by Robin Jarvis
But Mistress Slab’s bear-like voice would always summon her from those reveries: the onions needed peeling or the grates needed sweeping or the spit needed turning or peas needed shelling or the butter needed churning.
When the goose was plucked naked, and looked faintly embarrassed to be in such a state, the girl sat back on the stool. She reached for the second bird she had been instructed to denude before the cook returned.
High above, on the battlements, a trumpet sounded. Down in the kitchen, Columbine heard and knew it heralded the return to Mooncaster of the Jack of Clubs from the day’s hunt.
A delighted smile flashed over the girl’s dirty face. She leaped from the stool and raced up the stairs to the passageway that linked to the Great Hall.
At the end of the passage a carved wooden screen hid the entrance from view of the nobles within. Columbine waited there, peering eagerly through the fretwork. Lords and their ladies came sweeping by, speaking of the day’s adventure and how the Jack of Clubs had the almond hind in his sights at least twice, but refrained from loosing his bow. The Jill of Spades was most scornful. His love of beast and bird was well known, but such displays of mercy were foolishness.
Hearing their chatter, the girl grinned and moistened her lips. The Jack of Clubs always took a long time to enter the Great Hall, for he would not suffer any groom to stable Ironheart, his splendid horse. He did the work himself, speaking to it like a lover, and often slept in the stall for it was the last of the untameable steeds and there was no finer beast in the land.
Columbine stroked the back of the screen with her rough fingertips, impatient for a sight of the handsome youth. He was the pride of Mooncaster, the hero of many hearts, and his golden hair and steadfast voice were always capering through her dreams when she was away from this place.
The gossip of the Court fell to a hush and the Jack of Clubs came striding through the main doors. He laughed with the Jill of Hearts, who stepped forward to try and capture him with her beauty, and shared a pleasantry with his father, the King of Clubs.
Columbine drank in every detail: his curling hair that was likened to a ram’s fleece bathed in the sunset, the soft, wispy moustache that curled at the ends and heightened his beguiling smile. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up past the elbow and she clasped herself in her own grubby arms, breathless with imaginings. She closed her eyes and shivered with secret pleasure.
Suddenly a real hand closed tightly round her arm. She gasped in fright as a tall, portly man came sidling further behind the screen.
“Haw haw haw,” he chuckled softly.
It was the Jockey, the one courtier whom everyone in Mooncaster feared. He played unpleasant tricks and games on them, always seeking to cause mischief and strife between friend and neighbour. Even the Ismus found his presence unsettling and ungovernable.
He brought his stout bulk closer and the caramel-coloured leather of his tightly buttoned outfit creaked and strained. Columbine tried to pull away, but his grip was fierce.
“You set your eyes on too high a trophy,” he told her. “But what eyes they are, as green as the stone in the head of a wishing toad. How they flash and glare at me. Such hate, such pride in one so low.”
“My arm!” she protested. “You hurt, my Lord.”
“Haw haw haw,” he laughed. “No bruise will show through the filth on your flesh!”
“I shall cry out.”
“Then do so. None shall attend. The Jockey’s ways are never questioned.”
Columbine pushed at his paunch and his fingers loosed on her arm. She spun around and darted back along the passage and down into the kitchen.
The creaks and squeaks of the Jockey’s costume followed her. He came tippy-toeing down the stairs.
The girl ran to her place and the heap of goose feathers whirled up into the air.
“And where is Mistress Slab?” he asked, stealing closer. “Why is she not broiling over her pots?”
“She is in the slaughterhouse,” the frightened girl replied.
The Jockey laughed. “Ah, yes, ’tis sausage day. How the Punchinello Guards adore them. How readily they accept them as bribes. Would that you were so easy, my dirty scullion. Still, now we are quite alone, with only dead geese for witness and they shall not honk any secrets.”
“Keep back,” Columbine begged, reaching for a knife. “Else there will be one more fat pig stuck this day.”
The man hesitated. Yes, she would dare do it and that inflamed him even more.
