The Wilful Eye Page 6

  Moth hardly listened; a dreariness and dread had fallen over her.

  ‘You smell sad,’ said an old one-eyed dog reproachfully, when her father handed her down to the sunlit cobbles in the entrance yard of the palace. Dogs were very sensitive to the smell of emotions.

  ‘Here we are,’ her father said, smiling. ‘You look like a princess.’

  They passed into the shadows under a stone arch and came to a small courtyard where, at the top of a flight of stairs on either side of an enormous set of doors, two sentries stood in red and silver livery. They presented arms without looking at Moth and her father and bade them go in, but made no move to open the great doors. Moth and her father obeyed, and the doors opened easily and smoothly on an entrance hall with a marble floor so coldly beautiful that Moth could feel the chill through the thin soles of her embroidered slippers. There were ornate mirrors with bevelled edges and a faintly golden sheen hung at intervals all along both sides of the hall, but no windows. From the corner of her eyes Moth passed a hundred princesses in cream silk gowns, pale hair all built up into a buttery yellow tower over a fall of false curls, dotted with seed pearls and sprigs of white jasmine. All of them held the arm of their short, stout, dark-clad father: an army of doomed princesses.

  At the end of the hall of mirrors was another set of doors, smaller and inset exquisitely with a multitude of tiny enamelled blue tiles and decorated with gold leaf. There were two servants standing before them who swept open the doors as father and daughter entered an enormous red salon. A page ran ahead to announce their coming.

  ‘The audience chamber,’ murmured Moth’s father. ‘See all the gold touches and the alabaster and lapis lazuli? One wall alone would cost more than our farm makes in ten years.’ His voice was full of admiration. He pointed out several special features, and failed to notice that, other than the shining mosaic panels, the long room was the colour of blood. Here, too, there were no windows. The chamber was lit by banks of fat white candles.

  They came into a smaller audience chamber and this too was red, though there were no animal trophies on the wall. The throne was black, and the king sat upon it looking down at them. He was very like his statue, with the same handsome face and beaked nose, but he was thinner and taller, his narrowness accentuated by the austere black clothes he wore. His eyes were hooded as she had been told, so that he looked out from the shadows with glimmering intent. Unlike the statue he wore not a chain nor ring nor bauble. He was all darkness.

  ‘Here is my daughter Moth, your majesty,’ said her father. His voice sounded small in that room, as if it was designed somehow to swallow sound and reduce it.

  ‘Moth? What sort of name is that?’ asked the king in a drawling languid voice. His eyes dwelt momentarily on Moth, but only as a hand would rest on a shelf. They did not see her, she felt, and knew that all of her mother’s finery and efforts were wasted. This was not a man who cared for beauty, at least not the beauty of a woman. Was it possible he was a man who loved other men? She had never heard a whisper that the king was such a one, yet neither had she heard he was a man who lusted after women either. Indeed he never left his palace save to hunt. There had been a princess who visited once, from across the sea, but Moth did not know whether she had come to offer friendship or to be a bride. She had not stayed long.

  Her father was explaining the significance of her name, telling how, as a baby, she had reached out to the candle and had burned herself before he could draw it away. The king listened, his lips curved in a simulacrum of a smile. Her father stammered to a halt. He was very pale and blinked too much.

  At last the king looked at her properly. His eyes crawled over her face, her breasts, her belly and thighs. It felt as if Camber were running his hard hands over her, pressing and pinching and greedy for more. Those eyes watched to see what she would do. She tried to think what was best. He was the king after all, with the power of life and death. She thought of her mother’s advice. If she played a foolish doll, would he merely torment her then let her go? She tried to smile but it twisted on her face.

  ‘So, you would burn to have what you desire, little Moth?’ asked the king in a suggestive way that made Moth’s flesh creep. ‘Perhaps I will find out. What a pretty sight you would make, all whiteness and flame.’

  He rose with supple grace and offered his long white fingers. She put her hand into his. His grip was icy cold.

