Rumpelstiltskin (Timeless Fairy Tales Book 4)

by K. M. Shea

  “Yes,” Lady Linnea said, some of the bite fading from her manners.

  “Why?”

  “I already told you. He wants her to spin flax into gold.”

  “Yes, but why would he demand such a thing of her in the first place?”

  “Whilst in an inebriated state, her foolish father said she could do it. When it is proven that she cannot, King Torgen will kill her,” Lady Linnea said.

  Prince Toril nodded and rubbed his eyes with his hand. “Yes.”

  “…Yes?”

  “I will help you,” he said, glancing at the sky, which was painted dusty pink by the setting sun.

  Lady Linnea eyed Prince Toril. “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Why the sudden change? Not five minutes ago, you were as limp as a dead fish washed ashore. Now you are willing to help?” Lady Linnea asked, trying to unobtrusively study his head for blood. Perhaps she hit him with the branch too hard?

  Prince Toril took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “It’s because you’re correct.”

  “Of course I am,” Lady Linnea scoffed.

  “If Princess Elise knew that I turned away someone looking for my help, she would be horrified. In my heartbreak, I have become the kind of man she despises.”

  “Stupid?” Lady Linnea offered.

  Prince Toril frowned. “Complacent.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, where is this servant of yours?”

  “In the dungeons.”

  “Then we should start there.”

  “I quite agree,” Lady Linnea said, starting for the palace. “And…thank you,” she added more than a little awkwardly.

  Prince Toril blinked. “For?”

  “For helping.”

  Prince Toril cleared his voice. “Of course,” he said.

  They hurried to the dungeons as the sun started to sink behind the horizon. When they cleared the last step into the oppressive place, a guard standing duty shook his head.

  “The servant girl?” Prince Toril said.

  “You are a moment too late, My Lord. King Torgen had her taken to her to a room full of flax,” the guard said.

  “Then we will find her and claim her there. Do you know where they went?” Prince Toril asked.

  The guard shook his head. “I’m afraid not, My Lord. But you will need to speak to your Father to free her.”

  “Why?” Lady Linnea asked, her mask of temperance and serenity back as she clasped her hands together.

  “Because she’s locked up, and King Torgen is the only one with the key,” the guard said.

  Lady Linnea went as white as a snow. She reached out and placed a hand on the dungeon wall to stabilize herself.

  “I see. Thank you,” Prince Toril said to the guard.

  “Of course, My Lord.”

  “Come,” Prince Toril said, taking Lady Linnea’s elbow and guiding her along.

  “I can’t leave her,” Lady Linnea whispered. Desperation permeated her words.

  “No,” Prince Toril agreed. “But you can’t hang about the palace the entire night either. Return home. I will speak to my father. Your servant will not die, I promise.”

  Lady Linnea wasn’t exactly reassured, as Prince Toril was as terrifying as butterflies. But he was right: her reputation would not recover if she gadded about the palace unaccompanied after dark. She would go home to gather additional resources and return in the morning.

  “Very well. I must thank you further, My Lord, Prince Toril,” Lady Linnea said when they left the terrible dungeon staircase and emerged in the palace.

  “Thank you, Lady Linnea. You have helped me more than you know,” Prince Toril said, bowing over her hand.

  Lady Linnea wanted to roll her eyes at the prince’s dramatics, but she didn’t. Idiot or not, if Prince Toril saved Gemma, Lady Linnea would be his most loyal subject ever.

  Chapter 4

  Gemma stared at the wads of flax dusting the room. There wasn’t as much as she expected. Bundled up, it was roughly the size of a rectangular hay-bale. The small amount was most likely because King Torgen knew she would fail at the task.

  The flax fibers were a shade of dirty cream and smelled like the outdoors.

  “Set to work, Gemma Kielland,” King Torgen said, pushing the wheel of the spinning wheel so it clacked and rotated. “And if, by tomorrow morning, you have not spun this flax into gold, I will have you beheaded,” he said, giving Gemma a dark smile that made her skin crawl. “Work well,” he said. He started laughing as he headed for the door.

