by Nancy Chase
After a time, the trees grew farther apart. Catrin heard the rush of waves and smelled the salt tang of the sea. The forest opened up onto a starlit beach of white sand. Catrin petted the horse’s neck. “Now, which way is home?” Her gown was too thin for the cold night air, and she was beginning to shiver. She could not see any familiar landmarks, but back against a crest of rocks, just above the high-tide line, huddled a tiny gray hut that seemed to be built of driftwood and reeds. She urged the horse forward for a closer look.
As Catrin dismounted, the hut’s door swung open, and a bent old woman peered out. Her clothing was all of rags, her lank hair looked as if it had never known a comb, and her face was a web of wrinkles, but her eyes were quick and sharp. “It is late, Princess, to be riding out alone.” Her voice creaked like a rusty gate. “Have you lost your way?”
“How do you know who I am?”
The woman gave a crooked grin. “How could I not?” She stepped back and opened the door wider, gesturing. “Won’t you come in?”
Catrin hesitated, then ducked into the cramped room, steeling herself against the smoke and the smell. The smoke billowed from a little hearth fire burning beneath a rusty iron pot. The foul smell seemed to come from the bubbling concoction inside the pot itself.
“Seaweed soup,” the old woman explained. “Are you hungry?”
“No, thank you!” Catrin hastily assured her. “I was hoping that you could help me find my way home.”
“Oh, it’s not far, to be sure, not far at all.” The woman spooned some of the soup into a bowl for herself. The room was no more than four paces across. It contained a rickety table, a stool, a pallet on the floor for sleeping, a musty old trunk with a broken lock, and a shelf of assorted bowls and pottery jars.
The old woman pulled the stool up to the table and sat down. She waved her spoon in Catrin’s direction. “Please, sit. Make yourself comfortable.”
Catrin sat on the edge of the pallet, which also stank of seaweed and smoke. “Can you tell me how to get there?”
“Hmm.” The old woman slurped her soup. “Why do you want to go back to the king? He’ll only shut you up behind stone walls, tell you what to wear, what to eat, what to say. Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?”
“What do you mean?” Catrin noticed there were bunches of strange herbs hanging upside-down from the rafters to dry. A cat skull sat on the shelf beside the bowls, and a bone-handled knife with a crescent-shaped blade rested on the table.
“Come, child. It’s obvious you are a girl with a question. Why not just ask it?”
Catrin tried to tell herself that this was just a crazy old woman who had recognized Catrin by her rich clothes and fine horse, not through some supernatural insight, but even so, the hair on her scalp prickled. “It doesn’t matter,” she told herself, “I’ve surely lost everything I have to lose. So, even if she is a witch, what have I to fear from enchantments?”
“Do you know any riddles?” she asked aloud.
“Riddles?” The old woman set down her spoon. “What riddle?”
Wearily, Catrin recited:
“What is darker than the night
And colder than the stone?
And what light shines the brightest
When it shines quite alone?”
The woman hissed like a pot boiling over. “That’s a Magpie riddle, and they guard their answers closer than gold. Look at you, in your satin gown and your milk-white skin. You’ve never had a blister or missed a meal in your life. You’ve never known rage, or sorrow, or even joy. Who are you to dabble in magic? Better to ride back to your father’s castle, little girl, and hide beneath your soft feather bed than to meddle where you have no right.”
Stung, Catrin sprang to her feet. “The boy I loved is drowned in the sea. I have known more sorrow in this one day than most people feel in a lifetime!”
“Don’t be absurd, child. What do you know of other people’s lifetimes? Nevertheless, I see you are passionate. Sit down and tell me. How did you come to be playing at riddles with the Seven Magpies?”
“They have something of mine, and I need to get it back.” Catrin touched the white pouch she wore tied at her waist to reassure herself that her book was still safe inside.
The crone nodded. “Perhaps I might be able to help you after all. But there is a price, you understand.”
“Please,” Catrin said. “I must find the answer by sunrise. I will give you whatever you ask for, if you’ll only help me.”
