Spindle's End

by Robin McKinley

  But it was still a long, edgy nine days.

  CHAPTER 3

  Katriona was up at dawn on the name-day, feeling as anxious as if she were a crucial part of the day’s events instead of a small undistinguished member of an audience of thousands. She was determined to be through the gates as soon as the gates opened, and to get as near to—to whatever—as she could. She kept remembering her aunt saying, “I think you’ll like the little princess,” and while she was sure that what she had replied to her aunt at the time was the truth, it also felt as if a geas had been laid upon her, and that she must try as she could.

  The gates were still closed when she arrived, but there were many people waiting there already, the crush somewhat impeded by the late travellers who had decided they would save valuable time in the morning by sleeping there, and, such had been the gaiety of the night previous, could be neither awakened nor moved. But Katriona was among the first few hundred through and out upon a great dazzle of lawn. She had never seen grass so smooth and beautiful; it distracted her from the tall poles garlanded with ribbons and flowers, the vast white tents with the royal banner flying from their peaks, the beautiful liveries of those who were moving slowly over the platform where the rows of lavishly decorated tables for the court were placed. (This stage was high enough so that even sitting down no courtier or peer would be shorter than the tallest member of a crowd which might be standing on its feet and straining for a glimpse of its betters.) At the centre stood a taller platform where the princess’ cradle stood, almost invisible among the gold and the lavender and the rosettes.

  But she came to herself as she was jostled by the rush of people behind her, and made a dart toward the barrier that stood a few feet out from the court tables. The barrier was made of mere rope and ribbons, draped from narrow white posts, but its purpose was made clear by the guards that stood behind it. Although the guards themselves looked perhaps more ornamental than practical, still, guards were guards, and there were swords hanging from the gorgeous belts that crossed the splendid livery. The crowd looked at them, and steadied a little.

  People began to find where they would sit down, the first-comers pleased with themselves and resistant to inroads by late-comers. More royal guards appeared to sort out disagreements before they became heated.

  Katriona found herself a corner of an aisle close enough to the barrier to count the gems in the hilt of the sword of the guardsman nearest her and the ruches in the tablecloth of the nearest court table. She heard commotion ebb and flow in the empty aisle beside her and then a large bare leg and foot planted itself next to her. She was eye level with the backward sweep of an unsheathed sword that swung by the leg. Lord Prendergast had a dress sword he sometimes wore—sheathed—at fetes and things, but it was straight, like those of the guards behind the barrier; this one was curved, and, more important, only about half a hand’s-breadth distant. She was rather preoccupied with its nearness, for the first time thinking that as a small young woman alone she was vulnerable to displacement by larger rowdier elements. She observed that the bare leg was bare only to just below the knee, and then, rather more reassuringly, that the curiously wrapped and looped trousers disappeared toward the waist under a livery coat similar to those the guards were wearing.

  The man she looked up at was probably not so tall as he seemed, standing next to her as she sat on the ground. His arms were crossed, and he was scowling, and she glanced over her shoulder at a group of young men, their colour somewhat heightened, looking at the sabre-bearer and visibly changing their minds about coming any farther. The sabre-bearer was directly beside her, as if it were she he was specially guarding.

  The sabre seemed to whistle past her ear as the man turned and bent over her. She flinched. He was bald as well as bare-foot, and his skin was a deep, shining grey-brown, rather like wet shale. He gazed down at her, and while he was still scowling, he no longer looked angry but puzzled. Katriona wanted to say, I am no one, I am no one from that no-place, the Gig, because his gaze seemed to be trying to make her into someone; but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. He straightened up, his eyes moving away from her and toward the dais, and she watched as his line of sight rose, and she could guess he was now looking at the cradle. She expected him to leave her now, and she drew in the first half of a deep sigh of relief.

  But her breath caught in her throat when with a sudden, impulsive movement, he pulled something off over his head and bent over her again. He was holding the something down toward her, and as she looked up, he dropped it round her neck. She felt the weight of it at once, although it had drifted through the air as if it were made of gossamer. She touched it gently, feeling the half-exciting, half-irritating buzz of magic against her skin, thinking, Oh dear. This is not just a little charm, for sleeping in trees, or keeping your place in a queue.

