The Rumpelstiltskin Problem (6 page)

Katya covered her ears and began to scream.

It was a terrible sound that would have been annoying to most, but it was heartbreaking to a domovoi, and it went on and on and on until Rumpelstiltskin couldn't take it anymore and he went and sat down at the spinning wheel and began to spin.

Katya is very young,
Rumpelstiltskin thought as he spun.
And a little bit foolish. By the time she is married, by the time
she has a child, she will have forgotten her promise, and then everybody will be happy.

And that, Rumpelstiltskin thought, was the end of that.

Happiness filled the house in the following days as the king announced to all that he would marry Katya. Happiness filled the house in the following weeks as there were engagement parties and preparations for the marriage feast, and then the marriage feast itself, and afterward celebration parties. Happiness filled the house in the following months, for the king and Katya both loved eating and drinking and dancing and being the center of attention, so they were well suited to each other and stayed out of the affairs of others. The kingdom rejoiced.

Rumpelstiltskin got fatter and lazier and he basked in contentment even when it was announced that Katya was with child, for Katya was happy, and that meant she had forgotten her promise, and that was fine with Rumpelstiltskin.

And then the baby was born, a handsome boy, which made everyone happier yet.

... Until the child's nurse set down a saucer of cream on the floor of the new prince's room, and said, "We are
so
fortunate—here's an extra saucer of cream for the domovoi to thank him for all the luck this family has had," and then Katya's unhappiness cut through walls and ceilings and floors, straight to Rumpelstiltskin's heart so that he could hear all that was said in the room so high above him.

"No!" Katya cried. "Oh, no, no, no! It cannot be! Send for my husband!
Send for my husband!
"

The king did not have to be sent for; he came running into the room. "Katya, my love! What is it? What's wrong? Has something happened that we'll have to cancel tonight's ball?"

"I promised our child away!" Katya admitted with great racking sobs. "I promised our child away!"

"What?" the king asked. "To whom? Why? I don't understand."

Domoviye are shy creatures. They rarely show themselves, and if they do it's to one person alone, the way Rumpelstiltskin had come to the various rooms Katya had been in.

But there was so much unhappiness, Rumpelstiltskin couldn't help himself. He burrowed through walls, floors, ceilings, to the nursery.

"There!" Katya shouted, her voice and her finger shaking as she pointed at him. "He made me promise our child away in return for showing me how to spin straw into gold for
you.
"

Rumpelstiltskin would have explained that he didn't want the child, that he could get back the necklace and the ring too, if Katya and the king wanted, but the king didn't give him a chance.

"Vile creature!" the king shouted. "Out! Get out!" He kicked over the saucer of cream, spreading a stream of white over the blue-painted floor.

Domoviye do not stay where they are not wanted. Rumpelstiltskin burrowed down, down, down, straight down, without even caring if the people of the household he passed noticed him, straight to his place beneath the basement, and then sideways, out, out, out from beneath the castle walls, under the yard, until he found himself beneath the basement of the cottage of the family of the goat keeper.

Rumpelstiltskin sniffed the air and found there was contentment in the house. Also a cat, which probably meant saucers of cream. Rumpelstiltskin stayed where he was, rocking miserably backward and forward in the dark.

But there was so much unhappiness coming from the nearby castle, that it washed over even as far as the cottage.

They were afraid, Rumpelstiltskin could tell, afraid that he would come back for the baby.

That night's palace ball centered on the theme Guess the Monster's Name.

"An evil named," the king said, unhappily enough for Rumpelstiltskin, beneath the goat keeper's cottage, to overhear, "is an evil conquered. If we could only name this creature..."

Rumpelstiltskin,
Rumpelstiltskin thought. He had introduced himself to Katya.

But apparently Katya had only been paying attention to herself, for, weeping, she said she did not know his name.

Rumpelstiltskin took the saucer of cream the goat keeper had set out for the cat and, carrying it carefully, he burrowed into the earth, through the yard, and up through the castle floors, until he found himself in the baby's room.