“Anything?” The woman’s eyes gleamed like a cat’s in the firelight. “Will you give me what you have in that pouch?”
“No! That is the one thing you cannot have. Ask for anything but that, and I promise, it will be yours.”
The woman sighed. “Ah, Princess, you are so young it makes my bones ache. What I wouldn’t give to be that young again.” She leaned forward. “Give me your left arm, child, and I will tell you what you need to know.”
Catrin frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Just close your eyes. It won’t hurt at all.”
“You mean you’ll actually take my arm?” Catrin’s eyes widened.
The old woman snorted. “I don’t plan to lop it off with an axe, if that’s what you fear. And naturally, I’ll give you my own arm in exchange. There’s nothing to be afraid of. My magic nearly always works. You do want to answer your riddle, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
The woman scowled. “Many people give up much more than that for what they desire. But not you, is that what you think? Do you think you can live and die and always someone else will pay for it? This thing you lost, you must not want it so badly after all.” She spat on the floor and turned away.
“No, wait!” Catrin bit her lip. The Magpie had been right. Her mother and Geoffrey had both given up their lives so that she could have her Story, but she had never won it for herself. If she had to lose an arm to do so, it was a small price to pay. “You promise it won’t hurt? You promise to tell me the answer afterward?”
“I can’t tell you the answer,” the crone said, “but I can tell you where to find the answer. That’s the best I can offer.”
Catrin looked into the crone’s face, not sure what she hoped to see. Finally, she shut her eyes and held out her left hand. “All right, go ahead.”
The old woman’s frail, bony fingers closed gently around her own. For a moment nothing happened, but when Catrin started to pull away, she found she could not get free from the woman’s grip. Numbness crept up her arm, and a bolt of ice shot from fingertip to shoulder. Gasping, Catrin jerked free.
The crone stepped back, cradling and stroking her own hand as if it were a newborn child. Its fingers were straight and slender, its skin had never known a callous. Catrin looked down. Her left hand was gnarled as driftwood with knobby joints and clawlike nails. “Oh!” Sudden horror and fright paralyzed her. “Take it back. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know!”
The crone looked up with her green cat eyes. “There is no going back. There is never any going back.”
“What do you mean? I can’t live with an arm like this!”
The crone made a sound of disgust. “I can see I was right about you to begin with. Run home to your castle, Princess. You’ll find the path just beyond the rocks.” She threw open the door and waved Catrin out.
“Wait! At least tell me how to find the answer to my riddle. You promised.”
Grumbling, the old woman took Catrin by the arm and led her to the beach. “Only the Black Cauldron can give you the answer. The Magpies guard it, of course, but there is a way to get past their trickery if you are clever and if you do exactly as I say. You must listen to me carefully, for I won’t tell you twice. Do you understand?”
Catrin nodded.
“Very well, then. When the tide is low, there is a path out to the island, see?” Across the water, Magpie Island towered against the starlit sky, much closer here than at her father’s castle. The tide had ret
reated to its lowest ebb, revealing a raised causeway that connected the island to the shore. “Follow that path to the White Tower. Touch nothing in the main hall, but walk straight through to the small door on the opposite side. Take the candle from the sconce you will find there and go down nine flights of stairs to the deepest dungeon. There you will find the Black Cauldron. No matter what you see or hear, you must throw the candle into the cauldron and from its wax make one hundred more the same size as the first. By the light of these candles, the Black Cauldron will give you the answer you seek.”
“A hundred candles the same size as the first? That’s impossible. It can’t be done!”
The old woman just grunted. “And remember, there are two sides to every riddle. The answers will be both black and white. Like a Magpie.” She turned on her heel, stalked back to her little hut, and disappeared inside.
“Wait!” Catrin called, but the old woman had already closed the door behind her. Catrin gazed out at Magpie Island and the narrow pathway connecting it to the shore. “This can’t be happening,” she thought. “This can’t be real. We sailed past that island and there was no tower, only a pile of broken rocks. Or if there was a tower, it was a place for spirits and ghosts, not live princesses.” She stifled a startled shriek when the horse suddenly nuzzled her shoulder.
