Crystal shoes
And a mare to ride on,
A milk white mare,
And silver woven in my hair.
Chapter One
HE night wind blew down from the rocky hills and swept the cobbled streets clean. It brushed the dust of the high road as smooth as velvet, as if no dogcart or carriage had ever traveled it; but now in the gray dawn the velvet dust was freshly marked with hoofprints. Wandering, aimless hoofprints that began at the inn behind the village and ended at the edge of the cobbles.
Following the hoofprints came a barefoot girl, her eyes still heavy with sleep. She might have been sixteen, but her hair was down like a child's, and her childish dress far too small—as if someone did not allow her to put on the airs of a grown woman. Her wrists and ankles protruded, and were goose-pimply in the cold.
She had ragtaggle hair the color of new hay, and her eyes were the blue of batchelor buttons. (Her stepsister Druscilla said blue eyes were ugly as dung.) She had a tip-tilted nose (Delilah scoffed at such a nose) and the curves beneath her dress were supple and fine. (Though the two stepsisters called her a baby, scrawny as a new-hatched chicken.) Her skimpy dress was faded and mended; and her feet were streaked with cinders from the hearth, for she had been stirring up the fire when she glanced out the kitchen window, saw the gate open, and knew the mare was gone.
The sun had not yet risen, nor the village stirred. Two geese hunkered after snails, and a chicken scratched in the cobbled gutter.
Thursey paused in the center of the village, shivered once with the chill, and felt the smooth cobbles with her toes. The predawn stillness quite pleased her.
It was a small, shabby village. The tinker's shop was cramped, the smithy's roof was badly in need of thatching, and the weaver's shop was no more than a drafty lean-to that sheltered the elbowing loom. Even the church was small and wanted paint. A drake sat atop the brewer's shutter, eyeing a row of ale kegs that stood outside the door.
The cobbles felt smooth and hard; she curled her toes around them as she walked and stared into the dark alleys that ran between the shops. It would do no good to call the mare, willful old thing! It seemed to Thursey that half her life was spent searching for the mare (the other half was spent scrubbing the hearth, cleaning the stable, cooking the meals for travelers — though she didn't begrudge that—and cleaning up the kitchen afterward), and she wondered why the old mare was always so tricky and obstinate. But I suppose, Thursey thought, if she always minded me I would not love her at all, for then she wouldn't be herself, now would she? The sun was beginning to send a bit of rosy glimmer over the hills when she spied the old mare's rump blocking the far end of the alley between the weaver's and the bakery shop; the mare was leaning over the weaver's fence stealing hay from the sheep. The sheep began to bleat up a terrible fuss, standing on their hind legs against the fence. The mare's wide rump filled the alley, and she had her tail tucked down stubbornly. At the other end of her, her ears were tight back, for she had seen Thursey—the old hoyden saw as well behind as in front—and was set to resist the pulls and coaxings she knew were coming.
The alley was so narrow Thursey had to squeeze flat and hold her breath to get between the wall and the mare's fat side. The culvert in the alley stank of night soil where the chamber pots had been dumped, and the bakery smelled of dough rising in the cool dark.
The mare smelled of sweat. The marks of yesterday's harness were still on her dirty white sides, for Thursey had not had time to wash her. Thursey slipped a bit of rope around the mare's neck, then leaned against the bony chest and pushed until the graceless animal began to back out reluctantly, showing her long yellow teeth in anger.
When they were free of the alley, Thursey hoisted her skirts and tucked them round, pulled herself up by the mare's mane, threw a leg over, and was astride. The mare shook her head menacingly and Thursey laughed at her. (If Druscilla and Delilah could see her, they would shriek with horror; girls and women did not ride astride and certainly did not show their legs!) Thursey grinned and kicked the old mare in the ribs, pushing her forward into a canter to avoid the jerky trot.
The mare galloped clumsily down the cobbles and onto the soft lane. Then, not wanting to go home, she drew to a walk and Thursey let her, for the morning was sweet with the smell of wet grass and turned earth. A cold freshness came from the hills, and the smell of watercress and mint blew up to them from the little stream. They went down to it and Thursey let the mare dredge up mouthfuls of watercress; it would give her hiccups, but she loved it so.
Thursey slipped off the mare and pulled her dress over her head. (If Druscilla and Delilah saw that, they would faint dead away. Her stepmother, Augusta, would beat her and call her a harlot.) She jumped into the cold stream, and the icy water shocked her to her toes. She bathed until she tingled, then she dressed and lay in the dewy grass and thought about the traveler who was staying at the inn overnight, and about the tale he had told. He was a fat little man, a merchant, and the story he told was wonderful, of a maid called Aschenputtel. Thursey, with no one to hear, began to make a song about it. She sang it to the mare, though the old white head never stopped pushing after watercress, and the mare's jaws never stopped chewing.
"Hazel tree, O see my plight,
Hazel tree, O will you bring,
Golden dress and crystal shoes,
A mare to ride on, a milk white mare,
And silver woven in my hair ..."
Suddenly she remembered the porridge. She leaped up in alarm, scrambled onto the mare's back, and kicked her so hard the mare galloped for home like the devil was after her.
The kitchen smelled of burning. Druscilla was fanning an apron at the smoke and swearing loudly. Delilah waved the scorched kettle helplessly. "Where have you been, you lazy baggage, look what a mess you've made!"
"The whole place smells of burning," screamed Druscilla.
Thursey said nothing. She began a second kettle of porridge and laid slabs of bacon on the grate. The stepsisters flounced out, bearing the bread and hot ale. "When you've dished up a proper breakfast," Druscilla flung over her shoulder, "see to the gentleman's horse!"
Thursey made a face at the door and whispered, "Fish eye!"
It was true, Druscilla had eyes like the eyes of a fish that had been fried with its head on: bulging. The name Druscilla meant soft-eyed, and Druscilla never forgot it. She believed herself to be beautiful and would stare at a young man (or any man) with what she thought was a warm and seductive gaze until he grew so uneasy, he would fidget and turn away from her. Then she would say to Delilah, "He's so shy of me, he cannot bear my beauty."
Thursey heated more ale and stirred the porridge.
Delilah's name meant temptress, and Thursey thought, She couldn't tempt a billy goat in rut. But Delilah, fat as a young stoat, wore the dresses of a temptress anyway, and if the men stared at such a quantity of bare skin it was only out of shock—or to avoid having to look higher, at Delilah's face. (Her face resembled a pig, certainly it did.) Where Delilah's face was fat, Druscilla's was as thin as a saw blade and just as fearsome, with the two fishy eyes staring out. And both had sat simpering at the traveler last night in the hall until Thursey, who was watching from the shadows, thought he might run screaming into the night. Poor little man, pudgy and bearded and harmless looking. Those two would go after anything that wore trousers, she thought indignantly. But there was another reason the stepsisters were so friendly to him. He had arrived in a fine carriage laden with wonders to trade, embroidered purses from Italy and jewelry from Spain, silver ladles and pewter trays, bracelets and pearl-encrusted girdles and ribbons of all the colors one could imagine. He carried cotton from Egypt and cloth of silk from Venice, dainties to intrigue any woman; he carried spices and scents and ermine tails, and the sisters, beside themselves with greed, nearly came to blows over him.