Chapter 3
Gotesdene and its surrounding environs were very different to the Suburbs I decided as I walked along the long and winding road. There was none of the obsessive order and neatness that characterises the Suburbs. Rather, the fields on either side were a quilted hodgepodge of crops with goats, oxen and other animals working on the land: pulling ploughs, walking around in circles to grind grain in primitive mills, gathering crops in their teeth and throwing the produce into the back of carts. On several occasions, I had to step off the brick road into dried mud to allow an oxen-pulled wagon to ponderously lumber by. The midday sun was beating down on me but there was no shelter to be seen: there were few trees in sight and most of these were far off the road with many branches torn off, and their trunks ravished by the gnawing goats. Swallows occasionally dove down past me chasing after the insects buzzing around the corpses of animals by the roadside.
After two or three miles of walking through this rural scenery with my feet getting increasingly sore, I at last arrived at a village. There was no doubt that this was the village of Gotesdene, as just outside the fence barricading it was a painted board supported by two wooden posts which welcomed me to the village and requested me to drive carefully. Large ornate metal gates broke the monotony of fencing, featuring the crest of a rampant goat and ox, and supported by two pillars crowned by identical statues of rampant elephants bearing arms.
Initially, I thought there might be some kind of toll required to enter the village as in front of the gates was a family of goats kneeling down by a wooden platter. They bleated at me piteously in a dialect I couldn’t understand at all, but I soon inferred that they were begging for alms: a practice long discontinued in the Suburbs. I pulled out a groat from my trouser pocket which I threw into the platter, believing this to be the absolute minimum that I could decently give. I wasn’t at all prepared for the effusiveness with which the goat incomprehensibly expressed his gratitude. Although I could distinguish the occasional English word, I speculated that he was speaking a totally different language altogether.
I pushed open the gate, which creaked noisily as it resisted me, and ventured in. The village comprised a wide space of open land around which there were numerous wood and mud hovels, and was traversed by a dirt track from which the slightest breeze blew up clouds of dust. Goats, oxen and others wandered listlessly amongst the scattered waste and detritus. In the centre of the patch of common land there were a stocks, a gallows and a tall gaily coloured pole from which dangled multicoloured strands. There were also some tall oak trees and a tall stone cross.
A collection of market stalls was gathered at one end of the common. As I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I decided to look for a stall selling convenience food, such as a hamburger or a pizza. As I approached, I saw that there was little likelihood of buying a microwaved pizza, a deep-fried chicken or even chips. The stalls mostly sold agricultural implements, live chickens and vegetables. Many of these products flowed off the stalls and onto the ground, where decaying wicker baskets protected them from the dust and dirt. One stall was conducting a profitable trade in hay, around which gathered a crowd of acquisitive ungulates.
I understood very little of the stall-holders’ cries, but I assumed that they were referring to their produce and how much a pound of this or an ounce of that would cost. I soon observed that the cost of living here was substantially lower than that in the Suburbs. Very little cost less than a florin or half crown in the Suburbs, whilst most goods in the Gotesdene market were selling for under a penny. This explained the gratitude the beggar at the gate had shown for a groat. I thought I might have a problem finding a stall furnished with sufficient change for the smallest denomination coin I had on me.
I bought a pound of apples for a farthing from a vegetable stall and had to resort to gestures to express what I wanted. I carried the apples loose in my pockets - as like other buyers I was clearly expected to have brought my own basket to the market - together with innumerable ha’pennies and farthings of change. While biting into a small acidic apple, I found myself being addressed by a voice which despite a rustic accent I was at last able to understand.
“You don’t speak Anglo-Saxon, I presume?” asked a relatively small white elephant standing upright, in very colourful silk clothes swathed by a long red cloak secured by a large brooch beneath the chin.
“No, I don’t,” I admitted through a mouthful of apple. “Is that what’s spoken here?” I was surprised to find an elephant addressing me: especially by a white one, who I had heard was very rare. I had never spoken to an elephant, white or otherwise, before. He flapped his large ears using his trunk to pull his cloak together at the front. He had two quite short tusks, which nevertheless looked too dangerous to approach too closely.
“Ay, that is what they speak hereabouts,” the White Elephant said. “Gotesdene is a very old-fashioned place. You, as an outsider, must find it extraordinarily undeveloped.”
