by RABE, JEAN
“Zelhandra! So you’ve been fooling around with this worthless sack of river silt, have you?” Xyhille shouted at a fairy two seats down from her.
“Mother, please!” said Imavia, one of the younger fairies from the far end of the table. “This is a formal, affair. Try to be nice.”
Xyhille glared at her daughter, and the other fairies shrank back. “Oh, very well,” she said, taking a bite of salad. “Hmmm, interesting dressing. Tastes faintly magical.”
The meal continued fairly peacefully through the next two courses, and the royals and their courtiers began to relax a bit—all except for the three advisors. “We’d best be on our guard,” said Brynmor. “This whole situation could go south at any moment.”
“Of all the dwarves in the kingdom, Gerald, what made you choose that one?” whined Armand. “Inviting squabbling spouses makes for very difficult dinner parties! And then you sat them together!”
“I thought someone to talk to might keep her occupied,” snapped the chamberlain. “How was I supposed to know?”
As the meal progressed, the fairies came forward one by one to give their gifts to the baby. One gave her beauty unsurpassed, another grace, a third merriment, a fourth wisdom, a fifth intelligence, and so forth, until all except Xyhille, Hanar, and Imavia had bestowed a magical gift.
“Why did you two get married anyway if you hate one another so much?” asked Hillaria, as the main course was being served.
“She bewitched me,” moaned Hanar. “There I was, seeking my fortune in the mountains, gathering gold nuggets with nothing but a pickaxe and the sweat of my brow . . .”
“And some fast fingers,” finished Xyhille. “Nuggets indeed. You could hardly stagger away under the weight of the gold coins and jewelry you stole from those travelers while they slept.”
“So maybe the gold was a bit more refined than I recall,” snapped Hanar. “But it still took skill and daring. Doubtless what attracted you to me.” He puffed his chest with pride.
“Well, you were a rather handsome brute in those days. I’ll give you that much,” said Xyhille, handing her empty plate to the serving lad to be filled with duck a l’orange, red cabbage, and petite peas. “But I did not bewitch you. You saw a pretty face and sparkly earrings and wanted them both.”
“Well, I can’t hear what they’re saying,” declared the chamberlain. “But they seem to have settled into a decent conversation.”
“Yes,” the chief of protocol observed. “Perhaps it’s well that the formidable Xyhille is seated next to someone of her, uhm, intellectual caliber. And familiar faces do encourage casual conversation.”
“The calm before the storm,” observed the wizard, fishing in his sleeve for some unseen magical implement. “Look out for squalls.”
“Ah, you were quite lovely then,” said Hanar, with a fond smile at his wife. “Pity it was only fairy magic hiding that ugly puss of yours.”
“Oh, no,” said Hillaria, ducking.
Xyhille’s face darkened. “Why you miserable, ugly, no-talent . . .” she shouted, drawing back her arm, the iridescent light of unformed magic dancing about her fingertips. “I’ll teach you a lesson I should have taught you six hundred years ago!”
“You forget—I don’t have to take spells from you! Exhabispex!” yelled Hanar, thrusting a hand toward Xyhille just as the servant finished filling her plate and started to set it down on the table. The magical light vanished—but so did her plate, dropping the entire serving of dinner into her lap.
“Uh-oh,” said Hanar.
Xyhille regarded the colorful mess all over the front of her white gown with an expression of unmitigated rage and then turned her wrathful gaze on the king and queen. “So! You offer us conjured plates, eh? We aren’t good enough for real gold!”
The enraged fairy sprang to her feet like a flame catching in tinder. “Greedy for fairy gifts, are you?” she sneered. “Well, here’s a real keeper!” Xyhille’s eyes settled on the child.
Chamberlain and protocol expert turned to the wizard as one. “Do something!” they urged, each grabbing an arm.
“I’m trying!” the wizard gasped. “Let go of me!” Shaking himself free, he produced a wand and waved it about. In a heartbeat, a pale glow had settled over the royal family. “There’s no stopping a fairy curse, though,” he muttered.
