Snow White and the Seven Samurai

by Tom Holt

  At the dreaded word patient, Sis began to squirm and wriggle, more from half an hour’s backlog of fidgets than any sincere belief that it would help. As she did so, two things happened: the spur of branchwood that was supporting her weight gave way; and a knight in shining armour, galloping out of the trees and into the clearing in headlong flight from a small but compact dragon that was gaining on him fast, shot under the tree and flashed past the wicked queen like a stainless steel lemming over a cliff top. Accordingly, when the spur snapped off and Sis plummeted out of the tree, there just happened to be a nice bouncy-necked dragon directly underneath her to break her fall.

  Her fall wasn’t all that got broken, either.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ groaned the wicked queen. ‘You’ve killed it. Oh hell, that’s all we needed. You’ll just have to pretend it was worrying sheep or something like that. Look out, here comes the wretched thing’s owner. You’d better leave this to me.’

  She stood up and did her best to assume an indignant-livestock-owner expression; but she needn’t have bothered. The knight, who had reined in his steed at the edge of the clearing, rode straight past her without even noticing she was there, vaulted off his horse and knelt beside Sis, who was still lying across the thoroughly dead dragon and watching a spectacular virtual-reality fireworks display. The knight doffed his coalscuttle helmet, laid it down on the grass beside him, and tenderly lifted Sis’s hand to his lips.

  ‘My heroine,’ he murmured.

  ‘You must be kidding,’ Rumpelstiltskin whispered in horrified fascination.

  Dumpy gave him a long, hard stare. ‘Do I look like I’m kidding?’ he growled, as he slammed the knocker against the brightly painted door.

  ‘No,’ his colleague admitted, ‘but you know me, a born optimist. You can’t really be going to recruit a — well, one of them,’ he added, in a low voice. ‘It’s just not—’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘All right,’ Rumpelstiltskin said meekly. ‘Just don’t blame me, that’s all.’

  Dumpy ignored him and lifted the knocker, then checked his hand as the door swung open, revealing a small, furry, whiskery muzzle bracketed by a pair of bright and hostile round black eyes. ‘Children and animals,’ Rumpelstiltskin mumbled under his breath, but Dumpy pretended not to have heard.

  ‘Howdy,’ Dumpy said, extending a hand. The mole looked at it, sniffed and shrank back a little.

  ‘I mean,’ Rumpelstiltskin went on, ‘whatever else he is, he isn’t a dwarf, no matter how you look at it. And I thought the whole point of the exercise, assuming it does have a point…’

  ‘I said shut up,’ Dumpy snarled. ‘Say, partner,’ he continued to the mole, who was looking at him quizzically, as if speculating as to what on earth he was meant to be for, ‘I’m looking for the mole. Would that happen to be you?’

  The mole twitched its snout and scuffled with its claws in the soft, fine earth. Rumpelstiltskin let out a deep sigh.

  ‘It can’t talk, you idiot,’ he said. ‘It’s an animal, can’t you see that? And animals can’t talk. Well-known fact, that.’

  ‘Ahem. Excuse me!’

  ‘Don’t interrupt,’ Rumpelstiltskin snapped; then he realised he’d just been talking to the mole. He did a quick double-take, then stooped down. ‘You just talked,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘All right, so I talked,’ the mole admitted. ‘So did you.’

  ‘Yes, but…’ Rumpelstiltskin made an effort to keep his mind clear, or at least on the translucent side of opaque. ‘I thought you couldn’t talk,’ he said.

  The mole twitched its nose at him. ‘Didn’t have anything much to say,’ it replied meekly. ‘Except help! but I sort of got the impression that that wouldn’t cut much ice with your friend here. What is it we’re all going to do, exactly? If you don’t mind my asking, that is. This is all terribly exciting.’

  ‘We’re gonna save three little pigs from the big bad wolf,’ Dumpy replied. ‘If’n you want to ride with us, we’ll be glad to have you.’

  ‘Why, for God’s sake?’ Rumpelstiltskin interrupted. ‘Look at it, it’s pathetic. Oh God, it’s started to cry now.’