“It’s very different from the Suburbs.”
“Very antiquated,” the White Elephant continued. “But it is the village for which I have the honour to serve as mayor. And as so, I feel it to be my duty to take this underdeveloped little community, however reluctantly, into the modern age. You sophisticated Suburbanites probably can’t imagine that villages like ours still exist: no running water, no electricity and mains gas, no metalled roads, no supermarket or video rental store. But I shall ensure that Gotesdene will very soon be as modern a village as any other in the realm. The centuries have passed Gotesdene by for far too long. I pledge that every home shall have fibreglass cabling, hot and cold running water and a roof. The roads shall have sensory speed detectors, traffic lights and tar macadam. Gotesdene shall be abreast of the world, with television, videophones and computer networking. You probably find it amazing to discover a place so lacking in the basics of modern life.”
“I didn’t expect to find life in Gotesdene so very different,” I admitted.
The White Elephant swung his trunk around dramatically, while prudent villagers kept their distance from its range. “Gotesdene has probably not changed in 1500 years. It is a fossil yet to make the transition into the modern era. Almost everyone in the village and the surrounding countryside live off the land, and as they are unable to afford to pay taxes to Her Maphrodite’s government, they provide work in kind to me, the Lord of this Manor. This work provides the surplus wealth - agricultural wealth I admit - which I sell to pay taxes. It’s an arrangement by which we all work together. But I am resolved that Gotesdene shall diversify. Move into microchip manufacture, network services, aerospace and more.
“But great effort is needed to persuade the City to assist. I know that City financiers and banks are reluctant to invest their capital where there is so little infrastructure, where so few people have the necessary technological and management skills and expertise, and where communications are limited to the speed of an ox-drawn carriage. But this is just City prejudice. Understandable, perhaps, given the vast contrast of culture, but I am convinced that the low-wage opportunities here will eventually persuade the City institutions otherwise.
“I have my own wealth, inherited from centuries of White Elephants here in Gotesdene, and mostly invested in property throughout the realm. I admit it is at least partly my ancestors’ fault that Gotesdene has remained so primitive, by repeatedly opposing any modern developments in or around the village, but the base stupidity of the peasant is to blame as well.” He snorted dismissively, which through a trunk as long as his came out almost as a trumpet call. “Look at them!” he said, waving his trunk about at the villagers, many wearing very ragged clothes secured precariously by cord. “You’d never see such a mean crowd of scum in the Suburbs, would you?”
I shook my head. It is unlikely that a single one of the villagers could stay for very long in the Suburbs before being arrested on charges of v
agrancy.
“White Elephants such as I have held the estates here from time immemorial,” he continued. “In that time, we have become increasingly sophisticated. Connoisseurs of art, captains of industry, members of parliament. It is people such as I who have selflessly guided and directed the culture in the nation for the good of the peasant, whose rôle is to support our exalted projects. The long and grand tradition of my family has given communities like this the continuity and stability that it needs. It is only now that it is necessary to force the pace. Make of Gotesdene what it has to be.”
“What plans do you have?”
“I have such plans. Such great plans! I will build factories, power stations, mines and motorways. The primitive waste of this land, dedicated only to inefficient and outmoded methods of agriculture, will be transformed into a landscape of concrete and steel. Tower blocks will replace the mud-huts. Airport runways will crisscross the open fields. A giant shopping mall will be built where this market now stands. I have a vision of industrial estates, tower blocks, factories, flyovers and television aerials! All I need is the investment from the City.”
“Do you work in business yourself?”
“I own many companies in the City and abroad. I own a hotel, a chain of restaurants, several factories and shares in shipping, insurance and defence. But while Her Maphrodite’s government dithers and flounders, I will never get the planning permission I need to modernise Gotesdene. Perhaps after the General Election there will be more decisiveness and direction. And then Gotesdene will no longer be dismissed as a primitive Anglo-Saxon theme park, but will be recognised as a modern, thriving community!”
The White Elephant shook his large ears and I followed him as he strode away from the market through the dusty streets, past obsequious peasants to the stone cross in the common land. We sheltered under the shade of the massive overwhelming oak trees whose bark was protected from vandalism by vicious spikes forced into the trunk. The cross was exquisitely ornate depicting an elephant heroically brandishing a sword in his trunk.
“So, young man, what finds you in our village so far from the Suburbs?” the White Elephant asked.