Xyhille’s reddened face flashed a deep shade of purple, and she continued. “Before her eighteenth birthday, she’ll prick a finger on a . . . a . . .” Xyhille glanced at Hanar, whose fingers had begun to twitch. “Spinning wheel!” she finished triumphantly. “And die, die, die!” Xyhille’s face split into a malicious grin. “Indeed, there’s a gift for you—she’ll never grow old!” With that fearful utterance, Xyhille vanished in a thunderclap and a puff of acrid smoke.
“Gee, thanks,” muttered Hanar. “That’ll improve sales.”
“This is all your fault!” chorused the three counselors, pointing at one another.
After a moment of stunned silence, pandemonium erupted in the Great Hall. The king shouted, the queen fainted, and the baby cried. Loud voices decried fairy curses, and people began to race for the exit. Eventually, King Galameade’s authoritative voice restored calm.
“This curse is a calamity indeed,” he said. “But we must and shall find some way to mitigate it.” His gaze turned to the fairy table. “My esteemed guests, I apologize deeply for this incident. Please know that we hold you in the highest esteem, and the matter of the plate was a grave misunderstanding.”
The fairies conferred among themselves for a few moments, while Hanar looked on with an amused expression. Finally, Imavia stood and walked over to stand before the royals. “The fault for this debacle lies with you,” she said sternly. “Serving my mother from a conjured plate was a grave offense. However, we realize that mortals cannot see beyond their own immediate interests much of the time. And the child is not at fault for this insult. I haven’t the power to lift my mother’s curse entirely. Her magic and mine stem from the same line, and she is my elder.”
Moving to stand before the child, Imavia reached a hand toward her and said, “You shall not die from the prick of the spindle. You shall only sleep—a deep sleep lasting for at least one hundred years—and you will awaken when a prince of the blood bestows a loving kiss upon your lips.”
“No!” cried the king and queen in unison, ignoring the frantic waving of the court wizard. “Not a hundred years! She will be as good as dead to us!”
“A century is but an eyeblink in fairy terms,” said Imavia sternly. “Be happy that your punishment for this affront is so light.” With that, she flounced back to the fae table, where the rest of the fairies were busy trying to determine whether their own plates were real.
The meal finished in subdued silence, and at last the guests took their leave. The last from the hall, Hanar looked around and then up. “You shan’t get away with this, my dear,” he said to no one in particular. Then he glanced at the king and queen, and finally fixed his gaze on the child. Making a rolling motion with his hands, he said:
“May that which you sow
Also be what you reap.
You’ll share one fate
From spindle prick
To century’s sleep.”
With those cryptic words, he left the hall.
“What did he mean by that?” whispered the chamberlain.
“I’m not sure,” said Brynmor, stroking his chin.
“Here now, Brynmor,” said the king, crossing to stand before the three courtiers. “You must find a way to break this terrible curse.”
“I’ll do what I can to find a way around it. In the meantime, keep her away from spinning wheels.”
The very next day, the king sent forth a proclamation banning spinning wheels in his kingdom. All spinning wheels were seized and burned in a huge bonfire in the palace courtyard. The country’s economy, fueled for so long by the textile trade, slid into decline, but eventually rallied when the populace learned to cr
eate fine cloth from imported thread and mastered the art of leatherworking.
During the months following the curse, Brynmor worked feverishly on counterspells, but he could tell that none succeeded. He did, however, manage to make Rosalind immune to minor scratches and abrasions of all sorts.
Now known as Briar Rose for her ability to waltz through the thorniest areas, the princess grew into a young woman of dazzling beauty, thanks to her many fairy blessings. She enjoyed spending time in the woods around the castle, cataloging the animals, birds, and plants, and she also became quite adept with the needle—in fact, her embroidery was ranked among the finest in the kingdom.
The king, the queen, and Brynmor marked off her birthdays, hoping against hope that she would reach the magical age of eighteen without the curse coming to pass. The neighboring king and queen, having heard about the curse, stalled the children’s nuptials. “I suppose it’s only natural,” said the chamberlain to the distraught monarchs, “that they’d be unwilling to marry off their son only to have him deprived of a wife within a few years.”
