The Woodcutter (22 page)

The Woodcutter shrugged and then said as he tapped out his pipe, “She said that the Prince slept soundly and she could not wake him. Would you know why?”

Baba Yaga gave him a wink, “I haven’t a clue.”

“Why do you consort with the Queen and the Gentleman?” the Woodcutter chided.

Baba Yaga got up, “What do you know? You, who come waltzing in here with a pretty girl and a pipe of smoke? You, who have a house that stands still?”

“So they said you could keep your castle here if you helped them?” asked the Woodcutter.

“Bah. Why don’t you ask them? They’ll be here soon enough,” said Baba Yaga.

The Woodcutter did not let her see the emotions that coursed through his chest.

“How soon?” he asked.

“In time for the wedding.” Baba Yaga leered towards him, “Your face looks as if a bone was stuck in your throat, Woodcutter. I don’t play sides. A bargain is a bargain and I have made a bargain with the Queen and her Gentleman.”

“What about a bargain with me?” asked the Woodcutter.

Baba Yaga chuckled, “A bargain with you? I suppose I have a mountain of rice and wheat you could sort or a quest to get a devil’s hair I could send you upon, but it won’t do you any good. I have given my word.”

The Woodcutter held up his hand, “I do not ask you to break a binding. I ask only you not to tell the Queen or the Gentleman we are here, nor hinder us in our actions.”

Baba Yaga sat back down before him, “And what do you offer me if I should agree to such terms?”

The Woodcutter puffed his pipe before speaking, “Do roses grow here at the castle?”

Baba Yaga’s face grew pale, “Indeed, they do.”

Baba Yaga and the Woodcutter stood in the garden of the Prince’s palace, a short walk away.

She licked her lips and watched the Woodcutter as he stepped towards a rose bush.

“Get on with it,” she urged. Her eyes shone with greed.

The Woodcutter placed his hands upon a rose. He turned to Baba Yaga, binding her to the pledge, “In return for this gift, you will not speak to anyone of me or Iron Shoes. If asked, you have no knowledge of who we are. You will not hinder us as we attempt to defeat the Queen and her Gentleman.”

Baba Yaga nodded furiously, “Agreed! Agreed! Do your work!”

The Woodcutter closed his eyes and whispered to the plant.

The rose sighed and the petals began to fall, fall until nothing was left but the swollen ovary. The ovary opened and dropped its pollinated seeds into the Woodcutter’s palm.

He walked to an adjoining bed and patted the seeds into the soil. He spread his hands and whispered a quiet request. The ground warmed beneath his fingers and a small, green seedling poked its head out from the dirt.

The Woodcutter smiled before turning back to Baba Yaga, “If you remain true to your word, in three days time, this plant will bloom a single blue rose.”

Baba Yaga swayed and tasted the word upon her lips, “A blue rose…”

The Woodcutter, “If you do not remain true to your word, this ground will become barren to blue roses for eternity.”

Baba Yaga stopped, “I never said that was part of the deal.”

The Woodcutter placed his finger aside his nose, “You never said it was not.”

Baba Yaga glared at him, “I hope your seamstress fails. I shall look forward to boiling her in my soup.”

But Iron Shoes’ fingers flew and as the sun set upon the second day and the second spool emptied, the mending was done so that not even a thistle could fit between the seams.

Grudgingly, Baba Yaga took Iron Shoes to her husband’s bedroom for a second night.

For a second night, the Woodcutter slept in the dark of the laundry room.

Chapter 65

Iron Shoes returned in the morning. Tears stained her face. She had not been able to wake her husband.

“Only one spool left,” she whispered. “My heart shall break…”

The Woodcutter smoothed her hair. “Despair not,” he soothed.

Iron Shoes sat in the middle of the room, the light from a narrow window dimly cutting through the shadows, surrounded by three times the mending as she had done in the days before. She held her head high as she threaded the final needle.

The Woodcutter slowly closed the door behind him.

He walked out to the gardens of the Prince’s palace, to the small patch of earth of yesterday.

The blue rose bush continued to grow.

Baba Yaga had not yet betrayed them.

The Woodcutter found a bench beneath an apple tree. He leaned his back against the trunk and stroked the tree’s rough bark. The voice of the tree was a quiet whisper, a quiet sigh that begged,
Help…

He sat there with the tree until the sun rose to its zenith and a party of genteel youth interrupted the silence.

A man dressed in green with silver embroidery upon his sleeves walked into the garden. A woman in a matching dress hung upon his arm, her dancing slippers tattered beneath her skirts. She giggled with the ladies and gentlemen following behind.

The Woodcutter’s eyes did not leave them.

The Green Dancing Lady carelessly chattered while the Prince stared straight ahead. Bored, she ripped a switch from one of the trees. The Woodcutter’s jaw clenched as the sap bled from the wound. But the Green Lady dashed forward, playfully hitting one of her friends, who shrieked and gave chase.

The man just continued to walk.

He passed the Woodcutter, and then stopped.

He turned.

“I don’t believe you are supposed to be here,” said the Prince. “These gardens are not for servants.”

His eyes were glassy and vacant; his skin was deathly white.

Piercingly, the Woodcutter responded, “I am not a servant.”

And he bit into an apple.

“You look like one,” said the Prince.

“Merely a disguise,” said the Woodcutter.

“Oh,” said the Prince. He looked around the garden, “Perhaps you should change your dress so that the others are not mistaken.”

“An excellent suggestion,” the Woodcutter replied, looking at the silly men and women dancing uninhibitedly in the garden. “Dust so early in the day?”