Catrin sagged against the white stallion’s neck. “Oh, Horse, what have I gotten myself into? What am I going to do? It’s all so strange and mixed up. I’ve lost Geoffrey and I’ve lost my arm, but if I don’t get my Story back, I’ll surely lose my life.” She looked back beyond the rocks and saw the path the crone said would lead to her father’s castle. The horse nuzzled her again and took a step forward. His ears were pricked toward the island. She stroked his mane with her good hand. “Yes, I know. You’re right, it’s the only thing to do.”
With one last, longing glance toward home, Catrin climbed back into the saddle and urged the white horse down to the water’s edge. The heavy, restless sea sucked and swirled on either side while the stone path rippled between like a pale, shining ribbon.
She clung to the reins, thinking of the sailors’ story of the Drowned Woman’s seaweed hair and clutching fingers. She thought of the waves roaring across the deck of Geoffrey’s ship. She thought of the silent depths that had swallowed her mother. Finally she closed her eyes, leaned forward, and wound her fingers tight into the stallion’s mane. “Please,” she whispered, “take me across.”
She felt his thick neck arch, felt the muscles of his shoulders bunch and release as he stepped forward. The saddle rocked with the movement of his body. She heard his hoofbeats, first muffled in sand then ringing on stone, felt the wind in her hair, and all around she smelled the sea. Behind closed eyelids, she waited for the first cold shock, for the first wave to grip her like a fist, for wet skirts to trap her. Her fingers cramped with waiting, and her breaths came in short, anguished gasps, but nothing happened. The horse strode onward, and not one drop of water touched her.
At last the stallion’s hooves clattered on loose stones, and the saddle lurched as he scrambled up a steep embankment, leaving the sea behind. The first things Catrin saw when she opened her eyes were her hands, one old and one young, white-knuckled on the reins. Long grass swished against the horse’s legs. Night birds and crickets assailed the darkness with delirious volleys of song. Catrin sat up and looked around.
Gone were the craggy rocks she had seen from Geoffrey’s ship. In their place were blooming fruit trees and rich green lawns. She raised her eyes higher: an open gate, a wide courtyard, and beyond that, overtopping everything but the stars themselves, was the White Tower, pale as polished ivory against the dark sky. Here and there along its sleek, seamless walls, tall windows spilled golden panes of light out upon the grass.
Dazzled, Catrin slid from the saddle and, leaving the horse to graze by the gate, drifted toward the wide front door. The latch lifted at her touch, and the door swung open, bathing her in a flood of light and color.
She stepped into a room twice as big as her father’s great hall, all hung with gold and crimson tapestries. White pillars as thick as trees towered to the vaulted ceiling. Torches blazed, their light dancing off scrolled silver mirrors and intricate mosaics of jade, amber, and lapis. As she passed, an ebony harp on a marble pedestal began to play by itself, notes shimmering like raindrops. In the center of the hall, a broad table stood ready for a feast, its surface crowded with platters of steaming roasts and fragrant loaves, gold flagons of honey mead, and crystal bowls of sugared figs and apricots. Catrin’s stomach growled, but mindful of the old woman’s advice, she clasped her hands behind her back and touched nothing until she reached the small door on the opposite side of the hall. There, just as the old woman had described, was a thick, white candle in an iron wall-sconce.
Standing on tiptoe, Catrin wiggled the candle loose. A hush rippled over the room, and she glanced back nervously. Everything seemed unchanged, so she turned her attention back to the little door. Although it swung open on well-oiled hinges, the air beyond smelled musty, as if it had been long undisturbed. A small spider scurried out of sight. Beyond, the light of her candle revealed a staircase that spiraled down into darkness and silence. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she began her descent.
