Jane Yolen - The Lady's Garden

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THE LADY’S GARDEN

By Jane Yolen

* * * *

IN THE LADY’S GARDEN lived three unicorns. They were all old — Lady,

garden, and unicorns — having been there from the beginning of things. The garden

was kept from the sight of the World by a very large stone wall which was

overgrown with spindly weeds and thistles, and hairy moss plugging up the chinks.

When the sun shone down, the unicorns liked to lie under the apple tree,

which was the oldest thing of all in the garden. Its branches hung down to the

ground, gnarled and misshapen, but covered with the most delicious red apples the

year round.

When it rained, which was an hour every other day and twice on Tuesdays,

regular as clockwork, the unicorns would stay in the stone barn, snugged together in

the sweet-smelling hay. The patter on the barn roof then took on a soporific rhythm,

and often the unicorns would doze and dream. Their dreams were always about

running over great green swards, the wind through the white manes. Always.

If the Lady dreamed — or even she napped — no one knew for sure, for she

only spoke of waking things: tide and sun and wind and rain and the changing of

seasons.

On one side of the garden was, as I have said, the World. On the other was

the Great Ocean. It was the Ocean’s tide which was often the subject of the Lady’s

discourse. And though she may have thought any trouble to the garden would come

to it from the World’s side, it was the Ocean that did, in the end, bring about her

direst time.

Now, though the unicorns were all terribly old, they were not the same age.

The oldest was Wishart, whose skin was almost translucent; it was a kind of pearly

white, like the inside of certain shells. When he walked — and he never ran — he

moved with an ancient grace. His breath studied musty, like a bowl of crushed

flower petals. He rarely listened to anything but the sound of the Ocean outside the

wall.

The second oldest was Tartary. Her skin was like vellum and looked brittle

but wasn’t. In fact it was as soft as an infant’s and smelled that sweet. sour infant

smell, as if talc and sour milk had been mixed together. Tartary listened only to the

Lady’s voice.

The third oldest — they called her Infants when they called her anything at all

— still had a bit of spirit to her walk, and a bit of flint in her amber eyes. Even her

horn was still the gold of new-minted coins, while the other unicorns had horns more

like the color of the full moon.

If Wishart listened only to the sound of the Ocean, and Tartary listened only

to the Lady, Infants heard the sounds of the earth growing: grass and leaves and

timothy in the fields. She could distinguish between oak and ash on the rise, though

the sound of rowan growing made her tremble all over.

And the Lady? She was old but she never seemed to age. Except her eyes,

which were once the deep, rich blue of a Spring sky and were now faded like the

skies over Winter.

Now the way that trouble came to the garden was this. It was a small thin&

but the Lady should have known that small things carry the greatest dangers. Didn’t

a tiny viper bite the heel of the hero and bring him low? Didn’t ants tunnel through

the great walls of Cathay and grind whole sections to dust?

For the first time in years — in centuries, actually — there was a strange

sound outside one of the gates in the wall. Those gates, normally so overgrown with

bramble hedge and briar on the World’s side and so besieged by the Ocean on the

other, needed no guards or wards. In fact, the Lady and the unicorns scarcely

remembered from one year to the next that the gates existed. But this one lambent

spring day, right after the hour’s rain, there was something rather like the wailing of a

discontented child by the Northeastern gate. No, exactly like the wailing of a

discontented child. The wailing went on from the moment the rain ended until quite

past tea time, or about three hours. At that point, Infanta stomped three times with

her left fore foot and shook her head until the white mane flew about as light as

milkweed milk.

“What is that noise?” she asked.

Neither Tartary — who listened to the Lady — or Wishart — who listened

only to the sea — bothered to answer. But Infanta asked anyway. “It is louder than

grass growing. Louder than a gully full of Queen Anne’s Lace and campion. Louder

even than the bursting open of marigolds, which is very loud, indeed.” And she went

to complain directly to the Lady, who had heard the sound already.

“If I didn’t know any better,” said the Lady, “I would say it is a child -and a

very young child at that — lying in a reed basket washed up upon the Ocean’s small

shingle.” And because the Lady was blessed with a certain amount of prescience,

which is another way of saying she could see a bit into the future, Infanta knew

exactly what they would find.

The Lady sent one of her most trusted winds to leap over the wall and report

back. It was a very small wind, hardly more than a breeze, really. When it returned, it

reported in a voice made sweet with baby’s breath and tart with brine. “It is a very

young child lying in a basket.”

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摘要：

THELADY’SGARDENByJaneYolen****INTHELADY’SGARDENlivedthreeunicorns.Theywereallold—Lady,garden,andunicorns—havingbeentherefromthebeginningofthings.ThegardenwaskeptfromthesightoftheWorldbyaverylargestonewallwhichwasovergrownwithspindlyweedsandthistles,andhairymosspluggingupthechinks.Whenthesunshonedown...

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Jane Yolen - The Lady's Garden

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