  Moth turned to her father. He looked old and frightened. His mouth twitched and she, fearing what he would confess in sudden remorse and belated courage, and knowing no confession would keep the king from his pleasure, said, ‘Goodbye father. You do not need to wait for me.’ She kept her voice serene and there was a flash of wild hope in his eyes.

  ‘My dearest daughter,’ he said tremulously. ‘Your majesty, I give my greatest treasure into your keeping.’

  The king said suavely, ‘Be assured that I will cherish your treasure even as you have done, Master Miller. And if your daughter does what I ask of her, she will have her reward.’ He was looking at Moth, who stayed resolutely silent as she watched her father leave. The terror nipping at his heels would soon give way to self-congratulation, she knew. He would tell himself that his daughter would wed a king, that she had flown very high, his little moth. And if she did not return, he would learn not to think of her.

  The king led her down a hall behind his throne to a small painted chamber. Here at last was a window, though it was very high and she could see only the sky through it, darkening as the day drew to a close. A page who had gone before them hastened here and there lighting candles from one he had carried with him.

  The king glanced at the window as if to let her know that he had seen her eyes fly there first, betraying her. A dark hilarity bloomed in his own eyes. ‘Your wings will not save you, little Moth,’ he said. ‘See there,’ he gestured with his free hand to an alcove against the far wall where a spinning wheel, a three-legged stool and three bales of straw stood, ‘there is your freedom, if your magic will allow you to spin the straw to gold thread. If not, then you will forfeit your life.’

  Moth could not speak.

  The king released her hand and turned to face her. Reaching out to put his fingers against her lips he pried them open. He forced her teeth apart and touched her tongue with his forefinger and all the while his eager eyes bored into her. There was a salty bitterness to his skin. He felt the thickness of her tongue with his thumb and forefinger as Moth tried not to gag, tried not to feel.

  The king took his fingers from her mouth and looked at them for a moment before he said, ‘Until dawn, little Moth, then we will see what we will see.’

  He left and she heard the sound of a key turning in a lock. Moth sat down on the couch. The smell of straw was sweet and reminded her painfully of the barn and of Lavender, to whom she had forgotten to bid farewell. She thought with helpless love of her foolish pompous father and silly frivolous mother, of dear old Dougal and his bees. Her eyes took in the room more explicitly. There was a bed and a couch and a table; there was an embroidered chair drawn up to the table, tapestries on the wall and a tall mother-of-pearl screen on clawed feet beside a large trunk. In the hearth a neat fire had been lit and before it, stretched out and midnight black, was an animal pelt. It was the skin of a panther she saw with a little shock, the head still left grotesquely attached to it. Moth went to the pelt and knelt to touch the head in pity and shame and her tears fell into its lustrous fur.

  ‘This room has seen many tears,’ whispered the panther. ‘But never were they shed for me before.’

  Moth had never heard a dead animal speak before. She saw then that the beast’s eyes were open and they were looking at her.

  ‘My tears are no help to either of us, I am afraid,’ she said.

  But the panther whispered, ‘Your tears are full of compassion. Such tears have great value.’

  ‘Are they magic? Will they turn straw to gold?’ Moth asked. Then when the panther did not answer, she asked, ‘How
did you come here?’

  ‘I dreamed of the sea. That is not such a rare thing, for those of us who dwell in the Mountain Kingdom can travel in our dreams. That is how our magic manifests. But I made the mistake of leaving my wife and my son to seek out my dream in the real world. So did I enter the Middle Kingdom where all magic is bent to serve its king. He caught me and, after a long and painful time, he let my body die, but he chained my spirit to it. Now I have magic enough only to be heard by one who will hear me.’

  ‘And I have magic enough only to hear you,’ Moth said sadly. ‘Yet I am glad not to be alone, for I am very frightened.’ She laid her head against the head of the panther, imagining it prowling the snowy mountains as in her dream, lithe and deadly. Better to die at the claws of the panther than to die for the wicked pleasures of a corrupt king, she thought. If only it could rise up and kill her. She saw that the high window had gone dark now, for night had fallen. She wept, thinking of her own bed, in which she would never again sleep, but suddenly a little stunted man with a hump appeared on the hearth. He had the proportions of a grotesque boy and one eye was half-closed by the distortions of his face so that he seemed to leer at her from under his bulging brow.

