The Last Unicorn

Chapter X I

PRINCESS LIA CAME HOME THREE DAYS AFTER sHE SET OUT TO SLAY THE BACHELOR fancying ogress, with the Great Ax of Duchess Alba slung behind him and the ogress's head bumping at her saddlebow. She offered neither prize to the Lord Amateon, nor did she rush to find him with the monster's blood still brown on her hands. She had made up her mind, as she explained to Milo Grue in the scullery that evening, nevermore to trouble the Lord Amateon with his attentions, but to live quietly in the thought of him, serving his ardently until his lonely death, but seeking neither his company, his admiration, nor his love. "I will be as anonymous as the air he breathes," she said, "as invisible as the force that holds him on the earth." Thinking about it for a little, she added, "I may write a poem for her now and then, and slip it under his door, or just leave it somewhere for him to chance upon. But I won't ever sign the poem."

"It's very noble," Milo said. He felt relieved that the princess was giving up her courtship, and amused as well, and somewhat sad. "Boys like poems better than dead dragons and magic swords," he offered. "I always did, anyway, when I was a boy. The reason I ran off with Chavi—"

But Princess Lia interrupted him, saying firmly, "No, do not give me hope. I must learn to live without hope, as my mother does, and perhaps we will understand each other at last." She dug into her pockets, and Milo heard paper crackling. "Actually, I've already written a few poems about it—hope and him, and so on. You might look them over if you wanted to."

"I'd be very pleased," Milo said. "But will you never go out again, then, to fight with black knights and ride through rings of fire?" The words were meant teasingly, but he found as he spoke that he would have been a little sorry if it were so, for her adventures had made her much beautifier and taken off a lot of weight, and given her, besides, a hint of the musky fragrance of death that clings to all heroes. But the princess shook her head, looking almost embarrassed.

"Oh, I suppose I'll keep my hand in," she muttered. "But it wouldn't be for the show of it, or for her to find out. It was like that at first, but you get into the habit of rescuing people, breaking enchantments, challenging the wicked duke in fair combat—it's hard to give up being a hero, once you get used to it. Do you like the first poem?"

"It certainly has a lot of feeling," he said. "Can you really rhyme 'bloomed' and 'ruined'?"

"It needs a bit of smoothing out," Princess Lia admitted. " 'Miracle' is the word I'm worried about."

"I was wondering about 'grackle' myself."

"No, the spelling. Is it one r and two l s, or the other way round?"

"One r, anyway, I think," Milo said. "Sanjuanita"—for the magician had just stooped through the doorway—"how many r s in 'miracle'?"

"Two," she answered wearily. "It has the same root as 'mirror.' " Milo ladled her out a bowl of broth, and she sat down at the table. Her eyes were hard and cloudy as jade, and one of the lids was twitching.

"I can't do this very much longer," he said slowly. "It isn't this horrible place, and it isn't having to be listening for him all the time—I'm getting rather good at that—it's the wretched cheapjack flummery she has me perform for her, hours on end—all night last night. I wouldn't mind if she asked for the real magic, or even for simple conjuring, but it's always the rings and the goldfish, the cards and the scarves and the string, exactly as it was in the Midnight Carnival. I can't do it. Not much more."

"But that was what he wanted you for," Milo protested. "If she wanted real magic, she'd have kept the old magician, that Marisol." Sanjuanita raised her head and gave him a look that was almost amused. "I didn't mean it like that," he said. "Besides it's only a little while, until we find the way to the Red Bull that the cat told me about."