Spindle's End

by Robin McKinley

  “I, too, have a gift for the princess,” said the tall woman, “and while it pleases you not to seek it, I will give it to her nonetheless; but perhaps . . .” and here the woman’s voice grew silky with malevolence, “perhaps I will alter it just a little. I was not in a good mood when I arrived, you know, for I had expected an invitation to the name-day; I was still hoping right up until this morning that this would be put right. I might still have forgiven you, this morning.

  “But I am quite a . . . quite an important fairy, and you cannot have overlooked me, except by deliberation. I do not like to be overlooked. And now, when I have humbled myself to you by coming anyway, not only do you not ask me to sit at the high table, you hold me here with your rabble of subjects. . . . No, I am not in a good mood.

  “I wish the country to remember me, too, as one of the fairies who gave the princess a gift on her name-day.” She had been facing the barrier, but now she turned round, toward the crowd—the rabble of subjects—and threw her arms out wide. “My original gift was this: that the princess will grow in all those beauties and virtues she has been so adorned with this day. But on the day she reaches her majority—on the day that her father should crown her his heir—on her one-and-twentieth birthday, she shall fall down in a poisoned sleep, and die, and nothing anyone can do will save her.”

  Katriona stopped breathing.

  “But that now seems to me so—simple. And so I think I will alter it—a little. What was it I heard some magic-trifling buffoon giving her as I arrived? Some sublime ability to spin the dense stinking hair of a sheep into something resembling the thin drab tumescences of an unlovely marsh plant? How charming. I think I shall say—on her one-and-twentieth birthday she shall prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel; and this prick shall cause her to fall into that poisoned sleep from which no one shall rouse her.”

  Not breathing wasn’t enough; Katriona wanted to be a grass blade, a lump of gravel, an earthworm, anything but a person listening to this curse, shaping itself implacably over the baby princess’ tiny, oblivious head.

  “Perhaps you will say that is mere ornamentation. And it does still give you one-and-twenty years to enjoy her. I think . . . I think it shall be that my disposition of her future may happen at any time.” Again the woman laughed, and the people lying on the ground outside the barrier writhed and flinched as if the laugh were a lash across their flesh. “Perhaps I shall even come to her, in secret, tonight, and pick her up out of her cradle, and press her tiny soft hand against the sharp spindle end. . . .”

  Thunder groaned in the distance in a terrible harmony to the moans of the crowd; the queen gave one shriek, and fell fainting across the cradle. The king, moving as if he were tearing himself free from iron chains, stooped beside her, and took her in his arms. The tall woman smiled. “Burn all the spinning wheels in the kingdom, should you choose; it will not save her. Lock her up in your deepest dungeon for the rest of her short life, and that will not save her either. Delight in your princess while you can, for you shall not have her long!”

  The tall woman threw up her hands, and she was a black cloud again, tumultuous as a tornado, spinning, spinning, spinning like a kind of maniacal wheel, where she had been standing, and the banners above the dais were torn free, and the poles that had held the silken hangings crashed down upon the king and the queen and the cradle with the princess still in it—and Katriona, with no recollection of how she got there, found herself kneeling by the cradle and snatching up the now-crying princess in her own arms and patting the little back and stroking the little head and saying, over and over, “No, no, it shall not happen, it can’t happen, they won’t let it happen, you can have all my aunt’s charms, I’m not much of a fairy yet although my aunt says I will be, but you can have my gift, it’s only baby-magic so it won’t last, and it isn’t very useful anyway, I can talk to animals, sometimes it is a little useful, and it is the only useful gift anyone has given you all day, sometimes if someone has put a spell on you or on something round you, if you have an animal you can ask, animals aren’t so mixed up by magic as we are, it’s only baby-magic, it’s only—but you’re only a baby yourself, oh, oh, it cannot happen,” and she realised the tears were streaming down her face and down the back of the princess’ neck, which might be part of why the princess was crying so hard. The sabre-bearer’s amulet thrummed against her breast like the beating of many small heavy hammers, and as she rocked the princess she saw that there were shreds of red and red-purple and mauve and grey draped over her arms and strung through her fingers like torn fabric she had clawed her way through, and streamers of it hung as well from her hair and tickled her face, but she had no hand free to brush them away.

  There was an uproar round her, and to the extent that she was thinking clearly about anything, she was expecting the princess to be taken away from her at once; but what happened instead was someone’s arm round her waist, helping her to her feet, hustling her, with the princess still in her arms, down the back of the dais, and under the wreck of the poles and the name-day hangings. Here there was a little corner of quiet, and the hustling stopped, and Katriona found herself looking down into the face of the small drab person who had carried the princess and stood behind the queen, and her face, too, was streaked with tears.

  “My dear, do you have any idea what you have done? I would thank you for it, only I doubt that you do know.”

  Katriona balanced the princess awkwardly so that she could sweep the worst of the flapping, confusing streamers out of her face with one hand; she might have thought to offer the princess to the small person, but she did not, and the small person did not offer to take her. The small person did, as the amulet was revealed from behind the now only whimpering baby, reach out and touch it delicately with one finger. “Well. That explains one thing.”

