Beauty (16 page)

‘Sir, look! There’s someone cutting through the wall!’
The light pressed against the branches and for a second the three men froze, but it didn’t help. They’d been seen.

‘It’s him! Rumplestiltskin! Get after him!’

‘You! Get back to the castle! Quickly! Tell the ministers!’

Suddenly, the greenery behind them was being vigorously attacked by swords and a group of soldiers was following them into the wall.

The huntsman beat at the wood faster, painfully aware that there was only three or four feet between them and that the soldiers would be stronger.

‘Come on, come on,’ the prince muttered, pressing his weight against the resistant hedge so the huntsman could move further.

‘I’m doing my best,’ the huntsman growled.

‘I can see them. The bastards! I can see them!’

There was a flash of steel as the men behind them lunged forwards, thrusting their blades through the gaps.

The prince cried out as the tip of a sword slashed into his side.

The huntsman found he could work quicker after that.

P
etra had pulled a chair close to the queen’s bed, and with the wolf beside her, occasionally licking her hand, she’d held the spindle on her lap and watched Beauty sleep as the quiet minutes passed. The prince had done his job well and she was dead to the world. The phrase hurt Petra’s heart with the truth in it. If everything went according to plan, she’d never wake again.

She couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Despite the Beast who resided inside her she was the sweetest of girls and, water witch magic or not, Petra felt a pull towards her. The terrible things that were her nature were also not her fault. Petra imagined that if Beauty knew the suffering she’d inflicted on her subjects, or what she’d done to her poor father, she would prick her finger herself. Still, lying there so still, she looked perfect.

Petra wondered how many more hours in the decades to come she would sit in this chair and wonder about the girl who would sleep until her last drop of blood had fallen. She ran her fingers through the wolf’s rough fur, taking comfort from the heat of his head.

Suddenly, the wolf’s ears pricked up and he let out a low growl. All thoughts of the queen’s tragic life vanished as Petra sat up straight, her nerves jangling.

‘What is it, Toby?’ she whispered, but within a second she had her answer. There was movement in the corridors. From outside, the sound of people urgently calling to each other drifted up to them. Despite the urge to get up and look, Petra stayed by the bed, her hand hovering over Beauty’s delicate, pale fingers. Her heart raced as the noise in the corridors grew louder, footsteps dashing this way and that, and men barking commands.

Her heart raced, and the wolf’s hackles rose, his fur puffing out so much that he truly looked like a magnificent unnatural beast. She needed to give the huntsman and Rumplestiltskin the longest time possible to get away. They did not deserve a hundred years sleep, or to wake to find everyone they loved lost. And her grandmother did not deserve to die without knowing Petra’s choice or meeting Rumplestiltskin. She gritted her teeth. She was ready to do it, but not until the very last minute.

As the noise grew around them, Beauty stirred but she did not wake. The wolf was ready to pounce and pin her down should she try and run, but Petra hoped beyond hope it wouldn’t come to that. What if the Beast woke when she was terrified? What would happen to them all then?

‘
The prince is gone!
’ a voice shouted. ‘
He’s tricked us!
’

‘See to the queen! Check her majesty is safe!’

Petra was staring so fixedly at the main doors to the queen’s bedroom that the secret side entrance, hidden in a panel in the wall next to the wardrobe, slid open and the first minister was inside before she could react. She almost dropped the spindle in surprise and with a growl, the wolf prepared to spring.

For a moment, amidst all the commotion outside, the old man said nothing. He stared at Petra and the spindle and then at the girl in the bed.

‘Stay quiet,’ he said and then strode to the doors.

Petra’s mind was racing and she kept one hand firmly on the wolf who she could feel was ready to spring and rip the minister’s throat out to protect her. She still had time to do it. Even if he screamed blue murder into the corridor. There was no need for more bloodshed than necessary but the wolf, although still Toby, thought in more black and white terms than that.

The first minister opened the door a fraction. ‘Her majesty is sleeping. She’s fine,’ he said quietly. ‘Now find that prince!’

He closed the door again and leant against it. For a long moment he stared at Petra and she saw the conflict in his face, and then the tired sadness that he carried for his own complicity with the Beast.

‘They will come back,’ he said quietly. ‘And she will wake. The Beast will sense the trouble.’ He walked over to the window and stared out at the peaceful kingdom for a moment, before sitting down on the window seat with a heavy sigh.

‘If you’re going to do it,’ he stretched his legs out and leant his head back on the soft cushions, ‘then do it now.’

Petra looked out at the sky that was streaking with purple dawn and hoped that she’d given them enough time, and then, with a deep breath, she carefully lifted the girl’s slim forefinger and jabbed the sharp spindle into it.

T
he huntsman and Rumplestiltskin pulled the bleeding prince through the last of the branches just as the air around them trembled and a wave of heat rushed through the tightening branches, filling the air with the scent of a thousand types of bark and leaf and flower. The wall shimmered momentarily and sparkled in the breaking dawn.

The three men stared as they panted, the prince hunched over slightly as his side bled. If they had thought the wall was dense before, it was now completely impenetrable.

