The Grimm Conclusion (9 page)

O
nce upon a time, a little girl walked past two mangled corpses, through a great wood, tracing the path of blood and broken branches back to the great oak laden with acorns. She wound her way out of the forest, past the hunting lodge—empty now, save for the skulls—past the kennels, past the hedge.

She entered the castle's kitchens. A cook caught sight of her and screamed.

The little girl collapsed in a bloody heap.

When Jorinda awoke, two days later, all of the king's most important courtiers were gathered around her bedside. Their long, gray faces hovered over her, their cracked lips hanging open.

“What?” demanded the little girl.

The courtiers gasped.

“She lives!”

“It's a miracle!”

“A blessed miracle!”

Jorinda blinked and wiped the crust from her mouth.

“And?” asked the senior courtier, who had the longest and grayest face of the lot. “Where is the king?”

“Dead,” Jorinda replied. “The huntsman, too.”

The room fell deathly still.

“How?” the courtier asked.

Jorinda opened her mouth—and then she closed it again. Unicorns? Either they wouldn't believe her, or they would set out to hunt them. Likely both. So instead, she responded, “We were attacked. I don't know by whom.”

The courtiers gasped. Attacked? In the Kingswood? “Could you see what the assailants looked like? What they were wearing?”

Jorinda thought. “They were covered in black. They had long spears. And they rode horses.”

The senior courtier straightened his back and stared into the distance. “Assassins,” he muttered. “This is grave. Very grave indeed.”

“We must consider our options.”

“We must consult with the prince.”

“Well . . . perhaps we'll consider our options before we consult with the prince.”

“Right. Good thinking.”

And the courtiers fled the room in a storm of voices.

Jorinda put her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

Late that night, the door to her room opened, and four serving women bustled in. They carried a candelabra, and in the arms of one lay a long white dress.

Jorinda sat up. “What's that for?”

“What do you think? Your wedding!”

“What? When?”

“When? Child, didn't they tell you?”

“No,” Jorinda said, narrowing her eyes. “When am I to be married?”

“In half an hour!”

The wedding was a hurried affair. The courtiers all stood for the duration of the ceremony, and the bishop read from his Bible so quickly that Jorinda couldn't understand what she was vowing and swearing and assenting to. The prince's knees were knocking together through the whole ritual. Jorinda didn't know what was going on.

But at the end of the ceremony, the handsome and clever prince bent over, kissed Jorinda on the cheek, and said, “Good-bye. And good luck.” And then he was swept from the room.

“Where is he going?” Jorinda demanded.

The senior courtier approached her. “He's fleeing the kingdom, of course. If there are assassins about, it isn't safe for him to stay here.”

Jorinda cocked her head. “But I'm staying?”

“Someone has to sit on the throne!” the courtier exclaimed. And then he dashed from the room after the prince.

And so it was that Jorinda became the queen of the Kingdom of Grimm.

Let me say right now that none of the tales of the Brothers Grimm tell of this period in the kingdom's history. Go through that musty old book that sits in the corner of your library. You won't read about a single kingdom ruled by a little girl.

But ruled by her it was.

Now, you might expect, with a little girl on the throne, that instead of having to pay taxes, people would be given lollipops, and that instead of an army, the kingdom would just have a bunch of pillow fights and hair-braiding sessions.

You might expect that. But then, you would expect wrong.

The stories do not talk of the reign of Queen Jorinda because she was a tyrant. A tyrant, in case you're unfamiliar with the word, is a terrible and cruel leader who doesn't respect any laws but his or her own. It comes from the same word as
Tyrannosaurus.
Which should tell you something.

So Queen Ashputtle was a tyrant. A tyrant no taller than a man's belly button, it is true. But a tyrant nonetheless.

Why, you are asking, was Jorinda a tyrant?

Allow me to explain.

For the first few weeks of Jorinda's rule, everything was all right. She was given a tour of the palace, she was schooled in the ways of governance, she met with representatives of the kingdom's allies and enemies, and everyone thought she managed herself rather well.

But inside, she was not doing so well at all. Something was sloshing away inside of Jorinda. Every time someone bowed to her, she felt it, churning in her achy stomach. Every time a subject waved and smiled, it stabbed at the bottom of her mind. Every time a visiting dignitary told her how brave or impressive she was, it twined itself around her lungs and took her breath away.

Worst of all was at night. At night, thoughts of her mother's closed study door, and of a great iron stew pot, and of her brother standing and watching her ride away rose before her whenever she closed her eyes.

Don't feel it,
Jorinda told herself.
Smother it down, choke it back, stamp it out.

So whenever someone bowed to her, she frowned and pushed her feelings down. And whenever a subject waved and smiled, she jerked her head away so as not to see, not to feel. And whenever anyone complimented her at all, she sneered at herself, and at them, and fought, fought, fought the pain within.

Well, feelings become words, and words become deeds, and over time, Jorinda was not only sneering at compliments, but also at complaints. She was not only jerking her head away to avoid seeing smiles, but also to avoid seeing tears. She frowned not just at those who bowed to her. She frowned at everyone.

She had her courtiers bring her a dozen mattresses, and then a dozen more. She slept on twenty-five of them, teetering forty feet in the air. But no matter how many mattresses she slept on, she tossed and turned in agony.

Jorinda was fighting something on the inside. And whatever is inside does not stay inside for long.

As the little girl monarch became colder and crueler, rumors began to swirl, sweeping through the kingdom like a winter dust storm.

