Paint crackled on the walls as if to draw attention to its plight; anything gilt had been stripped; tapestries were threadbare; furniture was held together with spit and spider webs; windows, greyed with dirt, cracked under the force of a gaze. The crown jewels, once a wondrous collection of fiery gems, were reduced to a single crown, resting on the king’s brow, set with a single diamond.
The king was handsome enough. Tall, muscular, black-haired and black-bearded. During her journey she had wondered if she might tell him the truth: that her father had lied. Perhaps he might find her beauty enough to stay his hand, but seeing this poverty she knew he could afford to forgive nothing. He would kill her and send the captain and his men to slaughter her father. While she had no objections to her father’s demise, she had no desire to quit her own life.
Avarice and need ran through this man’s veins. There was no safety for her here. The king’s need for gold was a flood inside him and she would be swept up and drowned by it unless she found a way to negotiate the current.
“My father,” said the king when the niceties were over, “was a spendthrift, and long-lived. In thirty years he managed to impoverish what was once one of the wealthiest kingdoms in the land. When I came to the throne there was just enough money for the coronation.”
The corner of Alice’s mouth lifted wryly. Perhaps he saw in her face that she thought the money wasted.
“Now my problems are at an end. Come.” He gestured for her to follow him out of the dingy throne room, along a dimly-lit corridor, down chipped stairs, until at last they stopped at a wooden door, pitted and pock-marked, dark with age. “This should be no challenge for you, Mistress Alice.” The king threw open the door.
From flagged floor to cobwebbed ceiling the room was filled with straw. Some bales had split and the yellow lengths spilt onto the floor like so much hope gone wrong. A spinning wheel sat, waiting for failure. Alice surreptitiously wiped her sweating palms on her white apron. The king caught the gesture and his smile broadened, dangerous and hard.
“You have one night, Alice. This night. Spin it all into gold and release me from my reduced circumstances.”
“If I don’t?” Her voice was stronger than she expected.
His eyes darkened as he drew close to her, his large hand slipping around her throat. He closed his fingers in a motion that was half-threat, half-caress.
“You have a very thin neck, Mistress Alice.”
She held her breath until he released her and left the room. The sheer volume of impossible straw made tears heat the back of her eyes and she clenched her hands, digging her nails into the palms, hoping the pain would stop the panic. She was steel for a moment, before she threw herself to the floor, to the hated straw, and wept, wishing she could die on the spot.
Near her hand, one of the flagstones moved. She scrambled back in fright, almost burying herself in the straw. The flag moved again, jumping once, twice. A hand appeared in the crack between the stones. It was a small hand: white, smooth, almost feminine. It pushed the flagstone aside with surprising force as a man heaved himself up through the hole in the floor.
He was ordinary, so very ordinary. Not tall, but not short. Face round, unlined, not old but not young; hair neither blond nor brown. His clothes were neat, plain, and unremarkable; the kind of man she might pass in the street and not notice. He turned his eyes upon Alice. “Nasty.”
She shook her head. “Pardon?”
“Nasty way to enter a room, nasty way to move about—under the floor. Always dirty and dark, especially in poor places like this.” He brushed imaginary dirt from his clothes and looked at her again. “Fancy, a king with no money.”
“Just fancy,” said Alice bitterly.
The man’s eyes took in the straw. “Straw into gold?”
Alice nodded.
“What will you give me to do it?” he asked.
She sneered. “You can’t. No one can. Go back under the earth and leave me to die in peace.”
“Rude, but understandable given the circumstances.” He smiled a little. “What if I can? What will you give me?”
Alice looked down at her hands and saw her mother’s ring. Better the thin ring than Alice’s thin neck. She pulled the band from her finger and held it out.
“My mother’s ring.”
He took the ring and tossed it from hand to hand as if considering. His eyes were sly when he next looked at her.
“A mother’s gift is very valuable. It holds magic. It’s like a touch, or a kiss.”
