The Spinner and the Slipper (11 page)

An hour was spent so, only the two of them watching the sky and listening to the distant noise of the ball inside. Suddenly the man stood up, and the icy claws of night scratched at her skin. When she reached for him, he knelt before her.

“I have a gift for you,” he said.

As Eliana watched, he opened his hand. There, coiled in his palm, lay a gold chain. When he held it up, she saw that it was a necklace. Her mother’s necklace.

“Where—where did you get this?” Eliana gasped, putting out her finger to touch the chain, her face full of wonder. “I thought I had lost it.”

He did not answer but, leaning forward, placed the necklace around her neck, clasping it under her hair. For a moment they paused as though frozen, so close that she could feel his breath on her face. With only a fraction of movement, she might lean forward and kiss him . . . if only she had the courage!

Eliana could hardly breathe. She whispered, “I know you, don’t I? I know . . .”

“Eliana,” he said, his voice strained and full of some powerful emotion she hardly dared name. “Eliana, when I come to you tomorrow night, you have only to speak my name. Then I will be yours forever.”

“But you’ve never told me your name!” she exclaimed. He moved as though to rise, and she quickly reached out, grasping at his shoulders. “Please tell me!”

He was too quick for her, however. He slipped from her grasp like running water and stood before her, his masked face lost in shadows. “I will come tomorrow night for the Reveal,” he said. “In the meanwhile, try to remember.”

A swift movement and a kiss on her forehead.Then the oak-leaf man was gone, a fleeting wisp of a breath. The distant church bells tolled twelve deep notes in the night
.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lingering Threats

The following morning Martha woke Eliana with a breakfast of sweet porridge and a glass of milk to drink. When she saw that Eliana was finished and moved to take away the tray, she asked if her lady had enjoyed her second night at the ball. “Did you dance with the prince?”

Eliana frowned, her hand unconsciously straying to the gold necklace, which she had worn to bed. It lay half hidden beneath her nightgown, but she felt its contours through the thin fabric.

“Martha,” she said without actually answering her maid’s question, “what is Prince Ellis like?”

“Oh, very handsome, my lady!” Martha replied, eyes shining. “No taller than me I’d say, but strongly built. His hair is golden like the king’s, and he has dark eyes like the queen. Such a striking young man!”

“But what is he
like?
” Eliana persisted. “Do you know anything of him personally? Is he . . . is he kind?”

“Very much so!” Martha blushed at the enthusiasm of her own words and lowered her eyes. Then, emboldened by Eliana’s patient listening, she continued, “I’ve never met a man more gentle than he.”

“You’ve met him then?”

“Well, you know . . . not on any
official
basis, mind you!” Her maid shook her head hastily at the silliness of this very idea. “But once I was coming up the back stair with a heavy basketful of laundry, and who do you suppose I bumped into? Prince Ellis, slipping down the back way, trying to escape his tutor! He did not see me, and we hit each other hard, scattering laundry everywhere! I scolded him roundly—then realized who he was. Oh, I thought I would die of shame!”

Eliana listened round-eyed to this story. As no more than a miller’s daughter herself, she found the idea of meeting the prince under such circumstances nothing short of horrifying.

But Martha smiled at her memory. “The prince, though . . . he was such a gentleman! He apologized so prettily and helped me fetch every stitch of that laundry. ‘I’m afraid it might have to be re-washed,’ he said, just as though he felt bad for me. Me! Nothing but a lowly housemaid who spends her whole day scrubbing and cleaning. Then he said, ‘This seems awfully heavy. Shall I carry it back down for you?’

“I tell you, my lady, I thought I might well faint, so overcome was I! Of course I told him I’m used to carrying much heavier burdens and made my escape as swiftly as I dared. But . . . well, I never forgot that one encounter.” Martha’s smile dimmed a little, though it remained as sweet as ever. “Sometimes I happen to see him across the way, and I’ll come close to catching his eye. And I wonder if it’s possible Prince Ellis remembers me as well. Though I doubt it very much! Why would he, after all?”

