Spindle's End

by Robin McKinley

  But she would not die, because she was not the princess, and the curse, at the moment of consummation, would reject her, as the wrong end of a magnet tosses away iron filings. But the magic would by then have gone too far to turn back, like a bottle falling off the edge of a mantelpiece; and Peony would fall into an enchanted sleep, and every guardian enchantment of every fairy and every magician present—and there would be many present—would be wrapped round her at once, to hold her safe.

  Magic gone wrong produces a perilous uproar, a perilous and unpredictable uproar, the greater for the greater magic. The only thing they could well guess about this uproar was that it would be powerful, as Pernicia’s spell was powerful; powerful and wicked and still deadly dangerous, not least because all the fairies and magicians who would be there for the party could not be told what they were really doing. They would believe it was the princess whose enchanted sleep they were watching over. It would be up to Aunt and Ikor, and Sigil . . . because Rosie would be flung, in the recoil of magic gone wrong—somewhere; and Katriona was to go with her.

  There would be much magic to counteract, to defy or deflect, and Rosie would not be able to do it. Katriona’s part was to see that Rosie arrived at the final confrontation—whatever it was. But it was all horribly, incomprehensibly dangerous. Aunt and Ikor might have managed to lie to her about just how much they could not do and could not control; but one look at Katriona’s face told Rosie the truth.

  Rosie recalled some of the tales and ballads Barder had taught her: the hopeless causes, the outnumbered gallantry, the one-faint-chance against despair. She thought of her favourite stories: the magician Merlin, sired by a dragon, creating a great circle of standing stones to hold the light of midsummer to protect the ordinary people he loved against the wild magic of the strong young land they lived in; the harpist who loved his singing wife so much that he followed her to the land of the dead where between them they persuaded the god of that place to give her back, and when they died together, many years later, they were a legend more for their continued devotion to each other than the adventure of their youth; many of the tales of Damar against the North, especially of Harimad-sol at the Madamer Gate, and the holding of the way at Ullen. And she remembered King Harald of this, her own country, against the fire-wyrms—and her own progenitrix against Pernicia, although no one knew much about that tale. This was another of those occasions, and she hoped that someone would be telling this story, too, some day, as the one faint chance that succeeded.

  It was the best they could do. It was the only chance they had.

  At dinner in the Great Hall, where all dinners had been held since the arrival of the princess, Rosie’s consciousness flew up into the rafters to talk to the merrel. At first they could not make each other out through the great noise of many people eating and drinking and talking together, and through the many penetrating and single-minded thoughts of dogs and mice intent on anything that fell under the tables and off platters, and of cats trying to decide between nice fresh mice and unpredictable but always interesting human leavings. (The dogs kept Woodwold free of rats and—usually—squirrels and the occasional venturesome weasel, but mice were below their notice.) But Rosie and the merrel had persisted, or Rosie had, feeling almost as if the merrel were lifting her up, as if she did not merely sit but flew over the heads of the people—above the roof of the Great Hall, above the thick fogs of Gig winter and damp clouds of magic dust, to where the sun shone. . . . However it was, they learnt to talk to each other, and Rosie mostly chose the merrel’s company, except when someone, disturbed or intrigued by the intense, inturned look on Rosie’s face, shook her shoulder or her elbow until she returned to her place at the table and answered whatever question had been put to her in a human voice. “I was just thinking,” was all she usually said, and a small admiring rumor began to circulate about the princess’ lady-in-waiting, that the girl who had once been a horse-leech had become a philosopher. The merrel, who after so many years of living above the Great Hall with nothing to do but think and listen, assisted in recent years by conversations with Rosie, had learnt human language almost as well as another human. It was the merrel who told her about the rumour. Under other circumstances Rosie would have found this funny.

  I was just thinking, she said to herself now, in the darkness of the night before her twenty-first birthday. Once upon a time I walked where I wanted, and talked to whom I wanted, and . . . now all I do is sit and think as if I were chained by my ankle to a rafter. I don’t suppose Narl will even come to the ball. Why should he?