“How much magic has it brought me thus far? When my mother died she left me to my fate. If the ring buys me one more night of life, then it will have served its purpose well enough.” Alice stood—she was taller than the man, but not by much.
“Fair enough,” he said, pocketing the ring. He pointed to a corner of the room. “Go to sleep. All will be well.”
“How can I trust you?”
Sitting at the spinning wheel, he grabbed a handful of straw and began his task. Within moments the straw had become gold, long strands of it, like wool. Alice felt its cold weight. She stared at the little man and nodded. “Thank you.”
“It’s business. Go to sleep.”
Alice curled up in the corner, wriggling in the straw to get comfortable. Soon enough she drifted off to the whirring of the spinning wheel.
“Clever. Clever, clever Alice.”
The king’s voice woke Alice from a dream of her mother, slipping away from her. She sat up, noticing that even her pile of sleeping straw had disappeared, spun into wealth as she slept. Standing, rubbing her eyes, she pretended not to be surprised. The gold had been spun into thread and coiled into balls—unconventional, but legal currency all the same. She gave the king a haughty look that made him laugh. He called a courtier. Alice was to be rewarded: she could bathe, eat, sleep, take in the gardens, if she wished. She was to be dressed as befitted the king’s favourite—in fact, she could do anything she wished except leave the palace grounds.
As the day passed, Alice noticed a great army of tradesmen trooping up to and around the castle. Repairs had begun. Hot on their heels were merchants with fabrics, gems, tapestries and all manner of the expensive frippery royalty are rarely without.
In the evening, Alice—bathed and dressed in new finery, her hair washed, curled and set with ribbons—was led to another room by the king. Inside was an even bigger pile of straw and the same spinning wheel. Her stomach swooped and her head spun. She wanted to weep, but made fists behind her back.
“Was last night not enough for you?” she asked.
“Thirty years is a long time to exhaust a fortune. There must be more. I’ll make you a deal: one night for each decade. Two more nights, Alice, and your future will be assured.” He stroked her cheek. “You will never spin again.”
“And if I fail?”
“You still have a very thin neck, Alice.” He kissed the base of her throat, just above her mother’s locket, and departed.
Alice slumped against the wall and waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour the tears came, the floor opened, and her saviour pulled himself out of the depths once more. “Hello, Alice. Was His Majesty happy?”
“Ecstatic. Alas, he’s also greedy,” she lamented. Her hand rubbed at the locket, as if to smooth away any marks in the metal.
“This is a much bigger room, certainly. What will you give me tonight?”
“My necklace,” she answered and pulled hard on the chain until the links parted and it came away from her neck.
“No hesitation, Alice. You are decisive.”
“No, little manikin, I just have a very thin neck.” She took herself off to the corner. “Do your work.”
“Sweet dreams, Alice.”
Once again the spinning wheel sang her to sleep.
In Alice’s dream her mother wept quietly. You’re giving me away, she cried. You’re forgetting me. Alice put her hand out to touch the pale skin of her mother’s face but the woman receded into dar
kness and left her daughter alone.
A hand grasped Alice’s shoulder and shook her roughly. She started, and opened her eyes to find the king kneeling beside her, excited, stunned, amazed. He kissed her cheek and hauled her to her feet.
“Astonishing! Alice, you are really the most amazing woman.” Cupping a hand to her face, he smiled. “Fit to be a queen. One more night, Alice. Make me the richest king in the land and tomorrow you’ll be my queen.”
He pushed her toward her chaperone of the previous day, with instructions that she was to be treated like a queen. Alice left the room, her heart heavy with the knowledge that one more night remained. She had nothing left to give.
“What will you give me tonight, sweet Alice?”
The little man’s tone was amused and not a little cruel. He knew she had nothing. They stood in the biggest room yet, surrounded by Alice’s yellow hell. As close to freedom as to death. There was nothing, Alice realised, that she would not do to escape the executioner’s blade. One more night and she would be queen. Never again the smell of flour, nor fear of her father, nor planning how to escape the hole of her existence. For that freedom she was prepared to do anything. She fixed the little man with a determined stare and began to raise her skirts.