  There was a buzz in her ears, too; the amulet hadn’t been made for her, she was too small for it, and it was having trouble finding her within the larger space it was accustomed to. She fingered it, waiting, dazzled, helpless, glad she was sitting down. She hadn’t noticed before the shimmer of magic behind the barrier; well, of course, it would be there, in a crowd like this you could never know . . . but this was a lot of magic, a very large lot of magic, what were they expecting?

  The buzz began to subside, and she heard the man say to her, “You wear that, child, and you stay just where you are, it’ll hold you safe.”

  Still a little dazed, she said, “But—”

  The man was already turning away—the sabre twinkled past her eye—she reached out and grabbed his ankle, banging her head on the flat of the blade. It was cold against her skin, and for a moment she saw . . . lace, tiny delicate holes and large drooping arches, squares and triangles and shapes she had no names for, webwork from thread fine as spider silk to stout rope like a carter’s, layers and layers of it, hung like an infinity of veils; soon she would be lost among them. . . . She felt the man’s hand on her head, tipping her upright again, brushing the tangle away. “Little maid, I am sorry. Eskwa is dangerous unsheathed, but I want him dangerous today; and I would rather he bound than he cut. Putting things to rights tomorrow if I have guessed wrong will be easier. But Eskwa does not like binding; he says it is not his work, and it makes him short-tempered.”

  She shook her head to clear it, pulling the string of the amulet against her neck till it bit into her skin as if saying to it, Here. This is where I am. This is all of me there is. She said unsteadily, “I know—how magic works. My aunt is a fairy.” For some reason he laughed when she said this. “There must be an—exchange.”

  She could not refuse so great a gift, but what did one do in a case like this? There were rules for the basic things, salt for saving a life and wine for bringing one safe into the world; if you had no salt you licked the back of your hand; if you had no wine you offered an empty cup; if you had no cup, you offered your cupped hands. She didn’t know the ritual response for having a queen’s ransom dropped round your neck by a stranger when you hadn’t a king’s ransom to give. She was groping in the secret pocket inside her skirt for something to offer him; she did not want to give him one of her paltry charms, she thought it might be rude; and Eskwa made her nervous.

  Her hand closed on Barder’s wooden egret. She hated to lose it, but somehow that made it less meagre a token. She held it up, and the man took it solemnly, and looked at it, and as he looked at it he smiled, and with his smile Eskwa made her less nervous. “I think you are right, child,” he said, “that there must be some exchange between us; Nagilbran always told me I was too light-minded. He would call me very light-minded indeed for this whim of mine,” and he touched his collar-bone with the hand that did not hold Barder’s egret, where his amulet had hung. “This is a very beautiful thing, and the man who made it for you loves you with a love that even magic cannot improve upon. I will not take it away from you. Listen, child. The necklace is a loan. I’ll come back for it when you don’t need it any more. Tom
orrow, perhaps, when I have my wrong guesses to mend. And I thank you now for the loan of your medallion.”

  He laid it gently into her hand again, and left her, walking quickly away down the aisle. She turned her head just in time to see one last fierce glitter from Eskwa as she gratefully tucked the egret away; but then the crowd set up a shout and she turned back.

  The king, queen and princess had finally arrived, last of all. The princess was being carried by a small, surprisingly drab person. The queen hovered over her, not so much, Katriona thought, that she had any fear for her, but because she found it difficult to tear herself away from the contemplation of her daughter, even at the expense of her own grand entrance. Katriona had her fingers curled round the centre stone of the sabre-bearer’s amulet, and it throbbed gently, like a small beating heart. She could see the king’s face, and the queen’s, and the small drab person’s, although they were some distance from her, but not the princess’; the princess was just a froth of ribbons and drapery.