I told him of my quest for the Truth.
“I believe I should be flattered by the notion that the Truth abides in Gotesdene,” laughed the White Elephant. “I know that many have admired the village, but you are the first to come this way on such a quest. But mayhap in a community such as this, unpolluted by the vices and vagaries of modern irreligious heresy, the Truth you are looking for may indeed be found.”
“The Truth is here! What is it?” I asked enthusiastically.
“The Truth is balance and order. It is respect for the Lord and the world that He has graciously created for us. And that essential Truth is manifest in the elements of Earth, Fire, Air and Water. It is these to which the universe is essentially reducible.” The White Elephant waved his trunk around at the village. “Everything here is composed of these Four Elements, myself included. They govern the World physically and spiritually, proportioned by the mystical qualities of numbers. Numbers are the Universe’s abstract foundations. The smaller the Number, the more potent. The number One is the Universe and all in it. Two is the manifest division between the Spiritual and the Material. Three is the Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Three is also the number of times which something need be said to be known as the Truth. And Four is the number of the Elements.
“From the Four Elements are derived the Four Humours which govern the Soul of each individual. Just as a person is the physical union of matter, energy, water and oxygen so his Soul is governed by different proportions of the Spiritual Qualities of these Elements. There are, in addition, the Five Senses, the thrice Six which is the Number of the Beast, the Seven Sins, the Twelve Houses of the Heavens and the Twenty-Four Hours of the Day. All in its natural and God-given place in the Universe.
“The Truth is but the balance and order in which God has invested the Universe, and it is the Duty of all to ensure that this balance is undisturbed by proboscidean, artiodactyl nor human endeavour. Nothing hastens more the Chaos and Destruction of the End than the rejection and perversion of the Natural Order by which the Truth is made manifest.”
“How is the Truth perverted?” I wondered.
“In many ways. By the practice of perversions that transgress the Natural Order such as Sodomy, Heresy and Witchcraft. These must be suppressed with extreme prejudice, or, as surely as Three is the Number of the Lord, the Natural Order will unravel, power will be wrested by foreign despots, laws will be disregarded, monsters will yet again roam the Earth and the Heavens will open!
“The good people of Gotesdene strive hard to keep Satan at bay,” continued the White Elephant indicating the stocks and the gallows with a wave of his trunk. “Here is where transgressors are purged of their sins. And if the Soul is to be purged from the Body to achieve its Salvation, then that is a sacrifice worth making. Gotesdene has a long and proud tradition of suppressing Witchcraft and I speak proudly when I say that no Witch who is accused is ever found other than guilty and punished accordingly. Does this not compare well with the pusillanimity of Justice elsewhere which so frequently permits Witches to wander free spreading their vice, perversion, magic and heterodoxy?”
“How are Witches punished?” I wondered, looking nervously at the scaffold.
“Not all Witches are hanged,” the White Elephant sighed. “For many it is felt that there is opportunity for redemption, and if it be that their confessions of guilt are sufficiently sincere and detailed they may suffer only a whipping or the stocks. This is especially so if they are young and pretty, because if the exterior is fair then the interior cannot all be rotten. But occasionally a Witch will join the Homosexual, the Murderer or the Heretic on the platform with the noose around the neck. These occasions are a public event, where all can learn from seeing the ignominious end others come to and will reflect on their own transgressions. This is not, I believe, how Justice is conducted in the Suburbs?”
“No,” I admitted. “It’s a much more complicated procedure - and many of the things you mention are not illegal at all!”
“When the Day of Judgement comes,” the White Elephant bellowed, ”it will surely visit the most ills on those who treat the Natural Order with not so much contempt as indifference. Much as I admire the progress and order of the Suburbs, there are many features I find alarming. These are so much in conflict with the Truth that I marvel not that you should feel the need to leave the Suburbs to seek the Truth elsewhere. All are treated equally in the Suburbs: Women as equals with Men, the Poor as with the Rich, and the Believer as with the Unbeliever. How can this be right? When God created the Natural Order, He didn’t do so only that places such as the Suburbs and the City should disregard it and substitute a New Order of their own invention. When Progress and Modernity are established in Gotesdene, it will not be to subvert the Natural Order, but to reinforce it.”
