The Unicorns of Caer Liel
By Laura Schiller
Series: The Faerie Path
Copyright: Frewin Jones; poem quoted from pages 116-117.
A woman's voice sounded in the nursery, low and musical, trembling with the shadows of fear and pain that never quite left her, not even when singing lullabies to her little son.
There were the harsh words that stung like whipcord, the purple bruises she hid with high-necked gowns and white lies. And most of all, the fear for the boy. What would become of him? How long could she protect him from his own father?
"Ride swift for home and hearth, my child,
for the unicorns are at your heel.
The ravens hang on the freckled cliffs,
watchful as the day ends.
The gale-torn roadway shudders, my child,
the castle gates slam at your back.
The horses are sweating, hard-ridden and
steaming in the courtyard.
You are safe now, my child – for the present,
you are safe."
Rianna Drake, Duchess of Weir, smoothed down the scarlet silk quilt on her son's ebony four-poster bed as she sang the old family lullaby. The fire was burning low and so were the candles on the nightstand; the room was full of flickering night shadows and swaths of silver moonlight, mirrored in the boy's grey eyes. They were huge with fear and fascination, as always, and he asked the same question he had asked so often.
"Are they dangerous, Mother?" asked Gabriel. "The unicorns?"
"Yes, but do not fear. Castle Weir is a strong place; they can never reach you here. Even should you venture outdoors, your guardsmen will always protect you."
Rianna stroked Gabriel's black tufts of hair with a cool, soothing touch; he smiled.
"Goodnight, my son," she said, kissing his forehead. "May your dreams be sweet and your waking joyful."
"Goodnight, Mama," said the boy, his eyes already beginning to close.
The last words they ever exchanged.
()
The next morning, Gabriel woke up crying. The wild unicorns had been chasing him, with blood glistening on their long spiked horns and madness in their eyes. And he had been frozen, unable to move.
"Mama!"
No answer.
Half-blinded with tears, Gabriel stumbled out of his enormous four-poster bed, jumped down the three steps he needed to climb into it, and ran through the cold stone of the castle in his white cotton nightgown like a small ghost. Through the long, twisting corridors with their smoky candle sconces, into his mother's bedroom, her solar, the privy, the dining room, his playroom, everything a blur of cold bare feet, tears and fears. The unicorns must not catch him. Mama would protect him.
Finally, as a last resort even though it frightened him almost as much as the unicorns, Gabriel peered through the door in his mother's bedroom which she had told him never to touch. It led to a short, narrow, dusty hallway with another door at its end. The door to the Duke's bedchamber.
He opened it – and was confronted with a sight he would never forget. It seared his eyes and mind like a cattle-brand; he turned away and closed his eyes, but it was still there.
A heap of white silk and velvet. Long black hair scattered across the red carpet. A face, almost as white as the fabric, twisted with agony almost beyond recognition. And on that white bodice, just where the fabric met the skin, a red stain. Redder than anything in the world.
May your dreams be sweet and your waking joyful.
Do not fear.
She did not open her eyes. She did not move. She did not say a word of comfort to her son. What was happening?
"Mama?"
Suddenly a voice spoke, a deep, elegant-sounding man's voice with a steel edge to it. "Your mother is dead."
Gabriel looked up and saw Duke Aldritch, his father, polishing a long crystal sword.
"Why?" The boy's voice was a tiny squeak in comparison.
"Because she betrayed me."
The Duke stepped over his wife's body, sheathed his sword, and looked down at his son from what seemed the height of an enormous, snow-covered mountain. An avalanche could roll down from him and crush Gabriel at any moment.
Instead the Duke put a heavy, gloved hand on his son's shoulder. "She was nothing but a woman, my son. They are all worthless. Forget her."
Outside the window, far away, a herd of ice-white unicorns thundered across the rugged plains of Caer Liel. Gabriel could hear them. Any moment, they might enter the castle and tear him to pieces.
His mother had lied. The world was not a safe place after all.
He jerked away from his father's hand and ran down the hall. Back to his own room to dress. Something black, of course. Outside to the stables, where the new boy – Evan? Edgar? – was combing out the pony's mane.
"Good morning, my lord," said the stableboy, more cheerfully than anyone had a right to. "Shall I saddle Moonlight?"
He didn't know about Lady Rianna's death yet, of course, but Gabriel still took it as a personal insult. Moonlight was Gabriel's old white pony, who would soon be put out to pasture since Gabriel was almost tall enough to ride a real horse. And why couldn't that time be now?
"No. I want to ride Audacity."
He pointed to his father's coal-black stallion.
"But, my lord...he is not safe..."
That was the wrong word. The stableboy might be taller and stronger, but Gabriel was the Duke's heir and could get away with anything. He slapped the stableboy so hard his hand stung and shouted, "Do as I bid you, fool!"
Of course Audacity was not safe. Nothing was safe. But Gabriel would be damned if he let that stop him. He would prove to the horse, the stableboy, his father, and the whole world, that he was not afraid. He was a Lord. He was in control.