Whatever happened to
Cinderella’s Slipper?
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
Text copyright© 2017 Jon Jacks
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Chapter 1
‘You're a… girl?’
You know, I’m always open to sparing them until they come up with that line.
Like it means they suddenly think they’ve been running away for no reason.
Like it’s all gonna work out just fine for them, after all.
He laughs; they usually do at this point.
A laugh of relief that they’re not gonna die after all, as they’d feared.
Laughing a little at themselves, too, for being so stupid that they honestly thought the rider chasing them through all these forests was actually a man, not a ‘silly little girl’.
Laughing because they think all their problems are over.
Nope; they’re only just beginning.
*
This one was easier to catch than usual.
Sure, he ran; but he’s a little bit overweight these days. No longer the relatively handsome young man I remember visiting our castle with the prince, even though it didn't really happen so long ago.
Of course, he appears older than he really is. As a number of them do.
Some seem ridiculously young; vulnerable.
I find them the hardest to deal with. The hardest to find.
In the early days of my searching, I’d actually passed close by some of them with out actually realising how close I was to my goal.
Of course, it was all down to magic; magic they had no influence over.
Magic they’ve suffered, rather than gained from.
That's why they've all changed so much.
In the last few years, I’ve changed too: but in completely different ways.
See, I realised, even way back then, that I really was ‘just a girl’.
The boys, the men; they were the ones trained to hunt, to fight.
‘Girls’ like me; well, it was all ‘catch yourself a good husband, dear!’
Needlepoint lessons, how to dance – that sorta thing.
I’d always wondered why I hated all those things.
And now I know; I just wasn’t cut out for it, was I?
Turns out, see, I’m more cut out for cutting up people – especially those who refuse to tell me what I need to know.
*
Even if he didn’t fear me, you’d think he’d have the sense to fear Cer, Ber and Us.
(Yeah, I’ve read my histories; I named them after Cerberus.)
They’re my hounds; black, massive.
Hungry looking, no matter how much I feed them.
He certainly feared them when they were chasing after him and his poor terrified mount through the forests.
If he’d have dared waste a moment by staring back at us, he’d have seen the way they flowed through the undergrowth like the darkest of shadows, unhindered by bushes, even trees.
As for me, he would have wondered how I appear so dark, even on an eerily moonlit night like this one, as if I’m absorbing any nearby light.
But now he sees I’m ‘just a girl’; well, he thinks I can’t be serious about setting the hounds on him.
Well, girls just don’t do that sort thing, do they now?
I mean, just how wrong could this idiot be?
If they’re hungry (which they always are), if he refuses to tell me what I want to know: well, he'd have brought it all upon himself, wouldn't he?
Why should I hold myself responsible for his stupidity?
He doesn’t recognise me.
Then again, why should he?
I was just one of innumerable girls the prince and his entourage visited as they toured the kingdom.
‘You know, you’re quite beautiful,’ he says now, fluttering his eyes at me.
Hoping I’ll be flattered, no doubt. Hoping I’ll start thinking, ‘Hey, you know what? He’s all right after all!’
Or, better still for him, ‘Wow, like maybe he’s even good husband material!’
Only thing he’s really good for at the moment is providing a snack for my dogs.
Unless – he can tell me what I want to know.
‘The Glass Slipper: what happened to it?’
*
Chapter 2
My whimpering captive babbles.
They always do at this point.
Making out he wasn’t the one in charge, that there were other people superior to him who took responsibility for all things like that.
Typical, isn't it?
What do men usually do but try and impress you with how important they how, how powerful, how high up they are in the pecking order?
Get them in a position like this, however, and it’s all ‘Oh, it wasn’t poor little me!’
Well, to give the guy his dues, he doesn’t look all-powerful at present.
All his clothes torn, caught on any number of branches and brambles as he fled through the forest.
His face cut a little too.
As his horse eventually had the good sense to throw him, he’s also a little muddy, a little bit bruised.
My lasso holds his arms tightly about his waist. The bolero I brought him down with as he tried to run away binds his legs even tighter.
Even so, he’d desperately tried to get up, to hop away.
When he still thought I was a man; still thought his life was in danger.
When I’d lassoed him he’d screamed like a little girl.
To give him credit, I’ve heard far worse; but then, we’re still in the early stages of the negotiations, aren’t we?
‘I’d heard it broke; or maybe, someone even broke it on purpose! It was dangerous, I’d heard – though I don’t know why!’
I nod; yep, others have said the very same thing.
Like them, he’s telling me this in the hope I think I’ve set myself an impossible task.
How can you possibly find a glass slipper that’s been smashed?
What would be the point, anyway?
The point is, of course, that all of Cinderella’s magical garments vanished on the stroke of twelve, yes?
