In the year 1067, anno Domini, in the village of Stow-on-the-Wold, England, eighteen dead men turned this way and that in the eighteen arches of the village gibbet. Hanged by Robert the Horrible, a friend of William the Conqueror, they boxed the compass with fishy eyes. North, east, south, west, and north again, there was no hope for the kind, the poor, and the thoughtful.

Across the road from the gibbet lived Elmer the woodcutter, his wife Ivy, and Ethelbert, his ten-year-old son.

Behind Elmer’s hut was the forest.

Elmer closed the door of his hut, closed his eyes and licked his lips and tasted rue. He sat down at the table with Ethelbert. Their gruel had grown cold during the unexpected visit from the squire of Robert the Horrible.

Ivy pressed her back to the wall, as though God had just passed by. Her eyes were bright, her breathing shallow.

Ethelbert stared at his cold gruel blankly, bleakly, his young mind waterlogged in a puddle of family tragedy.

“Oh, didn’t Robert the Horrible look grand, though, sitting out there on his horse?” said Ivy. “All that iron and paint and feathers, and such extra-fancy drapes on his horse.” She flapped her rags and tossed her head like an empress as the hoofbeats of the Normans’ horses died away.

“Grand, all right,” said Elmer. He was a small man with a large-domed head. His blue eyes were restless with unhappy intelligence. His small frame was laced with scraggly ropes of muscle, the bonds of a thinking man forced to labor. “Grand is what he is,” he said.

“You can say what you want about them Normans,” said Ivy, “they done brought class to England.”

“We’re paying for it,” said Elmer. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” He buried his fingers in the flaxen thatch of Ethelbert’s hair, tilted the boy’s head back, and searched his eyes for a sign that life was worth living. He saw only a mirror image of his own troubled soul.

“All the neighbors must of saw Robert the Horrible snarling out front, so high and mighty,” said Ivy proudly. “Just wait till they hear he sent his squire in here to make you the new tax collector.”

Elmer shook his head, his lips waggling slackly. He had lived to be loved for his wisdom and harmlessness. Now he had been told to represent Robert the Horrible’s greed—or die horribly.

“I’d like to have me a dress made out of what his horse was wearing,” said Ivy. “Blue, all shot through with them little gold crosses.” She was happy for the first time in her life. “I’d make it look careless-like,” she said, “all kind of bunched up in back and dragging—only there wouldn’t be nothing careless about it. And maybe, after I got me some decent clothes, I could pick me up a little French, and parlee voo with the Norman ladies, so refined and all.”

Elmer sighed and cupped his son’s hands in his own. Ethelbert’s hands were coarse. The palms were scratched, and earth had worked into the pores and under the nails. Elmer traced a scratch with his fingertip. “How’d you get this?” he said.

“Working on the trap,” said Ethelbert. He came to life, radiant with intelligence of his own. “I been fixing thorn trees over the hole,” he said eagerly, “so when the unicorn falls in, the thorn trees fall in on top of him.”

“That should hold him,” said Elmer tenderly. “It isn’t many families in England that can look forward to a unicorn dinner.”

“I wish you’d come up in the forest and have a look at the trap,” said Ethelbert. “I want to make sure I got it right.”

“I’m sure it’s a fine trap, and I want to see it,” said Elmer. The dream of catching a unicorn ran through the drab fabric of the lives of the father and son like a golden thread.

Both knew there were no unicorns in England. But they’d agreed to madness—to live as though there were unicorns around; as though Ethelbert were going to catch one any day; as though the scrawny family would soon be stuffing itself with meat, selling the precious horn for a fortune, living happily ever after.

“You’ve been saying you’d come and see it for a year,” said Ethelbert.

“I’ve been busy,” said Elmer. He didn’t want to inspect the trap, to see it for what it really was—a handful of twigs over a scratch in the ground, magnified into a great engine of hope by the boy’s imagination. Elmer wanted to go on thinking of it as big and promising, too. There was no hope anywhere else.

Elmer kissed his son’s hands, and sniffed the mingled smells of flesh and earth. “I’ll come see it soon,” he said.

“And I’d have enough left over from them horse drapes to make drawers for you and little Ethelbert,” said Ivy, still enchanted. “Wouldn’t you two be the ones, though, with blue drawers all shot through with them little gold crosses?”

