A Feast of Sorrows, Stories Read online

  She shook her head. “Pardon?”

  “Nasty way to enter a room, nasty way to move about—under the floor. Always dirty and dark, especially in poor places like this.” He brushed imaginary dirt from his clothes and looked at her again. “Fancy, a king with no money.”

  “Just fancy,” said Alice bitterly.

  The man’s eyes took in the straw. “Straw into gold?”

  Alice nodded.

  “What will you give me to do it?” he asked.

  She sneered. “You can’t. No one can. Go back under the earth and leave me to die in peace.”

  “Rude, but understandable given the circumstances.” He smiled a little. “What if I can? What will you give me?”

  Alice looked down at her hands and saw her mother’s ring. Better the thin ring than Alice’s thin neck. She pulled the band from her finger and held it out.

  “My mother’s ring.”

  He took the ring and tossed it from hand to hand as if considering. His eyes were sly when he next looked at her.

  “A mother’s gift is very valuable. It holds magic. It’s like a touch, or a kiss.”

  “How much magic has it brought me thus far? When my mother died she left me to my fate. If the ring buys me one more night of life, then it will have served its purpose well enough.” Alice stood—she was taller than the man, but not by much.

  “Fair enough,” he said, pocketing the ring. He pointed to a corner of the room. “Go to sleep. All will be well.”

  “How can I trust you?”

  Sitting at the spinning wheel, he grabbed a handful of straw and began his task. Within moments the straw had become gold, long strands of it, like wool. Alice felt its cold weight. She stared at the little man and nodded. “Thank you.”

  “It’s business. Go to sleep.”

  Alice curled up in the corner, wriggling in the straw to get comfortable. Soon enough she drifted off to the whirring of the spinning wheel.

  “Clever. Clever, clever Alice.”

  The king’s voice woke Alice from a dream of her mother, slipping away from her. She sat up, noticing that even her pile of sleeping straw had disappeared, spun into wealth as she slept. Standing, rubbing her eyes, she pretended not to be surprised. The gold had been spun into thread and coiled into balls—unconventional, but legal currency all the same. She gave the king a haughty look that made him laugh. He called a courtier. Alice was to be rewarded: she could bathe, eat, sleep, take in the gardens, if she wished. She was to be dressed as befitted the king’s favourite—in fact, she could do anything she wished except leave the palace grounds.

  As the day passed, Alice noticed a great army of tradesmen trooping up to and around the castle. Repairs had begun. Hot on their heels were merchants with fabrics, gems, tapestries and all manner of the expensive frippery royalty are rarely without.

  In the evening, Alice—bathed and dressed in new finery, her hair washed, curled, and set with ribbons—was led to another room by the king. Inside was an even bigger pile of straw and the same spinning wheel. Her stomach swooped and her head spun. She wanted to weep, but made fists behind her back.

  “Was last night not enough for you?” she asked.

  “Thirty years is a long time to exhaust a fortune. There must be more. I’ll make you a deal: one night for each decade. Two more nights, Alice, and your future will be assured.” He stroked her cheek. “You will never spin again.”

  “And if I fail?”

  “You still have a very thin neck, Alice.” He kissed the base of her throat, just above her mother’s locket, and departed.

  Alice slumped against the wall and waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour the tears came, the floor opened, and her saviour pulled himself out of the depths once more. “Hello, Alice. Was His Majesty happy?”

  “Ecstatic. Alas, he’s also greedy,” she lamented. Her hand rubbed at the locket, as if to smooth away any marks in the metal.

  “This is a much bigger room, certainly. What will you give me tonight?”

  “My necklace,” she answered and pulled hard on the chain until the links parted and it came away from her neck.

  “No hesitation, Alice. You are decisive.”

  “No, little manikin, I just have a very thin neck.” She took herself off to the corner. “Do your work.”

  “Sweet dreams, Alice.”

  Once again the spinning wheel sang her to sleep.

  In Alice’s dream her mother wept quietly. You’re giving me away, she cried. You’re forgetting me. Alice put her hand out to touch the pale skin of her mother’s face, but the woman receded into darkness and left her daughter alone.