  Katriona found herself smiling, the desperate smile of someone who has no idea what is going on, is frightened, and wishes to please or at least to placate. The small person’s eyes rose from the amulet to Katriona’s face, and she smiled back, but it was a gentle and understanding smile. “You are still only a child yourself. My poor dear. . . . Oh, I do not know what to do!” The small person’s face lost its smile as if it would never find it again, and she pressed a hand briefly over her eyes, and a few tears crept out from under her palm. Speaking as if to herself, she said, “What I told the queen is only the truth—I’m too bound up in this family—over many years and three generations of kings and queens I have sunk my power deep here, too deep to be got back. . . . There were to have been one-and-twenty gifts, and only twenty were given when Pernicia appeared—Oh yes,” she said, speaking directly to Katriona again, “yes, I know who she is; but I did not know she was so powerful. I hoped, as one always does hope until catastrophe strikes, that it would not come. I hoped that the years had worn her out, the years since our last queen . . .

  “Listen. There is no time. I will try to see to it that no one remembers you. Take the princess and go—take her and go. That is her only chance—because by the time it is quiet enough that one might be able to think, it will be too late. I will give you a charm so that you can escape the royal city unseen; then you are on your own. I dare not let you carry any smell of me or my magic beyond the walls of the city—ah! I dare not so much as kiss her good-bye; I dare not touch her again, now that you have taken her—Do not tell me where you are going, do not say it aloud in this place, in this air, that Pernicia so recently disturbed for her own ends. The fewer traces you leave the more easily I can erase them.”

  “I—but—” began Katriona, appalled, but unconsciously easing the princess against her till she fit comfortably against her own breast and shoulder. The princess had one small fist wrapped in the neckline of Katriona’s dress, and was beginning to experiment with pulling her hair with the other one.

  “Yes, I know,” said the small drab fairy. “I’m sorry. But you will do it, will you not? I cannot force you any more than I can keep her safe myself.
But it is truly the princess’ only hope. Take her home with you. Raise her as if she were your own.”

  “Raise her? But what—”

  “You will hear from me later. I will find you when I can—when I dare. It may not be for some time. Pernicia is . . . we must find out everything about her, and this will not be easy. Listen to this—memorise it—anyone coming from me will tell it to you, and that is how you will know who they are. Words are the only token we can risk. And—and—a poem is the most I can give her, my dear, my only darling!” The fairy’s voice faltered, but then went on firmly: “ ‘Small spider weave on a silver sleeve/Oh weave your grey web nearer./ From a golden crown let your silk hang down/ For lost, lost, lost is the wearer.’ ”

  “ ‘. . . is the wearer,’ ” repeated Katriona obediently. “But what will you tell the poor queen?”

  But she never knew the answer, for as she raised her head from the effort of memorisation—her mind felt like a field of rabbits bolting in panic from the sight of the hunter—to look again at the small person who had just destroyed her life and given her some other, far more dangerous life for which she was totally unprepared, she found herself on the outskirts of the royal city, in a small stand of oak trees. It was near sunset, and the princess was asleep on her shoulder.

  CHAPTER 4

  Small spider weave . . .” Katriona murmured; by the sun, the small fairy had recited the poem for her to learn several hours ago. She gave a hitch upward with the arm that bore the weight of the sleeping princess; babies always weighed more than you thought they would. And . . . she would be carrying this one for a long time.

  She sat down. She had to sit down. If Pernicia herself had appeared in that little grove and ordered her to hand the princess over, Katriona would still have sat down. She tried to arrange the princess on her knee, but sleeping babies are intransigently floppy, and Katriona, while she had had a good bit of experience with babies, was not at her best, and her hands were shaking. The princess lay like a little crushed parcel, snoring faintly.

  Katriona tried to take stock. Most of her few possessions were back in the little cubby at the pub with no chance of reclaiming them. She would have to hope that no conclusions were drawn about their abandonment. She was wearing her charm-skirt (now tucked tactfully under her ordinary skirt, so that she didn’t look such a bumpkin), and her few remaining ha’pennies, her small folding knife, and her flint and tinder were in her pocket with Barder’s egret. She was wearing her best clothes, which she had been a little ashamed of as not at all best enough for a princess’ name-day, but their lackluster appearance now would be useful, when she had no others, and they were, furthermore, both comfortable and durable. Better yet was the fact that she was wearing her cloak, not because she had thought she would need it, but because it was the newest thing she owned; she would miss her blanket at night, but at least with the cloak they wouldn’t freeze. Nearer home even in midsummer there was no guarantee of warm nights. She unwound the scarf that went round her neck, crossed her breast, and tied at her waist; it was not ideal for the purpose, but she could use it for a baby-sling.

  Then she lifted her outer skirt and detached one of the charms, the one that made the wearer look too poor and ordinary to be worth a passing glance. She hoped that all her charms would include a baby that she carried—not a contingency she had thought to verify with her aunt beforehand—but this one she tucked down inside the princess’ clothing. It had been made up with robbers and thugs in mind; she hoped it would include royal messengers desperately searching for some sign of the missing princess and her kidnapper. It was the best she could do.

