The Spinner and the Slipper (5 page)

The lines of King Hendry’s face deepened into a terrible scowl. “In that case, her life is forfeit,” he said. “She’ll hang at dawn.”

CHAPTER SIX

A Royal Summons

Sometimes the green-eyed man found it difficult to slip away from his regular duties and climb the tower stairs for an opportunity to peer into the crystal ball. And every time he did, he felt as though Queen Titania watched him, a certain expression in her gaze that he did not altogether like. Would she tell King Oberon of his captain’s interest in a random mortal maiden? If she did, how would the king react?

Nevertheless, whenever he saw an opportunity, the green-eyed man would make his way back to the lonely tower chamber and breathe upon the smooth surface of the crystal ball. He did not have to speak a word; the magic of the crystal reached to his heart and knew upon whom he wished to look.

On this particular day he raced up the tower steps two at a time, driven by an urgency he could not quite name. It wasn’t the same as the premonition he had felt just before the death of the miller, but it was similar. The sensation of impending doom had swept over him just as he finished running a patrol about the outer walls of King Oberon’s palace, and he had hastily cast aside his helmet and armor, desperate to gaze into the mortal world and learn what had transpired.

He raced to the pedestal and hastily breathed upon the crystal ball. Its clear surface clouded then cleared, and with its clearing the green-eyed man beheld the familiar landscape of the miller’s cottage, the mill, the stream, the forest road.

He gasped in surprise.

Men-at-arms, armored and glittering, marched down that humble road, their impressiveness too big for that small space. He saw swords. He saw lances. He saw a noble messenger with a severe face and a plumed hat. All marched directly for Eliana’s home.

“What, by all the Merry Dancers, is the meaning of this?” he whispered.

Mistress Carlyn sat at her window, working a bit of elegant stitching on the edge of a sleeve. She disliked such dainty work but felt it a better use of her time than any other task to which she might turn her hand in the miller’s house. After all, the end result would be a fine garment she could wear and pass off as custom-made by a seamstress from town.

Her daughters sat nearby, also working at embroidery, though with less success than their mother. Innis could hardly sit still on a pretty spring morning, constantly looking out the window for a glimpse of milk-boy Grahame in the yard; and Bridin found needlework dull, to say the least. Sometimes Mistress Carlyn suspected they would be happier if she allowed them to pursue the drudgery of cooking, cleaning, and animal tending that was their lowly stepsister’s lot! But they knew better than to cross their mother. So they sat hour by hour, working away and never breathing a word.

A strange sound caught Mistress Carlyn’s ear. She frowned and looked out the window, laying her work down in her lap. Were those hoofbeats she heard? No, the sound was not quite right, the steady
tramp-tramp-tramp
not in keeping with a horse’s uneven gait. What then could it possibly . . .

The messenger appeared through the trees, stepping into the mill yard. Behind him followed a whole troop of ten men-at-arms, glorious in their palace regalia.

Numb confusion struck Mistress Carlyn like a physical blow. Then realization came over her in a rush. Her boast! The thoughtless boast she had made without once considering how far it might spread.

“No,” she whispered. “No, it can’t be!”

“What is it, Mother?” asked Bridin as both sisters looked up from their work, startled to see the deathly pallor of their mother’s face.

Mistress Carlyn did not answer. She sprang to her feet, leaving her fine gown and stitching in a pile on the floor. She was down the stairs within three seconds, then paused at the door to pat her hair into place—one must maintain
some
sense of dignity, after all—before stepping out into the yard.

She stood face-to-face with the impressive messenger in his crimson-plumed hat.

“Mistress Carlyn, Miller’s Wife?” that gentleman demanded.

“I am she,” Mistress Carlyn replied and dropped what she hoped was a proper curtsy. Farmer’s wives, while superior to the wives of vicars, cobblers, and the like, are not often taught courtly graces, after all.

The messenger held up an impressive document with tiny, illegible handwriting and a huge signature and seal at the bottom. The very sight of it was enough to melt ice-cold Mistress Carlyn’s knees into water. “King Hendry, Sovereign Lord and Master of this Realm, has decreed that your daughter who can spin gold from straw must be escorted to Craigbarr Palace to demonstrate her skills.”

Mistress Carlyn, ordinarily so frigid, felt a hot flush rush through her bones at these words. “Oh!” she exclaimed, trying to laugh and failing. “Well, this is a bit of a surprise!”

And she thought:
If the king finds out it was all a lie, he will certainly kill whomever I send! I cannot give him Bridin or Innis . . .

