The Rumpelstiltskin Problem (8 page)

Otto and Christina scrambled into the boat. Behind them, arrows hit the water as the king's archers began firing. But already Otto was rowing out of their range. And the king's navy would need hours to clear all that wet straw out of the way of their ships.

"You came up with a plan!" Christina congratulated him.

"It wasn't a very good one," Otto protested modestly as the soot ran off his wet skin and puddled at the bottom of the boat.

"No," Christina said. "You were brilliant."

"Well..." Otto said, blushing, "maybe just a little bit brilliant."

"Extraordinarily brilliant," Christina corrected. "You just wait until we dock somewhere. I can't wait to tell people how ingenious you are."

"Perhaps 'ingenious' is a bit much," Otto said. "Once you call someone 'ingenious,' then there's a certain type of person who will be constantly testing and teasing and ready to find fault and make fun..."

"Oh, no, no, no," Christina insisted. "Ingenious you are, and ingenious I shall call you. Why, as soon as we land, I must start telling people how you tricked the king of our land."

Now Otto knew that if being called ingenious was risking ridicule, being called a tricker-of-kings was risking getting one's head chopped off. Surely his Christina, who was so clever, was clever enough to know that.

"Hmmm," he said. "I think I see your point."

"Yes?" Christina asked.

"I
am
very proud of you," he said.

"And I appreciate that," she told him.

"But I suppose I could be a little more careful about what I say."

"
A
little more accurate might help, too," Christina said.

"My Christina," Otto said, practicing, "is clever, sweet, and brave. And her spinning isn't half bad either."

"That's a good start," Christina laughed.

Down the river they floated, away from the castle, through the woods, and past the mill that had been theirs, heading they-didn't-know-where. With the gold and finery the king had given Christina to wear, Otto knew the two of them could start again in a different land.

He just hoped it would be ruled by a wiser king.

Once upon a time, before eyelash curlers and lip liner, there lived a very plain girl by the name of Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin was so plain, the other village children called her things like Toad Face and Hairy Beast.
If only I had hut one friend,
Rumpelstiltskin thought,
I would be the best friend that person could ever have.
But the children only wanted to torment her and play tricks on her.

The older Rumpelstiltskin got, the plainer she became, till—by the time she was a young lady—she was no longer plain, she was homely.

If only I had a child,
Rumpelstiltskin thought,
a baby boy or girl, I would love that child, and that child would love me, and neither of us would care how the other looked.
But Rumpelstiltskin was so homely, the young women of her village all laughed at her; and the young men would not court her or let her court them.

As Rumpelstiltskin got older and older, she became homelier and homelier—till by the time she was a middle-aged lady she was no longer homely, she was ugly.

Rumpelstiltskin was so ugly, the villagers delighted in saying things like: "Is that Rumpelstiltskin looking out the window, or is one of the melons from her garden reflected in the glass?"

And still Rumpelstiltskin dreamed of a baby to love who would love her in return. But in the meantime she kept to herself, and in the darkness of night she read ancient books of magic, and she learned to do things normal village folk could not do.

And all the while she grew uglier and uglier—but by then people no longer called her names or played tricks on her, for everyone was convinced she was a witch.

One day as Rumpelstiltskin worked in her garden, she could hear the sound of a commotion next door. She pulled a stone out from the wall that separated the two yards and saw that a rich carriage had pulled up to her neighbors' house. This was not unusual, for a miller and his daughter lived next door, and rich households as well as poor needed to have their wheat ground to flour before they could bake. But the miller's daughter was weeping and clutching at the front door of the house, while two men dressed in very fine clothes pulled and tugged at her and finally lifted her into the carriage. And all this while nobody moved to help the poor girl, and in fact her own father stood in the yard as the carriage began to drive away.

"I'm sorry!" the father called out after the carriage. "I'm sorry, Luella! I'll do what I can."

Rumpelstiltskin was very curious about what was going on, but she was no longer on speaking terms with any of the villagers. The only way she could learn what this was all about, she decided, was to follow the carriage.

So she did.