  The three guards accompanying King Torgen gave Gemma pitying looks before they followed their master out of the room.

  King Torgen was still laughing when she heard the ominous thud of a bar falling into place over the door and a loud clank as the room was locked from the outside.

  Gemma shook her head when King Torgen’s laughter faded as the monarch walked away.

  “Right,” Gemma said, lifting her chin up and setting her shoulders. “Time to try escaping.”

  Gemma walked the perimeter of the room, ignoring the panic coiled in her stomach like a snake as she knocked on the walls and peered out of the window.

  The room was plain. It was the size of Gemma’s workroom back in Loveland manor, but empty and barren. Besides the flax, a chair, the spinning wheel, several oil lamps, a little pot of water to use for wetting the fibers, and a cup of water to drink—probably provided by one of the guards—there was nothing else in the room.

  The window was stomach height—which boded well—but the view from it revealed that the room was three floors above the ground.

  This narrowed down Gemma’s escape plans, but if she had to choose between the possibility of a broken limb and certain death, Gemma would jump.

  Reaching in her dress, Gemma unearthed the fork and knife she was given with her supper—a tasty stew. King Torgen likely didn’t know about the utensils, or that she had been fed, but Gemma internally thanked whatever kind soul ordered it as she tried prying at the two boards expertly nailed over the open window.

  When the board bent Gemma’s fork instead of being wedged from the window, Gemma changed tactics and tried sawing through the material with the blunt knife.

  Gemma had to press hard to make the knife even scratch the surface, but after a few minutes of sawing, there were a few specks of wood shavings. Encouraged, Gemma pushed down harder and kept sawing. The motion made her arm ache, and eventually scream in pain, so after a few minutes more, she switched hands. Gemma was at it for an hour when both her arms were numb and heavy. She stopped sawing and let her arms drop while she inspected her work.

  There was barely a gouge in the wood.

  Gemma was no carpenter, but she knew it would take her days, not hours, to hack her way through the boards and to freedom.

  The panic and desolation Gemma was keeping under tight control threatened to overwhelm her.

  It was over. She was going to die.

  When King Torgen returned in the morning, he was going to have her beheaded.

  “No!” Gemma said, pounding a fist on the wall. “No,” she repeated. Tears stung her eyes, but she glared at the board. “I can’t give up,” she said, stiffening her resolution before she started sawing at the board again.

  Some of her tears escaped her eyes and rolled down her face. Gemma refused to acknowledge them and tried tugging on the board.

  When a teardrop fell from her face and splashed on the windowsill, the door clanked and was thrown open with a mighty crash. Footfalls walked into the room, and the door slammed shut.

  Gemma whirled around, hiding her knife behind her back.

  A strange man stood at the door. He was tall, but his shoulder width put him more on the slender side. He wore black cape with the hood pulled up, blocking most of his face except for his fine mouth.

  His cloak was unlike any style Gemma had seen before. It latched on the right side of his neck with a large sapphire pin. Part of the cape was pushed behin
d his right shoulder, keeping his right arm free and mobile. The rest of the cape covered his front. If his mouth wasn’t so pleasant looking, Gemma would have wondered if he was death coming prematurely for her.

  As it was, he was likely a less-than-savory servant of King Torgen. “I told My Lord if I was seen while working, the flax would not turn to gold,” Gemma said, wary of the man but hopeful the encounter could be used to her advantage.

  The stranger tilted his head. “What?” he said in a voice that was musical and fresh like a newly melted snow stream.

  “Didn’t King Torgen send you here to check on my progress?”

  “No, not at all. You are Gemma Kielland, correct?”

  “Yes,” Gemma said.

  “Then I am here to help you.”

  Gemma stared at the stranger with her icy eyes. “How?”

  The stranger’s fine lips parted in a smile to reveal perfect, white teeth. “I am here to spin the flax into gold.”

  “Are you?” Gemma said with no conviction.

  “Yes. I overheard your plight and decided a rescue was in order.”

