‘You wore the slipper?’
‘Do you really think I’d let this Cinderella whoever she is wear it and become queen?’ she snarls. ‘Yes, I know the tale; some weird warping in time I couldn't quite fathom. But now I know the piece missing is larger than it's supposed to be!’
‘Yet you’re still queen, it seems,’ I point out. ‘So it didn’t stop you achieving your aim this time!’
She angrily snatches the slipper back off Apsara.
‘If it worked how it was supposed to, I could’ve come straight back and made you hand over the missing piece!’
‘I don’t know of any missing piece,’ I admit.
‘If you were so impatient to have us arrested, why wait all this time?’ Apsara asked.
‘Because I had to wait until you’d collected all the pieces, obviously! But, equally obviously, you hadn’t collected them all!’
‘We were just following this map,’ Apsara explains, reaching into her bag, bringing out The Glass Kingdom. ‘We thought we had collected them all.’
The queen snatches the book from Apsara’s hands, only to irritably filing it aside.
‘I already knew about all those pieces, idiot!’ she sneers before turning to me with a furious glare. ‘Who do you think left the book with you, to help you find them all? Who do you think helped you follow a map that really made no sense at all, unless you could travel across the world as easily as crossing a road?’
‘You?’ Now I’m becoming increasingly puzzled. ‘But if you knew where they all where – then why didn’t you collect them?’
‘Because the slipper – by some bizarre mischance – has developed this affinity with you. It would only come together for you, as my sister warned me!’
‘Your sister?’
‘Oh, you’ve meet her! When I showed her that I’d managed by chance to recover the Dagger of Brutus, she tried to show me it had to be you who collected it – but I thought she was lying, holding things from me!’
‘So you killed her?’ Apsara asks.
The queen shrugs.
‘I realised she was right when I couldn’t even withdraw the dagger; like the slipper itself had determined I’d abused its powers by using it in such a way. And, of course, because unlike you I didn’t posses a sliver of the slipper far larger than anyone else’s!’
As she talks, she gives a commanding wave of her hand, ordering a number of dismounted soldiers to grab me firmly by my arms and hold me tightly.
‘Me?’ I laugh in disbelief. ‘You’re saying I have a larger sliver of compassion than anyone else?’
‘I didn't say compassion,’ she growls as the men tightly bind me, ‘I said sliver; the sliver of broken glass that I can only presume – and it took me a while to work this out, naturally, until I remembered my sister’s mirror showing how you would lose your toe – somehow embedded itself deep within you.’
Hah; that would explain the way I regained my toe, wouldn’t it? And, maybe, why I realised the witch and her familiar were one when they’d both eaten my finger.
‘Well if it’s inside me, how am I supposed to retrieve it?’ I point out.
‘Oh, don't worry; I don't expect you to,’ she says, commanding her men with another wave of her hand to hoist me up onto a horse. ‘My doctors can operate on you; they’ll find it!’
*
Chapter 32
We’re prisoners of the Royal Troop – or Queen’s Men, as they’re now known – once again.
This time, they haven’t let us keep our own horses. They’re being placidly led far behind us in the column stretching out along the road as it slowly winds its way back towards the capital.
Where the doctors eagerly wait to slice me up.
While alive naturally; because I might have to be present to make sure the last piece melds successfully with the rest of the slipper.
You know, I think I prefer how this Cinderella story was originally told.
I mean, my parents could quite easily live with their slightly tarnished name.
While I’m going to find it pretty hard to live once I’ve been filleted like the wares on display on a fishmonger’s stall.
The hounds, like the horses, are being kept far back in the column.
Apsara, like me, has been more or less tightly bound, and placed on an unfamiliar mount.
The countryside we’re passing through is pretty miserable too.
Burnt out farms.
Besieged, shattered castles.
Miserable countryside
Yeah, the queen’s made quite a few changes around here. No wonder her new palace gleams so wonderfully.
Apsara leans towards me a little in her saddle.
‘I think we’ve left the queen far enough behind now, don’t you?’ she whispers, like this is all part of some wonderfully ingenious plan.
‘Oh sure,’ I whisper back sarcastically. ‘She’ll still be firmly entrapped in that palace of rubies we left her in, I reckon!’
Apsara ignores me.
She leans forward in her saddle, calling out to the soldier leading her horse.
‘Excuse me…’
The solider wearily peers back over his shoulder.
‘Ah, at last,’ Apsara says with a miffed sigh, as if she’s been calling the poor man for ages. ‘I’d like to speak to your officers; I have something important to tell them!’
*
Free again!
And everything politely returned to us once more, too!
‘Apsara; you’re a genius!’ I declare.
Ghast.
The code word had worked.
Sure, it had taken the officers a little by surprise when Apsara had ridden up to them and whispered the supposedly secret code.
Hadn’t they just been ordered by the queen to arrest us?
But they’d also previously garnered, of course, that we’d been charged with collecting something important for her.