Beyond the fields the carriage went, through the woods, over hills and streams, beyond a whole new set of fields, to a magnificent castle.

Well!
Rumpelstiltskin thought, recognizing the winged lion emblem on the banners.
The king.

But what, she wondered, would the king want with a miller's daughter? Surely the king had his own miller to grind flour.

Hiding behind a tree, Rumpelstiltskin watched as the unfortunate Luella was dragged from the coach and carried over the shoulder of one of the king's men into the castle. What had she done, Rumpelstiltskin wondered, to be arrested by the king and imprisoned in his dungeon?

But Luella wasn't brought to the dungeon. Rumpelstiltskin could hear her continuing to wail and cry as she was brought into the castle. And the cries finally came to rest in a tower on the west end of the castle.

Rumpelstiltskin saw the shutters of that room fly open, and the miller's daughter stood framed in the window as she looked up, down, and around—but the window was much, much too high up for the girl to escape that way.

Rumpelstiltskin waited for the evening dark. Then, using one of her witch's tricks, she scaled up the side of the castle wall and into the tower room.

For some reason, the room was full of straw, bale after bale of it, piled up against the walls and each other. The only free space was in the middle of the room, where someone had set up a spinning wheel. Lying on the floor beside the spinning wheel, all cried out, was the miller's daughter.

Rumpelstiltskin called in through the window, "Luella. What's happened? What's going on?" Her voice was dry and creaky from not having spoken to anyone in at least three or four years.

Luella had been lying on the floor, her face buried in her arms. Now she hastily sat up. "Who are you, little man?" she demanded. "How do you know my name?"

Little man?

Rumpelstiltskin could easily have answered, "I heard your father call out after you," but she was annoyed that this young snip of a girl mistook her for a man. So she answered, "I know things." She was even more annoyed now that she had a closer look at Luella. Despite the red and puffy eyes, the poor clothes, and the straw in her hair, Luella was a very pretty young woman. Exactly the kind of pretty young woman the men were
always
attracted to. Exactly the kind of pretty young woman who had been the cruelest to Rumpelstiltskin.

Oh,
Rumpelstiltskin thought to herself.
That's it.
Somehow the king had heard of the miller's daughter. News of beautiful women always seems to travel far and wide. No doubt he had convinced himself that he had to have her and...

But no. The straw and the spinning wheel didn't fit.

Rumpelstiltskin repeated, "What's happened? Why have you been brought"—she gestured around the room—"here?"

"My father," Luella said in a tone of hopelessness.

Rumpelstiltskin remembered him calling after her that he was sorry.

Luella continued, "He told the king I could spin straw into gold."

"Why?" Rumpelstiltskin asked. "
Why
would your father say such a thing?"

"Obviously he wanted to impress the king," Luella said in a what-kind-of-fool-are-you? tone.

"Obviously it worked," Rumpelstiltskin snapped right back at her. "Well, all right, I was just wondering. Best of luck to you." She nodded and started to back out the window.

"Wait!" Luella cried. "Little man!"

"Don't call me that," Rumpelstiltskin said. "I'm not a little man." But she waited.

"Oh!" Luella said. "I'm sorry. Truly." She scrambled to her feet and rushed to Rumpelstiltskin's side. "Can you help me? Can you get me out of here?"

"Can you climb?" Rumpelstiltskin asked.

Luella looked out the window and swayed dizzily. "Ooooh, it's even worse in the dark." Luella sank to her knees, and Rumpelstiltskin
did
feel sorry for her. A bit. "He's going to chop my head off," Luella said softly. "The king. He said if I didn't spin this straw into gold by morning, he'd have my head."

"Nonsense," Rumpelstiltskin said. "That wouldn't get him any gold. Surely it was just a threat."

"Still..." Luella's sigh indicated that she fully expected to die.

Rumpelstiltskin sighed, too. This girl was just the kind of beauty who always got everything her way, and it was about time she learned a lesson.

But then Rumpelstiltskin sighed again. Getting one's head chopped off was a pretty drastic lesson.

"All right, all right," she said. "I'll spin the straw into gold for you."

"Oh, can you? Will you?" Luella said, jumping to her feet.