  Gemma exhaled and rubbed her eyes. “Please go away. I haven’t the time to deal with a madman,” she said, her forehead furrowed.

  The stranger chuckled and pushed the front flap of his cloak over his left shoulder, revealing strange clothes underneath. He wore a black shirt that contained none of the fanciful puffs that were all the rage in Loire. It was tailored, almost like the Erlauf military uniforms Lady Linnea day-dreamed of. Over the black shirt, he wore a vest that was the same shade as his sapphire cloak pin and bulky with pockets. The look was finished with black breeches and black boots that were so well polished, Gemma suspected she could see her reflection in them if she drew close enough.

  “You are an amusing one,” the stranger said as he sat in the chair and arranged the flax fibers, pulling some away from the bundle tied to the distaff. He wet his hand in the water pot to moisten the fibers, and set about rolling the fibers and mashing them with the end of the flax thread already wound around the spindle. He pressed a foot pedal to crank the wheel—which made the spindle rotate and the thread wind. As he worked, he spoke under his breath, almost like he was conversing with the flax fibers and spinning wheel.

  Gemma raised her eyebrows at the man, but he was absorbed with his work. Nonchalantly, Gemma strolled around the room and tried tugging on the door. It was locked. Those outside must have locked the door when the stranger entered.

  Gemma returned to her window and reluctantly turned her back to the spinning stranger—listening intently lest he lose his mind all together—and returned to sawing at one of the boards barring the window, hoping the clanks and whirls of the spinning wheel would cover up the noise of Gemma sawing.

  Eventually, Gemma forgot about the intruder and furrowed her forehead as she pressed against the board with all her might.

  “You’re trying to escape? Smart girl, smarter than your father,” the man said in his fresh, musical voice.

  Gemma jumped and almost tossed her knife into the air. When she had a good grip on the knife again, she folded her arms across her chest and stared at the stranger.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you,” the stranger said as he looked at the scratched up board with a critical eye.

  Gemma could still hear the spinning wheel whirling. She risked a glance at the spinning wheel, and then she did drop her knife.

  The spinning wheel was spinning, and flax fibers pulling away from distaff unaided, rolling and curling itself around the spindle. The spindle was not wound with coarse flax thread…but something shiny.

  Gemma leaned back on her heels when she realized the material curling around the spindle was not thread, but finely spun metal. Gold.

  Gemma studied the gold thread and considered the possibilities. Was she dreaming?

  No, my arm aches too much for that.

  Perhaps she had cracked with grief, and the man was a figment of her imagination.

  Gemma slid her eyes sideways and poked at the stranger’s cloak with a finger. The cloak, to her surprise, was made of soft, slippery cloth the likes of which Gemma had never seen.

  No, he has too much presence to be a hallucination.

  Then the last option—the option which Gemma privately thought made the least sense—was that the stranger was some sort of do-good-er magician or enchanter.

  “I apologize for my thoughtless words, sir,” Gemma said. “In my defense, I did not know your station.”

  “My station?”

  “You are an enchanter.”

  “Skies and clouds, NO.”

  “Then you are a mage.”

  The man tilted his head to the left and then to the right, his lips similarly slanted as he thought. “Yes,” he said.

  Gemma bowed her head in reverence. An enchanter was the highest rank a human gifted with magic could achieve. They were to be treated with as much reverence as a foreign dignitary. Mages were ranked well below enchanters, but they were still to be treated with respect and honor. “Why are you doing this, sir?”

  “Let’s just say I have an obligation to help those in need,” the mage said.

  “Thank you,” Gemma said.

  “There is something I need in return, though,” the mage said.

  Gemma took a step backwards. “Oh?”

  The mage’s fine lips twisted in a scowl. “It’s not what you think. This part is always so awkward…” he sighed and tried again. “My magic is about trade. I need something as a payment. It does not have to be equal in worth; I just need something even remotely valuable. Like your gold necklace,” the mage said.

  Gemma touched the necklace. It was a string of gold so thin, fishing wire had more width to it. But the necklace was a gift from Grandmother Guri on Gemma’s fifteenth birthday, and it was the only thing of worth Gemma owned.