Even as she thought this, she heard the footsteps of her two daughters behind her and saw how the messenger’s gaze moved to them, one after the other, wondering which was the maiden he’d been sent to fetch.

“Eliana is out in the mill at the moment,” said Mistress Carlyn, the words slipping so naturally from her tongue, she never once thought to second-guess them. “I shall bring her immediately.”

Without a word of explanation to either of her own girls, without even another curtsy to the king’s man, Mistress Carlyn darted across the yard to the mill and stepped into its musty darkness for perhaps the first time. Eliana and Grahame were hard at work, seeing to the grinding of a batch of grain from the next village over.

Eliana looked up with some surprise when she heard the door open, that surprise redoubling at the sight of Mistress Carlyn. “What is it, Stepmother?” she asked, seeing the expression in that lady’s eye but unable to interpret it. “What’s wrong?”

“You must come at once,” said Mistress Carlyn. “The king’s men have come to fetch you.”

Eliana stared at her stepmother. At last, unable to believe her own ears, she managed to say, “I beg pardon?”

“Hurry, girl!” Mistress Carlyn cried, stepping forward and catching Eliana by the wrist. Her long fingers were like icicles freezing Eliana’s skin. She dragged Eliana from the mill and out into the sunlit yard before the girl could utter a word of protest.

Eliana saw the men-at-arms, saw the brilliantly clothed messenger. Her head whirled with confusion. She must be asleep! She must be dreaming! How could any of this possibly be real?

“This is the young maiden? Your daughter?” said the messenger, looking Eliana up and down, noting the difference in her grimy, bedraggled state and the poor quality of her clothes compared to the clean, neat garments worn by Bridin, Innis, and their mother.

“She is indeed,” said Mistress Carlyn, smiling brilliantly, her fingers still latched painfully upon Eliana’s wrist. “She was just hard at work inside, improving her craft. She is most eager to demonstrate her skills before the king.”

“What?” Eliana cried. “Stepmother, what do you mean?”

Mistress Carlyn offered no reply, merely pushing Eliana before her to stand in front of the messenger. Eliana stared at the man, stared at the red plume of his hat. She tried to remember how to curtsy, but her own legs would not obey her.

“Come along, my girl,” said the messenger, taking her by the arm. “We haven’t got all day.”

“Please!” Eliana choked, casting a desperate look back over her shoulder. Mistress Carlyn stood with a face like stone, Bridin and Innis framing her, their expressions much more distraught. Grahame appeared in the doorway of the mill and stood thunderstruck and unmoving. Eliana saw no help anywhere. “Please, what is going on?”

The messenger did not answer. He pushed her to stand in the center of the ten men-at-arms. They set off marching, and Eliana was obliged to trot in order to keep pace. She wasn’t even wearing her one pair of shoes! Her bare feet struck the dirt road in a pace almost as quick as the beating of her own terrified heart. Her only comfort was that this must, simply
must
be nothing more than a strange dream!

She clenched her hand into a fist, rubbing her thumb against her mother’s gold ring. With her other hand she touched the gold necklace. But for once, neither could give her any comfort.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Real Gold

The king’s men did not make Eliana walk the full twenty miles to Craigbarr. In the nearest town—the very town where all Eliana’s friends and acquaintances lived, the town where she attended services at the little church each Sunday—a cart was found, and she was loaded into the back of it like some prisoner. This was almost worse than being surrounded by the men-at-arms. At least when marching in their number she could hide herself behind their armor and lances.

In the cart she felt horribly exposed. Every one of her neighbors flocked to their windows and gates, gawping at her, whispering, some few daring to call out to her. She could not look at them, could not summon a voice to answer. What answer would she give anyway?

What in heaven’s name had she
done?

This question rattled round in her head, jarring along with every rut and bump in the long road to the king’s palace. She was no closer to an answer when they stopped for the night at a humble inn and she was locked in a lonely, cold room to herself. She was no closer to an answer the next morning when, shivering, she was loaded back into the cart and driven on into unfamiliar countryside, farther from home than she had ever been.

And she was no closer to an answer when she saw the king’s city spread out before her and beheld the amazing high rooftops and glittering gable windows of Craigbarr itself. This sight was too much for her, and she hid her face in her hands as though she could hide herself from the curious stares of the city folk who watched with interest as the cart rolled down the center street. She wondered . . . did
they
know why the king had sent armed men to fetch her, a humble miller’s daughter, from her lowly home?