“However,” continued the White Elephant reflectively, “the Suburbs have but little sin and vice when compared to the City, where I have been many times and have been many times appalled. From the virtue and decency of the village of Gotesdene, through the indifference to vice and the Truth in the Suburbs, to the depravity and decadence of the City is painted a triptych of the ethics of Heaven, Limbo and Hell. In the City, there is no limit to what is permitted and practised. There are no moral constraints. No regard for the Natural Order. Indeed, the practice of vice at its most vicious, sin at its most sinful and decadence at its most despicable. Have you ever been to the City?”
“No, not once,” I admitted.
“Perhaps, then, there is hope for you yet,” snorted the White Elephant. “In the City, there is no likelihood that you will ever find the Truth for which you quest. Indeed, there is complete absence of the Truth. The City is a Hell of fast-movi
ng traffic on many-laned motorways; buildings that scrape the very roof of the sky; frantic and hectic activity; ceaseless noise and light. In all directions the City spreads out, enclosing pockets of green, whereas Gotesdene is a village enclosed by countless green acres. There is nothing but concrete and steel; petrol fumes and neon lights; people coming and people going. Not, as in Gotesdene, merely being: they restlessly move from one place to another. And so many of them!”
“The City is very big, is it?”
“It is tall. It is wide. It houses many millions. It is the economic, financial, political, social and cultural capital of this land, and also the nation’s whorehouse, bordello and opium den. It is also very expensive. In Gotesdene, the possessor of a guinea is a rich man. He has enough to live for a long time on one single guinea, which composes two hundred and fifty-two pennies! A fortune! That is over a thousand farthings! In the City, a guinea is but what a farthing is here. Perhaps less! But despite the expense and the hideous environment and the loathsome depravity, despite all this, many millions choose to live in and amongst its garbage and degeneracy.”
“You don’t recommend that I ever visit the City?”
“No. Not if you value your Soul!” the White Elephant said emphatically. “In the City, there is all the depravity and decline which will surely hasten the Day of Judgment. The City is like a cancer infesting this land. The City congests its inhabitants into smaller and less congenial spaces, spreads pollution into the air, the street, the water supply and the ether, exhausting the atmosphere, the soil, the reservoir and the power station. Worse than its physical despoliation, is its spiritual barrenness and pollution. It spreads prostitution, pornography, atheism, sexual perversity and a cult of instant gratification. And this is what is most despicable in the City and what it represents. Gotesdene will not be so corrupted as it pursues the path of Progress that I have planned for it. It will forever remain a bastion of virtue, faith and, yea, the Truth!”
The White Elephant paused in his tirade and looked about him at the village. His great claims for it did not seem particularly well illustrated by the general atmosphere of poverty and decay. A peasant was urinating against a tree. Several goats were plaintively bleating for alms around a pottery saucer. One goat had both rear legs missing and one eye. The ground was dusty and barren, dotted occasionally by piles of ox dung and attendant flies.
“I have much business to which I must attend,” the White Elephant announced. “I shall leave you now. But I hope that as you stay here you will reflect on all that I have said and focus anew your quest for the Truth.”
With that he bade me farewell, and walked away from the village green, his cloak raising a cloud of dust behind him, responding with a gracious wave of his trunk to the obsequies of the villagers who stood aside for him.
A passing goat was selling meat pies which looked quite unappetising, but my hunger resolved that I off-load some of the farthings I had accumulated for a pie that was fortunately cool enough for me to eat with my fingers. I sat down at the base of the stone cross with my feet resting in dried mud and decomposing faeces. I passively observed the bustle of the village, still slightly nauseated by the dirt and decay.
While chewing on a particularly unforgiving piece of unidentifiable meat, I noticed some men and women wearing unsophisticated flaxen clothes roughly push a woman towards the common. They headed towards the stocks, shouting and jeering at the woman as they proceeded. She was punched and kicked and some of her clothes had been ripped off. She seemed resigned to her misfortune and didn’t struggle, but from the evidence of the bruises on her face and her bare arms and shoulders, she’d probably lost all the resistance she’d ever had. The stocks were opened, her head, hands and legs were pushed through, and then they were clamped shut. She sat in a very undignified position, with only the dusty ground on which to rest her bottom. The men forcing her in secured the stocks with a peg through the hole by the side.