  ‘I’m s-sorry,’ the mole snuffled. ‘And you’re quite right, of course, I’d probably only be a hindrance to you. It’s all right, really, I quite under—’

  ‘It can dig,’ Dumpy said firmly. ‘Reckon that might just come in handy. Now, are we gonna stand around here all day jawing, or are we gonna get on and do the job?’

  ‘Oh, why not?’ Rumpelstiltskin sighed. ‘After all, it isn’t as if I had a living to earn or anything better to do.’ He hesitated and thought for a moment; it was true, he hadn’t. ‘After all,’ he added, slightly more cheerfully, ‘who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?’

  ‘Well, actually—’

  ‘Let me rephrase that. Apart from the mole, who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Anybody? Right. Let’s go get the sucker.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, if you’re all going to go…’

  ‘That’s decided, then,’ said Rumpelstiltskin. ‘So let’s—’

  Dumpy scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘There should be seven of us. What about the other three?’

  Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. ‘Knowing our luck,’ he said, ‘we’re bound to pick up three more dea— I mean, three more colleagues on the way. And if we don’t, we’ll just have to deputise the pigs. Make them honorary dwarves.’

  ‘We could saw ‘em off at the knee,’ Thumb suggested. ‘That ought to bring them down to our level.’

  ‘Quite,’ Rumpelstiltskin said. ‘What’s the loss of a few limbs compared to companionship and solidarity? I’m sure they’ll come round to our way of thinking if we threaten them enough. And then we can go in there, get the job done and then,’ he concluded, with his eyes closed, ‘go home.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘If you say so. I have absolute confidence in your judgement.’

  It occurred to Rumpelstiltskin as Dumpy led the way back into the forest that they could achieve more or less the same result if they skipped the intermediate stages and just went home anyway, but he decided not to raise the point. For one thing, he suspected Dumpy wouldn’t be entirely sympathetic. For another… He wasn’t quite sure what the other was, though he had a nasty feeling it had something to do with narrative patterns, whatever in hell they were.

  Probably, he muttered to himself, a sort of Paisley.

  The accountant sat up.

  ‘Running DOS,’ he said, in a flat, toneless voice. ‘Please wait.’

  The face in the bucket made an impatient tutting noise. ‘Oh, get on with it,’ she said. ‘You’re even slower than the other one.’

  If the accountant had been able to notice such things, he’d have detected a subtle change in Snow White’s appearance. She was still the fairest of them all, no doubt about that. Her eyes were still the colour of summer skies, her lips were still the deep red of Valentine’s day roses, the sort you get embarrassingly given when you have a working lunch with a female business colleague on 14 February. But there was something about the interplay of light and shadow around the contours of her face that made her look — older? Hardly; still that schoolgirl complexion that only exists here and in soap advertisements. Wiser? More knowing? Possibly. It looked as if she was wearing make-up, heavy eye shadow and mascara, but she wasn’t.

  But all that was lost on the accountant, who was sitting bolt upright in his chair making little fast clicking noises with his tongue. If ever there was a man whose face advertised valuable warehouse space to let directly behind his eyes, there he was.

  ‘You must be ready by now,’ muttered Snow White’s face in the still water. ‘Right then, here we go. Mirror, mirror. Hello? You look as if you’ve gone to sleep.’

  ‘Bad command or file name.’

  ‘Well, at least that proves you can hear me. Well now, what are you doing sitt
ing in that bucket, you enigmatic little system? You’re a backup, aren’t you?’

  ‘Confirmed.’

  Snow White frowned. It was, of course, an enchantingly lovely frown. Goes without saying.

  ‘Sneaky cow,’ she said. ‘And I suppose her big idea was to wipe off everything else and then reinstall the system out of you. Except she doesn’t know how to do it, which is where you come in. Yes?’

  ‘Confirmed.’

  Those lovely lips set in a hard, thin (but gorgeous) line. ‘Well, now, we can’t have that. Where’s the bitch right now?’

  ‘Path not found. Unable to create socket.’

  ‘What? I’ll assume that’s the gibberish for Don’t Know. I’m warning you, though. If you’re trying to cover up for her, I’ll take great pleasure in pouring you into a kettle and boiling you. Is that clear?’