  Gemma glanced at the mage. The innocent set of his mouth said he didn’t know what he was asking for, and, Gemma supposed, a gold necklace was a small price to pay for her life—should King Torgen actually set her free, as unlikely as Gemma thought that to be.

  “You are a mage who can spin flax into gold, and you want a gold necklace?” Gemma asked, unclasping the necklace from her neck.

  The mage’s smile was sheepish. “I apologize. I know it must seem odd to you, but it’s the price of my magic,” he said.

  Gemma raised her eyebrows but said nothing. It wouldn’t be wise to pose impertinent questions to a mage who was in the process of saving her. So, she handed the necklace over, placing it in the mage’s warm palm.

  “Thank you,” the mage said.

  “No, sir. It is I who should be thanking you,” Gemma said.

  “You aren’t quite what I pictured,” the mage said, pushing his hand into the depths of his cloak to stow Gemma’s necklace.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I thought, based on your parents, that perhaps you would be less confident. To be perfectly honest, I expected you would be a sobbing mess by the time I arrived.”

  Gemma gave the mage a look of displeasure. “I see.”

  “Ahh, and now you are offended. Why?”

  “If I compared you to a street-corner charlatan magician, how would you feel?”

  The mage laughed, and Gemma doubted her earlier judgment. Perhaps she really was hallucinating after all. Gemma had never before met a mage, but she was under the impression that they were stuffy and didn’t laugh often.

  “You are such fun. I’m glad I heard about you,” the mage said.

  “Do you often run around, saving damsels in distress?” Gemma asked, turning to face the scratched up board.

  “You find that unlikely?”

  “I thought it was a knight’s job to rescue fair maidens,” Gemma said, sawing at the board again.

  “Maybe, but we mages can’t let them hog all the glory,” the mage said with a handsome smile.

  Gemma’s fingers and arms twisted with pain as she stubb
ornly sawed away.

  “You don’t have to keep at it. The King will let you go after he sees this,” the mage said, walking across the room to add flax fibers to the distaff.

  Gemma glanced over her shoulder. “Perhaps,” she said.

  “Only perhaps?”

  “King Torgen is not the type to let someone off so easily.”

  “Spinning flax into gold is easy?”

  “You’re not from Verglas,” Gemma said.

  “What makes you say that?” the mage asked, joining Gemma at the window. He watched, leaning against the wall as Gemma sawed.

  “You underestimate King Torgen’s cruelty,” Gemma said, bracing against the board so she could press down harder.

  “Do I?”

  “Last fall, he nearly killed Princess Elise of Arcainia. She did nothing wrong—she was hiding in Verglas while performing a difficult task to rescue her cursed foster-brothers. He would have burned her at the stake if the curse hadn’t broken while he had her set on fire.”

  “Why do you put up with it?”

  “Pardon? I don’t understand what you mean,” Gemma said, glancing at the mage. She stopped sawing long enough to adjust her grip on her dinner knife before she went back to it.

  “Why do the citizens of Verglas put up with it? Why don’t you overthrow him?”

  “As much as we fear him, he does have the blood of the Snow Queen’s family in his veins,” Gemma grunted. “And as much as we hate him, we have absolute loyalty to the Snow Queen.”

  “Even though she’s been deceased for centuries?”

  “Even then.”

  The mage folded his arms across his chest. “Centuries later, and Verglas is still unwavering. I wonder if she spelled the people in addition to the land.”

  “It helps that it’s mostly the nobles and those of us foolish enough to live in Ostfold who bear the brunt of King Torgen’s temper,” Gemma continued. “And the country already has enough trouble. It hasn’t been officially stated, but everyone knows Arcainia all but owns Verglas. We have a mountain of debt to them.”

  “Is that so,” the mage said.

  Gemma was still sawing at the board when she saw white dance on the horizon. A geyser of snow shot up from the ground into the air. Ice formed behind it, stretching as tall as a small mountain. The display was far away, but it was impossible to miss as the moonlight danced on the snow and ice, making it shine like lightning.