As Briar Rose’s eighteenth birthday approached, king, queen, and nearly everyone in the kingdom kept a strict watch over the princess’ every move. The king led squadrons of soldiers through every town and hamlet searching for spinning wheels that might have escaped the christening day edict. The queen made the royal castle her special hunting ground. Brynmor was frequently seen with his nose in a dusty old tome—that is, at those times when he wasn’t walking about with the smell of brimstone (or something even more acrid) hovering about him. Everyone—even the king—thought it best not to inquire just what the wizard was doing.
For her part, Briar Rose became vaguely aware that everyone around her had gone slightly mad, but in a caring way, and she did her best to endure their devotion. She found that everyone seemed to breathe easier if she confined herself to the castle, so she devoted herself to her embroidery. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, she sat at her chamber window with her needle and hoop. As she worked on a particularly elegant rose petal (one of her favorite subjects for needlework) she suddenly realized that the castle had fallen unusually quiet.
Rose glanced out the window. Her room overlooked the castle garden, which was planted with dozens of rose bushes in her honor. But instead of the garden and the courtyard beyond, she found herself staring at a thread of iridescent gossamer, at once delicate and handsome in its perfection, floating just outside her window.
“Is that a spiderweb?” she wondered. She leaned out the window, looking for the spider, but there was no arachnid in sight. Rose’s keen eye traced the thread up to a high turret of the castle, where it emerged from a broken shutter. “I know that chamber,” she thought. “It’s an abandoned guardroom, home only to a collection of pigeons and bats.” Her curiosity aroused, Rose put aside her needlework and set off for the tower.
After a long climb up the tower stairs, Rose pushed open the door of the chamber. A toothless old woman with a leathery face and long, nimble fingers sat near the rotted shutter working a contraption Rose had never seen—a wheel that whirled around as the crone worked a treadle. The woman was spinning a mound of downy wool to produce the entrancing gossamer thread that had floated past the shutter to dangle before Rose’s window.
“Never seen the wheel and distaff before, my dear?” asked the crone in a gentle and sibilant tone. If Rose’s curiosity hadn’t been running so high, the voice would have sent a shiver down her spine.
“No, Grandmother,” said Rose.
“Well, then, come over here, my dear,” the old woman cooed. “Try your hand. I have a feeling you’ll surprise yourself.” She beckoned to the girl.
Feeling all volition drain from her mind and body, Rose walked toward the wheel as if in a trance. She touched the wheel and promptly knocked her hand into the spindle. But thanks to Brynmor’s spell, the touch didn’t hurt her.
“Awww, prick your finger, dear? Feeling sleepy?” cackled the crone, leaping to her feet. Her fairy disguise melted away as she spoke, revealing Xyhille, her face etched in malicious glee.
“Uhm, no and no, whoever you really are,” Rose replied. “I never worry about cuts, scrapes, and pricks. I don’t even use a thimble when I sew.”
“What?” snapped Xyhille, her face reddening with rage.
The room darkened as Brynmor literally flew through the open shutter, oaken staff in hand. “Avaunt, Xyhille!” the wizard commanded. “You’ve kept an entire kingdom in fear for nearly two decades. Be content and begone!”
“Not on your life, mortal!” shouted Xyhille. “You have no power over me. Leave us or spend the rest of your days as a slug!”
“You’re on my turf here, Xyhille,” Brynmor retorted.
Rose wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but she prudently edged toward the door and looked about for anything she might use as a weapon.
“Not so fast, girlie!” ordered Xyhille. With a wave of her hand, rose briars slithered through the shutter and snaked through the room, seizing girl and wizard.
Brynmor thumped his staff on the floor, sending a shockwave through the room. The vines withered, and Xyhille went tumbling, along with the spinning wheel, distaff, and wool. The whole collection landed in a heap, with the enraged fairy on top. As Xyhille struggled to her feet, tossing aside bits of the smashed spinning wheel, her scrabbling hand brushed the spindle, and she felt a sharp prick. “Ouch!” she screamed, more out of frustration than pain.