The Prince shrugged his shoulders, “I never touch the stuff.”

The Woodcutter believed him, believed that the Prince did not know what caused the emptiness and vacant stare.

“You should be careful, Prince,” said the Woodcutter.

“What for?”

The Woodcutter handed him an apple from the tree. The Prince bit down into the ruby flesh.

As the juice trickled upon his lips, the Woodcutter spoke, “It is unwise for a bridegroom to eat or drink the day before his wedding.”

The Woodcutter locked eyes with the Prince, using his power to leech away just enough of the dust.

Powerful dust.

The Woodcutter fought not to stagger.

The Prince’s gaze cleared, his mouth still pressed upon the apple.

“Trust me. Do not eat or drink anything other than the apple you hold in your hand. Your future happiness depends upon it. I tell you as a friend,” said the Woodcutter, as the ground seemed to lurch.

The Prince lowered the apple, regarding it as if he had never seen such a fruit before. He nodded seriously, “I shall do as you suggest.”

Then he left.

The Woodcutter stood. The world swayed and the sunlight refracted into rainbows before him, the dust crystallizing the moisture in his eyes and breaking the light like tiny prisms. Stumbling, his hand gratefully touched against the garden wall. Resisting the urge to lie down in the grass, he groped along until he came to the gate. Returned to the mending room, sick from the dust, he fell asleep until the cock crowed on the third morning.

Chapter 66

He woke to her hands upon his shoulders and her soft voice murmuring, “Oh, Woodcutter! Woodcutter!”

The Woodcutter sat, his head aching.

Iron Shoes shone with joy.

“My husband was awake when I went to his room. He was awake and he knew me,” she said. She flung her arms around the Woodcutter’s neck.

He patted her arms kindly as his body cried at him for more dust. The bitter taste coated his mouth.

“How do things stand?” he asked.

She rocked back upon her heels, a troubled cloud darkening her face. “He has vowed not to marry, but the woman claims the throne. She has demanded a contest to defend her right to this Kingdom.”

The Woodcutter shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs.

He felt the calling.

He felt the request flow towards him.

He could feel it in the magical currents of the Kingdom.

His presence was officially requested to moderate a contest.

He looked at Iron Shoes.

This contest.

He was called to moderate the contest between Iron Shoes and the Dancing Lady.

“The spell should have been broken with true love’s kiss…” he spoke to himself.

Iron Shoes stopped as if slapped.

She whispered, “This is not true love?”

The Woodcutter rolled to his side and pushed himself up to his feet. He swayed and leaned against the wall to keep from falling, “There is a powerful magic in this place. There are laws that do not match the laws that once were.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“The blood of the false princess is so thick with dust that the magic of the Kingdom recognizes her blood as running blue. The Kingdom must not be able to see who is real and who is not. It does not know who is supposed to wear the crown.”

He gripped Iron Shoes firmly, as if to will courage into her, “Know his love for you is true. Otherwise, there would have been no trial. He would have married the Green Dancing Lady.”

Iron Shoes nodded.

“Has she said what trial she demands?” he asked.

“One hundred mattresses, piled to the sky and whoever survives the night shall inherit the Kingdom,” she said.

The Woodcutter looked at Iron Shoes, knowing that the woman who wore away the soles of three metal shoes and broke her walking stick to find her true love would not flinch.

“So it shall be,” he said.

Chapter 67

The Woodcutter stood upon a dais in the middle of the courtyard. The Prince stood at his side. The moon hung like a smiling crescent over the two columns of mattresses teetering one hundred feet into the sky.

The lords and ladies of the palace chatted merrily amongst themselves at the bit of sport. Their voices hushed as two trumpet players announced the arriving parties.

From a doorway on the left, Iron Shoes entered. The Lady in Blue stood at her elbow. Her skin glowed unearthly in the night.

From a doorway on the right, the Green Dancing Lady wobbled in with the Queen and the Gentleman.

The Gentleman gave the Woodcutter a wink.

The Woodcutter’s face was like stone. He was charged to remain an impartial witness to the proceedings and must do so until the competition’s end.

Iron Shoes stood at the base of her tower. She looked up to the top, her jaw clenched in determination.

The false princess teetered drunkenly upon her feet.

The Woodcutter turned to Iron Shoes and the Green Dancing Lady, “The sun has set and the trial begins. You shall climb to the top of your tower and there you shall rest all the night. She who survives to the morning shall inherit the Kingdom.”

The Lady in Blue sat upon a throne to the left of the Woodcutter to bear witness to the trial, the Queen sat at his right.

“No tricks,” the Queen whispered to the Lady in Blue.

She turned to her coldly, “You know the binding.”

The Queen laughed.

The Gentleman held the false princess’s hand and, when he let go, she rose in the air, rose up and up until she reached the top of the tower.

The Lady looked at the Queen, “There is a binding!”

The Queen shrugged, “It is not of my doing. The young girl has become a crafter of her own right and the power comes solely from the blood within her veins.”

The dust within her veins.

The Woodcutter stared steadily ahead as the Gentleman gave a wink and walked to the Queen’s side, whistling a merry tune.

Iron Shoes watched as the false princess crested the top of the last mattress, watched as the false princess poked her head over the edge and stuck out her tongue.

Iron Shoes placed her hand upon the mattresses to begin climbing and they swayed dangerously. She turned to the Lady in Blue and to her Prince, “How shall I ever climb such a tower without it falling?”