The nurse was asleep in her chair beside the baby prince's cradle.

Good,
Rumpelstiltskin thought. The floor was painted blue, a good background color for showing up cream. Rumpelstiltskin dipped his finger into the saucer he'd carried with him and began tracing letters onto the floor: first an
R,
then a
U
...

When he was finished, he picked up the saucer and threw it onto the floor to get everyone's attention. The nurse woke up, guards rushed in, and the king and Katya came running in, too.

"He's come to steal our baby!" Katya screeched, though Rumpelstiltskin wasn't standing anywhere near the baby; he was standing by his name, which he'd written in cream on the blue-painted floor.

"Don't anybody move," the king commanded. "Maybe we can try reasoning with him."

"Why, someone's written something on the floor," one of the guards said, "and he was about to rub it out."

Which was exactly wrong, but at least it got everybody looking at the floor.

"It looks like a name," the nurse said. "It looks like..." She was trying to read it upside down and backward. "
N
...
I
...
K
—Nikolaus?"

"
R,
said one of the guards, who was clever enough to see which end was up. "Could it be Robert?"

They were all rolling their
R's
and trying to sound out
Rumpelstiltskin.
As soon as someone—it was Katya, by chance—said something that started with an
R
and had four syllables, Rumpelstiltskin pulled his hair and gave a cry that he hoped sounded more like frustration than heartfelt relief, and he stamped his foot and burrowed deep, deep into the ground. He could feel the relief of the household wash over him, thinking they had outwitted him and they were safe.

Now he just needed to be safe from them, for they were too foolish and unreliable to stay happy for long. He burrowed past the goat keeper's cottage, past the outer walls of the town, and kept on burrowing until he reached the house of a little old lady who kept more cats than she could count.

"Some people," Rumpelstiltskin told the cats, "just aren't happy unless they aren't happy."

None of the cats disagreed, so Rumpelstiltskin decided that they were fine and clever cats, and he lived with them for many, many happy years.

Once upon a time, before bread was plastic-wrapped and sold in supermarkets, there lived a miller named Otto and his daughter, Christina.

In the way of most fathers, Otto was proud of his daughter and liked to brag about her. "Christina is a very clever girl," he told people. "Christina is a very sweet girl," he told people. "Christina is a very brave girl," he told people.

One of the things the miller was especially proud of was Christina's talent at spinning. "Christina," he would say, "can take the coarsest, lumpiest wool, and she can spin it into thread as thin as a spider's web." Or sometimes he'd say, "Why, I've seen Christina take flax that's so woody any other spinner would just throw it away, but Christina spins it fine as a cloud." And sometimes, when he was feeling especially proud, he'd say, "That Christina! She could spin straw into gold!"

One day, over the noise of the river turning the wheel that turned the gears that turned the mill wheel that ground grain into flour, Otto and Christina heard the blare of trumpets. Three fine coaches had pulled up in front of the mill, and, walking ahead to announce their arrival, were two satin-dressed servants. Out of the middle coach stepped the lord high chamberlain of the land. He ignored Otto and his daughter, who were rushing outside, trying to make themselves presentable in a hurry by wiping their hands on their work aprons. Instead, the lord high chamberlain went to the first coach, and by the way he bowed, Otto knew immediately that its passenger must be the king.

Otto bowed and Christina curtsied as the king stepped from the coach.

The king took out a lacy handkerchief and waved it lazily in Christina's general direction, because—of course—he was too important to speak to commoners.

In a bored voice, as though he was used to talking to much more interesting people than millers, the lord high chamberlain said, "The king asks: 'Is this the girl who can spin straw into gold?'"

Uh-oh,
Otto thought.

Meanwhile, Christina, sounding amazed, asked, "Me?" and then, sounding puzzled, said, "No."

The king pursed his lips disapprovingly.

The lord high chamberlain said, "Don't contradict the king."

Otto cleared his throat.

"But—" Christina started.

The king, however, was waving his handkerchief in the general direction of Otto, and the lord high chamberlain said, "Don't interrupt the king. The king asks: 'Is this the man who says his daughter can spin straw into gold?'"

