The Maiden and the Unicorn by Isolde Martyn

he pulled his horse's head round and moved the splendid beast out of their way. Margery watched him still as his two menservants closed in behind him but he rode away without a second glance.
    "Bloody interfering Burgundians!" snarled the officer, bawling at his men to clear a wider path.
    Margery and her maidservant were shown into a small room in the governor's house, unfurnished save for a single bench. The spluttering captain had been led away to the town lock-up. The letters were given into the charge of an officious red-haired clerk who shrugged insolently at Margery's demands.
    "Good woman, I doubt he'll see you today or any day."
    "On the contrary, you will ensure he does, sirrah, that is if you seek to rise in the world. Make no doubt that I have the King's ear. You may tell your lord and his counsellors that they spike traitors in Southampton these days. Now I think upon it, your master's arrest of a royal emissary stinks of treason, stinks to the vaults of Heaven. Tell him that I remember the old days when he was glad to dine at my lord of Warwick's table. Perhaps the King's grace has a longer memory than your lord."
    The officer's freckled face turned a red that went ill with his ruddy head as he abruptly turned on his heel and left them without another word.
    "Mistress, that was a marvel. Such wondrous words."
    "Words are useless, Alys, if no one takes any notice."
    No one did. The bells of Calais tolled out each hour increasing the women's frustration and their hunger. The curfew bell had finally convinced Margery they had been forgotten when the door was unlocked and the red-haired man sniffingly confronted them, informing Margery that Lord Wenlock had at last agreed to see her.
    A smell of food lingering about the passage way and hall painfully assaulted their bellies. The eyes of the servants, clearing away the scraps, followed them with amused curiosity.
    "Where is it we are going, mistress?"
    "I care not, Alys, so long as there is some food at the end of it. Now I know how hungry the small creatures feel in mid-winter. "
    It was not expected—the governor's chamber. His bed, with its scarlet hangings and furs, glimmered on a wooden plinth in the soft light of the candles behind the heads of the two men who were expecting her. Neither rose, they sat behind a table, their pointed toes stretched out towards the generous fire. Like two magistrates, Margery thought, except they had the contented look of men who had feasted well. The white linen of the board bore a scattering of crumbs and regretfully nothing else save two goblets.
    "Announce me," Margery commanded calmly. Astonished by her audacious sense of occasion, the officer was jolted to comply. "My lord, your excellency, this woman claims to be Mistress Margery of Warwick,"—his tone dripped with irony—"ward to the great rebel styling himself Earl of Warwick."
    It required effort not to show her annoyance especially as the older man, whom she remembered from her childhood, snorted, sousing her from head to toe with his rheumy glance.
    Now how did the Countess always do it? She had a way of making people behave as they should. Well, it was worth a try. You had to achieve a balance of incredulity and indignation and sweep your gaze imperiously down them. Margery tried it on Wenlock and his mouth fell open, but it was the other man in the black velvet houppelande who rose to his feet and came round the table to her.
    "Demoiselle," he took her hand, "I am not disappointed." His deep grey eyes were compelling, reminding her of Richard Stone in the intelligence of his stare. It was the silver-haired Burgundian.
    "You may not be disappointed, monsieur," she answered calmly, "whatever you mean by it, but I am." She turned her face to Governor Wenlock. "Is this how you treat the King's messenger, my lord? If I sound irritable it is because I am almost faint with hunger."
    The debonair Burgundian let go of her hand, shaking with a mirth he was trying to