My Unfair Godmother(45)
Rumpelstiltskin pressed the foot pedal, testing it, and the wheel spun so fast the spokes blurred together. He kept his gaze on me, waiting for me to say how I knew Chrissy.
“She granted me a favor once,” I told him, “but it didn’t turn out like it was supposed to. I want to talk to her.” Rumpelstiltskin fed some straw into the spindle. It jumped from his hand like tiny birds landing in their nests. The straw went over the wheel, broken and bumpy, then impossibly turned into a smooth, golden strand on the other side. It looked like liquid light winding around the bobbin.
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Rumpelstiltskin motioned to the pile, and a stream of straw swirled onto the spinning wheel. “Did you give this Chrysanthemum Everstar any sort of token for the favor she granted you?”
“Um, no.” She had never asked for anything.
“Ah, then it was a gift, not a bargain, and sadly you’ve no recourse. It does no good to complain about shoddy workmanship if her magic was a present.” The corner of his thin lips lifted. “A bargain is binding though. The UMA makes sure of that.”
“Oh.” I suddenly wished I had read Chrissy’s contract more carefully. I also wondered why Rumpelstiltskin didn’t give me a contract since his bargains were binding. Perhaps he didn’t think I could read.
He stroked the edge of the spinning wheel. “You’ve no cause to worry about my work though. You’ll have nothing but the finest gold when I’m through.”
I didn’t feel like talking to him any longer so I sat down next to the door. I watched the wheel turning, watched the hypnotic spinning and the torch light winking reflections off the gold.
Rumpelstiltskin sung a low, lilting song as he worked, and I caught snatches of words: “Today do I bake, tomorrow I brew.” But these weren’t the words I thought about as he spun. It was the phrase he’d said earlier that repeated over and over to the thumping of the foot pedal. You’ll have nothing but the finest gold when I’m through.
You’ll have nothing. You’ll have nothing. You’ll have nothing but gold when I’m through.
Rumpelstiltskin looked over and saw me watching. “The night is far spent,” he said. “You must sleep.” As though it were a command that I had to obey, I felt exhaustion sweeping over me. I shut my eyes, lay down, and was asleep.
• • •
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The next morning, I was awakened by the sound of a voice from the other side of the door. I didn’t recognize the speaker. His voice was high-pitched and condescending. “If she is as pretty as you say, perhaps we will stay her execution for a few days, but we doubt we will take a liking to her. That last maiden you brought to our attention—the musical one—we found her dulcimers dull, her vielle vile, and don’t even get us started on her gemshorn.” We? Who was talking? I sat up, wiping away strands of hair from my face. Only a few shafts of morning light made their way through the shutter cracks. Everything in the room was dark and muted.
The bolt slid across the door, and I scooted a little bit away.
“We are quite a bit more discerning about women than you are, Haverton, and we have better taste too. We hope you aren’t wasting our time again.”
The door swung open, letting more light into the room. The bushy-bearded knight strode in with a man who couldn’t have been anyone but King John. He wore yellow-and-orange-striped silk robes clasped together at his throat with a doorknob-sized broach. His shoulder-length brown hair was noticeably thin on top or perhaps even absent. He had draped a large section of hair from the back of his head across the top to cover the bald spot and to act as bangs—a medieval version of a bad comb-over.
He surveyed me and his lips puckered sourly. “We thought you said she had golden hair. There’s not a speck of gold anywhere in it.” Oh. King John talked about himself as “we.” Royalty did that sometimes.
Haverton, the bearded knight, nodded. “My apologies, sire. I only meant that she was blond.”
King John’s lips stayed puckered. “You should learn to speak correctly. Sloppy metaphors lead to confusion and we have quite enough 146/356
of that in the kingdom already. Don’t you recall the time you said the chancellor was casting his pearls before swine?” Haverton hung his head a bit. “Yes, sire.”
“We were nearly trampled by a herd of pigs while we searched their pen.”
“I humbly apologize for that again, sire.”
“And our green robes still smell like manure.” King John flicked his fingers in my direction as though shooing away an insect. “She isn’t golden. She is merely a girl dressed in odd clothing. Probably a French spy come here to ferret out our secrets. We should execute her at once for espionage.”