Her punishment wasn’t over then, as the group of men and women continued jeering at her, and threw earth and moist cow-pats at her. One or two children even threw stones - one catching her on the cheek and immediately opened a bloody gash. An ox passing by did a very good trade in the fruit he was selling, which judging from the messy way it splattered as it hit her was less than fresh and firm. I had never seen justice dispensed like this in the Suburbs, where punishment was generally either monetary or concealed in penal institutions. I felt uneasy about the unbridled enthusiasm with which this rough justice was dealt.
“Poor girl!” commented a voice next to me. “Even if she is a witch, I’m certain she doesn’t deserve what she’s getting.”
I turned my head away from the action to look straight into the eyes of a horse. At least, I initially thought it was a horse, judging from his muzzle, but he had a graceful white body with delicate cloven feet, a long sinuous tail and a single golden horn rising from his forehead. After encountering so many singular individuals today, encountering a Unicorn didn’t appear so strange. But I’d always believed that Unicorns no longer existed.
This Unicorn was by no means extinct. He shook his golden mane and whinnied slightly. “It may be she is a witch. But if she is, there’s not a great deal to show of her sorcery. I’d always thought she was more a veterinary surgeon, from the evidence of her care for pets and farm workers, but the good people of Gotesdene have clearly judged her guilty. Not that I’m at all sure what’s wrong with witchcraft, despite the fact that in my several millennia I’ve not seen much to convince me that it ever actually works. Still, she’s lucky in a way! If you’d been here a few days ago, you’d have seen the still decaying corpse of another convicted witch hanging from the gallows.”
“How dreadful!” I exclaimed. “What happened to her?”
“Well, eventually the maggots, or whatever it is that eats decaying bodies, had loosened her neck sufficiently so that it snapped. Then her head fell off where it cracked open and rolled towards the oak trees. Her body just dropped down in a heap where the dogs straightaway pounced on her rancid flesh. It wasn’t a pleasant sight!”
“I’m sure it wasn’t,” I agreed, still in awe of the Unicorn whose long tail gracefully looped round and with great accuracy snapped like a whipcord at the many flies showing interest in his rump. “Why don’t people in Gotesdene like witches?”
“To say I don’t know would be a lie. I’ve lived too long and in too many communities not to understand how people everywhere feel the need to find victims in their midst. Communists, Homosexuals, Jews, Cats, Pakistanis, Goats, Cockatrices, - they’ve all been victimised at one time or another. I suppose I should consider myself rather lucky that unicorns have never really been disliked by anyone. People in Gotesdene are very set in their ways, and anyone whose behaviour or attitude seems a bit odd or unusual means that they will almost certainly be accused of Sodomy or Witchcraft. And sometimes both at the same time. Which I suppose is just about feasible.
“But I make a point of coming to Gotesdene every now and then. I’m very popular with the villagers. There just doesn’t seem to be anything that I can’t do as far as they’re concerned. They probably think I can vault tall buildings or stop speeding express trains. They certainly believe I can do wonders for impotence and gonorrhoea. Absolute nonsense, of course. But it’s probably not so unusual to find someone like me in a place like Gotesdene. What is bizarre is that someone like you should be. Are you from the City?”
“No. The Suburbs,” I admitted. “Indeed, I’ve never even visited the City!”
“Really, that does seem curious to me! But then I’ve never been to the Suburbs, although I’ve been to the City many times. Very many times. It’s changed so much over the centuries: you wouldn’t believe! I recall when it wasn’t any bigger than Gotesdene here. In fact, I can remember when the modern-day Gotesdene villagers would seem positive sophisticates. In those days, people used to think I could cure them of laryngitis, leprosy or
haemophilia just by touching them with my horn. It didn’t matter how many people I’d touch with my horn who didn’t get in the slightest bit better, my reputation didn’t suffer at all. Often tales of the medical achievements I’d made without the slightest recourse to surgery or antibiotics preceded me and I was well fêted wherever I went. In a way, those were good days, but I like to keep a lower profile nowadays. I don’t like the way some people think they might solve the mystery as to how I’ve achieved so many miracles by dissecting me. I’d rather remain a mystery and alive.”
The Unicorn shook his head sadly and blew agitatedly through his wide nostrils. “I like the City. If I were you, I’d make a point of visiting it some time. You can’t hope to understand the world today without seeing the City. It’s the exact opposite to here. In Gotesdene (bless it!) there really is nothing of any great interest, although I imagine its modernising mayor might think differently. In the City is literally everything of interest. The reason people want to escape from the City is not so much for what they are running towards, but from the tremendous bewilderment they’re running away from.”