  A hand grasped Alice’s shoulder and shook her roughly. She started, and opened her eyes to find the king kneeling beside her, excited, stunned, amazed. He kissed her cheek and hauled her to her feet.

  “Astonishing! Alice, you are really the most amazing woman.” Cupping a hand to her face, he smiled. “Fit to be a queen. One more night, Alice. Make me the richest king in the land and tomorrow you’ll be my queen.”

  He pushed her toward her chaperone of the previous day, with instructions that she was to be treated like a queen. Alice left the room, her heart heavy with the knowledge that one more night remained. She had nothing left to give.

  “What will you give me tonight, sweet Alice?”

  The little man’s tone was amused and not a little cruel. He knew she had nothing. They stood in the biggest room yet, surrounded by Alice’s yellow hell. As close to freedom as to death. There was nothing, Alice realised, that she would not do to escape the executioner’s blade. One more night and she would be queen. Never again the smell of flour, nor fear of her father, nor planning how to escape the hole of her existence. For that freedom she was prepared to do anything. She fixed the little man with a determined stare and began to raise her skirts.

  “You can stop right there, pretty maid. You have nothing I want. You’re too old.”

  “I have nothing else!” she raged, tears streaming down her face. “You have already taken everything I valued. I’m a miller’s daughter—what kind of riches do you think I am heir to?”

  “Nothing, then. Only your potential,” he mused.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tomorrow you’ll be the queen. He’ll marry you, crown you, and bed you. Soon you’ll have a child.” He leaned in toward her hungrily. “I want that child, your first-born.”

  Alice rocked back on her heels. The glitter of freedom blinded her. She couldn’t imagine wanting any child as much as she wanted to live. She nodded. The little man cackled happily, dancing a jig around the room. When he finally calmed, she pointed to the spinning wheel.

  “Now spin.”

  “Indeed. Sleep, Queen Alice. Your future is assured.”

  Alice slept. She dreamt of empty places where mist and darkness reigned; her mother would not answer her calls.

  The child had split her like a ripe fruit.

  She lay in bed for seven days before the bleeding stopped and the physicians finally believed she would live. The child was a daughter, a mix of light and dark. The king doted on her. He doted on his wife, too; he had become fond of her and, through wise investment, had managed to increase the fortune Alice had made him. He honoured his promise never to ask her to spin again.

  As she hovered between deeply drugged sleep and wakeful pain, she watched him sitting beside her bed, the baby in his arms, making faces at the child and occasionally glancing warmly at his wife. She hated him. And the child; she hated the child most of all.

  She didn’t want to move, she didn’t want to speak, she didn’t want to feed the child, although her breasts ached with unused milk. She wanted them all to go away and leave her be.

  One night she woke with a start. Perhaps it was the sound of stone scraping on stone, of a small man walking lightly to the crib, or the sound of him speaking softly to her daughter. She sat up with a sharp intake of breath as her stitches pulled. The little man stood by th
e crib, her daughter in his arms, his face alight with hunger and happiness.

  “Thank you, Alice. She’s beautiful.”

  “Get away from her,” she hissed as he held the hated child. He made a moue and tutted.

  “Now, Alice. Remember our deal.” He approached her bed, jiggling the now-crying baby. Alice reached out, an unfamiliar ache uncoiling in her chest.

  “Give me my daughter.”

  Reluctantly, he complied. “I will take her, Alice. In three days I will take her away from you.”

  “I will give you anything else. Take whatever you want in my kingdom, just leave my daughter with me.” Alice thought her chest would explode. Was this love? Was this what she was supposed to feel?

  “You have nothing else I want.”

  “Anything.”

  “Alice, you’re not listening. You have nothing to bargain with. You had nothing after you gave away the last piece of your mother. You forfeited her protection. The only thing you have of her now is your blood.” He smiled. “I knew your mother, you know.

  “Beautiful like you, but smarter. I offered her gold once, in exchange for you. She refused, but she was kind. Didn’t teach you much, did she? Since I’m a fair creature, I’ll give you one last chance. For her sake.”