‘Well, that answers that then,’ the huntsman said, nodding at the men who had been so close behind them. The soldiers had fallen instantly asleep and, held up by the branches, vines were now curling up around their limbs. After a few seconds they were no longer visible.

They all stared at the wall as the relief of their freedom sank in, along with the exhaustion in their limbs.

‘I want to go home,’ the prince said, weakly.

Rumplestiltskin looked around him, scanning the horizon for something familiar.

‘What now for you?’ the huntsman asked.

‘The tower.’ There was no hesitation. ‘I will have my revenge on that witch, and I will see my daughter’s grave.’ His freedom from the city and the return of Beauty to her sleeping death had not eased his bitterness. He looked at the pale prince, who was examining his flesh wound with more than a touch of horror. ‘And then I shall be back to hold you to your word.’

The prince nodded but said nothing.

‘There was something else,’ the huntsman added, as he slung his bag back over his shoulder and prepared to move on. ‘Something Petra made me promise to tell you. She said it was important. About visiting her grandmother . . .’

D
awn claimed the silent city as the first drop of blood hit the floor beside the sleeping Beauty’s bed. In the glass by her bed, the rose drooped ever so slightly. Petra gave Beauty one last look and then went out into the corridor to join Toby who smiled at her and her heart sang.

‘No more wolf for a month,’ he said.

‘Shame,’ she said, taking his arm. ‘He’s a good looking creature. I guess I’ll have to make do with you at night until then.’ They stepped carefully over the sleeping bodies and their shoes tapped out against the marble, the only feet that would walk these corridors for a long, long time. ‘Let’s get some breakfast. I’m starving.’

‘Do you think they made it?’ Toby asked as they turned onto the sweeping staircase.

‘I think so,’ she answered. ‘This adventure deserves a happy ending.’ She rested her head on his arm. ‘Other than ours.’

‘What was all that about your grandmother?’ he asked. ‘And Rumplestiltskin.’

Her smile stretched wider as she thought of how happy those two would be when they met. ‘I couldn’t tell him. I don’t think he’d have let me stay here if I had. My great-grandmother made me this cloak, you know. Well, she made it for my grandmother. She said it was her favourite colour because it reminded her of her father.’

‘I’m not following,’ Toby said. ‘What’s that got to do with Rumplestiltskin?’

‘She was a strange woman,’ Petra said. ‘She arrived in the village out of nowhere when she was twenty-two. When my grandmother was little she told her stories of her childhood, of being trapped in a tower by a witch until one day a handsome prince rescued her.’ She paused. ‘It clearly didn’t work out, but she left my grandmother and then my mother and then me, with a healthy cynicism about Prince Charmings that stuck, even though we never really believed her stories.’

Toby turned and stared at her. ‘You think your great-grandmother was Rumplestiltskin’s daughter?’

Sunlight burst through the castle windows and Petra knew it was going to be a beautiful day.

‘Her name was Rapunzel,’ she said. ‘So yes, I think she was.’

Epilogue

‘
Y
ou stay here,’ the huntsman said, after carefully bandaging the prince’s wound and setting a fire. ‘We’ll make camp for the night and then tomorrow we’ll figure out where we are.’

Somehow, and he wondered if it was the forest’s wiles at work, they had lost their bearings and even the huntsman thought they might have strayed into a separate kingdom rather than the prince’s own. Still, what more could happen to them? They’d have a good rest and then they’d be on their way. The prince’s wound would not kill him and a few extra days in the forest would do neither of them any harm.

‘Don’t be too long,’ the prince said, a sorry sight with his royal cape wrapped round him and his face pale and sweating. ‘I don’t want to be alone. I keep thinking about her. About Beauty.’ The huntsman slapped him gently on his shoulder.

‘These woods are rich. There’ll be food a plenty and I’ll be back soon enough.’ He picked up his bag and carried it with him, even though he only needed his knife. He’d earned the diamond shoes, but if the prince found them he would have to give them up, and something raw and animal in his soul told him that he could not let that happen.

He left the prince staring into the fire torn between grief and celebration – Beauty and the Beast – and headed out of the clearing.

It was a warm day in the forest and even though it made the hair on his chest tickle with sweat as he moved through the trees, that pleased the huntsman. Heat slowed animals as much as men and although his skills were such he had no doubt meat would roast over the fire tonight, the task was going to be easier than expected. He could counter the laziness that came with the sun and force himself to be alert. It was unlikely to be the same for the animals in this dense woodland. So far, apart from an old crone scurrying between the trees just before he’d spied the stag, he’d seen little sign of human habitation and Epilogue he’d heard no horn blowing for a Royal hunt. It was wild here. He liked that . . .

T
HE
E
ND

The end . . . or is it just the beginning?

High in her tower the clever witch smiled,
the spindles around her so many beguiled.

How easy it was to riddle with men,
and now Beauty was deep in her death-sleep again.

The princess was cursed, both without and within,
Yet one thing could save her: a love free from sin.

The Kingdoms would change; there would be war and fear,
And Beauty would sleep for a full hundred years,

What happened then was a mystery, she knew,
But she had great faith in kisses that were true . . .