So who was to say we weren’t on some ultra-secret mission, which entailed a fake arrest, and then our release when we ready to take on the next stage of our task?
I can only hope the poor guys don't end up being the next ones to end up swinging from a gibbet; but let’s face it, they probably will.
‘It’s a pity the queen had kept the slipper with her,’ I muse sadly. ‘The officers might have even let us take that with us if they’d had it with them!’
Apsara reaches yet again into her bag. She pulls out the copy of the slipper.
‘They did,’ she says brightly.
‘Hah, the useless copy, you mean!’ I chuckle.
She shakes her head.
‘Nope,’ she says. ‘See, this time I did manage to swap them!’
*
Chapter 33
Like many of the castles around here now, my father’s castle is in a terrible state.
Huge parts of its walls lie in ruins, the result, I can only presume, of an attack utilising the very best siege engines.
Trails of black smoke still curl up from certain sections of the buildings, but it looks to me like the weakly fading plumes of old fires.
I don’t think anyone’s in danger, anyway.
The castle seems to be completely deserted.
*
The last time I was in this courtyard, it was alive with life.
Traders from the town, the market. The craftsmen, coming to see what services my parents and their large retinues of clerks, soldiers, maids and servants required.
It’s a terrible sight, all these signs of abandonment.
And yet, the miserable state of my father’s castle is, I suppose, going to help us restore it to its rightful glory.
If the walls had still been secure, if the soldiers had still been on guard, if the maids and servants had still been busily milling about the buildings; well, how would we have got into the castle, which is where we need to be?
As it is, we need a room where we can appear without startling anyone.
That means
the surgery, a room I know was – thankfully – usually empty.
Although it could be a handy short cut from stables to laundry, more or less lying between them both through necessity (these two areas, along with the kitchen, being the ones most likely to suffer injuries), the rules stated that it must be always kept clean, so it remained rarely disturbed, even by people simply passing through.
It’s an ironic place for us to be in, seeing as how I almost ended up in the queen’s surgery, where I would have been gleefully spliced and diced by overeager doctors.
It’s also the place where I’d first discovered the highwayman’s clothes, hanging in a closet. I’d been sent here to have my toe treated, yet probably still wouldn’t have gone searching the farthest, least accessible cupboards if I hadn’t wondered where this absolutely dreadful smell was coming from; his boots had been covered in dirt from the stables, though I got rid of most of it with a torn, muddy cloth left alongside some even more badly caked shoes.
‘So, we still think you’re going to have to wear it to make it work, right?’ I ask Apsara.
She nods.
‘I reckon it’s the best way of insuring something’s going to work, don't you?’
‘You could just end up dressed like a princess,’ I point out with a grin.
She gives a resigned shrug.
‘I’m hoping that the slipper will sense the presence of the slipper still held by the Luminous Lady back in the past,’ she says, having discussed this earlier with me. ‘That’s the only way, as I’ve said, that I think we can be sure of ending up in the right time period.’
‘All a bit hit and miss, you mean, right?’
‘You got it,’ she says, slipping out of both of her old shoes. ‘So; are we ready?’
‘Stay here,’ I turn and say to the hounds and the horses. ‘Until we return…wait!’
I whirl back to face Apsara.
‘We can’t return!’ I say wretchedly. ‘The piece is still missing!’
*
Chapter 34
‘Look at your parent’s castle,’ Apsara says to me, taking my hand consolingly in hers. ‘We don’t even know what's happened to your parents! Can you really say you want to leave everything like this?’
She’s right.
I look sadly back towards the dogs and the horses.
‘I don’t suppose; you know – we could take them with us.’
Apsara sighs.
‘Maybe if we all get in a large huddle and–’
Before she can finish, Bess, Cer, Ber and Us have eagerly drawn close to us, though Apsara’s horse seems less certain about what she needs to do.
‘When we get there, remember to let them out through the door to the stables!’ Apsara declares firmly.
‘Of course,’ I say, wondering how she knows one of the doors leads out there.
Perhaps all castles are designed this way?
Or, maybe, she knows the layout from the time she managed to steal all those things she gathered in her bag?
Ah well; it’s all so unimportant now, isn’t it?
Apsara is slipping on the slipper.
She giggles as it shrinks to fit her foot.
We both giggle nervously when another glass slipper appears on her other foot.
Then we’re bathed in light of the most entrancing, most wildly whirling colours.
*
‘Did it work?’
The light has abruptly faded, but the walls of the room seem no different to how they’d looked before.
Worse still, Apsara is now dressed in the most fabulous ballroom dress any girl could imagine.
Is that the only piece of magic that’s taken place?
‘Yes, look!’ Apsara exclaims excitedly, drawing my attention to the door to laundry. ‘That had been forced open, broken; now it's firmly shut.’
She’s right.
So we did it.
Sensing my elation, the dogs grin and wag their tails happily. Bess seems like she’s having to hold herself back from whinnying joyfully, if any of that is actually possible.