Beautiful girls,
Rumpelstiltskin thought,
ALWAYS get their own way.
So she said, "If you pay me."

"Oh, certainly," Luella said. She pulled a ring off her finger, a golden ring of the type that boys sometimes give girls to show their friendship. She probably had a dozen more in a drawer at home.

"Oh, a ring!" Rumpelstiltskin muttered. "How useful." But she guessed the king would not be satisfied with one night's gold. It apparently hadn't occurred to Luella to wonder why he should settle for one room of gold if he could have one every night.
Maybe,
Rumpelstiltskin thought,
maybe this can develop into something that would finally benefit ME.
She pulled up the stool with which Luella had been provided and began spinning.

By dawn, she had spun all the straw into gold.

"Thank you, thank you, lit—" Luella caught herself before she finished saying "little man." Instead she finished, more calmly, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Rumpelstiltskin said, and she bowed and she left, climbing out the window and down the wall. She scurried across the courtyard before the servants were up and about, and she hid in the woods until nightfall.

Once it was dark, she saw that there was no light in the tower room where Luella had been the night before. The king, Rumpelstiltskin would have been willing to bet, was getting greedy.

Traveling from shadow to shadow, Rumpelstiltskin made her way around the outside of the castle, paying special attention to the high-up windows. Sure enough, she found one, in the south tower, that had a light and from which came the sound of someone crying softly.

Rumpelstiltskin scaled the wall and looked in through the crack in the shutters. There was Luella, in a bigger room filled with more straw than before. If Luella had been watching the night before, she might have picked up some of Rumpelstiltskin's techniques.
But that's just like a beautiful woman,
Rumpelstiltskin thought,
waiting for someone else to do it for her.

Rumpelstiltskin tapped on the shutter, and—to give her credit—Luella seemed to realize immediately who it had to be. She came over and threw open the shutters. "Oh, it's you, lit—It's you. Thank goodness!" She gave the charming smile which no doubt had melted the hearts of all the village youths.

Rumpelstiltskin only said, "More straw."

Luella gestured to indicate the whole huge room. "As you see." But she was not nearly as upset as she'd been the previous night. She was already counting on being rescued.

"What will you give me," Rumpelstiltskin asked, "to spin
this
straw into gold?"

"This locket?" Luella said. She unfastened the chain from around her neck and held the heart-shaped locket up for Rumpelstiltskin to see.

Rumpelstiltskin opened it and saw a tiny painted portrait of a young man. Luella released the chain so that the locket rested in Rumpelstiltskin's hand.

So once again Rumpelstiltskin spent the night spinning straw into gold, and once again she was finished just before dawn, and Luella thanked her, and Rumpelstiltskin left through the window. And once again she waited.

The third night Rumpelstiltskin found Luella not in a tower room at all, but in the great ballroom. This time Luella had thought beforehand and had opened the shutter herself, so that Rumpelstiltskin could find her.

When Rumpelstiltskin came in through the window, there was barely enough room to step without tripping over all those bales of straw. Still, she saw that Luella hadn't been crying at all.
Presumptuous,
she thought. But that wasn't it, or at least not all of it.

"The king," Luella said, smugly and proud of herself, "has said he will marry me."

Rumpelstiltskin asked, "And what have
you
said to
the king?
"

Luella had to pause to work this out. "Why, I said yes, of course."

"Of course," Rumpelstiltskin said. "On account of his courting you so sweetly." She glanced around at all that straw and decided that Luella was free to make her own choices. "So you won't be needing me." She started to back up to go out the window.

Luella took hold of her arm. "Oh, but I do. One more time. The king said that if I spun this roomful of straw into gold, he'd have more gold than any man had a right to.

That,
Rumpelstiltskin thought,
never stopped anyone from
wanting more.
But all she said was, "What will you give me for doing this for you?"

"Whatever you want," Luella said.

"
Whatever I want?
" Rumpelstiltskin repeated, remembering for the first time in years that long-ago dream, the only thing she had ever wanted: a child to love her. She tried to shake the ridiculous notion out of her head.