“My glance has oft been your shadow ere today,” he said as he paced warily from side to side. “Your hands are coarse as an ox’s tongue and your smudges and smuts rival only the midden-man. And yet… I have observed you long and I am enamoured and enslaved by you. The dirtier you are, the more like a queen you appear. A celestial goddess, come down amongst us, disguised in rags and ashes. My Lord, the Ismus, would bring you to his bed only if you were soaped and scrubbed by the tiring women till you shone like a shield. But I… I would have you as you are, all grimy from your base toil, with mutton grease and straw in your hair, soot etched in every cranny and aglow with sweat that smells of pepper and freshly sliced onions. I would tongue-bathe every inch of your fire-bronzed skin, baste you with the juices of my mouth and rip those rags from your shoulders and hips, as you have torn the feathers from that goose. You are a banquet I intend to gorge on and my appetite will never be sated.”
“No closer,” she warned, brandishing the knife.
“You have already pierced my heart, my pretty slattern. Bitter steel would only relieve me of that keen pain. Jab away, prick me, fillet me – shred my being even more than your grubby beauty already has.”
He lunged forward. She struck out. The blade sliced into his reaching palm. He yelled in anger, slapped her with the back of his other meaty fist and smacked the weapon from her grasp. It went clattering across the flagstones.
Then his strong fingers were around her throat and she was pushed against the table. He leaned in and licked the sweat trickling down her cheek. The cut on his palm dragged a vivid scarlet wake over her skin.
“The Jockey rides everyone at Court in the end,” he hissed into her ear as she struggled. “One way or another. You must give him his due.”
His frenzied paws snatched at her rags and tore them. Her bare shoulders glistened in the firelight and he buried his florid face into her dirty neck as his bloody fingers went roving.
“My Lord Jockey!” a voice called suddenly.
The man snarled and glared round at the stairs. The small, dumpy figure of the Lockpick was standing at the top of them.
“What business have you here, Jangler?” the Jockey demanded angrily.
Jangler bowed. “His Highness, the Lord Ismus, would speak with you,” he said.
“His Highness can wait.”
“On a matter most urgent.”
The Jockey ground his teeth. His eyes shone as fiercely as the fire in the grates. Then, reluctantly, he stepped away from the girl.
“Do not think I am done here,” he told her, clenching a fist till the blood squeezed between his fingers. “I shall be back; the Jockey will have his sport.”
Columbine watched his stout figure go skipping up the stairs after the Lockpick. Then, shaking, she covered herself with the tatters of her clothes and sank down on to the feather-strewn floor where she sobbed quietly. What was she to do? There was no escaping the whims and fancies of the Jockey and she was now the next game he was determined to play. Who could she turn to for protection? Nobody would dare stand against him. If she tried to run away from the castle, he would surely loose the hounds and hunt her down like an animal.
Lifting her face, she saw the glint of the knife he had knocked from her hand.
“Next time I shall not fail,” she told herself. “Before he lays another greedy finger upon me, I shall let out every last gill of his blood. There must be a whole hogshead’s worth swilling in his veins.”
At that moment,
a gentle but insistent tapping sounded upon the kitchen door. Columbine wiped her eyes before answering. She did not want Mistress Slab, Ned or Beetle to see she had been crying.
A draught of sharp, wintry air came biting in when she opened the stout oak door. Standing upon the frost-glittering step was the bent figure of an old woman, wrapped in a thin shawl that was no defence against the icy wind. A large wicker basket sat heavily on her crooked back and the wide brim of a black straw bonnet hid her downcast face. In her cold, pinched hands she carried another basket. When the door swung inward, she lifted it in greeting.
“Chestnuts,” her cracked and weary voice said. “And apples, as sweet and juicy as last autumn when they was picked off the bough.”
Columbine did not recognise her, but there were many strange folk who dwelt in the woods and forests. She wondered how far the woman had walked that day. Even the effort of lifting the basket seemed too much. For a moment, she forgot her own predicament and pitied her.