  Rosie could feel the mesh of thickening spells round her now, sticky as cobweb; the touch of it made her shiver as she moved, and in the corners of her eyes she could see it trailing behind her, like threads of dust shaken from an old curtain. The silent spider in the corner of her window had not come into the centre of her web and swung back and forth in a friendly fashion tonight; she huddled in her corner as if her own web imprisoned her.

  It had been several weeks now that Rosie and Peony had breathed in exact unison. Rosie’s breath caught in her throat often when Peony was with Rowland, but Peony had stopped letting herself weep—as at first she often had, with the bedroom door shut safely behind her, after saying a smiling farewell to Rowland and thanking Lady Pren for her attendance—when she realised that Rosie had to weep, too. The only time she and Peony could breathe to their own rhythm, these last few weeks, was when they slept. Rosie knew this from the many dark hours she sat awake in the window embrasure, listening to the slower sound of Peony’s sleeping.

  The entire Gig had been invited to the ball, and nearly everyone would come, except perhaps solitary blacksmiths. There were pavilions going up in the park, between the iron gates and the Great Hall, so that all those who came could be accommodated; and the great central doors to the Hall, which had not been used in over a century, had been unlocked—and unstuck—and would be left open that night; and a promise had been made, although no one knew who by, that the princess and her parents would walk the full length of the way between the gate and the Great Hall several times that night, so that anyone who wished to see—and even speak—to them would have their opportunity.

  The princess and her parents. My parents, thought Rosie. She had never said the words aloud, my parents, after she had learnt that they were the king and queen. This was nothing to do with the care of the conspirators about what words they used; the ban began much deeper than that. It began where the echoes had come from during the weeks before Katriona’s wedding, the echoes that said she was not who she believed she was. But that was when she had first understood that she would grow up—that she was already no longer a child. She had thought since then—till Ikor came—that the echoes had only spoken about the loss of childhood, that inevitable loss. She had never guessed they were telling her she would lose everything. Even the embroidery spell, she had believed, would finally have a simple explanation—as simple an explanation as fairy business ever had. She had thought of the merrel, and the embroidery spell had become small and ridiculous; now she thought of the merrel and wondered how it bore the years.

  Katriona had told her, quietly, during the last day in Foggy Bottom, of how Katriona, when Rosie was very young, had told the queen tales of her daughter, and how the queen had sent her away, and the words she had used when she did so. My mother, thought Rosie, deeply troubled; for it was Katriona and Aunt whom Rosie loved; and yet, to her own dismay, she found she wanted to meet her mother. . . . Ikor had told her that they dared not strain the imposture by the presence of the princess’ family till the very last; and so Rosie had pushed all questions about her parents to the bottom of the list of things to worry about, and she had been grateful for the excuse.

  That excuse, like all other excuses, ended tomorrow.

  Rosie felt her breathing falter and change, and knew that Peony had woken up. In a moment she had crept into the window embrasure next to Rosie, and they stared out at the darkness, which was no longer s
o dark. The dawn of the princess’ one-and-twentieth birthday was breaking over the distant forest, and picking out the sweep of roofs and parkland below them that was Woodwold; far off, to their right, was a misty silver glitter of the river.

  CHAPTER 18

  The morning began as every other morning at Woodwold had begun for the princess and her lady-in-waiting. They took turns in the bathroom and the steaming cauldron of the bath; and then they fled into the dressing room where each helped the other with her laces and ribbons. Rosie, as a point of pride, had learnt to perform her lady’s-maid tasks as neatly as any princess could ask—although she muttered to herself while she did them.