At first the stairway was wide, but with each flight it grew narrower and steeper until she had to feel her way, one hand on the wall, the other clutching the candle, her skirt trailing behind her on the dusty stone steps. By the time she was halfway down, it was less than an arm-span across. Soon it was barely wider than her shoulders, and she had to brush through curtains of cobwebs. The muffled hiss and groan of the sea shoving at the foundations of the tower hummed through the thick stones. Catrin heard a brief, sweet skein of sound, an aching, wordless music that flooded her with memories of the whales and mermaids in Geoffrey’s stories. She stumbled on a loose stone, sending it clattering down into the darkness.
At the very bottom of the stair, a squat iron door, its surface pitted with decades of decay, blocked the passageway. When Catrin grasped the latch, flakes of rust crumbled off in her hand and pattered to the floor. She pushed—gently at first, then harder, with all her weight. Finally, the corroded hinges squealed in protest. The heavy door scraped open, and she found herself in the deepest chamber of the dungeon.
Her candle flame cast wavering shadows across the room’s uneven floor, which was hewn from bare rock and streaked with dampness. Empty candle sconces of rusty iron crowded the walls. In the center of the room sat a huge iron cauldron, wide as a washtub and black as dread. “Old woman,” Catrin muttered, “I hope you knew what you were talking about.”
As if in reply, a faint breath sighed from the mouth of the cauldron. The shadows throbbed, then steadied. Holding up her candle, Catrin edged closer. The hair on her arms prickled. The air smelled of lightning.
The cauldron’s sides were as high as her waist, but when she peered inside she couldn’t see the bottom. The blackness just went down and down into nothingness. An echo of waves whispered within, the hiss of tides, the clunk of wooden oars, a snatch of a sailor’s hoarse-throated song. She leaned closer and peered into the inscrutable dark. “Hello?” The word slithered and bounced as if dropped down a well.
A boom of her father’s laughter rushed up at her, then a babble of voices:
“For a woman, marriage without love brings great misery.”
“Come back when you’re a real princess.”
“Do you want your father to be ashamed of you?”
Then a familiar voice said sorrowfully, “We can’t change who we are, Princess.”
“Geoffrey?” She nearly flung herself into the cauldron. The candle struck the rim, spun out of her grip, and tumbled into the depths. Its flame spiraled to a distant spark and vanished. Too late, she lunged after it, her fingers catching only emptiness. Voices billowed around her, shouts and laughter and sobbing. “Geoffrey!” she shouted into the roar of the sea, the ho
wl of the wind. She could barely hear her own voice through the high-pitched hum of ship’s riggings, the shriek of shattering beams, and the groan of straining planks.
Suddenly, a strong hand grasped hers. She yelped with surprise and joy and braced herself to pull him up. “Hold on!” The heavy cauldron grated on the stone floor, tilted, and crashed back down with a sound like thunder. Her grip was jarred loose; his hand slipped away. “No!” The thunder of the sea turned into the thunder of hoofbeats and the rumble of chariot wheels. Grasping wildly, she caught his hand again. War drums pounded, mighty voices rang. The clash and crash of armor and swords battered her, the neighing of stallions, the twang of bowstrings, the trumpets, the curses, and the cries. Her arm nearly pulled from its socket, she lay across the edge of the cauldron, gasping. Slowly, his fingers again began to slip from her grasp. With the last of her endurance, she clenched her teeth and heaved backward.
The force of the sea crashed upward from the depths and knocked her back, choking on salt water. She scrambled to her feet, terrified that she had lost him. With her candle lost, the room was in total darkness; she could see nothing. “Are you there?” She heard movement, the sound of metal on metal. “Geoffrey?”
“Hello? Where am I?” inquired a breathless masculine voice.
Her heart beat like sparrows’ wings. “You’re safe, now. With me.” A faint light returned to the room, glowing from the depths of the cauldron. She could make out a figure leaning against the cauldron’s edge, heaving as if catching his breath. Joyously, she ran to him. “Are you all right?” An instant before she embraced him, she saw his face.
It was a young knight in a worn blue tunic and silver chain mail. His helmet was missing, and a trickle of blood ran down his left temple. “I do not know what you did, but I thank you for saving my life.”