There’s no sign of Apsara’s mount; at some point, she’s been left behind.
‘Let’s get them outside,’ Apsara says urgently, leading them all obediently to the door as if she’s some roughly garbed stable hand rather than a perfect princess in miniature.
‘Er, you don’t think, do you,’ I begin hesitantly, drawing her attention back to her glittering dress, ‘that you could be Cinder–’
‘Cinderella? No way!’ she pronounces adamantly, reaching down and slipping off the glass shoe. ‘I’m way too young, remember?’
She appears to shrink before me as the high-heeled shoe remaining on her foot abruptly vanishes. The dress disappears too, leaving her grabbed once more in little more than her simple blouse.
An aura of incredible beauty that had also suffused her has similarly evaporated, making her once again a pretty enough yet reasonably average little girl.
‘Hey, look at this!’ she exclaims joyfully, lifting the real glass shoe up closer to my face.
The rim is still chipped.
But the piece missing is nowhere near as big as it was before.
‘The missing piece; it’s back!’ I say happily.
*
Chapter 35
‘How…?’
How did the missing piece of the slipper end up returning to its proper place?
We both exchange puzzled glances.
Then excited smiles.
‘What's it matter?’ I say. ‘It means we’ll now be able to return to our own time – once we’ve sorted everything out here, of course!’
‘So – what do we start sorting out first, do you think?’
‘We’ve got to find the real Cinderella,’ I declare confidently, adding as (I whirl to face the laundry door that eventually leads through to the kitchen), ‘Doesn't the story say she sleeps by the kitchen fire?’
‘But the Luminous Lady; she’ll be turning up to the ball too!’
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ I say with a dismissive wave in the air. ‘Cinderella gets the prince to fall in love with her – and then she leaves the slipper behind deliberately! You know; sort of like ladies drop handkerchiefs – a sign that they must be pursued by their love, adding a delicious element of chase!’
‘Yeah, wonderful; but what I meant is, what sort of story is that going to be, when the Luminous Lady ends up killing this poor Cinderella?’
‘Hmn…that is a point,’ I grant Apsara grudgingly, wondering why everything has to be so complicated. ‘We have to get her away before she–’
‘Twelve o’clock!’
We both say it at one and the same time.
That’s why Cinderella has to leave the ball!
She doesn't have to leave because everything turns back into rags – as long as she wears the slipper, she’s fine.
But she has to leave the slipper, otherwise how can the prince find her once again?
Wow, the story all begins to make sense at last.
‘And then later,’ I add resignedly, recognising that there’s another complication, ‘we simply have to steal the slipper back – so we can get back to our own time!’
*
Chapter 36
The castle is once again bustling with vigorous life.
There’s so much going and froing, we’re hardly noticed as we swan confidently and assuredly about the castle’s lower room, searching for our Cinderella.
No one’s expecting any ne’er-do-wells to have slipped past the guards, obviously.
Trouble is, it’s taking us longer to find this beautiful girl than I thought it would.
The maids by the fire are all pretty robust; as you’d expect, the heat of the fire has given them all red-mottled skin.
They’re all, well – let’s say well fed, too.
The advantages of working in the kitchen.
I’ve never really been down here before.
I never knew it was such
a hard life for everyone.
Tiring.
Laborious.
Dangerous.
Yet, most of the people here still seem to smile as they go about their work.
Maybe that's why I never realised that their lives were so bad; I’d just got this image in my head of loyal, happy maids and servants.
I mean, I’m overhearing some things here about my sister and me that I would rather not hear.
Not because these poor people are being particularly mean; but because what they’re saying is all unfortunately true.
*
‘You know,’ a frustrated Apsara eventually wails to me, ‘I’m beginning to wonder if this Cinderella actually exits.’
‘You too?’ I say dejectedly, realising she could be reading my mind.
It’s useless: it was easier searching for the pieces of the slipper.
And then, suddenly, I’ve got the answer.
‘My sister!’
‘What? I thought you’d said Cinderella wasn’t your sister?’
‘She isn’t; but my sister is my sister! Now she wouldn’t mind marrying the prince. And all we have to do is tell her all she has to do is wear this shoe, and she’s assured of winning his heart!’
‘And all we have to do,’ Apsara says cynically, ‘is wander around the upper apartments, somehow disguising the fact that we look like we’ve come in from the most disreputable parts of the city!’
‘Hah…well…er…’
‘I suppose you could always hold them up, like you do the coach; only offer them something, rather than taking it off them. That would be quite novel!’
‘Yeah, yeah, thank you, Little Miss Sarcasm; but, come to think of it, you might have arrived at the very answer we need!’
*
Chapter 37
Before we prepared for the ball, I’d taken a stroll with my sisters amongst the carefully tended hedges of our garden.
Unlike my overly excited sister, I had no interest in meeting the prince. From what I’d heard of him, he had little understanding of the kingdom he would soon be inheriting.