  The crowd leaped to its feet and shouted and waved their hands, Katriona borne with them, although no one touched her. The little party mounted the half-dozen low steps to the cradle-dais, and then the small drab person handed the princess to the queen, who herself laid her tenderly in the cradle. And so Katriona saw nothing of the princess at all, just as she had predicted to her aunt two months ago: nothing but a bundle of gold and white and lavender. She thought she had a glimpse of one small waving fist just before the princess disappeared below the sides of the cradle.

  Then there were the speeches, and Katriona felt she probably wasn’t missing much by not being able to hear them on account of the noise of her neighbours, the wind, and the tendency of the speech-makers to mumble. The bishop, who was the first, and most resplendently dressed, and had the most sonorous mumble, had gone on the longest; maybe there was more to say over a princess than over an ordinary baby. Name-days in Foggy Bottom lasted as long as the lighting of two candles and one stick of incense, and the laying on of one pair of hands. Of course the Foggy Bottom priestling was muttering away like anything as he did these things, and the bishop was in no hurry. His satellite priests pulled out a series of little wallets and satchels of dried herbs and other unguessable crumbs and particles, adding a pinch here and a pinch there as if the princess were an outlandish sort of broth. They would have smothered her in the smoke from their censers as well, except the wind kept snatching it away.

  It was funny about the wind; there had only been enough to make the banners show their colours a little while ago. But there had been an odd, almost brutal gust as the queen had laid the princess in her cradle; not only had the princess’ own long trailing robes and wrappings suddenly wafted out, the queen’s headdress had as well. Katriona glanced over at the fairy godmothers’ table, where the wind was having a very good time among the headgear. And now the pennoncels flying high above the dais were struggling against their ropes as if they wished to fly away from here, from the name-day, from the royal city; and dark clouds were beginning to roll up. It had been a beautiful day, a day suitable for a princess’ name-day; but now there were thunderclouds gathering in the northwest. The heartbeat against her palm quickened.

  Katriona looked with some puzzlement toward the First Magicians’ table. She found it hard to believe that the king and queen hadn’t asked particularly that the weather today be fine; even her aunt had been known to make a tiny break in the clouds for a wedding-party to make a dash from the church to the pub where the food was without ruining the bride’s finery (village bridal dresses could afford to be as grand as they often were because fairies saw that the weather didn’t ruin them from one generation to the next), and her aunt in general didn’t believe in messing with the weather. While it seemed to Katriona that conversation at the First Magicians’ table had lapsed, she could not be sure that the number of magicians looking thoughtfully at the sky was not merely on account of the slow plod of the speeches.

  Well, at last. The final orator shuffled away, and the king—trying not to give the impression of a person waking from a nap standing up—turned to the fairy godmothers’ table and smiled. The first fairy was halfway up the dais before he’d finished turning his head.

  Katriona leaned forward now, straining her ears, because she wanted to hear the sort of thing fairy godmothers gave to royal goddaughters; but the fairy, perhaps having taken instructions from the failure of the speech-givers to be heard, was careful, after she had bent over the cradle, to turn back toward the audience and shout: “To our very own princess, Casta Albinia Allegra Dove Minerva Fidelia Aletta Blythe Domnia Delicia Aurelia Grace Isabel Griselda Gwyneth Pearl Ruby Coral Lily Iris Briar-Rose, I give the gift of golden hair, as gold as corn-tassels in August.”

  Katriona nearly fell over. Golden hair! Golden hair? What an utterly idiotic gift! Aunt had always taught her that you were respectful of your magic! And here, the very first—Golden hair! from a fairy godmother, who could give you anything—well, almost anything. They would only have invited the best to be the princess’ godmothers. But here was the second godmother. Surely she would do better.

  Wrong. “To our princess, I give the gift of eyes as blue as love-in-a-mist, or summer sky after rain.” Katriona put her head in her hand. “Skin as white as milk.” She’ll have to live under a royal parasol all her life, then; skin like that burns indoors, with the shutters closed. “—And as flawless as the silk woven by the royal silkworms.” She’ll look like a doll. No person has flawless skin. “Lips as red as cherries.” “Teeth like pearls.” Katriona missed a few, by dropping the amulet and pressing her hands over her ears in despair. “Feet that never stumble at dancing.” “Fingers that never falter upon the flute.” “A singing voice sweeter than the first birds of spring” and “A laugh like a silver bell.” “Her golden hair will fall in long ringlets wide and round as goblets.”