“You can stop right there, pretty maid. You have nothing I want. You’re too old.”
“I have nothing else!” she raged, tears streaming down her face. “You have already taken everything I valued. I’m a miller’s daughter—what kind of riches do you think I am heir to?”
“Nothing, then. Only your potential,” he mused.
“What do you mean?”
“Tomorrow you’ll be the queen. He’ll marry you, crown you, and bed you. Soon you’ll have a child.” He leaned in toward her hungrily. “I want that child, your first-born.”
Alice rocked back on her heels. The glitter of freedom blinded her. She couldn’t imagine wanting any child as much as she wanted to live. She nodded. The little man cackled happily, dancing a jig around the room. When he finally calmed, she pointed to the spinning wheel.
“Now spin.”
“Indeed. Sleep, Queen Alice. Your future is assured.”
Alice slept. She dreamt of empty places where mist and darkness reigned; her mother would not answer her calls.
The child had split her like a ripe fruit.
She lay in bed for seven days before the bleeding stopped and the physicians finally believed she would live. The child was a daughter, a mix of light and dark. The king doted on her. He doted on his wife, too; he had become fond of her and, through wise investment, had managed to increase the fortune Alice had made him. He honoured his promise never to ask her to spin again.
As she hovered between deeply-drugged sleep and wakeful pain, she watched him sitting beside her bed, the baby in his arms, making faces at the child and occasionally glancing warmly at his wife. She hated him. And the child; she hated the child most of all.
She didn’t want to move, she didn’t want to speak, she didn’t want to feed the child, although her breasts ached with unused milk. She wanted them all to go away and leave her be.
One night she woke with a start. Perhaps it was the sound of stone scraping on stone, of a small man walking lightly to the crib, or the sound of him speaking softly to her daughter. She sat up with a sharp intake of breath as her stitches pulled. The little man stood by the crib, her daughter in his arms, his face alight with hunger and happiness.
“Thank you, Alice. She’s beautiful.”
“Get away from her,” she hissed as he held the hated child. He made a moue and tutted.
“Now, Alice. Remember our deal.” He approached her bed, jiggling the now-crying baby. Alice reached out, an unfamiliar ache uncoiling in her chest.
“Give me my daughter.”
Reluctantly, he complied. “I will take her, Alice. In three days I will take her away from you.”
“I will give you anything else. Take whatever you want in my kingdom, just leave my daughter with me.” Alice thought her chest would explode. Was this love? Was this what she was supposed to feel?
“You have nothing else I want.”
“Anything.”
“Alice, you’re not listening. You have nothing to bargain with. You had nothing after you gave away the last piece of your mother. You forfeited her protection. The only thing you have of her now is your blood.” He smiled. “I knew your mother, you know.
“Beautiful like you, but smarter. I offered her gold once, in exchange for you. She refused, but she was kind. Didn’t teach you much, did she? Since I’m a fair creature, I’ll give you one last chance. For her sake.”
For a moment, Alice saw beneath his skinto a sharp-toothed, gnarled little beast squirming with excitement.
“What do I have to do?”
“Guess my name. Guess my name and the deal is void. You have three days, sweet Alice.”
He clambered down through the hole in the floor and pulled the stone to cover his exit. Alice held the child all night, too fearful to sleep and too fascinated to look away from the tiny face that, mere hours ago, she could not bear to look upon.
“I have nothing left but my mother’s blood.”
Alice was out of bed, pacing. She would let no one near the child. The king was concerned. The ladies-in-waiting feared she would harm herself or the princess but no one could get near enough to separate them, and no one dared manhandle the queen.
It was the morning of the third day. Alice knew that as soon as daylight faded her tormentor would appear. She had neither bathed, nor eaten, nor slept. Alice had no idea of the little man’s name. She had wracked her brain, going over his words, knowing there was something there, though she could not unravel its meaning.