  The maid who brought them their breakfast looked as if she had already been up and busy several long hours. She hardly lingered to look reverently at Peony—as the maids who brought them breakfast always did—and asked almost perfunctorily how the princess had slept. Rosie and Peony could feel the stir and bustle and excitement below them, even though in the magic-defended rooms set aside for the princess, they could not hear it. Rosie half wished they could just stay where they were until . . . well . . . maybe if they stayed here the spinning wheel with the deadly spindle would appear here, and they could at least do whatever they had to do in private.

  But she knew this wasn’t possible; and she knew as well that she would not be able to stay in two small rooms, however comfortable, all day, all this particular day, without going mad before noon. She sighed, and Peony sighed, too.

  There was a discreet knock on the door; their escort downstairs to the public rooms had arrived. These were guards, a magician or two, and six or eight or it might have been ten ladies-in-waiting. The ladies-in-waiting had rushed on to Woodwold from wherever they lived as soon as their fortunate preferment had been made known to them. Most of them would have cultivated Rosie as the known best friend of the princess, except that Rosie was half afraid of them, partly because they wore all their flounces and under-petticoats so easily, and partly because she couldn’t manage to get their names straight: they seemed all to be called things like Claralinda and Dulcibella and Sacharissa. Even Peony had a little trouble finding things to say to them; not a one of them had ever baby-sat or collected eggs or carried water from the town well for a season after something disgusting drowned in their own.

  Today at last the king and queen and the three princes would arrive. Their outriders were blowing in already, declaring they were only a few hours away. The first of these came and flung himself at Peony’s feet, looking up at her hungrily in a way that had become very familiar in the last three months. Peony always glanced down, or away from that look; Rosie, because she was not the object of it, could watch her fill: her fill of knowing that she could not be the princess, she could not be, she didn’t care who her parents were, where Katriona had found her twenty-one years ago, what Ikor said.

  And today was the day she had used, for the last three months, as the excuse for not having to think about that yet.

  After today, it would not matter what she thought.

  If she was still alive to think anything.

  After the man left, Peony and Rosie stared at each other. The meeting he proclaimed was the meeting they both dreaded most, even more than the prospect of Pernicia’s spinning wheel with its wicked spindle, perhaps because Pernicia was unimaginable, while the king and queen were people, were the princess’ mother and father, were the mother and father of a daughter they had not seen since she was three months old, over twenty years ago.

  Everyone else was thinking about that, too, and staring at Peony.

  “I—I wonder what the princes will be like?” quavered Peony, to say something, to acknowledge what was in everyone’s minds, but unable to bring herself to mention the king or the queen.

  “Little brothers!” said Callin, who had two little brothers of her own. She made her way through the flock of Claralindas and Dulcibellas, and now took Rosie and Peony by the arm. She was nearest in age to them of any of the Prendergasts, due to celebrate her own twenty-first birthday in six months, when she would be married to one of her father’s liegemen. She looked sharply at them both, dispersed the ladies-in-waiting with a few brisk words that several of them would have liked to defy but did not quite dare (it would be different after this evening, when the princess had been properly reinstalled among her family, and the airs of the daughters of rustic lordships could be safely dispensed with), and then sent a boy off with a message to her betrothed that he was needed urgently, and, still holding the princess and her first lady-in-waiting by one arm each, marched them off for a walk in the park.

  When her young man caught up with them, white faced and babbling protestations—the princess was not allowed to put her nose out the front door without a distinguished and extensive retinue—Callin put her own nose in the air and ignored him. And because everyone was concentrating so mightily on the immediate business of the king and queen’s arrival and the ball that evening, the little party reached the orchard without anyone challenging them.