“Ivy,” said Elmer patiently, “I wish you’d get it through your head—Robert really is horrible. He isn’t going to give you the drapes off his horse. He never gave anybody anything.”

“I guess I can dream if I want to,” said Ivy. “I guess that’s a woman’s privilege.”

“Dream of what?” said Elmer.

“If you do a good job, he just might give me the drapes off his horse after they’re all wore out,” said Ivy. “And maybe, if you collect so many taxes they can’t hardly believe it, maybe they’ll invite us to the castle sometimes.” She walked about the hut coquettishly, holding the hem of an imaginary train above the dirt floor. “Bon joor, monsoor, madame,” she said. “I trust your lordship and ladyship ain’t poorly.”

“Is that the best dream you’ve got?” said Elmer, shocked.

“And they’d give you some distinguished name like Elmer the Bloody or Elmer the Mad,” said Ivy, “and you and me and Ethelbert would ride to church on Sundays, all spruced up, and if some old serf talked to us snotty, we’d haul off and—”

“Ivy!” cried Elmer. “We are serfs.”

Ivy tapped her foot and rocked her head from side to side. “Ain’t Robert the Horrible just gave us the opportunity to improve ourselves?” she said.

“To be as bad as he is?” said Elmer. “That’s an improvement?”

Ivy sat down at the table, and put her feet up on it. “If a body gets stuck in the ruling classes through no fault of their own,” she said, “they got to rule or have folks just lose all respect for government.” She scratched herself daintily. “Folks got to be governed.”

“To their sorrow,” said Elmer.

“Folks got to be protected,” said Ivy, “and armor and castles don’t come cheap.”

Elmer rubbed his eyes. “Ivy, would you tell me what it is we’re being protected from that’s so much worse than what we’ve got?” he said. “I’d like to have a look at it, and then make up my own mind about what scares me most.”

Ivy wasn’t listening to him. She was thrilling to the approach of hoofbeats. Robert the Horrible and his entourage passed on their way back to the castle, and the hut trembled with might and glory.

Ivy ran to the door and threw it open.

Elmer and Ethelbert bowed their heads.

There were shouts of happy surprise from the Normans.

“Hien!”

“Regardez!”

“Donnez la chasse, mes braves!”

The Normans’ horses reared, wheeled, and galloped into the forest.

“What’s the good news?” said Elmer. “Did they squash something?”

“They seen a deer!” said Ivy. “They’re all taking out after it, with Robert the Horrible in front.” She put her hand over her heart. “Ain’t he the sportsman, though?”

“Ain’t he, though,” said Elmer. “May God make his right arm strong.” He looked to Ethelbert for an answering sardonic smile.

Ethelbert’s thin face was white. His eyes bugged. “The trap—they’re going up where the trap is!” he said.

“If they lay a finger on that trap,” said Elmer, “I’ll—” The cords in his neck stood out and his hands became claws. Of course Robert the Horrible would hack the boy’s work of love to pieces if he saw it. “Pour le sport, pour le sport,” he said bitterly.

Elmer tried to daydream of murdering Robert the Horrible, but the dream was as frustrating as life—a search for weaknesses where there were no weaknesses. The dream ended truthfully, with Robert and his men on horses as big as cathedrals, with Robert and his men in iron shells, laughing behind the bars of their visors, choosing at leisure from their collections of skewers, chains, hammers, and meat-axes—choosing ways to deal with an angry woodcutter in rags.

Elmer’s hands went limp. “If they wreck the trap,” he said flabbily, “we’ll build another one, better than ever.”

Shame for his weakness made Elmer sick. The sickness worsened. He rested his head on his folded arms. When he raised his head, it was to look about himself with a death’s-head grin. He had passed his breaking point.

“Father! Are you all right?” said Ethelbert, alarmed.

Elmer stood shakily. “Fine,” he said, “just fine.”

“You look so different,” said Ethelbert.

“I am different,” said Elmer. “I’m not afraid anymore.” He gripped the edge of the table and shouted. “I’m not afraid!”

“Hush!” said Ivy. “They’ll hear you!”

“I will not hush!” said Elmer passionately.

“You better hush,” said Ivy. “You know what Robert the Horrible does to people who won’t hush.”