“I cannot buy your wares,” the girl answered apologetically. “I have no purse and my mistress is busy. She would box my ears if I disturbed her. Have you called on the lesser kitchens in the castle? Or down in the village?”
The old woman’s shoulders sagged even more.
“Slammed doors and curt words are the only blessings Granny Oakwright has been given this bitter day,” she said unhappily. “I must return to my hut in the Haunted Wood, where no fire, no crust and no cheer await me.”
She turned to leave, looking more hunched and feeble with each shambling step. Columbine could not bear it.
“Wait!” she called. “I haven’t any pennies, but there are no warmer hearths in all Mooncaster than here. Come you in, old dame, and thaw yourself.”
The woman shuffled about and entered the kitchen, muttering her thanks. Columbine guided her to the stool by the largest fire where she eased herself down and removed the basket from her back.
“Oh – my old bones!” Granny Oakwright exclaimed, holding her mittened hands towards the leaping flames. “Granny can feel her chilblains resurrecting! What a tingling in her knobby fingers!”
Columbine smiled then ran to the larder, returning with a thick slice of mutton pie and a wedge of cheese. She knew Mistress Slab would beat her for this charity, but what did that matter?
“Here,” she said kindly. “’Tis a meal fit for the Lord Ismus’s table and you shall have hot spiced ale to wash it down.”
The old woman gasped in astonishment and clapped her hands at the sight of such princely fare.
“What a virtuous, generous child you are!” she cried, with her mouth full. “The most unselfish heart in the whole Realm – and a pretty face to match.”
Columbine busied herself with adding cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to a mug of the best October ale. Then she plunged a glowing fire iron into it, causing a ribbon of fragrant steam to hiss upwards as it bubbled and foamed over the sides.
When she handed the hot brew over, the old woman had already finished the pie and cheese and was dabbing at the crumbs on her shabby kirtle.
“I could wrap more cheese in a scrap of muslin for you to take home,” the girl suggested. “If we had any bread, you’d be welcome to that too, but the kitchen boys are fetching it from the miller’s even now.”
Nursing the steaming mug in both hands, her guest took appreciative sips whilst regarding her keenly. Two dark little eyes, webbed with age, shone out from the shade of the bonnet’s wide brim.
“I would rather eat poisoned snake livers than the finest table loaf baked by Gristabel Smallrynd, the miller’s wife,” she said with sudden vehemence. “Threatened to set her wall-eyed dog on me this day she did and swung a stick at Granny’s head… but she’ll come to rue that.”
Her warty chin moved from side to side as she glugged the ale down. Then, with a contented sigh, she said, “I will take no cheese. Though I thank you for the offer of it. You have been open-handed enough already – and with such victuals that will be missed, which I wager you’ll be punished for. No other in Mooncaster would show such tenderness to a wizened, friendless crone such as I.”
“I could not see you hobble from this door, on so cold a day as this, tired and hungry.”
“Then I must repay you, child. Is there aught you would ask of a grateful forest hag? Granny is in your debt and that must be settled at once.”
Columbine almost laughed, but checked herself in time so as not to bruise the old woman’s feelings. What could one so steeped in poverty afford to give her?
“I wish for nothing,” she said.
The old woman leaned forward and her dark eyes glinted.
“Yet your face tells a different tale,” she said. “Tears leave loud tracks upon cheeks smirched with soot and ashes. And there are bloody stains of violence upon you. How came ye by such gory daubs? What troubles you so sorely? Tell Granny your woe; she may find a way of easing your burden.”
And so Columbine told her what had happened, how the Jockey had caught her, peeping out at the Jack of Clubs, and his unwanted attention afterwards.
“He has sworn to return later,” she said. “But I will not surrender unto him. He or I will die.”
To her surprise, the crone began to chuckle. It was the last reaction she had expected.
“I mean it!” Columbine cried. “I would rather jig a deserving dance at the gibbet than have that fat villain steal my maidenhead.”
Granny Oakwright slapped her bony knees and laughed all the louder.
“I see no merriment in this!” the girl shouted angrily. “My plight is most hopeless and grim. Is this how you reward my kindness? Be still and silent, old dame! How can you laugh so cruelly?”