But not the Glass Slipper.
Which means that slipper is still full of magic!
*
‘You’re not telling me anything new,’ I say to him calmly as I stoke the campfire I’ve made.
I’ve got all night to get the truth out of him.
Not that I don't believe him about the slipper being smashed.
I do: I most surely do.
‘But if it’s smashed,’ he replies, managing a bemused grin, ‘then it means it can’t be found. No one knows where it is!’
See?
I just knew he’d told me it had been shattered in the hope I’d call off this mad quest.
Yeah, it is mad.
I’m mad.
Mad at him for wasting my time.
Without warning, I abruptly rise up from my crouch by the fire and launch myself towards him.
Grabbing him roughly by the legs, I begin to drag his bared feet closer to the fire.
He’d chuckled earlier when I’d removed his boots, his socks; no doubt thinking it was a very womanly thing to do.
Like I was welcoming him home and making him comfortable by the fire.
Now he shrieks for mercy, realising at last tha
t I mean business.
He’s probably surprised by my strength. Surprised by how careless I am about his wellbeing as I drag him brutally over the rocks.
‘What else do you want to know?’ he screams. ‘I don't know anything else!’
‘Names,’ I say. ‘Like I got your name off the last man I killed.’
*
‘Who…who was it; the man you killed?’
He’s quaking now, bless him.
Like he wants his mummy.
‘I presume you mean the man I just mentioned?’ I ask him coolly. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t want the list, would you now?’
He blanches, nods weakly.
‘Baron Nene,’ I say, stoking the fire again, letting his dainty little toes feel the heat.
Now he turns a deathly white. He recognises the name of course.
Recognises, too, that Nene was also a member of the prince’s group.
‘But…but Nene was…was…’
‘A knight? One of the kingdom’s best swordsmen? That what you’re trying to say?’
He nods again, gulps in dismay.
‘Why did he give you my name?’ he asks worriedly.
I shrug.
‘It was the only thing he thought he could give me, I suppose.’
I stare intently into his wide, fear-filled eyes.
‘Like you, maybe? If you really can’t tell me where any of the pieces might be, then tell me the name of someone who can.’
*
Chapter 3
So I get another name.
Earl Dorag.
Probably as useless as the last one, truth be known.
But I’ve got to start somewhere, haven’t I?
Did I kill him, once he’d told me all I knew?
Naturally, I’ d thought about it; I mean, I don't want him sending out a warning to all the rest of the prince’s companions, do I?
My task is hard enough as it is without adding any more complications.
So, it placed me in a bit of a dilemma, really.
Do I risk that?
Or do I kill a man who’s tied up?
Well, I took a third option of course.
I cut him free.
Told him he could go.
But I’d left my sword close by him; just as a test, to see what sort of man he really was.
He grabbed it, thinking he’d take me by surprise.
Laughing again, as he came at me; only cruelly chuckling this time.
This way, see, I get to practise my use of the double daggers.
It's a win win, isn’t it?
*
Wow, what a first class bitch, you must be thinking.
What the hell’s stirred up her hornet’s nest?
And you know, I don't even have a dreadful childhood to blame.
My dad, my mum; they were just great.
Just about perfect, in fact.
My sister, too – she was wonderful.
We always did things together.
Always enjoyed being with each other.
So, maybe they’re dead, right? you’re thinking.
Or maybe the prince and his men; maybe they got up to no good when they were visiting all those girls in all those castles and palaces?
And so now I’ve got this weirdly warped mind, and I’m seeking revenge on those I hold responsible?
Nah!
It’s none of the above, I’m glad to say.
Mum and Dad, they’re still in our castle.
Sis, well; she took the usual way out for a girl in our sad little world and got herself married, popping out a darling little kid not long after the wedding (but not so close that it might’ve caused a bit of a scandal!).
As for the visiting entourage of the prince, if they’d tried on anything untoward in our castle, they’d still be packing out our dungeons.
So, what’s the reason – why am I hunting all these guys down?
I’m afraid it’s quite simple.
I just want that damned slipper!
*
The Mail Coach passes along some of the most deserted tracks in the kingdom; like it’s just begging to be robbed.
It not just the mail and its packages calling out to me; it’s also the passengers, those wealthy enough to afford a ticket but not the phalanx of guards you need to pass safely through an area like this. They put their trust, see, in the fact that anyone who stops a mail coach will be mercilessly hunted down by the king’s men.
Even so, the coachman trusts more on the speed of his horses than any number of king’s men setting out to avenge his death. Even safely hidden out of sight amongst the thick bushes lining the edge of the road, I can hear the pounding of the hooves as the already sorely pressed team is urged on to ever-greater bursts of speed, the coachman wiling to tire them out if it gets him and his charges safely through this dark and most deadly (well, as far as the road’s concerned, anyway) part of the forest.