The cart lurched to a halt. “Open in the name of the king!” the voice of the messenger boomed.

Eliana dropped her hands from her face, looking up in time to see the great, wide palace gates swing open like the jaws of a beast ready to swallow her alive. The cart surged into motion again, and Eliana grasped its railing to keep from falling over, her fingers white-knuckled with terror. They passed into a tremendous courtyard, and vague impressions of marble grandeur and glorious paving stones plucked at Eliana’s senses.

But her gaze fixed on one thing only: the wooden scaffold, half built, standing in the center of that yard. Laborers pounded away with hammers and nails, and even as Eliana watched, the gallows post was set into place.

Her blood turned to ice in her veins.

After that, the world seemed to collapse upon itself in a hazy horror. Too dizzy to take in her surroundings, too numb to understand what had happened, Eliana felt strong hands grasp her upper arms and drag her down from the cart. Perhaps she fainted, though no peaceful oblivion of darkness enveloped her.

Instead, it was as though her conscious awareness simply blacked out until she found herself inside the palace, but in a room unlike anything she would have expected to find within the walls of beautiful Craigbarr. It was low-ceilinged and bare, with only a single window. Its only furnishing was a spinning wheel, which stood in the very center. Piled around it were numerous bales of straw.

For some reason this sight, even more than the scaffold, filled Eliana with dread. She feared her heart had ceased to beat, and some moments passed before she realized that the men-at-arms had left her alone in the room.

“So you’re here,” said a strange voice. Not a particularly loud voice, but it bore that certain quality that fills the room and obliges all hearers to turn to it with attention. Elaina turned now and beheld a face she inexplicably recognized. After blinking three times she realized why she recognized it—it was the same face she had seen printed on copper coins for as long as she could remember. That beard, that long mustache, that brow—all were unmistakable.

She stood in the presence of the king!

In her effort to curtsy, she fell to her knees and could not find the strength to stand up again.

King Hendry looked upon the girl before him with her dirty clothes and loose, messy hair, her bare feet, her dirty fingers. If
this
wasn’t a proper peasant maiden, he didn’t know what was! Surely she
must
be possessed of magical powers, because that’s how these things worked. At least that’s how these things worked in Greer, and if they could work so nicely in Greer, well, so help him . . .

“Your mother boasted of your impressive skills,” he said, scowling down at the trembling girl, his arms folded over his chest, “and report of you reached my ear. The time has come to prove your mettle. Spin these bales of straw into gold by tomorrow morning. If you do not, you will die for your mother’s lie.”

Eliana’s eyes opened so wide, they took up most of her face. She stared at the king, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. He saw the horror in her face, and a terrible suspicion rooted in his stomach: suspicion that he had been foolish to believe these rumors. Suspicion that he had been wrong to make such an implacable decree. Suspicion that he would only embarrass himself and needlessly end this innocent maiden’s life.

But he hardened himself against these thoughts, blocking them out like enemies at the gate. “You know what you must do,” he said, and backed out of the room. The door slammed shut.

Eliana bowed her head and sobbed
.

At some point in the afternoon, Eliana fell asleep. The sheer exhaustion of her own terror overwhelmed her, and she put her head down on one of the straw bales, oblivious to the tickling and prickling of the coarse grasses, and lost herself to troubling dreams.

She woke with a start and a gasp. Through the one window she saw stars and realized that she had slept well into the evening. Her face was swollen and puffy from weeping, and the sleep had not brought her rest.

Rising stiffly, she made her way to the window, kicking straw with her bare feet with each step. She peered out, hoping for some glimpse of the country beyond the palace walls, beyond the city. Some glimpse of land she recognized, some hint of home.

Instead, she saw the gallows standing ready in the courtyard below.

She gasped and drew back, tears filling her eyes once more. She looked round at the spinning wheel. What was it the king had said?
Straw
into
gold?

“Stepmother, what have you done?” she whispered. How could Mistress Carlyn have made such a ridiculous boast? And how could the king have heard about it, much less believed it? She closed her eyes, struggling to fight the tide of fear and nausea welling up inside her.

“Maiden, why do you weep?”

Eliana whirled around, her heart leaping to her throat. Her widened eyes saw a shadow in the corner, but it was too dark to see more than an impression. “Who’s there?” she demanded.