  For a moment, Alice saw beneath his skin to a sharp-toothed, gnarled little beast squirming with excitement.

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Guess my name. Guess my name and the deal is void. You have three days, sweet Alice.”

  He clambered down through the hole in the floor and pulled the stone to cover his exit. Alice held the child all night, too fearful to sleep and too fascinated to look away from the tiny face that, mere hours ago, she could not bear to look upon.

  “I have nothing left but my mother’s blood.”

  Alice was out of bed, pacing. She would let no one near the child. The king was concerned. The ladies-in-waiting feared she would harm herself or the princess but no one could get near enough to separate them, and no one dared manhandle the queen.

  It was the morning of the third day. Alice knew that as soon as daylight faded her tormentor would appear. She had neither bathed, nor eaten, nor slept. Alice had no idea of the little man’s name. She had wracked her brain, going over his words, knowing there was something there, though she could not unravel its meaning.

  She passed a table. Her robe brushed against a goblet and sent it tumbling to shatter on the flags. As she crouched to pick up the pieces, Alice cut her hand and began to weep. The baby began to cry, too. Alice lifted her daughter from the cradle. Blood trickled from her hand to the child’s forehead, and Alice’s attempts to wipe it away merely spread the crimson stain. Rubbing her own brow, Alice marked herself as she had her child.

  She sank to the floor, huddling there, eyes closed, feeling the baby calm. Their breath slowed and joined; their shared pulse synchronised, a river of blood linking them, stretching back through time, mother to daughter. There, though, Alice sensed an end—a permanent ebb in the flow—an ebb that she had caused. She wept bitterly.

  There was no sound, no door opening, but she felt a presence, a hand touched her shoulder, soft as silk, soft as breath. Without opening her eyes, she knew it was one who shared her blood. Her mother smoothed the hair from Alice’s face. She breathed deeply, taking in the scent of her child and grandchild. A pale hand stroked her granddaughter’s face and the child sighed, comforted. Alice felt her mother’s lips against her ear and heard whispered words, light as mist, heavy as hope.

  Wrapped tightly against the cold and tied to her mother’s breast, Alice’s child was silent. The rhythm of the horse’s gallop was unfamiliar, but she didn’t complain. Alice had chosen the king’s favourite hunter. A gigantic chestnut, he whickered when she approached, snorted in annoyance when she saddled him and rode him out into the cold night air, but he did not falter.

  The sun rose just before they entered the darkness of the forest. Alice knew the path as surely as she knew her own heartbeat. Along the barely visible trail, between the two biggest trees, down the slippery slope, across the stream, then up the bank and on to the rise where her mother lay beneath a small cairn.

  Alice dismounted, unstrapping the child and laying her gently on her discarded cloak. The cairn she kicked away before she dropped to her knees and, not having thought to bring a shovel or spade, began to dig at the earth with her soft, pale queen’s hands.

  By the time she reached her mother, her hands were bloody, the nails broken back to the quick and aching. The simple coffin was easy enough to tear open, the cheap wood soft and rotten from the damp soil. Tenderly she unwrapped the shroud she herself had sewn, her blood soaking into the fabric. She saw her mother’s hands, crossed on her chest, the dark dress she had been buried in, and, finally, her mother’s face.

  Even thinner than before, eyes sunken beneath their lids, a white mould covering the once-smooth skin, but it was her mother’s face. And the one gift she had not accepted still resided there. Without hesitation, without disgust, with nothing but love, Alice leaned forward and kissed her mother’s cold, damp lips.

  A breath passed between them and, in that breath, a word, and in that word, salvation.

  Back in her apartments she sat in a chair, the child on her lap, both of them still wearing their blood. Eyes closed, Alice felt the sun disappearing, like a slowing pulse. A cold breath, as something from under the earth gathered around them. Opening her eyes, she found him crouched not far from her, grinning.

  “You’ve made a mess. I shall have to give her a bath. Yes, that’s the first thing we’ll do when we get home. I’ll give my little princess a bath.”