  ‘Bad com—’

  ‘Oh, boo to you too.’ Snow White sat quietly for a moment, thinking; meanwhile, a spider crawled out of the accountant’s ear and gingerly scuffled down his neck and into the top pocket of his colourful jacket. ‘All right,’ she went on, ‘here’s what we’ll do. Presumably she’s going to come back sooner or later to see how you’re getting along. Now, I think it’d be a good idea if you report back to me the moment you see her. Got that? Splendid. What a clever little bucket you are. I’d never have thought you had it in you, no pun intended. And of course we’ve got to make sure she can’t actually use you to wipe off the system and reinstall, so how’d it be if I order you not to allow access to the system files without hearing the password first? Good idea? Glad you approve. All right, the password is — Oh, drat it, why can you never think of a password when you need one? — the password is Meltdown. Got that? Meltdown. It seems appropriate enough, and I don’t suppose it’s the sort of word that crops up in the course of ordinary conversation. Now then, bucket, you can run along and play. Bye for now.’

  ‘This will end your Mirrors session.’ Even as he said the words, the image on the surface of the water faded out into the accountant’s own reflection; and at that moment, he seemed to wake up with a slight start. He blinked, shook his head a little and yawned hugely.

  The spider, seeing its chance, scrambled out of the pocket, abseiled down the accountant’s tie and scuttled across the desk, finally taking cover behind an empty coffee cup. There was the usual sticky brown ring surrounding the base of the cup, and two of the spider’s feet caught in it, but it managed to pull them free.

  ‘What—?’ asked the accountant, of nobody in particular. Then he took a deep breath, yawned again and caught sight of his reflection in the bucket. Hm, he said to himself, need a haircut. And that tie simply doesn’t go with the shirt. And what’s this bucket of water doing on my desk in the first place?

  He thought for a moment; then he flipped the intercom.

  ‘Nicky,’ he said, ‘why is there a bucket of water on my desk?’

  ‘You mean the one the wicked queen brought in?’ said the intercom. ‘Search me.’

  The accountant sighed. ‘Well, take it away, it’s seeping all over my papers. Put it out in the woodshed or something. On second thoughts, better not. God alone knows what she wants it for, but if she comes back and asks for it, we’d better have it ready and waiting. Put it in the corner of the waiting room with a cloth over it.’

  ‘Righty ho.’

  ‘And bring me another coffee, would you? Black, no sugar. For some reason, I’m feeling a bit sleepy.’

  Having collected the bucket and the empty coffee-cup, the receptionist went through to the kitchen to make the coffee. When she got there, however, the water pitcher was empty. The receptionist sighed; it was a long way to the well, and she was behind with her work as it was. Then a thought occurred to her. It must have been an unworthy one, because she bit her lip and frowned while she was processing it. Then she picked up the cup, slipped through into the front office and lifted the cloth off the bucket she’d just slid under one of the chairs. She glanced round to see if anyone was looking, then dipped the cup into the bucket, filled it and pulled it out again. Then she went back into the kitchen to fill the kettle and put it on. She didn’t look back, and so didn’t notice the spider, which had got itself stuck to the side of the cup and was now doing a frantic eight-legged version of the doggy paddle in the middle of the bucket.

  ‘Nicky,’ the intercom barked at her as she returned to her desk, ‘this coffee tastes horrible, like there’s something in it.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to get you another one?’

  ‘What? Oh, no, don’t bother. Just don’t buy that brand of coffee again, all right?’

  ‘Right you are,’ she replied sweetly; then she said something disrespectful under her breath and carried on with her work.

  ‘The Way,’ explained Mr Miroku, peeling an orange, ‘is like a flower, which — just a moment, I think you missed a bit.’

  Mr Akira paused, paintbrush in hand. ‘Did I? Where?’

  Mr Miroku pointed vaguely with a handful of orange segments. ‘That bit there,’ he said helpfully. ‘Like I was saying, the Way is like a flower, which…’

  ‘And that bit there, just under the sill,’ added Mr Hiroshige, kicking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the sofa. ‘Strive for perfection in all things, the sages teach us, for if there is a flaw in the One there is a flaw in the Whole.’

  Mr Akira frowned. ‘Sorry?’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t that be the other way round?’

  There was a moment of puzzled silence while the two adepts worked it out. ‘Oh, I see,’ muttered Mr Hiroshige, ‘a whole in the flaw, very amusing. I’d concentrate on the job in hand if I were you.’

