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The fire in the kitchen was burning low, the cat curled up nearly on top of it in his futile quest to stay warm in Haggard's gloomy castle, and Molly was busy cleaning up after a meager lunch and preparing a meager dinner.
The Lady Amalthea had come in as the sunlight was starting to weaken, and in her usual way made the light seem strong and beautiful and clearer than any light Molly had ever seen, for all that the kitchen was still filled with smoke from the too-green wood.
She'd brought one of Lir's poems with her. Molly didn't mention that he'd written it sitting at that very same table where Lady Amalthea now sat, puzzling over the writing of it as much as she was puzzling over the reading of it. At least, Molly thought, if she had to hear one of his poems both before and after he'd delivered it to his lady love, this was one of his stronger efforts. Though she did think he shouldn't have rhymed "insincere" with "boutineer".
"It's the thought that counts," Molly told the lady. It did nothing to take the small frown off of her face.
"What thought is that?"
"Well, for a man to write poetry about you," Molly said. "The gesture's romantic even if the poem isn't." Or so she supposed. No one had ever written a poem about her, except that song Cully had made up about how he's supposedly saved her from a wicked husband, but she didn't think that really counted.
"Men have written poetry about me before," the Lady Amalthea said. "But none of them have ever given me the poem after they've finished it."
"I'm not sure he has finished that one," Molly said, pointing to the last line, which was small and cramped and right at the bottom of the page. "I think he ran out of room. Look sharp and he'll probably drop another verse off tomorrow."
This did not take the small frown off Lady Amalthea's face, but there was little else for Molly to say, then, because Schmendrick burst into the kitchen, making quite as much of a racket as the men-at-arms did, for all that they outnumbered him and were clad in armor, to boot.
"Save me," he said, collapsing into a chair. "Release me from this bondage, steal me away into the night, find me safe passage into some forgotten distant kingdom, anything to get away from Haggard."
Molly dropped the pot of potatoes in front of him. "Mash."
"The woman has no compassion," Schmendrick said, waving a hand at the masher. It wobbled, a moment, before it began to mash up and down on its own, a good eighteen inches to the left of the pot. "She lacks a heart, utterly. I ask for help and she gives me potatoes."
"A bit of honest work would do you a world of good." Molly grabbed for the masher, but her hand could not change its movement, only follow it up and down. She gave it a wrench, but it kept at its motion, up and down, up and down, only now it was sideways.
"I do nothing but work," Schmendrick complained.
"Yes, and see how it turns out. A right disaster." Molly released the masher and glared at him. But he had looked, at the word disaster, at Lady Amalthea. Molly could have kicked him for that.
"How do you expect," she said, loudly, to distract him, "to ever be a proper magician, if you're too lazy to mash a potato?"
It worked, of course. Schmendrick would rather talk of himself, or magic, than do most anything else in the world. "Laziness doesn't enter into it," he said, and he did take the masher in hand finally, but only to still its jumping. Molly supposed it was better than nothing. "Neither do potatoes. The essence of magic isn't work ethic, or any fool writing lines could do it."
"What is this great essence, then?" Molly asked.
"Truth," Lady Amalthea said, sudden as a sneeze. She looked surprised that she'd spoken.
Schmendrick looked surprised, too, but tried to hide it behind a superior expression when he turned back to Molly. "Yes," he said. "Truth. The heart of magic is the ability to look at a thing and see it for what it really is. To listen to a word and hear the real meaning that lies inside it. Once one knows a thing, one has power over it. The great Nikos used to say -- "
But Molly didn't get to hear what the great Nikos used to say, because Schmendrick was up and running again, off to entertain the unappeasable Haggard. It was just as well. Molly was weary of Nikos, though she wished that Schmendrick had not taken the masher with him when he left. She set about the kitchen, trying to do for the potatoes as well as she could manage with a wooden spoon, and quite forgot that Lady Amalthea was in the kitchen until she spoke.
"You never set me any tasks," the lady asked.
Molly couldn't have been more puzzled if she had suddenly stood on her head. "Why would I?"
"You asked Schmendrick to mash the potatoes," the lady said. "You make the men-at-arms do work for you, as well."
"He needs the distraction, and they're used to it," Molly said. "This was their kitchen, before it was mine, and anyway they've little enough to do, men-at-arms in an empty castle. It's not the same as you; it isn't proper, a lady chopping vegetables."
Lady Amalthea traced circles across the table. Molly had spilled salt there earlier, which was bad luck, and hadn't cleaned it up yet, which was worse housekeeping. Lady Amalthea's finger cut a barely visible pattern through the scattered white grains. "You had Lir in here peeling potatoes the other day, though he forgot them as soon as I came in. Is that proper, for a prince to peel potatoes?"