As she tried to shake the sting from her hand, Xyhille felt suddenly sleepy. Her expression of surprise rapidly changed to one of ire. “Hanar Throngand Dwin, this is your doing! I’ll get you for this, make no mistake!” With that, she abruptly slumped to the floor. Brynmor stared at the sleeping fairy for a split second and then turned to Rose. “Are you well, Princess?” he inquired.
But Briar Rose made no reply. Eyes closed, she tottered for a moment and then collapsed into the wizard’s arms. As he eased the girl to the floor, the wizard recalled certain lines of doggerel he’d heard years before:
“You’ll share one fate
From spindle prick
To century’s sleep.”
Brynmor slapped himself on the forehead. “It’s always the detail you overlook,” he thought. The wizard gazed out the tower window and saw the tangle of briars from Xyhille’s final spell. “How will I explain this to the king and queen?” he wondered, starting to pace the floor. Shortly, an idea dawned on him.
Brynmor chanted a spell of his own. The king and queen, in their chamber, fell asleep together. In the scullery, where the potboy was getting his ears boxed again for some new indiscretion, the servants set aside their work and settled into sleep. And so it went, down to the flies on the walls. A terrible silence fell over the castle, unbroken by even a snore.
Brynmor carried Rose down to her chamber and laid her in her bed, leaving Xyhille snoozing amid the wreckage of the spinning wheel and the dead briars. The wizard glanced out the window at the thorn bushes entangling the Princess’s tower and decided to give them a little boost before finding his own bed.
The sun rose that day over a sleeping castle wrapped in a formidable hedge of thorn bushes. As the years passed, it grew higher and thicker, until it became a veritable forest of vines, leaves, and wicked thorns that flourished even in winter. Only the very tops of the castle’s towers remained visible. Without the king’s guiding hand, the kingdom languished, and one by one, the citizens packed up and moved on—most of them to the neighboring kingdom, where King Edgar the Charming now ruled.
As the seasons passed, tales of the castle wrapped in briars and the princess sleeping within spread through the adjoining lands. Gallant young men resolved to hack at the briars and win through to the sleeping beauty, but the thorns defeated them all. Their skeletal remains and rusting armor, left hanging in the bushes, provided a stern reminder of the perils of the hedge.
But not everyone found death in the briars—some found opportunity. A hun
dred years after the hedge had appeared, Hanar stood at its outskirts, gazing inside and dreaming of the good old days. “Damn you, Xyhille! Spinning wheels were a good, solid business. Lots of growth potential.” He turned away from the hedge with a sigh. “But one has to make one’s own opportunities, I always say. Ah, here comes a fresh client now,” he said, glancing down the road at a young man approaching astride a swaybacked, knockkneed horse.
“Ah, come in search of a princess to wed, young fellow?” said the dwarf, stepping into the road before the horse.
“Yeah . . . I mean, yea, verily,” said the young man, trying desperately to keep his horse from trampling the dwarf. “Is this the place where the beautiful princess sleeps?”
“You’ve found the very spot!” said Hanar, nimbly dodging the horse’s hooves. “I can provide you with a map to her outdoor bower for the low price of . . . twenty-five shillings,” he said, sweeping an appraising glance over the young man.
“But . . . she’s in the castle, right?” asked the young man, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“No, no!” said Hanar. “That story was put forward to discourage suitors. In actuality, she lies within the hedge, in a natural bower.”
“Oh, I can find her then,” he said, urging his horse toward the hedge.
“Well, if you want to try,” said Hanar, surreptitiously pulling on a wire. Suddenly, a branch moved aside to reveal the lifeless corpses of an armored knight and his horse, snared in the briars and impaled in dozens of places by the foot-long thorns.
The young man stopped short. “On second thought, I believe I’d like to buy that map of yours,” he said.
The exchange completed, Hanar pocketed the money and waved goodbye to the young man. Withdrawing a small notebook and quill from his pocket, he made a note. “Twenty-five shillings for map, report successful match to Iphigenia’s parents, and collect final payment.” He pocketed the book just in time to greet the young man as he emerged, this time with a pretty young woman perched ahead of him on the saddle. The two waved, and the young lady winked.