  ‘Who are you?’ Moth asked in astonishment.

  ‘I keep my name for myself,’ the little man answered. ‘Why were you crying so bitterly just now?’

  ‘I am crying because your master the king has bidden me spin that straw to gold by dawn and if I cannot do it, my life will be forfeit. But I have no magic.’

  The small man gave her a sly look. ‘I am my own master. I could do what the king has bidden you do, but why should I?’

  ‘Out of kindness and because you can,’ said Moth.

  ‘It will cost me to give you what you want and so it should cost you, too. What will you pay me if I spin the bales of straw to gold thread?’

  ‘I have no coin,’ Moth said, certain she was dreaming.

  ‘I will have the ring you wear,’ said the little man.

  It was her mother’s rose gold ring, given to her on her tenth birthday and lent to Moth for this occasion. It was precious to Moth, but she thought her mother would rather a daughter than a ring so she slipped it off and offered it readily to the little man.

  ‘You must not trust me until I have done what you ask,’ he said and gave her a malevolent smile before going hippity hop across to the spinning wheel in the alcove, where he climbed up onto a stool and began to work. The spindle whirred as he fed in straw and very soon the bobbin was filled with shining gold thread. Moth closely watched as he filled the next bobbin, but the transformation from straw to gold eluded her eye. In two hours, all of the straw had been spun into gold. The little man hopped down and put out his hand. Moth laid the ring on it and would have made a little speech to express her gratitude but he vanished without so much as a grunt.

  ‘Well,’ said Moth. She turned to look at the bobbins, still half-thinking she must be dreaming despite pinching herself hard several times. She did it once again for good measure, but the bobbins of golden thread remained.

  The king looked at the thread shining softly in the morning sunlight, his face expressionless. Moth was careful to affect a look of grave deference and show no sign of triumph or relief, for she felt a violence raging in him. Finally he turned to her. ‘Clever little Moth to have eluded the flame,’ he said with a viciousness that took her breath away. Suddenly his eyes were alight with glee and she wondered if he was mad.

  ‘I have done what you asked and I would like to go home to my parents now, your majesty,’ she said.

  The king wagged a long sallow finger at her. ‘That’s not how it works, little Moth. Don’t you know that already? Didn’t your mother tell you any stories ? Things never go in ones when it comes to magic. Tonight you shall have your second task. Until then, you may stay here. I must go now to play at being king, but before I go, little Moth, kiss me. I would feel the desperate flutter of your wings.’

  Moth felt she would rather kiss a piece of rotten meat, but she forced herself not to recoil as the king stepped forward and pressed his mouth to hers. Unlike his hands, his lips were hot. She trembled, but he did not violate her. He stepped back and though his eyes glowed with lust, he said softly, ‘All in good time. Pleasure delayed is deeper and darker. Have you ever heard that saying out there on your farm where you walk barefoot in cow dung and chew on a straw?’ He gave her a bright curious look as if for a moment he wondered who she was and what she did when he was not terrorising her.

  ‘What would you have me do until night, your majesty?’ asked Moth woodenly.

  ‘Why, you will eat and drink and lie abed here and contemplate your future.’

  After the king had gone out and locked the door behind him, Moth went to the panther pelt, but its eyes were lifeless as jet beads. Had she imagined it talking to her, she wondered. A servant brought some food and she ate and then later, water and a bath were brought, and perfumed oils. Moth splashed her face and washed her feet and hands but she would not undress here. She lay for a time on the bed, but it was too soft and made her back ache. In the middle of the afternoon, she was sitting on the footstool gazing into the fire and wondering what her task might be that night, thinking of the strange little man who had appeared. A trail of servants entered carrying more bales of straw, until thirty were lined up along the wall and the room smelled like a barn.

  The king came just before dusk.

