The Sleeping Beauty Read online

  Siegfried von Drachenthal considered himself to be a very lucky Hero, so far. Hero, because, well, he did Heroic things: slew dragons—only the evil, plundering, destructive ones of course, and only the ones that couldn’t be reasoned with—defeated wicked knights, drove out bloodthirsty barbarians, destroyed rampaging giants and killed every manner of monstrous beast that your average village was having problems with. He hadn’t rescued any Princesses yet…but there was a reason for that. He had come to the aid of a prince or two, a lot of counts, one duke and assorted adventurers. But not Princesses. On the whole, he was trying to avoid Princesses, just on general principle. He could not afford to have the wrong sort of Princess fall in love with him.

  At the moment, having crossed over the eastern border of a mountainous Kingdom he was hacking his way through the undergrowth of a forest that seemed to go on for an awfully long way. There were all sorts of rumors of war in this area, and war was a good way to do heroic deeds without the complications of princesses or even maidens in distress.

  The first woman that young Siegfried had ever seen was one of his aunts. So was the second. And the third. And the fourth.

  And, truth to tell, every other woman up to the point where he left his childhood home of Drachenthal. When your mother and father are also your aunt and uncle, things tend to be complicated that way. When both are half-godlet, and both blessed and cursed by other gods, things get even more complicated.

  Such things generally lead to a life of Heroism and Doom. The Heroism part was enjoyable enough. It was the Doom part that Siegfried wasn’t too fond of. Doom was generally painful, and there was never anything good when it was over, unless you were a religious fanatic who was really looking forward to the afterlife.

  “So, this Kingdom is rich?” he asked his companion, a little, brown, nondescript bird. Heroes didn’t usually have any interest in birds, and the names and categorization of them were generally limited in a Hero’s education to “good to eat,” “not good to eat,” and “singing while I have a hangover, kill it with a rock.”

  Birds don’t snort, but the bird, which he just thought of as forest bird, since that was where he had met it, made a derisive chirp. “This Kingdom is rich in the way that Eitri’s Forge is a little warm.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Siegfried said with relief. “Hero work doesn’t exactly pay well. Maybe if I smite enough of whoever is on the side of evil, they’ll give me a reward.”

  Now those who are destined for a life of Heroism often begin it precociously early, often as a mere baby, with little events like strangling great serpents in the cradle—the Hero’s cradle, not the serpent’s. Siegfried had been no exception to that. But from everything he’d learned since, the rate of his Heroic development had overshot all others by leaps and bounds. Where other Doomed Heroes waited until their beards had begun to sprout, their voices to descend to rich baritone or melodious tenor, and they began to manifest a distinct interest in Females before slaying their first evil, gold-hoarding dragon, Siegfried had done so much earlier.

  Age ten, to be precise. The age when Girls are, Traditionally, Icky. Besides, the only Girls he knew were his aunts.

  So, when he tasted the Dragon’s Blood and suddenly could understand the language of all of the birds and animals, and when the little forest bird began talking sense to him instead of merely shouting “Look! Look! Look at meeeeeee!” he paid attention rather than merely making use of it as a glorified guide.

  “Oh I wouldn’t take that,” the bird had warned as he reached for a particularly enticing golden ring. It was a beautiful thing. It glistened in the sunlight as if it was made of liquid, and it called to him. It whispered to him….

  But it was, after all, a ring. Jewelry. Girlie stuff. So— “Why not?” he had asked the bird.

  “Well, since you ask,” the bird had replied, with incredible ebullience in its voice, “I’ll tell you why!”

  So he learned, well beforehand, that the ring would lead to power and glory—but also to a rather horrible death, being stabbed in the back of all wretched things, and worst of all…by a Girl. Not an aunt, but that didn’t make it any better.

  “Now on the other hand, if you just dip your sword in that blood and have another taste, you’ll learn something worth knowing, and your sword will never break!” the bird had caroled. So he did. And he did. He still carried that sword; he’d been a very large boy at ten and strong for his age, as befitting a Hero, after all.