At this, Martha picked up the breakfast tray and hurried away, leaving Eliana to contemplate this new information. She had no way of knowing whether Martha’s idealized encounter with the prince was entirely accurate or merely a romantic young housemaid’s fancy. But if it was true and Ellis was a man who could speak with courtesy to a housemaid, perhaps he would not prove too difficult for Eliana to get to know.

She felt the looming dread of all those rumors once more—rumors that King Hendry intended to marry his son to Lady Gold-Spinner. To her! Twice now she had disobeyed her sovereign (albeit unintentionally) by not meeting the prince. Tonight . . . tonight, no doubt, she would meet him indeed.

And would the king insist on a betrothal?

Eliana’s stomach turned at this thought. For no matter how she tried to tell herself that Prince Ellis might not make for such a bad husband . . . how could she marry him? How could she give him her hand when she knew perfectly well that her heart belonged to someone else?

Her fingers played with her mother’s gold chain.

“
Eliana, when I come to you tomorrow night, you have only to speak my name. Then I will be yours forever.
”

The memory of the oak-leaf man’s urgent words pressed upon her mind. And with them another memory . . . She rubbed the chain even harder, and it warmed to her touch. The gold band about her finger warmed as well, though not so warm as to be painful. At its warming, she felt as though some icy block in her mind slowly melted away.

“
To remember me by . . . to remember me by . . .
”

What was she supposed to remember? A . . . a promise? But what promise—

The door to her room burst open. Eliana, still in bed, startled up with a small scream, staring into the angry face of King Hendry, who stood in the doorway.

The king—possibly a little ashamed at catching her in her bed and nightgown—did not enter the room. But he pointed one imperious finger at her, and his hand quivered with the passion of his words: “You! What do you think you are here for, you peasant girl? Do you think you can come to Craigbarr and dance and make merry without a thought?”

“Your Majesty!” Eliana cried, clutching her blankets up to her chin and wondering desperately if she should rise and curtsy.

Before she could come to a decision, Hendry continued: “You are here for
one
purpose and
one
purpose only—to marry my son!” He threw up his hands then, cursing roundly in a most un-kingly fashion. “What is wrong with you anyway? Don’t you
want
to be a princess? Has all of this attention gone to your head? Do you think yourself too good for my Ellis?”

“Your Majesty,” Eliana protested, “I . . . I simply have not had opportunity to meet him—”

“
Opportunity?
” roared the king, his face going red with fury. “What have these last
two nights
been to you if not
opportunity?
” He made a desperate effort to steady himself, one hand grasping the doorpost. “Listen, girl, and listen well. Tonight you will dance with the prince. And when he asks you, you will agree to marry him. Do we understand one another?”

Eliana gazed into that beet-red face with the long, imperious mustache, the clenched jaw. She saw there the shadow of the gallows and knew suddenly, down to her very core, that the threat of death had not yet lifted from her life. This king who would kill her for not spinning straw into gold would just as happily kill her for refusing this new whim of his.

“I—I understand, Your Majesty,” Eliana whispered. Her hand clenched her gold necklace hard, but it had gone cold under her touch. “I understand.”

King Hendry’s jaw worked as though he wanted to spew more angry words. But instead he turned away and slammed the door behind him. The whole room shook with the force of that slam. Eliana felt the reverberations down into her bones.

A sob welled up in her throat, and she struggled to choke it back down. What did it matter if the oak-leaf man came back tonight? What did it matter if she called him by name?

No one could thwart the will of a king.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A Bargain

“Do you
still
think you can thwart my will?”

The faerie stood at attention on the walls of King Oberon’s palace, his farseeing gaze watching the wild country for any sign of goblins. But his mind, if he was honest with himself, had been off in another world entirely—a world of mortal music and mortal dancing, where the smile of a certain mortal maiden could cause the whole universe to light up as though with purest, sunlit gold.

The roaring boom of Oberon’s voice cut through this happy daydream, sending a chill of terror into the quick of the faerie captain’s spirit. Still holding himself at attention, he turned and saluted, but his cheeks paled to gray.

