him when he got like that.
Sooz replied that her mother said thay you just wait until he goes out, or is asleep, then do whatever you want. Molly told her Schmendrick and she were not married, just together, and they had been together quite a long while. To Sooz they looked married, sort of.
Sooz wondered if it would take them long to reach the king. Molly wanted to know what she expected when she met the king; what did she have in mind when she set off to find him? Sooz didn’t even have to think about it; she wanted the king to come and take care of the griffin himself. He’s the king; it’s his job.
They started off the next morning, Schmendrick singing a lot as they rode along, sometimes in languages she couldn’t make out a word of, sometimes making up silly songs to make her laugh, like this one:
“Soozli, Soozli,
speaking loozli,
you disturb my oozli-goozli.
Soozli, Soozli,
would you choozli
to become my squoozli-squoozli?”
He never did any magic, except once when he seemed to call a hawk to chase off a crow that kept diving at the horses. At least she guessed that was magic.
They passed through pretty country, which Schmendrick told her had all been barren desert where nothing grew before Lír. It was said the land was under a curse, but Lír changed everything. Except poor Hagsgate.
Schmendrick was sure that as soon as she told him her troubles he would snatch up his great sword and spear, whisk her up to his saddlebow, and be off after her griffin with the road smoking behind him. Young or old, that’s always been his way. Molly overworries; that’s her way. We are who we are. Schmendrick then sang another verse:
“Soozli, Soozli,
you amuse me,
right down to my solesli-shoesli.
Soozli, Soozli,
I bring newsli—
we could wed next stewsli-Tuesli.”
Sooz learned that the king had lived in a castle on a cliff by the sea when he was young, less than a day’s journey from Hagsgate, but it fell down—he would not say how—so he built a new one somewhere else. She was sorry about that, because she had never seen the sea, and she had always wanted to. But she had never seen a castle, either, so there was that.
It took them three full days to reach King Lír. Sooz was disappointed; the castle was pretty, but she wanted a fortress. The moment she saw that nice, friendly castle, with its one blue banner with a picture of a white unicorn on it, she was afraid the king would not help her, hero or not. They did not go to the top, either; Schmendrick led them through the great hall and on past the kitchens and the scullery and the laundry, to a room under a staircase. The king was in there, all by himself.
He was sitting in an ordinary chair, not a throne, and it was a really small room. Sooz was ready for him to have a long beard, spreading out all across his chest, but he only had a short one, like her father, except white. He wore a red and gold mantle, and there was a real golden crown upon his white head. He had a kind face, with a big old nose, and big blue eyes like a little boy. But his eyes were so tired and empty Sooz didn’t know how he kept them open. He peered at the three of them as if he knew them, but not why. He tried to smile.
Schmendrick very gently told him that it was Schmendrick and Molly Grue. Molly added that it was Molly with the cat—he remembered the cat, didn’t he? Schmendrick told Molly that she would often forget herself like that, and then Molly would always have to remind him that she was a unicorn.
At the word the king changed. All at once his eyes were clear and shining with feeling, like Molly’s eyes. He recognized them, and stood to embrace his friends. Sooz saw then that he had been a hero, that he was still a hero, and that maybe everything was going to be all right after all. She told him about the griffin eating children, and when she told him the name of her village he surprised her by saying he knew it, and he had been there. Now he would have the pleasure of returning.
They were interrupted by a small, dark woman who introduced herself as Lisene, the king’s secretary, translator, and protector. Schmendrick had never known him to need any of those things, especially a protector, but she told him: “Time sets its claw in us all, my lord, sooner or later. We are none of us that which we were.” The king sat down obediently in his chair and closed his eyes.
Schmendrick was angry, and growing angrier, but did not show it. Sooz knew it because that is how her father gets angry. He told Lisene that the king had agreed to return to the girl’s village with her to rid her people of a marauding griffin. They would leave the next day.
Lisene, however, would not hear of it. The king was in no fit condition for such a journey, let alone such a deed. They came seeking the peerless warrior they remembered, but found instead a spent, senile old man.
Schmendrick cut her off, eyes flashing. He pointed his finger at the woman, and Sooz expected her to catch fire. He said, “Hear me now, I am Schmendrick the magician, and I see my old friend Lír, as I have always seen him, wise and powerful and good, beloved of a unicorn.”
And with that word, a second time, the king woke up, blinked, and grasped the arms of the chair. He looked at Lisene, and told her he would go with them. It was his task and his gift; she would see to it that he was ready. When she begged him to reconsider, he reached out tenderly and took her head between his big hands; Sooz saw there was love between them. He said, “It is what I am for. You know that as well as he does. See to it, Lisene, and keep all well for me while I am gone.”
Lisene looked so sad, and so lost, that Sooz didn’t know what to think, about her, about the king, about anything. Lisene told the king that she would see to it. As she left the room, she turned and said to Schmendrick, “His death be on your head, magician.” Sooz thought she was crying, only not in the way that grownups do.
Schmendrick replied, with a voice so cold Sooz wouldn’t have recognized it if she hadn’t known it was him speaking, “He had died before. Better that death—better this, better any death—than the one he was dying in that chair. If the griffin kills him, it will yet have saved his life.” Sooz heard the door shut as Lisene left the room.
Sooz asked Molly what Schmendrick meant about the king having died before, but rather than answer Molly knelt at the king’s feet, took one of his hands between hers, and begged him to remember. The old man was swaying on his feet, but he placed his other hand on Molly’s head and assured Sooz that he would come to her village.
“The griffin was never hatched that dares harm King Lír’s people. But you must remind me, little one. When I…when I lose myself…when I lose her…you must remind me that I am still searching, still waiting…that I have never forgotten her, never turned from all she taught me. I sit in this place…I sit…because a king has to sit, you see…but in my mind, in my poor mind, I am always with her.…”
Sooz had no idea what he was talking about then. Later, when she told the story, she did.
Lír fell asleep again, then, holding Molly’s hand. Sooz tried to write a letter home, but she fell asleep, too, and slept the rest of the day and all night, too. When she awoke Schmendrick was at her bedside, urging her to rise. They would start by noon, anyway, if he could get Lisene and the others
