Snow White and the Seven Samurai

by Tom Holt

Supermarket trolley syndrome. Honestly, the wicked queen didn’t mean to do it, but the navigational matrix of any heavily laden independent wheel carriage when savagely nudged is at best erratic, usually uncontrollable — or, to put it another way, any sudden movement and they home in on people’s ankles like sharks in bloodied water. ‘Yow!’ the housekeeper shrieked, as the trolley cannoned into her Achilles tendon; then she fell over.

  Occupational hazard, the wicked queen rationalised as she shoved against the dead weight of the trolley. A job like hers, on her feet all day, stands to reason the poor soul’s got bad ankles. She felt awful about it, up to a point; the point being the sharp one on the end of that very big knife she’d had digging in her throat not so very long ago. When she considered that, she didn’t feel quite so bad after all.

  She still had the minor problem of being chained to a very heavy trolley, which she was having to push along at one hell of a lick just to keep the momentum going. She’d reached the stage by now where the thing was moving quite well, but she couldn’t help feeling that any attempt to steer it, for example round a corner, was going to be fraught with unpleasant difficulties. Stopping it in anything less than a hundred yards of clear, uncluttered straight was more or less out of the question, unless a messy and spectacular crash counted as a stop for the purposes of the exercise. All in all, it was an unhappy state of affairs, and she couldn’t help feeling that she was now so thoroughly settled into the shit that she could quite legitimately apply for citizenship and a work permit.

  So preoccupied was she with this train of thought that she didn’t notice the door until it was too late.

  The results were quite spectacular. The trolley hit the door, crumpled up like the sacrificial front end of a Volvo, and came to a juddering halt. The door, having auditioned unsuccessfully for the part of immovable object, got out of the way in a jumble of flying splinters, just in time to let the remains of the trolley come skidding through on its side. At some point in all this, the struts that supported the handle must have come under a sufficient degree of torque to pull the heads of the retaining rivets clean through seventy-five thousandths of an inch of steel tubing, leaving the handle (and, incidentally, the wicked queen) conveniently behind.

  Fortuitous, you might say.

  The queen stood up and checked herself for damage. There was something wrong with her left knee and her ribs ached; but the chain linking the handcuffs had broken and she no longer had the housekeeper’s humming to contend with, so on balance she was in better shape than she had been. After a quick glance back through what was left of the door (about enough to provide sticks for two dozen ice lollies), she set off at an express limp in the opposite direction.

  Fairly soon she found herself standing in what could only be the great hall of the castle. There was a wide oak table, marginally shorter than the Ml but much more highly polished, and beyond that a raised dais with another long oak table running from side to side; in the corners of the hall behind that were the wells of two spiral stone staircases, which presumably led to the minstrels’ gallery. There was also, improbably, a bell-rope dangling from inside a cupola in the centre of the roof, quantities of big free-standing wrought-iron lamp-stands, some life-sized stone statues of saints and crusaders, any number of chairs, footstools and other easy-to-trip-over furniture, floor-to-ceiling tapestries on the walls — lots of clutter and excitingly varied levels, in other words. Which could only mean one thing.

  As soon as she’d made the connection in her mind, the queen started to back away in the direction she’d just come from; but she’d left it too late. Out of the archway leading to the tunnel erupted two male figures, both dressed in white shirts and tight trousers. They were sword fighting.

  Because this was, of course, the sword fighting area of the castle. Build a great hall to these dimensions and furnish it in this manner, and you can’t complain if you find it constantly infested with clashing blades, smashed chairs, decapitated statues, overturned tables, chandeliers that’ll never hang straight again after having been swung on. Fly-papers attract flies, great halls attract swordfights. If you can’t stand the heat, stay in the kitchen.

  The queen’s first instinct was to hide under a side-table, but she resisted it; fortunately for her, since it was one of the first casualties of the duel. Swordfighter A turned it over and ducked behind it, swordfighter B ran it through, almost but not quite kebabing his opponent, and while he was struggling to pull his sword out again, swordfighter A aimed a doozy of a backhand slash at his head, missing him by inches and slicing off one of the table’s legs. By the time they’d finished picking on it and had moved on to beating the bejabers out of a rather fine elm-backed settle, it’d have had trouble getting a job as a drinks mat. The duellists, needless to say, didn’t seem to give a damn what they smashed up, thereby illustrating the old adage that good fencers make bad neighbours.