King Oberon face was a writhing mass of storm clouds. He flew along the wall walk, trailing darkness in his wake, his fists clenched as though ready for battle. “My loyal Puck has told me all!” he declared, looming huge above his captain, for his wrath made him swell to twice his normal, towering height. “He has told me all about your sneaky doings with that mortal girl whom I
forbade
you from ever seeing again! Do you want to spend more time in my dungeons, captain? Is that your secret wish? Because I can most readily grant you this desire, and this time
I’ll leave you there for a century!
”

The faerie captain was no coward, and he did not back down in the face of his king’s wrath. Maintaining a most respectful tone, he offered a bow and said, “I ask forgiveness for any offense my actions have caused. But I will not ask forgiveness for the actions themselves, born as they are from the truest love any heart ever knew.”

Oberon could not speak for the burning anger on his tongue. Instead, he drew back his mighty fist and would have knocked his captain clean off the wall, down onto the jagged rocks below . . .

Only suddenly, standing between him and his prey was the gloriously golden image of his wife smiling sweetly up at him.

“Really, darling, such a display. And so public too!” she said, laughing like the ringing of a bell chorus. “What will all the little ones think?”

“Out of my way, Titania!” Oberon bellowed. “Puck has told me of your part in all this nonsense, and I’ll be dealing with you next!”

But Titania had seen too many of her husband’s tempers over the long centuries of their marriage to mind him much now. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said lightly, tapping him on the nose with one long, elegant finger. “Do you really want to stand in the way of true love? When you start meddling with people’s hearts, things never go well, as
everyone
knows.”

At this, some of the dark clouds in Oberon’s face dispersed, giving way to a slight smile. Memory played in his mind, memory of the last time he had bested his wife in one of their battles of wills . . . memory of a donkey-headed man and a quartet of young lovers who dared run amok in his forest at night . . .

Titania, seeing that smile, knew she had scored a point. “There now, don’t you see? It’s always best to let true love take its own course.”

Oberon shrank back down to his ordinary height and crossed his powerful arms over his chest. “So you say, my pretty queen. But tell me . . . do you know for sure that this mortal wench is really in love with my captain?”

His gaze swiveled to the nameless faerie as he spoke. The faerie bowed again, his pale face beginning to regain color. “I do not know my dear Eliana’s feelings for certain, great king,” he said. “But I do have hope, indeed.”

“Hope, hope!” Oberon scoffed. “What good is hope in matters of female affection?” A sly expression spread across his face, almost more terrible than his scowling wrath. “I’ll tell you what, good captain and wicked queen . . . I’ll make a bargain with the pair of you. Puck tells me that there is yet one night left of this mortal ball. Is this true?”

“It is true, my king,” said the nameless faerie.

“And he tells me that you, my lady love, have prevented the mortal lass from meeting and dancing with the handsome mortal prince. Is this true as well?”

Titania shrugged prettily. “It was easy enough to manage.”

“So how then do we know that she would not love him, one of her own kind, better than a faerie man if given the chance?”

To this, neither Titania nor the captain could give a ready answer. Oberon laughed at the glance the two of them exchanged.

“So this is my bargain,” the king said. “If you, Titania, will agree not to interfere at the ball—and by this I mean
none of your magic,
not of
any
variety—then I will let my captain attend this one last night. If his mortal lass does indeed choose him over a prince of her own kind, then I will allow him to bring the wench back here to my court.” His smile was as proud and dangerous as a wild horse, and his eye gleamed with eager mischief. “Does everyone agree?”

“Most readily, my king!” answered the captain at once.

But Titania did not speak up so quickly. She eyed her husband, trying to discern what cleverness he had up his sleeve. She had played more than a few games against him in her time, and she knew better than to trust him. And the restriction upon her magic, well! That was a hard bargain indeed.

Then suddenly she began to smile to herself once more . . . such a smile as to send a hollow worry plunging in Oberon’s gut.

“I agree, dearest king,” she said and, standing on tiptoe, planted a kiss on his hard cheek. “I agree to your terms most heartily.”

“Harrumph!” The king pushed her away, one eyebrow upraised. Addressing himself to his captain he said, “What are you waiting for then, man? Be off with you!”

The nameless faerie did not wait to be ordered twice.