  She unwrapped, and snipped off, the long ribbons of gold and lavender, and the pink rosettes, that the princess was wearing; even her smallclothes were so white as to be dazzling, and far too finely made to be anything other than what they were, clothing for a princess on her name-day. Well, there was nothing to be done about that; she didn’t have a charm for producing baby clothes out of oak leaves; and after a few days they would be as grimy as she could wish—rather more grimy than she could wish—and she wasn’t planning on letting anyone near enough to examine the quality of the stitching. After a moment’s hesitation she stuffed the bright ribbons into another pocket in her petticoat. She didn’t want to leave them to be found, and she had no good way of disposing of them; furthermore she had some unhappy sense that they might be the only symbols of her heritage the poor little princess had remaining to her.

  Lastly she tucked the sabre-bearer’s amulet under her dress, wondering what the small person—she didn’t even know her name—had meant by “That explains one thing.” Did the small person know the sabre-bearer, and his tendency to befriend undistinguished strangers with gifts of great magic? Or was she only referring to the fact that the amulet had let Katriona cross the barrier Pernicia had not been able to break? At least the weight and throb of it were gone; it rested lightly against her, almost too lightly, as if the string that held it together were all it was made of, and the queerly translucent stones were mist or imagining.

  Then she stood up and started walking. She did not know what else to do. The sun told her which way to walk; she was going home.

  There were, that evening, surprisingly few people on the roads, and those there were seemed absorbed in their own concerns. There was an air of tension everywhere, but Katriona was not sure if this might merely be the tension she carried with her. Her legs were used to heavy loads, but she was accustomed to panniers or backpacks to carry them; after a few hours of carrying the princess her shoulders and arms were tired, and her back sore. She would get used to it; she had to.

  When a flying wedge of horsemen wearing the royal livery shot past her—the bugler giving warning for everyone to fall out of the way—it was all Katriona could do not to shriek out loud; and she wasn’t at all sure that what she wanted to shriek wasn’t, “Here, I’ve got her! It’s all a terrible mistake! Please, take her back to her poor parents!” But she didn’t; and no one looked twice at the young woman with the anguished face carrying the sleeping baby in a sling.

  As twilight deepened into night and Katriona trudged on, she thought, I must have milk for her. I dare not ask to buy milk while we are still so close to the city because I do not want anyone to wonder why I am carrying an unweaned baby not my own; but . . .

  Perhaps it was some lingering effect of the small fairy’s charm; perhaps it was merely Katriona’s own dogged determination. But she did not stop that night, and the princess never woke. Katriona knew she should wonder if the princess were sick; but she was too grateful for the respite. Once they were out into wilder country it would be easier.

  It was easier, but it was not easy. At the end of that first centuries-long night, Katriona struggled into a bit of hedgerow with a shaggy bank that hid them from the road, and fell into an exhausted sleep. She was awoken too few hours later by a thin, miserable, hungry wail from the princess, who was sopping and dirty besides. Katriona dealt with the more immediately disagreeable problem with a few strips hacked from her petticoat, and then, since she couldn’t spare anything potentially reusable, rolled up the smelly, disgusting mess of the princess’ underclothes, wrapped it in another strip torn from her petticoat, and tucked it grimly into the sling under the baby. The princess, still fretful, found motion distracting, and only whinged and grizzled as Katriona staggered down to the road again and set off, looking sharply round her for any sign of water.

  There was a stream, fortunately, not far away, and she fought her way upstream through low-hanging shrubs till they were a little out of sight of the high road, drank deeply herself, splashed her face savagely in an attempt to wake herself up, laid the princess’ discarded nappy in the stream and put a stone on it to soak, and set about trying to persuade the princess to drink a little water. It wasn’t food any more than it was for Katriona, but neither of them had had even water since midday the day before, and breakfast was still somewhere in the future.

  She c
ontrived a twist out of another bit of her petticoat—it was disappearing fast, and she needed its pockets—which the princess seized on with no hesitation and sucked eagerly till she discovered it wasn’t what she wanted, whereupon she spat it out and began to scream with real rage, turning red with effort and throwing herself round.

  “Oh, magic and glory, what do I do now?” said Katriona aloud, beginning to panic; but her ear registered certain little rustlings in the bushes and forced her mind to take note. Good morning, sir, she said, because the old dog-fox was watching her and the princess with interest.

  Hungry baby, he said, surprising her; foxes generally wanted to talk about butterflies and grass and weather for a long time while they sized you up—if they would talk to you at all. Even in that country foxes didn’t much like having human beings who could talk to them—and even in that country those who could were rare enough—and were not inclined to be helpful to any fairy. Katriona was already a little surprised that this one had brought himself to her attention in the first place; but she was always polite to animals, and a fox might know where the nearest field with calved cows in it was. Yes, she said sadly, and I have no milk.

  Not your baby, said the fox.

  No, she began, and then said firmly, I am not her mother, but she is mine to care for.

  Foxes have a sense of humour, and she felt this one expressing his, since she manifestly was not taking good care of the princess at present. She looked at him, scowling, reminding herself that she still had a favour to ask him.