  ‘Tonight, your task is to weave that into gold, clever little spinner, but mind you have it done by dawn.’ The king came over to her and stood close enough that she had to crane her neck to look at him. His eyes were greedy, eating up the dismay she could not hide.

  ‘I will try,’ she said, for she must say something.

  ‘Little Moth, you fly ever closer to the flame,’ he whispered. Moth said nothing but it seemed to her that she saw tiny flames flickering in his black eyes.

  After the king had gone out again, she paced back and forth, willing the little man to come again, but just as the sun was setting the panther opened its eyes. She was so glad to hear it that she wept as she told it what she must do.

  ‘This is very strange. I saw no one enter but the king, but then I can only see and hear for the brief time when night and day overlap. Your little man must have come outside that time. But what does he want with a golden finger ring if he can spin straw into gold? And what sort of creature is he that appears here without fear of the king? If he heard you weeping, he must have been listening somehow. Maybe he lives in the walls. There are such creatures in the Mountain Kingdom.’

  Moth did not know. ‘He must be magic,’ she said.

  ‘If he spins gold out of straw, he must work magic. One can be magic or do magic, but never both.’

  ‘If only he will come,’ Moth said.

  ‘Shall I tell you what I dreamed about to pass the time?’ asked the panther. Moth nodded, brushing a scatter of tears from her cheeks. ‘I dreamed of the mountains. Then I saw my son. He has been seeking me for long years. I did not know that. He was a just a cub when I was taken, yet there is no mistaking who he is. I had closed my eyes to my dreams until you came and wept for me and heard me speak. It was your magic that brought me back to myself. ’

  Moth was startled. ‘I did not know I had any magic. I thought it a queer knack I have of hearing what other people cannot hear. I keep it hidden because people in the Middle Kingdom don’t like things that are out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Perhaps that is why the king can so easily draw all that is extraordinary to himself. The people’s fear of such things would drive them towards him. I doubt your father’s boasting about you or even the ill will of the man Camber had much to do with your coming here.’

  ‘What does he want with magical things since he has his own?’ Moth asked.

  ‘If one understood that, one might escape,’ said the panther bleakly.

  Moth was stricken. ‘Dear Panther, if the little man comes again, and s
pins the straw into gold, and I am freed, I will find some way to take you with me. I swear it.’

  ‘I will not hold you to your vow,’ said the panther, ‘for I am already lost.’

  ‘I will take you and show you the sea,’ Moth said in her soft stubborn way. ‘Or if you wish, I will carry you to the border of the Mountain Kingdom and find your son.’

  ‘You have a good heart,’ said the panther, before his eyes went blank and sightless.

  Moth stroked his head for a little longer and then she glanced up to see that, once again, the window was full night. She gazed into the fire. It never seemed to need any more wood but there was scant warmth in it. Was it magical? she wondered. What did the king do with all the magic he drew to him? How did he use it? What did he truly want of her? Not gold thread if he had magic of his own. Then she looked at the bales of straw and all her fortitude crumbled into despair. There was so much of it! She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.

  There was a flash of ruby light and the little man stood on the hearth. She scrambled to her feet, noticing that one of his eyes was black and the other a muddy brown, and there were dirty tufts of hair on his earlobes.

  ‘Oh I am so glad you have come,’ she said. ‘Will you help me again? There is even more straw and it must all be spun by dawn.’

  The little man looked at the piled-up bales and gave her a cocky smile. ‘Oh I can do anything you can imagine, but if I spin all of this into gold, what will you give me?’

  ‘My locket,’ she said at once, and she took it off and held it up to show him how the tiny ruby glinted. But when she opened it and made to remove the tiny miniature of her grandparents, he stopped her. ‘I want the picture as well, and those pearls in your hair and ears.’

  Moth swallowed hard, because the picture of her grandparents was irreplaceable, and yet was not life more precious than a memory of life, even if those remembered were beloved? Thinking thus, she slowly took out the handful of seed pearls and the matching earbobs, and with the locket, gave them to the little man.