“It sounds very forbidding.”
“I daresay it does. And the first time one is there, one is astonished by how very busy it is. Everyone is rushing around from place to place. The City is alive all day and all night. In fact it’s a cliché to say the City never sleeps, but it never does. Quite unlike Gotesdene which you could say could hardly be described as even fully awake.
“I’m forever astounded at how the City continues to grow and expand over the centuries. I’ve often thought: this is it! It can never get busier, or wealthier, or more crowded, or the buildings any taller. I’ve often thought that I was privileged to see the City at the pinnacle of its history, only to see yet again how mistaken I was. But then I have a very unusual perspective, having lived for such a very long time.”
“How long have you lived?”
“I’m sure it’s still considered rude in some cultures to discuss age,” laughed the Unicorn. He shook his head with a rough snort through his nostrils, while a couple of oxen passed by chatting and laughing as they went. One of them shyly signalled to the Unicorn with his tail, and then returned to his conversation. “I am, as it happens rather more than two thousand years, probably close to three thousand. Quite a great age by your standards I imagine, but not at all unusual for Unicorns. I suppose we make up in number of years for what we lack in number of individuals.”
I was quite astonished. This degree of longevity was extremely rare in the Suburbs. Indeed, as I reflected, the Suburbs, despite its apparent timelessness, probably didn’t exist as such when the Unicorn was born. “You must have seen and done an astonishing number of things in your life.”
“I have that,” he laughed good-naturedly. “I’ve been to almost every corner of the globe at one time or another. I’ve had the luxury of enough time to spend what you might call a lifetime in rather a few of these places. I’ve been the companion of royalty: quite a few princesses have felt strangely enamoured towards me, but I’ve successfully resisted any indecent advances. Perhaps it’s the Unicorn’s very ability to resist such temptation, that’s kept our numbers down, but like the manticore and the chimera I have great reasons to suspect the propriety of some of my ancestors.” He glanced down at the cloven hoof at the end of his slender deer-like legs. “I really am such a curious mixture of things. It’s difficult to imagine how anyone could ever have conceived of someone like me!”
“What places have you visited?” I wondered, hoping that perhaps he might give me some insight as to where I might find the Truth.
“Oh, so many places! Islands inhabited by moas, dodos and æpyornises. Plains full of quaggas and aurochs. Forests of giant lemurs, pygmy elephants and ground sloths. Seas full of great whales, giant auks and dugongs. Countries where people are sacrificed to the sun, nations which randomly enslave more than a tenth of their own people and work them until they die, and nations dedicated entirely to the pursuit of pleasure. I much prefer the last ones. I’ve been the guest of chancellors, viziers, cæsars, walis and prime ministers. I’ve met some of the most famous people in all history. In fact, I’ve had one of the most rich and fulfilling lives you can imagine!”
“How do you manage to afford all this?”
“It’s amazing how much a small investment can accumulate over a few centuries, let alone a few millennia. I’ve always been very careful to invest wisely, although I’ve lost a several fortunes in my time! The cumulative gain on capital over that time, with quite a respectable long term growth rate, particularly accelerated over recent centuries, has made me altogether immoderately rich.”
The Unicorn turned his head round to look sympathetically at the witch in the stocks. Nobody was throwing anything at her now, but the face, arms and legs protruding through the stocks were covered in a mess of blood, vegetables and rotten fruit. Her head was dangling to one side, eyes bruised and swollen, and her hair tangled in the mess adhering to it. The Unicorn turned his head back to me, raising his eyebrows sadly while slowly shaking his head to one side.
“Wherever I go,” he said resignedly, “there is always cruelty and injustice. As you can see, Gotesdene is no different!
“So, tell me about the Suburbs,” asked the Unicorn, concentrating his gaze at me. “It’s very different from here, isn’t it?”
“Very much so,” I agreed. “People live in much nicer houses, wear much better made clothes and the streets are much cleaner. There are wastepaper bins on alternate lampposts where people throw their litter, so there isn’t nearly as much filth. There are electric lighting, motor cars and no goats and oxen wandering around.”
“It sounds almost sterile...”