  Katriona wished her aunt were there. She found herself thinking over all the charms her aunt had given her, wondering if there were anything she could give to the princess. Would she like, when she was a little older, to be able to sleep in a tree? While they’re at it, she thought sourly, hearing the bestowal of eyelashes as long and fine and silky as the hairs at the tip of a fleethound’s tail, they could at least give her fingernails that never break off below the quick, eyes that never get dust in them, a digestion that is never upset. They hadn’t guaranteed her not to have flat feet yet either; weren’t they worried they’d end up with a princess with feet like a duck’s? . . . “Her embroidery shall be peerless”; “her sweetmeats sublime.”

  Poor princess. Was Katriona imagining it, or did the queen look the tiniest bit dismayed? Did she shiver? Or was that only the wind? Katriona remembered the popular story that the queen had been in her father’s kitchens overseeing dinner when the emissary had come to offer her the king’s hand in marriage; perhaps she had been looking forward to teaching her daughter her own recipe for sweetmeats.

  As the twentieth gift was uttered—something to do with spinning woolen thread as fine and strong as the slender reedy leaves of the maundry, much loved by basket-weavers—there was a burst of thunder so near overhead that everyone, except possibly the king, ducked; a number of people stretched themselves flat on the ground, with the concomitant effect of a lot of boots going into a lot of faces; cries of pain and protest combined with the next blast of thunder. Katriona was suddenly the only one near the barrier still sitting up; and she clutched the sabre-bearer’s amulet with both hands.

  In the aisle in front of Katriona, just before the boundary, a black cloud was creating itself. Its centre twisted and writhed and began to take on a shape somewhat human, and as it did so, the outside of the cloud began to organise itself into a long grey cloak, and the cloak began to send up streaks of purple and magenta and cerise from its hem, as if the air were a vat of dye it trailed in. And then the human form within it gave a final jerk and shudder, and a woman stood there, a woman as tall as the king, and with a face
more dangerous than an army waiting for the command to attack, and she wore black and grey streaked with purple and magenta and cerise, and a necklace of black stones.

  She turned slowly in a circle, holding the edges of her cloak against her bent arms so that the material hung down like wings; and as she finished her circuit and again faced the dais, she dropped her hands and arms, and laughed.

  “So: a fine day for a princess’ name-day, and a fine crowd to see. Well! I wanted to see, too—but I was not invited. I live alone near a wood—perhaps not quite alone—but no herald came to me; and when one-and-twenty fairy godmothers were chosen I was not among them. But I wished to see the princess’ name-day—and so I came.”

  She paused, but no one said anything. Even the First Magicians sat as if stricken; perhaps they were. The queen had bent over the cradle as the black cloud formed itself out of nothing, but she seemed frozen, reaching for her child but not able to touch her. One of the courtiers, at the end of the table by the aisle Katriona sat beside, held a bit of bread to his mouth, but he neither ate it, nor laid it down, nor closed his mouth. Katriona was rigid in what she thought was nothing but sheer terror; if she moved, the tall woman might notice her.

  As the black cloud had become a woman, Katriona had watched the magic barrier behind the ordinary barrier flame up till the faces of the people she saw through it were patched and mottled with its colours: reds and red-purples and mauves and greys. As the tall woman spoke, each word seemed to glance off that undulating barrier, but it left a little black streak behind it, so that the barrier began to look spotted, like fine sheer cloth with soot.

  When she finished speaking, the tall woman reached out a hand toward the barrier, and the sooty black streaks extended into smudges and dapples, till the barrier became piebald, and the clear colours were all shadowed. But she dropped her hand at last, and the shadows began to fade; but Katriona fancied, as they faded, that they shimmered grey-brown, like wet shale, and that instead of spots and mottles, they were woven, like cord or rope. The woman laughed again, but it was a laugh like the sudden knowledge of your own death, and many of the people who lay on the ground whimpered or cried out.