  Properly speaking, it should have been Mr Hiroshige’s job to paint the windows, just as it ought to have been Mr Miroku’s job to strip off the old wallpaper and Mr Suzuki’s job to emulsion the ceiling, while the roster pinned to the kitchen door had Mr Funiyami, Mr Kawaguchi and Mr Wakisashi chipping out the old putty in the windows. But they had, with characteristic generosity, allowed their young colleague to further his education in the Way by performing these simple exercises, while they sat around making sure that the significance of it all wasn’t lost on him. It was, after all, the traditional method of teaching the finer points of philosophy; they’d all had to do it when they’d been Mr Akira’s age, and now it was their turn, as they saw it, to put something back into the didactic process. For his part, Mr Akira was honoured, he supposed, and flattered, presumably, to be allowed to perform these tasks in the names of his elders and betters. They were, after all, entrusting him with their honour; if he left a grey patch on the ceiling or put his foot through a window, it’d be Mr Suzuki or Mr Kawaguchi who’d have to commit ritual suicide to expunge the disgrace. Of course he’d have to commit ritual suicide too, to expunge the disgrace of having caused the disgrace that Mr Suzuki or Mr Kawaguchi was having to expunge, but that wasn’t the point, was it?

  ‘This is fun,’ muttered Mr Suzuki, a quarter of an hour or so later. ‘Sitting watching paint dry. My favourite.’

  ‘Watching paint dry,’ replied Mr Miroku reprovingly, ‘is of course a recognised exercise designed to instil in the novice the virtues of patience and the ultimate self-awareness that can only be reached through intensive meditation. It’s only when you can look at a wet skirting-board and see in it a microcosm of the slow but relentless unfolding of the Triple Path that you ever really come to appreciate the Oneness of Being and the merits of non-drip gloss.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Akira, dabbing a spot of spilt paint out of the carpet with a cloth dipped in white spirit. ‘And what does non-drip gloss stand for?’

  ‘You’d be amazed,’ replied Mr Hiroshige, stifling a yawn. ‘Perhaps later, as and when you’ve advanced far enough in the—’

  ‘He means there’s the ceiling in the outside lay to do next,’ Mr Suzuki explained. ‘And when you’ve done that, the garden gate could do with another coat.’

  Mr Akira’s
shoulders sagged a little. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And all this painting and decorating’s going to train me to shatter a hundred bricks with one blow of my hand, is it?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mr Miroku, wiping orange juice off his hands on to his trousers. ‘At least, it ought to open your eyes to the fundamental principle that all actions are interrelated, and that the fall of a leaf from a cherry tree in Kyoto is every bit as significant in the Great Scheme as the death of an emperor or the fall of a mighty empire. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if you’re looking for an all-round exercise in cosmic awareness augmentation, it’s the best there is, bar ironing.’

  ‘Ironing?’

  Mr Miroku nodded. ‘Ironing,’ he said. ‘A more graphic demonstration of the interplay of hard and soft and hot and cold would be difficult to imagine.’

  ‘Whereas washing up,’ Mr Suzuki pointed out, ‘exactly reproduces in miniature the cyclical nature of death and rebirth, with the washing-up liquid neatly symbolising the purifying effect of Enlightenment. Watch out, you’re leaving hairs in the paint.’

  Before Mr Akira could ask about the symbolic meaning of moulting DIY store bargain brushes, the door opened and Snow White strode in.

  The important word there is ‘strode’. True striding is a dying art, and unless you’ve been bred to it and practised assiduously since childhood, you’ll find it difficult to carry off with any conviction unless you pull a hamstring or wear tight, heavily starched stretch jeans. Up till now, Snow White had shown no signs whatsoever of striding; if she’d tried it, she’d probably have tripped over the hem of her cute little gingham frock and fallen flat on her face. But this time, the samurai couldn’t help noticing, she wasn’t wearing the cute little gingham frock.

  ‘You lot,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’

  The samurai tried not to stare. True, skin-tight black leather suited her, in a faintly bizarre kind of way, but Mr Miroku couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t a bit hot and sweaty on a fine spring day. As for young Mr Akira, the fact that he’d put his foot in the tin of non-drip gloss and hadn’t apparently noticed told you all you needed to know about his reaction.