah, I might have done that for no more than the meal. I might have done it for a single glass of wine."
"I'm glad you didn't," Molly said savagely. "They deserve their fate, they deserve worse. To leave a child out in the snow -"
"Well, if they hadn't, he couldn't have grown up to be a prince. Haven't you ever been in a fairy tale before?" The magician's voice was kind and drunken, and his eyes were as bright as his new money. "The hero has to make a prophecy come true, and the villain is the one who has to stop him – though in another kind of story, it's more often the other way around. And a hero has to be in trouble from the moment of his birth, or he's not a real hero. It's a great relief to find out about Prince Lнr. I've been waiting for this tale to turn up a leading man."
The unicorn was there as a star is suddenly there, moving a little way ahead of them, a sail in the dark. Molly said, "If Lнr is the hero, what is she?"
"That's different. Haggard and Lнr and Dri
It seemed to Molly, dreaming and waking as she walked, that Hagsgate was stretching itself like a paw to hold the three of them back, curling around them and batting them gently back and forth, so that they trod in their own tracks over and over. In a hundred years they reached the last house and the end of the town; in another fifty years they had blundered through the damp fields, the vineyards, and the crouching orchards. Molly dreamed that sheep leered at them from treetops, and that cold cows stepped on their feet and shoved them off the withering path. But the light of the unicorn sailed on ahead, and Molly followed it, awake or asleep.