Suddenly the starlight seemed to brighten until the room was filled with silvery light as brilliant as day. Eliana clearly beheld a lean, strong man wearing clothes unlike anything she had ever before seen, as if the browns and greens of a forest had been woven together into cloth. But what struck Eliana more profoundly than his attire were his brilliant, spring-green eyes.

“You’re too pretty to be crying,” the stranger said, smiling gently. “I always thought King Hendry a fool, but I did not think he was cruel.”

Everything about this man was too strange. Too bizarre and too otherworldly. Eliana, instantly wary, demanded, “Who are you?”

“You have soot on your face,” he said instead of answering.

Despite herself, Eliana’s hand flew to her cheek and rubbed hard, smearing tears and soot together.

“That only made it worse.” The green-eyed stranger chuckled. He stepped from his corner, approaching her slowly, his hands held out as though to soothe a frightened doe. “So tell me, why are you crying?”

This must be a dream
, Eliana told herself.
All of it. Everything since yesterday morning. And this is merely the strangest part of the dream yet, and I’ll wake up from it soon.

With this thought firmly in mind, she decided she might as well answer as not. “My stepmother boasted that I can spin straw into gold,” she said. “Somehow it reached the ear of the king, and now he expects me to prove myself.”

“Can you?” asked the stranger, though something in his eye told her that he already knew the answer.

“What sort of question is that?” she answered, her voice sharp with frustration. She shook her head vigorously. “Of course not! No one can! It’s the silly wish of a greedy woman who always wants more than she can have.”

“So why did she send you here? If these are the garments you came in, she did not have the foresight to dress you well for visiting the king.”

Eliana, suddenly weak, sat down heavily on the nearest straw bale. “She probably meant one of her other daughters when she invented the story,” she said with a shaky sigh. “But the king will kill me when he learns it was all a lie, and she did not want her own blood to die.”

The stranger clicked his tongue and sat down beside her, his hands on his knees. “That is harsh indeed. So this is the reason for your sorry weeping?”

“Yes,” said Eliana, frowning and suddenly defensive. “Isn’t it reason enough?”

“Calm down, lass! No need to fuss. What if I told you that
I
can spin straw into gold?”

Eliana laughed bitterly. This dream was too ridiculous for words! “I’d call you a rotten liar.”

The man smiled and gave her a friendly nudge on the shoulder. “And you’d be right to do so if I were a normal man. But I am a faerie.”

She jerked away from him, almost falling from the straw bale in her haste. Suddenly she knew—she
knew
—that this was no dream. It couldn’t be. Because there was something altogether too
real
about this stranger’s unreal-ness, about the brilliant starlight and the green of his eyes. As though everything else she had always known were the dream, and this,
this
, weird though it might be, were the reality always just beyond the edge of her understanding.

A faerie? She should disbelieve his claim. Yet she could not find the will to do so.

“What do you want with me?” Stories about faerie-folk came back to her, stories of how they snatched children from the cradle and stole young women away in the night.

The faerie looked hurt. “I simply do not want to see you cry,” he said. “And it seems a shame to let you die because of a simple misunderstanding.”

“Why should you care?” Eliana got to her feet and crossed to the opposite side of the room, on the far side of the spinning wheel. “I’m not of your kind.”

“Ah, but your mother was.”

Eliana’s heart froze in her breast. Her mother? A . . .
faerie?

Understanding fell upon her in a tremendous rush like the force of a waterfall. Of course she was! How could her mother, her beautiful, lovely, beloved mother, be anything less? Her mother, who was always just a little too wonderful for this world.

Nevertheless, Eliana whispered, “You speak truly?”

The faerie nodded slowly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “She could not live long in your world, breathing your mortal air. She knew it would kill her to remain, but she could not bear to leave you or your father, not even for a day. So she stayed as long as she could, until her faerie magic was at last all used up.” He bowed his head briefly, as though overwhelmed by sudden sorrow. That sorrow still shone in his eyes when he looked up at Eliana again. “Just before she passed away she asked me to look after you. Somehow she knew that some danger would come upon you, and she asked me to protect you when it happened. She could not tell me more, but . . .” His mouth twisted in a half-smile. “I think she may have guessed something like this would happen. She was always sensitive to premonitions and the like.”

His expression grew very serious then. “It is against our King’s law for a faerie to let himself be seen by a mortal. I’m breaking a lot of rules simply by talking to you right now.”

Eliana, her mind awhirl with all these new thoughts and ideas, found another straw bale and slowly sank down onto it. Her hand moved to her mother’s necklace, fingering the little chain links. She felt the gold metal warm beneath her touch.