  It was Rosie who suggested they walk toward the great iron gates. She said they would turn round well before they came to the wall; and Callin’s young man, nearly in a trance of despair, fatalistically agreed. Callin, having got her own way, was trying to cheer her young man up by whispering things in his ear; Rosie tucked her hand under Peony’s arm, trying to ignore the fact that this was as much for her own balance as for mutual comfort. She wondered if Peony felt the queer erratic pull, too, or whether it was something to do with how the magic tugged at her, Rosie, who should have been the princess, and wasn’t, or because she was anyway. It was a sensation she had felt often in the last three months, but not one she had felt outdoors and in daylight before; it was something that often accompanied her late-night watches in the window seat, a sort of prowling thing, there and gone and there again, restless and inquisitive. She half imagined a corporeal body for it: a tatterdemalion, shambling and shaggy, dumb but dogged. Its presence today should have unsettled her more, but being under a blue sky with birds singing in the trees of the park (and the occasional glimpse of hopeful park deer, alerted by the tents that something probably involving interesting human food was happening soon), lifted her spirits despite everything.

  And that was how it was they met the royal party riding in through the gates, while a frantic cry had gone up behind them indoors at Woodwold, while they had been wandering in the park: “Where is the princess? They are coming—they have passed the gates—where is the princess?”

  Rosie saw her parents at once, although they were not immediately different from those riding round them; everyone wore plain travelling clothes, and everyone sat their horses as if sitting their horses was what they had chiefly been doing for many weeks. Perhaps the king and queen rode in the centre, and perhaps those who rode immediately next to them had a look, while not aggressively watchful, somehow high-strung, alert, guardlike; and then Rosie saw the three littler figures on their horses just behind their parents, and knew they were the princes.

  The queen saw the party on foot first, though they were far enough off the drive to have been missed by the messengers. Nor should they have been immediately recognisable as anyone but a little group of young Prendergasts or courtiers and their friends, although it was true that one young woman was rather more grandly dressed than the other three. But the queen urged her horse forward, through the encircling convoy, before anyone had time to react: they were looking for threats from without, not rebellion from within. The guard pulled their horses to a halt, and then other horses ran into them, and the youngest prince almost fell off his pony, and the queen by then had flung herself off her own horse and was running toward them. Rosie didn’t know if Peony had said it aloud or not: I can’t—I can’t; but she felt her, both rigid and trembling, under her arm, as she had been on the night that Ikor had first come to Foggy Bottom.

  Callin and her young man moved a little away from the other two. Rosie knew that she should have moved
away, too, but she could not leave Peony to face this alone; she was half holding her up as it was. The unstable drag of the magic further confused her; she told herself that no one would be looking at the lady-in-waiting while the princess and her mother met for the first time in twenty-one years, and that it didn’t matter what she did or didn’t do. But as the royal group had approached them she could feel the added protection that all those magicians and fairies had thrown round the royal family, and the sense of it was as if she were being rolled up in a carpet.

  Time, in this strange space they were in, Rosie and Peony and the approaching queen, seemed to pause. The milling horses and gesticulating people were a tableau; even the birds had fallen quiet. The queen’s eyes were on Peony, and Rosie’s eyes were on the queen, so she saw the expression on her mother’s face falter, although her foot stepping forward was still poised to strike the ground. And then the queen’s gaze moved to Rosie.

  Time began again. Between one step and another, one eye-blink, while the small uproar of the queen’s horse thrusting its way out of its party was still going on and before the king and several of the guard had turned their horses to follow, before the queen’s freed horse had finished shaking itself and put its head down to graze, a long look passed between Rosie and her mother; and Rosie suddenly thought: She knows. How can she know? But she does know. The queen gave her the tiniest of smiles, the tiniest acknowledgement, and Rosie, in that moment, saw a great love and a yearning just as great, but long endured and once again deferred.

  The queen turned to Peony, and Peony, as if sleepwalking, moved into the queen’s outstretched arms. “It’s all right,” were the first words Rosie heard her mother speak; “it’s all right.” Peony stiffened in her arms, and looked into her face, and perhaps what she saw there told her what the queen’s look had already told Rosie, for she heaved a great sigh (Rosie’s breath hurled itself in and out of her breast in echo) and returned the queen’s embrace, just as if everything was and would be all right.