  And at ten years old, Siegfried of Drachenthal learned that he had been a game piece all of his life in the metaphorical hands of The Tradition. That he was supposed to go and wake up a sleeping woman, that they would fall in love, and that this was going to lead to an awful lot of unpleasant things. And that if he didn’t somehow find a way around it, he was Doomed.

  At ten, Doom didn’t seem quite as horrid a fate to try to avoid as a Girl was. But it seemed that by avoiding that one particular Girl, in those particular circumstances, who would be the first woman he had ever seen who was not an aunt, he would also avoid the Doom. So he did. He got away from Drachenthal, had the bird scout on ahead so that the first woman he ever saw was not his aunt but someone’s lively old granny, and began searching for a way to have a Happy, rather than a Tragically Heroic, ending.

  At twenty, the idea of a Girl all his own seemed rather nice, but Doom was definitely to be avoided. He had begun to think about this, rather than just merely avoiding all sleeping women in fire circles wearing armor. Other Heroes ended up with Princesses, castles, happy endings, dozens of beautiful children. Why couldn’t he?

  The bird had been of the opinion that he ought to be able to, if he could trick The Tradition into confusing his fate with some other sort of Hero’s. That sounded good to Siegfried. The other thing at twenty that was starting to have appeal was the idea that he could settle down somewhere. At the moment, the height of luxury for him was a reasonably vermin-free bed in a reasonably priced inn with decent meals and a good strong ale. He would look at palaces and castles and wealthy manors and sigh; the only time he ever saw the inside of one of those was if he’d been invited to a victory celebration, a recruitment—which half the time was into the service of evil, which was right out—or by someone who intended to kill him. So, it was two chances in four that he was going to get to enjoy a sumptuous meal, and not have to fight his way out of it before he got the first bite of roast peacock.

  “So, in order to hoodwink The Tradition, all I have to find is someone blond, asleep in a ring of fire and flowers, who is not a Shieldmaiden demigoddess, and wake her up?” he was asking the bird, as he hacked his way through the underbrush with his ever-sharp, unbreakable sword.

  “That’s the basic idea,” the bird said, fluttering from branch to branch beside him. “Really, if you were desperate enough, you could just find a nice little goose-girl, ask her to lie down for a quick nap, set the turf on fire and shake her awake to see if that worked.”

  “Do you really think it would?” he asked hopefully. He was getting rather tired of running from his fate. He’d had to flee at least six Kingdoms in the last year, six times he’d been wandering about a perfectly nice forest, looking for evil to conquer, and suddenly—bang—there would be a clearing in front of him, with a stone slab in the middle of it, adorned with a beautiful sleeping woman dressed in armor of the gods, surrounded by rings of magic fire and flowers. He was beginning to wonder if it was the same woman every time, and The Tradition just kept moving her.

  “I’d say it’s worth a try. I think the wench with the bronze bosoms is stalking you.” The bird was very cheerful about it. Then again, the bird wasn’t going to share his Doom if he accidentally woke the woman up. “And you know, you could always give up the heroics and be a blacksmith. You’d be quite good at it. You’ve had the best teachers.”

  He had; Dwarves. They were about the best blacksmiths in the entire world, barring gods. And given what his fate was, he would really rather avoid gods. He’d
forged his own sword from the remains of the one that his father had carried, in fact, the same year he slew the dragon. But—

  “I don’t know the first thing about horseshoes, or plowshares, or all those things farmers need,” he replied, sadly. “I’d be a middling blacksmith for those purposes, and I really don’t like it much. I like being a Hero and I’m good at it.”

  The bird chuckled. “And modest, too, just like a real proper Hero. No wonder Cast-Iron Cleavage is trying to get you to wake her up.”

  Siegfried shuddered. That last escape had been a very narrow one. “Where are we, anyway?”

  The bird cocked her head to one side. “A rather nice little place,” she said. “I believe it’s called Eltaria.”

  4

  ROSA HAD NEVER THOUGHT OF HERSELF AS being weak—in fact, she had taken a great deal of pride in being able to keep up with the most enthusiastic of the hunters, the most energetic of games players, in the Court. When her mother had given her all those lessons in commonplace tasks, nothing had ever been beyond her strength or endurance.