  “No.”

  “Still think you can win? Your daughter’s flesh is mine now. No one above ground knows my name, sweet Alice.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But those who sleep in the earth know. The dead know.”

  He stood suddenly, almost losing his balance. Alice rose, too, her grace restored. The child rested quietly, safe in her mother’s arms.

  “You weren’t quite right. There wasn’t only my mother’s blood left to me. But a kiss is a gift. It was enough, Rumpelstiltzkin.”

  He screamed. He raged. But he could not come near her. He stamped his foot and it cracked the stones. He stamped again and wider cracks ran across the floor, almost to where Alice stood. He jumped up and down with such force that the floor erupted, showering Alice with shards of stone. She turned away, barely in time, to cover the child. Her back was pitted with rock, and blood dripped from her cheek where flying flint had made a wide cut.

  When at last she turned back, he was gone. The hole was large, the edges scorched black, and the shattered stones jagged as teeth in a dead mouth. Pain crept across Alice’s flesh. She would be scarred but he was gone. And her daughter was safe.

  The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter

  The door is a rich red wood, heavily carved with improving scenes from the trials of Job. An angel’s head, cast in brass, serves as the knocker and when I let it go to rest back in its groove, the eyes fly open, indignant, and watch me with suspicion. Behind me is the tangle of garden—cataracts of flowering vines, lovers’ nooks, secluded reading benches—that gives this house its affluent privacy.

  The dead man’s daughter opens the door.

  She is pink and peach and creamy. I want to lick at her skin and see if she tastes the way she looks.

  “Hepsibah Ballantyne! Slattern! Concentrate, this is business.” My father slaps at me, much as he did in life. Nowadays his fists pass through me, causing nothing more than a sense of cold ebbing through my veins. I do not miss the bruises.

  The girl doesn’t recognise me although I worked in this house for nigh on a year—but that is because it was only me watching her and not she me. When my mother finally left it became apparent she would not provide Hector with any more children, let alone a son who might take over from him. He decided I should learn his craft and the sign above the entrance
to the workshop was changed—not to Ballantyne & Daughter, though. Ballantyne & Other.

  “Speak, you idiot,” Father hisses, as though it’s important he whisper. No one has heard Hector Ballantyne these last eight months, not since what appeared to be an unseasonal cold carried him off.

  The blue eyes, red-rimmed from crying, should look ugly, unpalatable in the lovely oval face, but grief becomes Lucette D’Aguillar. Everything becomes her, from the black mourning gown to the severe, scraped back coiffure that is the heritage of the bereaved, because she is that rare thing: born lucky.

  “Yes?” she asks as if I have no right to interrupt the grieving house.

  I slip the cap from my head, feel the mess it makes of my hair, and hold it in front of me like a shield. My nails are broken and my hands scarred and stained from the tints and varnish I use on the wood. I curl my fingers under the fabric of the cap to hide them as much as I can.

  “I’m here about the coffin,” I say. “It’s Hepsibah. Hepsibah Ballantyne.”

  Her stare remains blank, but she steps aside and lets me in. By rights, I should have gone to the back door, the servants’ entrance. Hector would have—did so all his life—but I provide a valuable service. If they trust me to create a death-bed for their nearest and dearest, they can let me in the front door. Everyone knows there’s been a death—it’s impossible to hide in the big houses—I will not creep in as though my calling is shameful. Hector grumbled the first few times I presented myself in this manner—or rather shrieked, subsided to a grumble afterwards—but as I said to him, what were they going to do?

  I’m the only coffin-maker in the city. They let me in.

  I follow Lucette to a parlour washed with tasteful shades of grey and hung with white lace curtains so fine it seems they must be made by spinners with eight legs. She takes note of herself in the large mirror above the mantle. Her mother is seated on a chaise; she too regards her own reflection, making sure she still exists. Lucette joins her and they look askance at me. Father makes sounds of disgust and he is right to do so. He will stay quiet here; even though no one can hear him but me, he will not distract me. He will not interrupt business.