Queen Jorinda is not what she appears to be, they said. Not a sweet girl at all, but a monster! A usurper! A tyrant! She killed the king and his huntsman! How? Magic! Sorcery! A deal with the Devil!

But the prince would return, they whispered. He had fled, fearing the little girl and her unholy assassins. He would return, with an army at his back, and depose the little tyrant and retake his place on the throne!

Well, the rumor was poppycock, of course. Jorinda hadn't killed the king and his huntsman. The unicorns had. But rumors tend to take on a life of their own.

Have you ever heard of a “self-fulfilling prophecy”? That's like when someone says you'll fail a test, so you get so nervous you can't study, and then you actually
do
fail the test. The prophecy makes itself come true.

Well, rumors can be like that as well.

For Jorinda heard the rumors about the prince (he was actually the king now, or the king-in-hiding, or something like that—but I'm just going to keep calling him the prince, because I get confused easily). She had heard the rumors that he was trying to raise an army out in the wilderness, or perhaps allying himself with some neighboring king, who would then march upon Grimm and conquer it. It was just a rumor, but she believed it. Perhaps the prince did think that she had killed his father. And if he wanted to take his revenge, he would certainly have help. For who would fear a kingdom ruled by a little girl? He and some ally would try to conquer the kingdom, depose Jorinda, and then dispose of her. She was certain of it.

So she forced every man and boy above the age of sixteen to join her army. It soon became the largest army in the history of the kingdom. The soldiers spent every morning from dawn until noon marching up and down the dusty roads of Grimm, performing military drills in the fields that they should have been farming, and barking out chants like, “Who is the fiercest in the land? Jorinda of the iron hand!”

Now, maybe you know it, and maybe you don't, but outfitting an army of that size costs a fortune. So Jorinda wrung the money out of her poor citizens with crushing taxes. (She spared Malchizedek, though. To him, she kept all her promises. Because it's best not to cross an ogre. And besides, she kind of liked him.) But the people starved in the dirt lanes as the tax collectors carted off half of all the produce of their fields, their mills, their workshops, their calloused and tired hands.

Jorinda had one captain whom she trusted above all the others. He was the cousin of the unfortunate Fänger, but he seemed to hold no grudge against the queen for the demise of his kinsman. Indeed, he seemed to feel nothing at all. His name was Herzlos. He had long black hair and deep scars that ran down his face like ancient riverbeds. Captain Herzlos was always happy to whip a shirking soldier or set fire to the house of a subject who would not pay his taxes. Whatever Jorinda's other captains shrank from, Herzlos would do. And with relish.

Six months went by, and then six months more. The shadow of the queen hung heavy over the entire kingdom. Soldiers marched in mindless unison, chanting of Jorinda's iron hand at the tops of their lungs, tramping over the once fertile fields until the crops were stomped into submission and the poor were starving to death in the narrow, dusty streets.

The age was, indeed, a grim one.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking,
How, how could Jorinda do all this? She seemed like such a nice girl!

Well, she was.

But even nice girls sometimes fight wars with themselves.

It was about a year after Jorinda had become Queen Jorinda, or Jorinda the Tyrant, that a visitor arrived at the castle's gates.

“I'm here to see the queen,” he told the guards.

They scoffed. “No one sees the queen.”

The visitor's mouth was set in a hard line. He stared up at the guards with dark eyes from under a curly mop of hair. “Send her a message. She will see me. If she doesn't, you can throw me in prison.”

The guards smirked at one another. One replied, “We don't have prisons anymore. Just gallows.”

“Fine,” said the visitor. “If she doesn't want to see me after you give her my message, you can send me to the gallows to be hanged until I am dead.”

More smirking. “All right, then. What's this message of yours?”

The visitor spoke very crisply: “If you won't leave me, I won't leave you.”

Five minutes later, Joringel was being led through the dark halls of the Castle Grimm. As he passed grand staircases decked with great tapestries of gray and black, his stomach tossed and churned.

Choke it back,
he thought. Just as he managed to wrestle the sickness in his stomach into submission, the guard led him into the throne room.

There she was. A little girl, regal and serene, on a great throne, with a towering, ornate crown on her head. Joringel felt something yank at his insides, as if he'd swallowed a fishhook. He looked at his sister.

Her lips had started to crinkle. Her eyes, he thought, were shining.

Joringel began to smile. For the first time in a long time.

Across the room, Jorinda felt something yank at her insides, too.

She saw her brother, and his lips were crinkling. His eyes shone.

Jorinda began to smile. For the first time in a long time.

But at exactly the moment that both children began to smile, their stomachs roared. A wave—a brown, dirty, tidal wave of feelings—crashed over them. They tried to stand firm. They tried to hold on. Jorinda forced the corners of her mouth back down. Joringel blinked hard to quell the tears.
Choke it back
, they both thought.
Smother it. Stamp it out.

For a moment, neither moved.

And then, the tidal wave passed, and it took along with it everything they felt—all their happiness, all their sadness, all their anger, all their guilt—and left them as if marooned on a barren peninsula, wrecked by storm.

They approached one another.

Jorinda said, “Welcome, brother.”

And Joringel replied, “Thank you, sister.”

And they shook hands. Lest the storm rise again.

Joringel moved into a chamber in the castle not far from his sister. He stood beside her in the throne room when she made her decrees, and he went with her on her tours of the kingdom. He was restless, though, as he had little else to do. He had tried to help Herzlos manage the army. He soon gave it up, though. Joringel, it turned out, was a little frightened of Herzlos.