She passed a table. Her robe brushed against a goblet and sent it tumbling to shatter on the flags. As she crouched to pick up the pieces, Alice cut her hand and began to weep. The baby began to cry, too. Alice lifted her daughter from the cradle. Blood trickled from her hand to the child’s forehead, and Alice’s attempts to wipe it away merely spread the crimson stain. Rubbing her own brow, Alice marked herself as she had her child.
She sank to the floor, huddling there, eyes closed, feeling the baby calm. Their breath slowed and joined; their shared pulse synchronised, a river of blood linking them, stretching back through time, mother to daughter. There, though, Alice sensed an end—a permanent ebb in the flow—an ebb that she had caused. She wept bitterly.
There was no sound, no door opening, but she felt a presence, a hand touched her shoulder, soft as silk, soft as breath. Without opening her eyes, she knew it was one who shared her blood. Her mother smoothed the hair from Alice’s face. She breathed deeply, taking in the scent of her child and grandchild. A pale hand stroked her granddaughter’s face and the child sighed, comforted. Alice felt her mother’s lips against her ear and heard whispered words, light as mist, heavy as hope.
Wrapped tightly against the cold and tied to her mother’s breast, Alice’s child was silent. The rhythm of the horse’s gallop was unfamiliar but she didn’t complain. Alice had chosen the king’s favourite hunter. A gigantic chestnut, he whickered when she approached, snorted in annoyance when she saddled him and rode him out into the cold night air, but he did not falter.
The sun rose just before they entered the darkness of the forest. Alice knew the path as surely as she knew her own heartbeat. Along the barely visible trail, between the two biggest trees, down the slippery slope, across the stream, then up the bank and on to the rise where her mother lay beneath a small cairn.
Alice dismounted, unstrapping the child and laying her gently on her discarded cloak. The cairn she kicked away before she dropped to her knees and, not having thought to bring a shovel or spade, began to dig at the earth with her soft, pale Queen’s hands.
By the time she reached her mother, her hands were bloody, the nails broken back to the quick, and aching. The simple coffin was easy enough to tear open, the cheap wood soft an
d rotten from the damp soil. Tenderly she unwrapped the shroud she herself had sewn, her blood soaking into the fabric. She saw her mother’s hands, crossed on her chest, the dark dress she had been buried in, and, finally, her mother’s face.
Even thinner than before, eyes sunken beneath their lids, a white mould covering the once-smooth skin, but it was her mother’s face. And the one gift she had not accepted still resided there. Without hesitation, without disgust, with nothing but love, Alice leaned forward and kissed her mother’s cold, damp lips.
A breath passed between them and, in that breath, a word, and in that word, salvation.
Back in her apartments she sat in a chair, the child on her lap, both of them still wearing their blood. Eyes closed, Alice felt the sun disappearing, like a slowing pulse. A cold breath, as something from under the earth gathered around them. Opening her eyes, she found him crouched not far from her, grinning.
“You’ve made a mess. I shall have to give her a bath. Yes, that’s the first thing we’ll do when we get home. I’ll give my little princess a bath.”
“No.”
“Still think you can win? Your daughter’s flesh is mine now. No one above ground knows my name, sweet Alice.”
“No,” she agreed. “But those who sleep in the earth know. The dead know.”
He stood suddenly, almost losing his balance. Alice rose, too, her grace restored. The child rested quietly, safe in her mother’s arms.
“You weren’t quite right. There wasn’t only my mother’s blood left to me. But a kiss is a gift. It was enough, Rumpelstiltzkin.”
He screamed. He raged. But he could not come near her. He stamped his foot and it cracked the stones. He stamped again and wider cracks ran across the floor, almost to where Alice stood. He jumped up and down with such force that the floor erupted, showering Alice with shards of stone. She turned away, barely in time, to cover the child. Her back was pitted with rock, and blood dripped from her cheek where flying flint had made a wide cut.
The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales Page 11