“Yes,” said Elmer, “he nails their hats to their heads. But, if that’s the price I have to pay, I’ll pay it.” He rolled his eyes. “When I thought of Robert the Horrible wrecking the boy’s trap, the whole story of life came to me in a blinding flash!”

“Father, listen—” said Ethelbert, “I’m not scared he’s going to wreck the trap. I’m scared he’s going to—”

“A blinding flash!” cried Elmer.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Ivy impatiently, closing the door. “All right, all right, all right,” she said with a sigh, “let’s hear the story of life in a blinding flash.”

Ethelbert tugged at his father’s sleeve. “If I do say so myself,” he said, “that trap is a—”

“The wreckers against the builders!” said Elmer. “There’s the whole story of life!”

Ethelbert shook his head and talked to himself. “If his horse ever steps on the rope that’s hooked up to the sapling that’s hooked up to the—” He bit his lip.

“Are you all through, Elmer?” said Ivy. “Is that it?” Her eagerness to get back to watching the Normans was infuriatingly transparent. He fingered the doorpull.

“No, Ivy,” said Elmer tensely, “I am not through.” He knocked her hand away from the doorpull.

“You done struck me,” said Ivy, amazed.

“All day you have that thing open!” said Elmer. “I wish we didn’t have a door! All day you do nothing but sit in front of the door, watching executions and waiting for the Normans to pass.” He shivered his hands in her face. “No wonder your brains are all fuddled with glory and violence!”

Ivy cringed pitifully. “I just watch,” she said. “A body gets lonely, and it helps to make the time go.”

“You’ve been watching too long!” said Elmer. “And I’ve got more news for you.”

“Yes?” piped Ivy.

Elmer squared his narrow shoulders. “Ivy,” he said, “I am not going to be tax collector for Robert the Horrible.”

Ivy gasped.

“I am not going to help the wreckers,” said Elmer. “My son and I are builders.”

“He’ll hang you if you don’t,” said Ivy. “He promised he would.”

“I know,” said Elmer. “I know.” Fear hadn’t come to him yet. Pain hadn’t come where pain would come. There was only the feeling of having done something perfect at last—the taste of a drink from a cold, pure spring.

Elmer opened the door. The wind had freshened, and the chains by which the dead men hung sang a chorus of slow, rusty squawks. The wind came from over the forest, and it carried to Elmer’s ears the cries of the Norman sportsmen.

The cries sounded strangely bewildered, unsure. Elmer supposed that this was because they were so far away.

“Robert? Allo, allo? Robert? Hien! Allo, allo?”

“Allo? Allo? Hien! Robert—dites quelque chose, s’il vous plaît. Hien! Hien! Allo?”

“Allo, allo, allo? Robert? Robert l’horrible? Hien! Allo, allo, allo?”

Ivy put her arms around Elmer from behind, and rested her cheek on his back. “Elmer, honey,” she said, “I don’t want you to get hung. I love you, honey.”

Elmer patted her hands. “And I love you, Ivy,” he said. “I’ll miss you.”

“You’re really going through with it?” said Ivy.

“It’s time to die for what I believe in,” said Elmer. “And even if it wasn’t, I’d still have to.”

“Why, why?” said Ivy.

“Because I said I would in front of my son,” said Elmer. Ethelbert came to him, and Elmer put his arms around the boy.

The little family was now bound by a tangle of arms. The three entwined rocked back and forth as the sun set—rocked in a rhythm they felt in their bones.

Ivy sniffled against Elmer’s back. “You’re just teaching Ethelbert how to get his self hung, too,” she said. “He’s so fresh with them Normans now, it’s a wonder they ain’t flang him down the oubliette.”

“I only hope that Ethelbert has a son like mine before he dies,” said Elmer.

“Everything seemed to be going so grand,” said Ivy. She burst into tears. “Here you was offered a fine position, with a chance for advancement,” she said brokenly. “And I figured maybe, after Robert the Horrible had wore out his horse drapes, you could kind of ask him—”

“Ivy!” said Elmer. “Don’t make me feel worse. Comfort me.”

“It’d be a sight easier, if I knew what it was you thought you was doing,” said Ivy.

Two Normans came out of the forest, unhappy and baffled. They faced each other, spread their arms, and shrugged.

One pushed a shrub aside with his broadsword and looked under it pathetically. “Allo, allo?” he said. “Robert?”