The woman’s mirth eased and she fixed the girl with a glare so powerful that Columbine caught her breath and took a step back.
“Large in heart thou mayest be, child,” Granny Oakwright said, her voice now harsh. “But thy wits are shrivelled for balance. Let this be an end to play-acting. No more pretence, no more poor old grateful Granny.”
“I do not understand…”
The old woman’s face became sour and severe. “Dost thou truly believe any aged dweller of the forest would brave this deadly frost and tramp the many leagues from their squalid hovel to beg at this door? Hestia Slab is renowned for her parsimony. She is too mean to bait the traps. I can hear a mouse even now, over by the salt sack. No empty-bellied wretch would come a-knocking here.”
“Then…?”
“I am no peasant!” the stranger proclaimed. “I am no starveling, scratching a life in the wild wood. I am she whose name is whispered with awe and dread, with powers enough to challenge even the Holy Enchanter.”
Columbine gasped. “Malinda!” she blurted. “Malinda – the Fairy Godmother!”
“Malinda?” the crone shrieked with indignation. “Malinda of the clipped wings and mangled wand? Idiot girl! Malinda is no more than a mere dabbler and a faded one at that! That spangle-dusted amateur gave up knocking on doors and granting hearts’ desires to silly young maidens many years ago. I am not she!”
“Then who are you?”
“I am Haxxentrot!” the old woman announced and, when she spoke her name, the nearby hearth roared and the flames blazed violet, shooting high up the chimney.
“The witch of the Forbidden Tower!” Columbine uttered fearfully. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“To see with mine own eyes how the peoples of Mooncaster are faring,” the witch replied. “Though I own many spies, it pleases me to walk amongst the village folk from time to time and relearn why I despise them so. When I have toppled the Holy Enchanter and the White Castle is a smoking ruin, there is not one whose wretched life I shall spare.”
She tapped her foot irritably on the flagged floor.
“Thus I must be in no one’s debt!” she told the girl as she took two chestnuts from her basket and spat on both. “Place these as nigh to the fire as ye dare. Consider this one to be thine own sel
f and this… he is the Jack of Clubs. If the scorching heats cause them to burst and fly into a thousand pieces, thy secret yearning will ne’er blossom and bear fruit. Yet if they ignite and burn together with steady flame then ye shalt become lovers and remain constant evermore.”
Columbine obeyed. She had heard many stories of the fearsome old witch who hated the Ismus and the inhabitants of Mooncaster. Haxxentrot was always seeking new ways to bedevil and inflict pain upon them. Warily the girl put the chestnuts as close to the fire as she could manage. Haxxentrot muttered some words under her breath and they waited.
Presently the two chestnuts began to smoulder. Then they both crackled and were wrapped in a pinkish flame.
“Behold!” the witch declared with a satisfied, matter-of-fact nod. “Thy future is clear. Great love ’twixt thee and the Knave of Clubs shalt surely come to pass.”
She took up the straps of the other basket and prepared to haul it on to her shoulders once more.
Columbine stared at the burning chestnuts in disbelief. An overwhelming sense of disappointment took hold of her.
“Wait!” she cried. “Is that it? Is that all?”
“All?” the witch repeated. “What more could there be? Hast thou not lain awake, many nights, aching for his embrace? Now thou knowest it will surely happen.”
Columbine felt so cheated she could barely speak. Then her resentment found its voice and any fear she had of the witch was swept aside.
“What sort of magickal reward is that?” she demanded. “Was that the best you can do? This is not how kind deeds are repaid in old tales. Where are the wishes? Where are the magickal gifts? The gown of gold, made with cloth so fine it fits into a walnut shell! Where are the enchanted slippers to make the wearer the daintiest dancer in the Realm? Where is the jug of moon dew that bestows shining beauty on whoever bathes in it? Where is the potion to make he who drinks it fall into a stupor of love for me? Where is the mirror that shows any view I desire?”
“Ye modern maidens expect too much,” the witch observed with a sniff.