  The wicked queen cleared her throat. ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  The duellists froze in mid-stroke, turned and looked at her. They were more or less identical; same clothes, same hairstyle, same pencil moustache on the upper lip. Briefly the queen wondered which one was the hero and which was the villain; nothing to choose between them. For all she knew, they took turns.

  ‘Well?’ said A.

  ‘Sorry to butt in when you’re obviously busy,’ the wicked queen said sweetly, ‘but I was wondering, could you very sweetly point me in the direction of the way out of this castle? I’d appreciate that ever so much.’

  By the looks of it, the duellists weren’t sure what to make of the interruption, though to judge by the somewhat hostile glint in their eyes, mincemeat was probably top of their list of preferences.

  ‘And about time too,’ said A, irritably. ‘We couldn’t wait any longer so we started without you.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the queen. ‘Gosh.’

  The duellists glowered at her. B tapped his foot on the flagstones.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Get on with it, girl. Now you’re here you might as well.’

  The queen converted her bewildered gawp into a charming smile. ‘I think I may not be quite up to speed here,’ she said. ‘What exactly is it you want me to do?’

  A’s face creased into an Oh-for-pity’s-sake expression. ‘Scream, of course,’ he said. ‘Then, when he’s knocked the sword out of my hand and he’s getting ready to stab me, you bash him over the head with a candlestick.’

  The famous imaginary light bulb so popular with cartoonists lit up in the queen’s brain with an almost audible snap. ‘How dreadfully slow of me,’ she said. ‘All right, then, here goes.’ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘EEEEEEEEE!’ she said.

  The duellists looked at each other.

  ‘I know,’ said B with a wry smile. ‘But she’s all I could get at short notice.’

  ‘Oh,’ A replied. ‘What happened to the usual girl?’

  ‘It’s her mother’s birthday. Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’

  Immediately, the fight resumed. This time, the casualties included an alabaster figure of St Cecilia (no great loss), half a dozen specialist matchwood chairs (guaranteed to shatter at the slightest touch or your money back) and, needless to say, the bell-rope (with A halfway up it). The wicked queen, who had been following the moves carefully, recognised her cue, selected the likeliest-looking candlestick, sneaked up behind the duellists while they were locked in one of those mechanical-advantage arm-wrestles and did her stuff. There was a deep, clunking noise. The swordfighter she’d just clobbered turned round.

  ‘Not me, you fool,’ he said. ‘Him.’ Then he fell over.

  The queen took a step back, while the remaining sword-fighter closed his eyes and made a face. ‘You clown,’ he sighed. ‘You realise what you’ve just done? You’ve nutted the hero.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself, is it?’ said the swordfighter angrily. ‘All t
hese years we’ve been working together on this, all the hours we’ve put in, the strains on our marriages, the quality time we haven’t had with our kids, and all you can say is, Oh. Well,’ he went on, stooping down and picking up his opponent’s sword, ‘there’s nothing else for it. Here, catch.’

  The queen just managed to grab the sword before it impaled her. ‘Excuse me?’ she said.

  ‘You bashed him, you take his place,’ the swordfighter replied. ‘Only reasonable. And remember,’ he added, as he aimed a swipe at her that would have done to her head what your butter-knife does to your breakfast hard-boiled egg if she hadn’t managed to duck at precisely the last possible moment, ‘you’ve got to win. Okay?’

  ‘But I…’

  The swordfighter wasn’t listening, and fairly soon the wicked queen was far too busy to talk, unless you count largely involuntary remarks such as ‘Eeek!’ as talking. Even while she was dodging the blows, however, a select committee of her mind was pointing out that this sort of thing was exactly what she ought to have been expecting, given the foul-ups in the narrative patterns and the hopeless tangle the various alternative versions had got into by now. In fact, the committee reported, a simple role reversal was about the mildest form of nuisance possible at this juncture; think how much worse it could have been if this was one of those junctures where the current narrative was gate-crashed by bits of another story…

  It was while the committee was considering its findings and filing its expenses claim that the big doors at the far end of the hall suddenly burst open. The swordfighter, who had just knocked the sword out of the wicked queen’s hand and was preparing to run her through, hesitated, looked round, muttered, ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ and let his sword-arm drop to his side.

