Humba and Femus had known me since I was a small child, but ogres are not known for either their visual acuity or their brainpower. Squeeze a piece of cheese and tell them you’re crushing a rock in your fist, and they’ll fall for it every time. The “audience with the mighty queen” speech had taken them months to memorize. They were quite nice, though, once you got to know them. Happy to get a box off a high shelf for you.
“Any idea what she wants from me?”
“NO, SORRY,” Humba lisped through his tusks. “SHE HASN’T SAID.”
“I suppose that’s not much of a surprise.”
He nodded in agreement. “HOW WAS YOUR TRIP?”
“Oh, the usual,” I told him. “Tedious tasks, confusing riddles, brushes with death.”
“SOUNDS LOVELY,” Femus said. “MEET ANYONE TASTY?”
“Not this time, no.”
His question was not intended as a euphemism. When I described the ogres as being nice, I should have added this was only true if no-eating-people rules were strictly enforced. Thedeal in my stepmother’s kingdom was that they could have as much food as they wanted as long as it didn’t talk. They tended to be a bit wistful about the taste of human flesh and were always encouraging me to give cannibalism a try. Thus far, I had declined.
“I shouldn’t keep her waiting,” I said. “Let me through?”
I took a steadying breath and squared my shoulders as Femus pulled open the heavy doors. As always, they made a horrendous noise as they scraped against the floor. I suspected my stepmother had designed them that way. She does love creating a certain ambiance for her visitors.
Once I was past the threshold, the doors shut behind me with a clang.
The throne room is nearly half a mile across, a huge windowless cavity in the heart of the palace lit by flickering torchlight, with only scattered pillars keeping the top of the mountain from crashing down and crushing everyone within. The obsidian throne squats in the exact center like a spider lurking in its web. My shoes clacked against the mosaic tiles that covered the floor, scenes of beasts and battles picked out in sharp, unfaded colors, blood reds and bile greens. Stories from the queen’s life. Who had placed them there? Surely not the massive hands of giants.
My stepmother was waiting for me, still as the surface of a pond on a windless day, as I approached the throne. I knelt before her, my hands pressed against the cool tiles, my face to the floor.
She said nothing.
Until she spoke, I was obligated to wait at her feet. My attempts to ignore the practice during my adolescence had not gone well. Today, my only act of defiance was that I hadn’t bothered to change out of my sweaty traveling clothes. My stepmother would just have to deal with the stink. She might beable to command my presence, but I could choose not to be presentable.
Minutes passed. I tried not to fidget. What did she want with me this time? It was impossible to predict what schemes might have bubbled up from the depths of her peat-bog mind. Her plans could take years to form and slowly rise, until they burst at the surface with a viscousgloopthat left everyone around her smelling bad.
Perhaps I would be asked to bring her a dragon’s smallest toenail again. Or gather starlight in a bucket, which is even harder than it sounds—it bounces right out unless you can clap a lid on fast enough. Or maybe I’d be given a task with a clear purpose for once, like slaying some monster that was threatening the townsfolk and laying waste to the turnip crop. A deadly basilisk, perhaps. I’d venture out to find it, and a magical talking fox would warn me not to stay at the brightly lit, expensive inn; he’d advise me to take a bed at the miserable, gloomy one instead. My sisters would ignore the warning, but I would listen….
My knees were aching. Whatever I had expected, it wasn’t to be left waiting for all eternity, head bowed, while she sat in ominous silence. I’d have bruises in the morning.
To prepare a salve for bruises,I recited in my mind,collect arnica flowers when they are just beginning to bloom. Store them in a jar of oil for four weeks, strain out the blossoms, and combine the oil with beeswax.By which time my bruises would have long ago faded, so there wasn’t much point.
Neither of my sisters was foolish enough to ignore magical talking foxes, anyway. If a deadly basilisk was getting at the turnips, no doubt one of them was already taking care of it, and we’d have deadly-basilisk stew for supper.
I began to count the colored tiles set into the floor.One, two, threefor the black tiles forming the backward-facing leg of agoat-headed demon.Four, five, sixfor the red tiles depicting the gore dripping from its maw.Seven, eight, nine, ten, ele—
“The king of Tailliz,” my stepmother said, “has asked for your hand in marriage. I have agreed.”
I’d been midway through the hindquarters of a hippogriff. The quivering light from the sconces gave it the illusion of motion, as if it were about to leap up and bite my hand.
My first thought wasI’ll have to leave Skalla. The king of Tailliz isn’t going to come and live here.
My second thought wasIf I run away, I’ll need to start the moment I walk out of this room, while there’s a chance it might take her by surprise. Straight out the front gate and no looking back.
My stomach cramped into a tight knot. It was a struggle to keep my breathing even and controlled.
I looked up. “Hasn’t he been married a couple of times already?” I asked with what I felt was admirable composure—only a slight tremor on the last word. “And he doesn’t lack for children, the last I heard. Surely he has no great need of another bride.”
I did not add that the king of Tailliz was, as far as I could remember, three times my age. That argument was unlikely to have any effect on her judgment. No argument would, not once her decision had been made. Try sometime to convince the queen she doesn’t actually need the smallest toenail of a dragon. See how far you get. And then, once you’ve been released from your doorless tower prison, watch as your sister rides by on a grateful dragon cured of its painful hangnail and handily saves your kingdom from an invading army.
My stepmother hadn’t even had the grace to look smug aboutit.