  The few times she had given the idea any thought, she had been quite certain that she would have no difficulty whatsoever in being able to work side by side with any of the servants in the Palace, do their work, and be no more worn out at the end of the day than they were.

  By her second day with the Dwarves she knew how wrong she was.

  Even though she was doing the barest minimum that she could get away with, the work she was doing was hard, backbreakingly hard. It had never looked that hard when the servants were doing it. She was exhausted by the time the Dwarves went to their beds, and fell asleep immediately. She was tired within a few hours of getting up in the morning, and everything ached.

  The Dwarves had produced more clothing for her to clean and mend today, hauling it out of chests where it had been so long that the folds were actually stiff. She was listlessly spreading the boiled shirts out on bushes to dry, when something entirely unexpected made her look up, startled.

  “Hello the house!” called a cheerful, slightly cracked voice. “Anyone here?”

  For a moment, she didn’t know what to do. Then she answered. “In the back garden?” Her own voice was hoarse, and sounded strange to her; it was so rough and full of fear it sounded as if it belonged to someone else.

  Around the corner of the cottage came a perfectly ordinary-looking old woman, one with a sweet and kindly face. She wore the sort of clothing peasants did: patched and worn, but very clean. She carried a basket over one arm—and Rosa could not for a single moment imagine where she had come from.

  But when she spotted Rosa, her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened in consternation. “Oh deary me!” she exclaimed, hurrying over to where Rosa was standing, dumbfounded. “Those wretched, wretched Dwarves! Wicked things! What have they done to you, poor child?”

  “I—ah—”

  The woman put her basket down, words pouring out of her in a perfect torrent. “I talk to my bees you know, bees, terrible gossips they are, but usually accurate, and today they told me, yes they did, that the Dwarves had a new servant girl, and I couldn’t imagine anyone serving the likes of them on her own, or at least not without being tricked into it, and they wouldn’t part with a groat so they couldn’t have hired a girl, so I hurried right over to see what I could see, knowing that she’d be all alone during the day, and I said to myself, ‘Maggie, you must see what they’re doing to the girl, if there even is a girl, and see if it’s a Dwarf girl or a human one, and how she managed to get tangled up with those Dwarves,’ so I did, you see, and here you are and here I am and good gracious look at you, you poor thing!”

  As she spoke she was fussing over Rosa, looking at her cut, bruised, and now-burned hands, patting her hair away from her face, tugging at her dirty clothing. “I…was running away and they grabbed me,” Rosa managed, finally, a certain alarm rising in her, for she thought she recognized this situation as a Traditional Path—but how could anything be worse than the situation she was already in? “I asked them for help, and told them I’d do anything—“

  “Ah, and the horrible things called it a bargain, did they?” The old woman frowned. “They would, and they’ll use that to hold you here as long as they like. Well! I’m Old Maggie the bee lady. Aren’t I, my sweets? And good little things you were to tell me about this poor, poor little wench!”

  While she had been speaking every bee in the garden had left what it was doing to come circle about her as if the old woman was some kind of enormous, fragrant flower. She held up her index finger, and one of the bees landed on it, vibrating its wings to make a buzzing that almost sounded like speech.

  “You are my brave little workers, so you are,” she said tenderly. The bee flew toward the old woman’s face, making Rosa flinch, and touched its head to the tip of the old woman’s nose before flying off. The rest of the bees went back to their business.

  And a thought managed to make its way up out of the depths of Rosa’s exhaustion-fogged mind. No bee will abide in the presence of evil.

  So whoever, whatever she was—this “Old Maggie” was a friend.

  Rosa burst into tears.

  About an hour later, for the first time in days, Rosa was feeling better. Old Maggie chattered nonstop, making it almost impossible to get a word in, but that wasn’t so bad, because it meant Rosa didn’t have to say anything herself.