  In the doorway stood seven samurai.

  ‘Now what?’ Grimm #1 asked.

  They were standing under a tree, over a low branch of which they’d slung a rope. One end of the rope was tied round the trunk of the tree, and the other had been worked into the noose around Fang’s neck.

  ‘Guess,’ replied Dumpy grimly. ‘Now, when I say pull—’

  ‘Something’s not quite right,’ interrupted Tom Thumb. ‘We’re missing an important point here, I’m convinced of it.’

  Dumpy waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. ‘Sure, he should be on a horse,’ he replied. ‘But we ain’t got no horse, so we’ll just have to make do. And one, and two, and…’

  Fang, meanwhile, had caught the elf’s eye, and she’d tiptoed over to the tree, shinned up it and settled herself in a low branch next to Fang’s ear.

  ‘Gggugg,’ Fang muttered. ‘Ggg. Gg.’

  The elf shook her head. ‘Relax,’ she replied, ‘it’s going to be all right. You know as well as I do what happens now. Just when they’re about to do the business, an arrow comes whistling out from the nearby trees and cuts the rope, you roll away and escape in the confusion. It’s a stone-cold certainty. You could bet your life on it.’

  ‘Ggg!’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Tom Thumb, as Dumpy and the Brothers Grimm took up the strain, ‘I’ve figured out what’s wrong. No,’ he added loudly, ‘stop!’

  ‘But you just said hang…’

  ‘Figure of speech. Look, you’re going about this entirely the wrong way. That’s now how you waste big bad wolves. They’ve got to drop down chimneys into big tubs of boiling water.’

  Dumpy scowled at him. ‘Quit horsin’ around, partner,’ he grunted. ‘That ain’t no way to run a lynchin’.’

  ‘But that’s the proper way of doing it,’ Thumb objected. ‘Everybody knows that, surely. I learnt that at my mother’s knee…’

  ‘Ain’t never heard such foolishness,’ Dumpy growled. ‘Look, are we lynchin’ this sucker or ain’t we?’

  (‘Any minute now,’ the elf whispered confidently. ‘Pfft. Whizz. Snick. Job done. Any ideas where we’re going to have lunch afterwards?’)

  ‘All I’m saying is,’ Thumb said, ‘we’d better get this right because we only get one shot at it. I mean, if we do it the wrong way and the clients throw a wobbly and refuse to pay up, we can’t very well bring the wolf back to life and have another go.’

  Dumpy thought it over for a moment. ‘Guess you may be right, at that,’ he conceded. ‘Only question is, where the Sam Hill we gonna find a big tub o’ boilin’ water and a chimney out here in the backwoods?’ He looked round and—

  ‘Just a second,’ Grimm #2 objected. ‘That cottage wasn’t there a minute ago, surely.’

  Dumpy grinned. ‘You figure it just done sprung up like a mushroom, son? Maybe that kind o’ thing happens where you’re from, but not hereabouts.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ Grimm #2 replied, or he would have done if he hadn’t suddenly thought of Milton Keynes. ‘Of course it doesn’t happen often where we come from,’ he said. ‘And it shouldn’t happen here, either. Something funny’s going on here if you ask me.’

  ‘Well I didn’t, so get the sucker down and let’s mosey on over and have a look-around. We’ll be needin’ a long ladder, I guess.’

  ‘Now that’s odd,’ said the elf, as the Brothers Grimm slackened the noose round Fang’s neck. ‘By rights, there should have been an arrow, but there wasn’t. Something’s gone wrong. Most disappointing.’

  Fortunately, Fang was in no fit state to reply, so he had to keep his views on the elf’s choice of the word disappointing to himself. He spent the time taken in reaching the cottage in compiling a shortlist of disappointments he’d have liked to share with the elf, up to and including total immersion in boiling groundnut oil.

  ‘This is weird,’ muttered Grimm #1, examining the door of the cottage. ‘Didn’t we just come from here?’