"A prince serves his subjects," Molly answers, for it was kinder than saying that Lir was too easy to boss around.
"Then shouldn't a lady, as well?" Lady Amalthea asked.
"A lady serves through her company," Molly said, her mind at work. This was not a matter of her knowledge or experience; she knew no ladies but the ones in Cully's songs, and it didn't do to take Cully or his songs too seriously. "And through her grace, and her beauty. Not with her hands in the kitchen."
"And how does a unicorn serve?"
Molly felt her breath catch, as she always did, at the word unicorn, and at the depth of sadness on the Lady Amalthea's face as she spoke it.
"A unicorn doesn't serve anyone," Molly said, at last. "A unicorn owes nothing. It has already given the world more than the world can ever repay, through its existence."
"And do I serve through my beauty?" Lady Amalthea asked. "Or do I serve through my existence?"
"Both," Molly said, without thinking, though thought did little to clear up the question for her.
"A thing can not be two things at once," the lady said. "A woman cannot be a unicorn as well. She must be one, or the other."
Molly poked at the fire. This conversation felt like it was beyond her grasp, beyond her knowledge. She cooked, and cleaned, and corrected misspelled words; she did what was practical.
"You were the unicorn first," Molly said, finally.
"Yes," the lady said, slowly. "The woman is only an illusion. Or she was. Now I cannot tell which is hiding within the other."
"Which do you want to be true?" Molly asked, which got her another blink from those remarkable eyes. "I don't know magic. And maybe Schmendrick does, but it doesn't do him much good. If they could both be true, choose the one that pleases you."
Lady Amalthea stared back down at the paper in her hands. "Unicorns are not made to choose," she said, as though she were reminding herself.
Molly had no other words for her, nothing more she could do but put the kettle over the fire for when the men-at-arms returned.
"It's only a poem," Molly said, as the kettle began to whistle.
The Lady Amalthea shook her head. "No. It is a chain, though I know not what it ties me to."
-
"Oh," Molly said to the unicorn, in her dream. "Oh, you're beautiful. I forgot how beautiful. I think I could never remember you properly, if I gazed at you for a year and a day."
"Is that what you see?" the unicorn asked her. "That I am beautiful?"
"Yes," Molly said. "Beautiful. And sad." It felt cruel to say that, but it felt crueler to pretend that she could not see the great sorrow that had settled over the unicorn. It did not make her any less lovely. Perhaps it made her lovelier than before.
"You see a unicorn," she said, "And not a lady. That is what I am, truly. The lady was the illusion."
"No," Molly Grue said. "The lady lived, and loved, and died. She may be gone now, but that makes her no less real. All things are real that can die."
The unicorn tossed her head. "You knew me from the first time you saw me. You never saw a white mare. You saw truly."
"I learned to see through falsehoods long ago," Molly said. "There's no magic to that, or only the magic of heartbreak."
But the unicorn was not satisfied with this. "You saw truth before. Do not fall for the illusion now." She paused, for so long Molly thought she would not speak again, would take her leave or just stand there, in terrible silence, until Molly woke up. "I would have chosen the lady," the unicorn said at last. "But it did not matter, if the truth or the lie was more pleasant. The truth wins out, in the end. Arachne is only a spider, Cerberus is only a dog. There is no Lady Amalthea."
"I still see her," Molly insisted. "I see her as clear as I see you. Perhaps there can be two. Perhaps a poem can be a poem and something else at the same time. Perhaps there's no need to choose -- or the choosing is enough."
The unicorn tossed her head again, and Molly felt quite sure there was something very important -- just on the tip of her tongue -- but she could not get it out. She felt a great sympathy for Lir and his crossed out couplets, just then. She knew now how it was to have something trying to burst out of her heart yet finding no to speak it.
"You dream, Molly Grue," the unicorn told her, not unkindly. "How do you know that any of this is true?"
Molly shook her head. "I could never dream you so perfect as you are," she said. "And I could never feel such joy and sadness, both, for any dream creature."
"Are you sad for me?" the unicorn asked, and Molly found that there were tears on her face, though she did not know when she had shed them.
"Yes," she said, "yes, and happy too. What will you do now?"
"I will live," the unicorn said. "Do the same, Molly Grue, and shed no tears for me. I can shed none for you."
"I won't, then," Molly said, but added, "Oh, will I see you again?"
"You might," the unicorn said. "Is that what you choose?"
"Yes," Molly said, but found she was awake in the moonlight, no living creature in sight save Schmendrick and Lir.
Yes, Molly thought again, and wiped the tears from her face.