“Il a disparu!” said the other.

“Il s’est évanoui!”

“Le cheval, l’armement, les plumes—tout d’un coup!”

“Poof!”

“Hélas!”

They saw Elmer and his family. “Hien!” called one to Elmer. “Avez-vous vu Robert?”

“Robert the Horrible?” said Elmer.

“Oui.”

“Sorry,” said Elmer. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.”

“Eh?”

“Je n’ai vu pas ni peau ni cheveux de lui,” said Elmer.

The Normans faced each other again, desolately.

“Hélas!”

“Zut!”

They went into the forest again slowly.

“Allo, allo, allo?”

“Hien! Robert? Allo?”

“Father! Listen!” said Ethelbert wildly.

“Shhhhh,” said Elmer gently. “I’m talking to your mother now.”

“It’s just like that fool unicorn trap,” said Ivy. “I didn’t understand that, neither. I was real patient about that trap. I never said a word. But now I’m going to speak my piece.”

“Speak it,” said Elmer.

“That trap don’t have nothing to do with nothing,” said Ivy.

Tears formed on the rims of Elmer’s eyes. The image of the twigs, the scratch in the earth, and the boy’s imagination said all there was to say about his life—the life that was about to end.

“There ain’t no unicorns around here,” said Ivy, proud of her knowledge.

“I know,” said Elmer. “Ethelbert and I know.”

“And you getting yourself hung ain’t going to make anything better, neither,” said Ivy.

“I know. Ethelbert and I know that, too,” said Elmer.

“Maybe I’m the dumb one,” said Ivy.

Elmer suddenly felt the terror and loneliness and pain-to-come that were the price for the perfect thing he was doing—the price of the taste of a drink from a cold, pure spring. They were far worse than shame could ever be.

Elmer swallowed. His neck hurt where the noose would bite. “Ivy, honey,” he said, “I sure hope you are.”

 

That night, Elmer prayed for a new husband for Ivy, a stout heart for Ethelbert, and a merciful death and paradise for himself on the morrow.

“Amen,” said Elmer.

“Maybe you could just pretend to be tax collector,” said Ivy.

“Where would I get the just-pretend taxes?” said Elmer.

“Maybe you could be tax collector for just a little while,” said Ivy.

“Just long enough to get hated for good reason,” said Elmer. “Then I could hang.”

“There’s always something,” said Ivy. Her nose reddened.

“Ivy—” said Elmer.

“Hmmm?”

“Ivy—I understand about the blue dress all shot through with little gold crosses,” said Elmer. “I want that for you, too.”

“And the drawers for you and Ethelbert,” said Ivy. “It wasn’t all just for me.”

“Ivy,” said Elmer, “what I’m doing—it’s more important than those horse drapes.”

“That’s my trouble,” said Ivy. “I just can’t imagine anything grander than them.”

“Neither can I,” said Elmer. “But there are such things. There’s got to be.” He smiled sadly. “Whatever they are,” he said, “they’re what I’ll be dancing about when I dance on air tomorrow.”

“I wish Ethelbert would get back,” said Ivy. “We should all be together.”

“He had to check his trap,” said Elmer. “Life goes on.”

“I’m glad them Normans finally went home,” said Ivy. “It was allo and hien and hélas and zut and poof till I thought I’d near go crazy. I guess they done found Robert the Horrible.”

“Thus sealing my doom,” said Elmer. He sighed. “I’ll go look for Ethelbert,” he said. “How better could a man spend his last night on earth than in bringing his son home from the forest?”

 

Elmer went out into a pale blue world of night under a half-moon. He followed the path that Ethelbert’s feet had worn—followed it to the high, black wall of the forest.

“Ethelbert!” he called.

There was no reply.

Elmer pushed into the forest. Branches whipped his face, and brambles snatched at his legs.

“Ethelbert!”

Only the gibbet replied. The chains squawked, and a skeleton fell rattling to earth. There were now only seventeen exhibits in the eighteen arches. There was room for one more.

Elmer’s anxiety for Ethelbert grew. It drove him hard, deeper and deeper into the forest. He came to a clearing, and rested, panting, sweat stinging his eyes.

“Ethelbert!”

“Father?” said Ethelbert in the thicket ahead. “Come here and help me.”