With a sharp, hard nudge of my knees – I’m holding my weapons in my hand – I similarly urge my mare Bess to break cover and leap forward into the path of the swiftly oncoming coach.
‘Stand and deliver!’ I yell out as loud as I can from behind the raised neckerchief veiling my face.
To show I mean business, I also hold out both arms, pointing my weapons directly at the coachman.
Now until some quite ingenious inventor comes up with something more threatening than two daggers you can easily hold in your hand (and what a boon to the world such an invention would be!), this might not sound like a perfectly good way of bringing a mail coach traveling at full pelt to a halt.
But I’d thought of this.
So Cer, Ber and Us are already strung out across the lane.
The coachman might have fanciful ideas about just riding straight through them.
But the horses won’t.
Whinnying in fear, they slew to an immediate stop.
The coachman and his guard, still uncontrollably travelling at the coach’s original speed, are sent bowling out of their seat across the tops of the rearing team. The guard gamely clings on to his crossbow, and more amazingly still manages to raise and aim it at me even as he struggles to gain a more upright position once more.
Lucky for me, I suppose, that that inventor hasn't come up with some form of semi-magical weapon.
As it is, a crossbow’s no problem for me.
With a quick flick of my hand, I throw a dagger his way. The blade hurtles towards him, catching the bolt and making it fly back up into the guard’s face, while also slitting the bows string.
Actually, I’d meant to pinion his hand to the butt; but its still an impressive throw.
Certainly, it cows both the guard and the driver into submission, persuading them it’s not worth putting up any more foolish resistance. Especially as I’ve already replaced the dagger I’ve thrown, having quickly slipped it from a number of them I have loosely sheathed on my chest belt.
See: and you thought I was mad holding up a coach with a couple of daggers, didn’t you?
You can't do that with a sword now, can you?
Sure, I could have used my long bow; but tell me, have you ever tried to dismount from a horse and then proceed to relieve a number of coach passengers of their ill-gotten gains, while still keeping them covered with a bow and arrow?
Well, yeah: I have, right?
First time I ever tried this in fact, and it almost turned out to be my last, believe me! If you thought that poor old guard looked a bit incompetent when his arrow flew back up into his face, you should have seen me!
Damned stupid stirrups!
Now, of course, I’m well practiced at this kind of thing.
I’m much, much cooler in the way I go about it.
Charming the ladies as I go about ensuring they’ll be more favoured by God now they’re so freely giving up their burden of wealth.
Naturally, they’re all fooled into thinking there’s some ravenously handsome rogue hiding behind this mask
. And I have no intention of dissuading them from that notion.
I’ll even let the obviously more impoverished girls off with no more odious a payment than a kiss on my cheek.
That’s what they expect, see, from their dandy highwayman?
If the king’s men ever catch up with me, and take me alive, at least I’ll have a pitying crowd as I’m led to the scaffold.
The men, they couldn’t be charmed no matter how hard I tried.
They seem to resent emptying their pockets and purses for me.
Like they’ve got it into their heads that, just because I’m dressed more or less all in black, that automatically makes me the bad guy around here.
Then again, it is the weirdest of blacks I’ve ever coma across, I’ve got to admit: I’ve no idea how it manages to soak up the light, creating an aura of permanent shadow about me.
Oh, and then there’s the three hellhounds, of course: but heck, even the dandy highwayman needs company, doesn’t he?
The guard and the coachman stand by looking a little bit abashed, realising no doubt that their passengers won’t be happy that that they’re not doing anything to stop me digesting everyone of their riches.
Once I think I’ve got everything of value off them – no need today, I believe, to waste time going through the mail box – I let them step backup into the carriage, the coachman and his guard to clamber back into their higher seat.
I gallantly toss these two a couple of coins in recompense for the trouble they’ll be in when they back.
They grin, tip their hats to me in gratitude.
Always best to keep the supplier side of your business on your side, I reckon.
‘On your way then, ladies and gents,’ I cry out gleefully, giving the rear horse of the team a hard slap on her flanks.
Cer, Ber and Us have already melted into the undergrowth lying to either side of the road. With an excited neighing, the team rear and surge forward, the coach fiercely jolting into sudden motion, the passengers rocked and buffeted by its abrupt acceleration.
I’m glad my face is covered by my neckerchief as I’m instantly suffused in the thickly choking cloud of dust the hurriedly departing coach throws up around me. I gasp and chuckle with relief when I can at last pull the neckerchief aside and breathe in some clear, fresh air.
The young girl standing alongside me laughs along with me.