“Yes, it’s very clean and tidy,” I agreed.
“I can see that can be viewed as a great asset,” mused the Unicorn. “I’ve heard that it doesn’t contain quite the variety and spread of individuals as even places like this. And it also has no witches, I suppose?”
“None that I’ve ever heard of. And no Unicorns or White Elephants either!”
“So, why then have you left a place of such great material comfort and apparent orderliness for a place like this?”
I then told the Unicorn of my search for the Truth, which had only so far led me by train to the village of Gotesdene.
“I can assure you that if the Truth exists in Gotesdene, it’s eluded me!” the Unicorn laughed. “Did you seriously think you might find it here?”
“I was sure I couldn’t find it in the Suburbs. The White Elephant said that the Truth was revealed in numerology and the four elements.”
“You’ve spoken to the mayor, have you? I imagine he would think that the Truth was something that could be reduced to a simple set of axioms. It seems to me that if that were the case, then such views would never have been modified and certainly never discarded, as they mostly have been, in favour of science and logic. I’d have thought that the Truth would be more obviously self-evident than that!”
“Do you know where I might find the Truth?”
“Goodness me!” laughed the Unicorn shaking his muzzle from side to side, his long horn narrowly avoiding grazing me. “I may have lived a long time and gained a great deal of wisdom in that time. I may have done many things, met many people and seen many places. But I am not one who has ever found the Truth. If I had, I daresay I might truly possess all the healing powers attributed to me. No! The Truth is as much a mystery to me as it quite evidently is to you. But you aren’t the first person I’ve ever met on a quest for the Truth, but known by completely different names.”
“Have any of these people ever found the Truth, do you know?”
“Well, many of them have found something, and sometimes it’s been what they were looking for, but I don’t believe that what they’d found constitutes what you might call the Truth. Quite often they’ve had to slay dragons, fight monsters and do some quite gruesome things to get whatever it was, but
the rewards of their quest never seem to have changed the world appreciably for the better. However, don’t be too downhearted. There’s no particular reason, I imagine, why you need not be successful where others have failed.”
“Do you have any advice as to where I should look?”
The Unicorn raised his muzzle and looked up at the mid-afternoon sun and the oak-leaves rustling in the light breeze. He then lowered his head, kicked a cloven foot on the dry earth raising a small cloud of orange dust, and whinnied again. “Not in Gotesdene. In fact, I’d advise you to leave Gotesdene before nightfall. There’s no hostelry of any description where you would be welcomed to stay and it’s quite likely that one of the villagers might get the idea that because you’re a stranger to the village, you must therefore be a witch...”
“They wouldn’t think that, would they?”
“Even if they didn’t, they may not be particularly sympathetic to someone who dresses and behaves so very unlike themselves. If I were you, I’d look for a different place to stay for the night.”
“But where could I go?” I wondered, having rather hoped that I could stay at a motel or bed-and-breakfast in the village.
“There are other towns and villages around here. I don’t know how far you’d have to walk, but I’m sure you’ll find one soon. Some are likely to be a great deal more to your taste than this Anglo‑Saxon relic. There’s a religious community near here. I don’t know anything about it, but monks have been famous for their hospitality throughout history.”
The Unicorn looked towards the distance and saw a gathering of people around the White Elephant near the market stalls. “I think my presence may be required,” he commented. He raised a hoof and gently pawed my leg. He wished me luck in my quest and then strode unhurriedly towards the White Elephant, his leonine tail raised high above his head. As he passed by the villagers, they bowed their heads deferentially to him, which he acknowledged with a nod of his head and a gesture of his tail.
I lingered by the stone cross and pondered the Unicorn’s advice. As my eyes wandered about the village and focused on the unfortunate and now unconscious figure of the witch, I decided that although his wisdom might not encompass the Truth, his advice to leave should not be disregarded.
I stood up and strode cautiously across the common land and through the village gates. The road outside wound off in one direction towards the station and in the other towards unfamiliar destinations listed by a wooden signpost. I had some difficulty deciphering the names from the peculiar runic characters. It was probably not going to take me any nearer to the Truth to go back where I’d come from, so I decided to advance in the opposite direction. I threw the last of my farthings at some very grateful peasants and while they squabbled over them, I headed off alongside the unenclosed fields towards the sun’s afternoon aurora.