Elmer went into the thicket blindly, his hands groping before him.

Ethelbert caught his father’s hand in the perfect darkness. “Careful!” said Ethelbert. “Another step, and you’ll be in the trap.”

“Oh,” said Elmer. “That was a close thing.” Playfully, to make the boy feel good, he filled his voice with fear. “Whoooooey! I guess!”

Ethelbert pulled his hand down, and pressed it against something lying on the ground.

Elmer was amazed to feel the form of a big, dead stag. He knelt by it. “A deer!” he said.

His voice came back to him, seemingly from the bowels of the earth. “A deer, a deer, a deer.”

“It took me an hour to get it out of the trap,” said Ethelbert.

“Trap, trap, trap,” said the echo.

“Really?” said Elmer. “Good Lord, boy! I had no idea that trap was that good!”

“Good, good, good,” said the echo.

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Ethelbert.

“It, it, it,” said the echo.

“Where’s that echo coming from?” said Elmer.

“From, from, from?” said the echo.

“From right in front of you,” said Ethelbert. “From the trap.”

Elmer threw himself backwards as Ethelbert’s voice came out of the hole before him, came out of the earth as though from the gates of Hell itself.

“Trap, trap, trap.”

“You dug it?” said Elmer, aghast.

“God dug it,” said Ethelbert. “It’s the chimney of a cave.”

Elmer stretched out limp on the ground. He rested his head on the cooling, stiffening haunch of the stag. There was only one flaw in the thicket’s roof of verdure. Through that flaw came the light from one bright star. Elmer saw the star as a rainbow through the prisms of grateful tears.

“I have nothing more to ask of life,” said Elmer. “Tonight, everything has been given me—and more, and more, and more. With God’s help, my son has caught a unicorn.” He touched Ethelbert’s foot, and stroked its arch. “If God listens even to the prayers of an humble woodcutter and his son,” he said, “what can’t the world become?”

Elmer almost slipped away to sleep, so much at one was he with the plan of things.

Ethelbert roused him. “Shall we take the stag down to Mom?” said Ethelbert. “A midnight feast?”

“Not the whole deer,” said Elmer. “Too risky. We’ll cut some choice steaks, and leave the rest hidden here.”

“Have you got a knife?” said Ethelbert.

“No,” said Elmer. “Against the law, you know.”

“I’ll get something to cut with,” said Ethelbert.

Elmer, still lying down, heard his son lower himself into the chimney of the cave; heard him seek and find footholds deeper and deeper in the earth; heard him grunting and wrestling with logs at the bottom.

When Ethelbert returned, he was carrying something long that caught the glint from the one bright star. “This should do it,” he said.

He gave to Elmer Robert the Horrible’s keen, two-handed broadsword.

 

It was midnight.

The little family was stuffed with venison.

Elmer picked his teeth with Robert the Horrible’s poignard.

Ethelbert, on watch at the door, wiped his lips with a plume.

Ivy pulled the horse-drapes about her contentedly. “If I’d of knowed you was going to catch something,” she said, “I wouldn’t of thought that trap was such a dumb idea.”

“That’s the way it is with traps,” said Elmer. He leaned back and tried to feel elated about not hanging the next day, now that Robert the Horrible was dead. But he found the reprieve a dull affair compared to the other thoughts carousing in the stately dome of his head.

“There’s just one thing I got to ask,” said Ivy.

“Name it,” said Elmer expansively.

“I wish you two’d quit making light of me, telling me this is unicorn meat,” said Ivy. “You think I’ll believe anything you tell me.”

“It is unicorn meat,” said Elmer. “And I’m going to tell you something else you can believe.” He slipped on Robert the Horrible’s iron gauntlet, and rapped the table with it. “Ivy—there’s a great day coming for the little people.”

Ivy looked at him adoringly. “Ain’t you and Ethelbert nice,” she said, “going out and getting me the clothes for it?”

There were hoofbeats in the distance.

“Hide everything!” said Ethelbert.

In an instant, every vestige of Robert the Horrible and the deer was out of sight.

Norman warriors, armed to the teeth, thundered by Elmer the woodcutter’s humble hut.

They shouted in fear and defiance of formless demons in the night.

“Hien! Hien! Courage, mes braves!”

The hoofbeats faded away.