Christina put her hand on her hip and looked at her father in shocked wonder.

Otto stammered, trying to say, "Well," "Yes," "But," and "I only meant" all at the same time.

Apparently the king heard only the "Yes" part. He waved his handkerchief at Christina again, then at the third coach, then—as though this had soiled the lace—he let the handkerchief drop to the ground and he got back into his own coach.

"The king says," the lord high chamberlain told Christina, "that you are to come with us. You are to spin straw into gold tonight, or tomorrow morning he will have you put to death."

"What?" Otto said.

"What?" Christina said.

The lord high chamberlain took a box of snuff, sniffed a pinch, and repeated, sounding as bored as ever, "The king says: 'You are to come with us. You are to spin straw into gold tonight, or tomorrow morning he will have you put to death.'"

Otto stepped forward to protect his Christina. "This is all a misunderstanding," he started.

"Are you asking," the lord high chamberlain asked him, "for the king to have your daughter put to death
now?
"

"No!" Otto hurriedly placed himself between the lord high chamberlain and Christina. "We'll come with you."

"The coach," the lord high chamberlain sniffed, "is for the girl."

While Otto was helping Christina up into the last coach, he took the opportunity to whisper to her, "This is all my fault. But I'll follow in our wagon, and I'll think of a plan to rescue you."

"Mmmm," said Christina, who, of course, knew her father well. "Do be careful. I'll try to think of something, too."

The lord high chamberlain got back into the middle coach, and Christina leaned out of the window to kiss her father's cheek.

Quickly Otto hitched his horse to the wagon he used to make deliveries and set off after the coaches. All the while that the coaches drove along the river from the mill through the woods to the castle, Otto thought.

I could bring my wagon beside the coach that holds Christina, and she could squeeze through the window and jump out and into the wagon,
he thought.

But surely the king would notice. And he would send soldiers after them.
Perhaps,
Otto thought,
I'd better think some more.

At the castle, servants lowered the drawbridge that let the three coaches and the miller's wagon cross the river to the castle itself, which stood on an island in the river. Once they were inside, Otto watched as the bridge was raised again, trapping them inside. This ruined the second plan he had devised, which was to wait until night and then sneak out of the castle with his daughter.

He climbed out of his wagon and approached Christina, who was just getting down from the coach. He whispered his third plan to her. "Maybe if we hire a very clever lawyer—"

Christina shook her head. "Lawyers take too long," she pointed out. "By the time a lawyer sets a court date..." She shuddered, and Otto did, too. Otto wasn't very good at plans, but he knew what being too late would mean for his daughter. Christina said, "Obviously I don't know how to spin straw into gold. In fact, the only gold we have is the gold necklace that was my mother's before she died."

Otto watched as Christina pulled the chain up over her head. Otto said, "Do you want me to bribe the lord high chamberlain?"

"I doubt this would be enough," Christina said. And, in fact, Otto could see the man approaching, now that servants had helped the king out of his coach and into the castle. Otto did have to admit to himself that there was more gold in the embroidery of the lord high chamberlain's vest pocket than was in the entire necklace Christina held.

"Hurry," Christina whispered to her father. "Take the necklace to a goldsmith and ask him to melt it down and draw it out into gold wire. Maybe the king will be satisfied with that."

"Clever Christina!" Otto cried.

"Shhh," she warned.

Otto lowered his voice. "What about the straw? If you're supposed to have spun it into gold, you'll need to get it out of the room."

Christina spoke quickly, for the lord high chamberlain was only a few steps away. "Place our wagon outside the window," she said. "Once night falls, I will throw the straw out the window into the wagon, then you must drive it away."

"Christina, you are brilliant!" Otto said. He turned to the lord high chamberlain. "My Christina is so smart—" he started, but Christina said sternly, "Father. Not now."

"Oh," Otto said, realizing that she didn't want the king's people knowing she was clever enough to outsmart them. "Right," he said. "Never mind."