  ‘All these cottages look the same to me,’ his brother replied. ‘Back home, of course, it’d have two Porsches and a Volvo parked outside, and the kitchen would be all Delft blue and yellow with a split-level grill and lots of pine.’

  ‘Talking of kitchens,’ said Grimm #1, ‘keep an eye out for something to eat. I’m starving. Is it my imagination, or don’t these creeps eat food?’

  ‘Only when it helps the story along. Haven’t you got the hang of how things work here yet?’

  ‘Huh. Well, what I think this story desperately needs right now is a deep-pan Seafood Special with extra anchovies. It’s what Shakespeare would have done. And Ernest Hemingway.’

  Inside the cottage it was dark and gloomy, and there was an off-putting smell of damp. It didn’t feel lived in at all.

  ‘Okay,’ Dumpy sang out, ‘let’s make a move. You two, go find a big pot and fill it with water. Thumb, light a fire. Rumpelstiltskin, you’re with me…’ He stopped dead and looked round. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Anybody seen Rumpelstiltskin?’

  There was a moment of thoughtful silence while everybody realised that they hadn’t. Dumpy sighed, then shrugged. ‘Makes no never-mind,’ he said. ‘He weren’t no good no how. Right, I’ll go find a ladder. Thumb, guard the prisoner.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ demanded Tom Thumb, as Dumpy disappeared through the door. ‘And how exactly am I supposed to…?’

  The door shut, leaving Thumb alone with Fang and the elf. There was a moment of awkward silence.

  ‘Don’t make it hard on yourself,’ Thumb said, trying to raise a snarl but getting a whimper instead. ‘You just sit still and everything’s going to be just fine.’

  ‘Except that I’ll be chucked down a chimney into a tub of boiling water,’ Fang replied. ‘Apart from that, though, I’ll have absolutely nothing to worry about. Elf, get these damn ropes undone quick.’

  ‘I…’ The elf hesitated. ‘Look, I hate to be a wet blanket, but…’

  ‘That’s just fine,’ Fang snapped. ‘You don’t like being a wet blanket, I don’t like dying horribly painful deaths. We can avoid both if you’ll just get the fucking ropes.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘But?’

  The elf came up close to Fang’s ear. ‘If I untie you and you escape,’ sh
e whispered, nodding her head in Tom Thumb’s direction, ‘he’ll get in trouble. I mean, he’s supposed to stop you escaping, and that dwarf’s got a foul temper.’

  ‘I see,’ said Fang. ‘I’m supposed to go plummeting to my doom just so your boyfriend there doesn’t get yelled at. I’m so grateful to you for explaining it so clearly.’

  The elf pulled a face. ‘Don’t be like that,’ she said. ‘Really, you’re putting me in a really difficult position here, you know?’

  ‘I’m putting you…’

  The elf sighed. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘we only just met and, to be really up-front about this, when you’re my size you don’t get so many offers that you can afford to go pissing guys off before you’ve even been to see a film together. Don’t you think it’s cute the way his hair curls round his ears? I think that’s just so adorable…’

  ‘Elf…’

  ‘Look,’ the elf replied wretchedly, ‘I said I’m sorry. But that dwarf person trusted him, and he’s trusting me, and if you haven’t got trust, what kind of relationship are you going to have anyway? And stop looking at me like that,’ she added angrily. ‘The last thing I need at what may well be an important stage in my personal development is a whole load of heavy guilt.’

  ‘Elf,’ said Fang, with terrifying solemnity, ‘when I first met you, as far as you were concerned, love means never having to say Aaaargh! Where in hell’s name has all this deep and meaningful crap come from?’

  The elf didn’t reply; instead, she slumped on to the floor and started to cry.

  ‘Elf?’

  ‘Snff.’

  ‘Elf? Elf, you get your bum over here and untie these ropes, or you’ll be very sorry.’

  ‘Snff snff.’

  A stray bundle of memory slipped in through the cat-flap of Fang’s mind. ‘Unless you untie these ropes now,’ he threatened, ‘I’ll say I don’t believe in fairies.’

  The elf frowned. ‘Neither do I,’ she replied. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Oh. I thought that if someone said that, somewhere a fairy turns its toes up and snuffs it.’