  As for the rest, Maggie had taken charge of the entire situation. She’d tested Rosa’s manacle and chain herself, said a very ladylike curse and pronounced herself “fair gobsmacked,” which Rosa assumed meant she was baffled. Out of the basket had come a lovely little loaf and end of ham, a pot of honey and the sort of salad that a woods-wise person can make if she knows what’s edible—a great deal of watercress, some crisp roots, a little sorrel, some tender goosegrass and a few edible flowers. That alone would have convinced Rosa that the old woman was what she seemed to be. She could not begin to imagine her Stepmother recognizing any of that, much less knowing it was good to eat.

  Now all that food was inside Rosa; she sat combing her hair, working the tangles and knots out with a comb that Maggie had produced from a skirt pocket, while Maggie “Set the kitchen to rights.”

  It looked almost like magic. Truly. Somehow Maggie had gotten the ancient mop, which was as stiff as wood, to soften. She’d gone into the cellar and returned with a dirt-encrusted box which she declared with glee had soap in it—and so it did. She had already scrubbed the table, the sink and the counter, and the grime had just dissolved away. It was rather hard to tell, because the wood and stone were so stained and blackened that they didn’t look much different, but if you touched them you knew the difference. Now she was doing the same with the floor.

  “This soap is nasty stuff, my duck, strong but nasty,” she chattered. “Wonderful for floors, but not so nice for you, pretty. Old Maggie will just—”

  Then she stopped, tilting her head to the side. A bee had just flown in the open door and was buzzing at her. Her face took on an expression of alarm.

  “My land, one of those horrible Dwarves is coming!” She bustled over to Rosa, but Rosa was already on her feet, shoving the comb into her pocket. Her mind seemed a thousand times clearer now, and it was obvious what she needed to do. She took the mop from Maggie, and Maggie whisked out the door.

  A few moments later, Coward bumbled inside. He looked about and grunted, threw the morning’s catch on the table, shoved her roughly aside and helped himself to the remains of the porridge in the pot on the hearth. When he had eaten it all and scraped the pot clean, he went out again. A short while later, Old Maggie reappeared and took the mop from Rosa.

  “You just get your poor hair unsnarled, pretty,” she said, head bobbing. “And you leave the rest of this mopping to Old Maggie, and after your hair is set to rights, I’ll be cleaning while you deal with those poor conies. Tomorrow I’ll bring you some nice soap so you can be getting yourself clean.”

  B
eing clean again sounded heavenly; Rosa worked industriously at the tangles in her hair so that Old Maggie wouldn’t start cleaning the rabbits herself. The closer she got to her head, the fewer tangles there were, so by the time Maggie was about two-thirds done, she was at the butchering. And Maggie kept chattering.

  “Trust me, my duck, we’ll work on getting that shackle off and getting you away. But that takes doing, and Old Maggie will have to be at some hard thinking, and you, too.” The mopping was done, and so was the butchering. The two of them added the meat to the simmering vegetables; after some consideration, Maggie threw in a couple handfuls of flour.

  “That’ll thicken the broth so it’s more stew and less soup. Fill them up and make ’em less likely to beat you.” The old woman held out her hand for the comb, and with a sigh, Rosa handed it to her. “You might boil those shirts with that soap. They won’t look any better, but they’ll stink less. I’ll be back in the morning, ducky, yes I will. Old Maggie keeps her promises!”

  The old woman moved faster than Rosa would have thought she could. She was out the door and out of sight around the front of the cottage before Rosa got into the garden.

  Her throat got tight for a moment when she realized she was alone again. She might have cried…

  But she fought back the tears and straightened. Some sort of help had finally come. It wasn’t a handsome prince, or a brave shepherd, or a wise hunter. But it was help, and it was welcome, and if Old Maggie was just a little crazy, she was also very clever. A handsome prince probably wouldn’t be able to beat the craft of her shackle, either, and would have done nothing about the floor, her hair or her empty stomach.

  On the whole…if The Tradition had finally elected to do something for her, it could have done a lot worse than Old Maggie.

  Rosa went and got a spoonful of that harsh soap, stirred it into the kettle outside and put the shirts back in as the old woman had suggested.