Chapter Five
HEARD it in the brewer's," Augusta said. "The king has placed the Sword of Balkskak on a dais in the ballroom."
"I heard," Delilah simpered among clouds of dusting powder and perfume, "I heard they know who wielded it at Balkskak!"
"Why would they wait until now?" Augusta said with disdain.
"For drama!" Druscilla said haughtily. "So it can be announced at the ball. I wonder who ..." Her bulging eyes lit with selfish interest.
"It must be someone in the king's own company," Delilah ventured. "If it was a village lad, we'd have heard . . ."
"Knights have been riding in all week for the ball," Augusta reminded them. "Maybe they did just find out," she said in a rare fit of reasonableness. "Though," she added, "it's probably just a trumped-up story done for show, to make the ball more interesting. Get on with your dressing. Do you want to be late?"
Late? Thursey thought. They've been at the unguents and facials and footbaths ever since Easter services this morning. She finished the ironing, took up the comb, and began on Delilah's curls. Delilah's red satin stretched tightly, as she would have it, over her bulges, and the flesh that emerged from her low neckline was startling. At the other dressing table, Druscilla fastened on her pearls. Her hair, which she had done herself, was piled in an arrangement that resembled nothing Thursey could think of.
"And now," said Delilah as Thursey combed out the last curl, "now the red slippers, and that will top it all off."
But when Thursey had brought the slippers, Delilah screamed with rage, "There's a hole in the toe of one, and there's a hole in the heel of the other! A mouse!" she bellowed. "A mouse has been at my slippers!"
That mouse! thought Thursey. Some kind of magic that mouse is!
"Get another pair," commanded Augusta, bearing down on Thursey. "Get another pair at once!"
"But where?"
"The cobbler, stupid! Be off!"
"But it's Easter, his shop will be closed. He couldn't make shoes before the ball anyway, there isn't time."
"He must! Tell him he must. Now be off." Thursey pelted down the stairs, and Augusta's shout followed her, "Tell him by order of the King!"
Thursey nearly choked on that as she fled across the yard.
Delilah poked her head out the window, "No shoes," she yelled, "you little baggage, and there'll be no ball for you!" Thursey tore down the village street with her anger rising like a tide, to pound on the cobbler's door.
But when the cobbler came shuffling to unlock for her and had heard what she wanted, he only looked at her irritably. "I can't," he said, observing the chewed slippers. "I can't possibly, there simply isn't time."
"But what am I to do?"
"What about the monk at the inn? That old fellow can cobble—but no one can make a pair of slippers before the ball tonight."
"Could you make one slipper?"
"Well I guess ... he began hesitantly.
"Then if I could find Anwin—he left today, but a little donkey can't go so far—if I can find Anwin he could make the other! Oh, could you try?"
"I'll try," said the cobbler, and took up Delilah's old slipper for a pattern.
Off she went, round the cobbler's and down the street and round again on the dirt path kicking up streamers of dust and onto the old mare's back, hardly taking time to tie the halter round her head properly. Then out the gate and down the high road following the little donkey footprints (no other donkey in the kingdom had such tiny feet). Running full tilt, the old mare turned her head around twice to stare at Thursey, as surprised as you please.
When she saw Gillie on a knoll, she could only wave at him, though all the goats bleated, and Gillie shouted, "Thursey, Thursey, wait . . ." But she was gone, the wind catching at her hair.
On they went with the hoofprints always ahead of them. Oh, how far he had gone. The mare clattered through a dry stream and over a little hill and there was not a soul about. Thursey began to wonder about robbers. They pelted past the dark marsh and Thursey thought she caught the scent of roses once; then at last she saw Anwin beside a brook eating the bread and cheese she had packed for him earlier. She handed him the shoe and told him the story in one breath.
Anwin said nothing. He dug into his bag, pulled out his cobbler's tools, found a bit of red leather, and set to work.
"Oh Anwin," she whispered, "you can."
"I can try," he said. "I can only try."
By the time Thursey reached the village once more, dusk was falling, and she had met the first carriages on the road, the horses shining and the ladies glittering in their ball gowns. The old mare was done, sweating and blowing. Thursey jumped off her in front of the cobbler's shop and found him just finishing the slipper. She sped away with it, turned the mare into the stable yard, and pounded up the stairs with the slippers in her hand, then down again to rub the sweat from the mare and harness Magniloquence. "And be sure you polish the harness," Druscilla flung after her. She had received no thanks for the slippers. The three had only glared at her and wondered what took her so long. "You'll have to hurry to get the carriage ready," called Delilah.
"You'd better put some supper on," shouted Augusta. "And heat the ale."
"They won't serve any food at the palace until midnight," complained Delilah. "These slippers are awfully tight, they hurt my toes."
When the carriage was ready and the old mare had been rubbed down so she wouldn't take cold, Thursey went into the kitchen thinking, Cold lamb and bread should be enough. And ale.
And there they were, Delilah's fat figure in red, Druscilla's thin one in gold, and Augusta a square black box. The doors to Thursey's bed had been flung open and they were crowded around it. The mattress was turned back, and the beautiful gown lay across it.
"Where did she get it?" screamed Delilah.
"You can't let her wear it!" cried Druscilla.
Their three glares of hatred turned full upon Thursey.
"No matter where she got it," said Augusta, picking up the dress, "she will never wear it." She held it up before her so the colors glowed, smiled for a long moment, and then she ripped it in two down the middle.
Then she ripped out the little sleeves.
Then she tore each of the pieces in half, and in half again, and the threads, as they parted, snagged and pulled across the cloth—it seemed Augusta's passion would leave nothing at all, not a remnant. When she had spent herself at last, she flung the tangle onto the floor and took herself out, her daughters marching haughtily behind her.
They mounted into the carriage behind Magniloquence, forgetting their supper in their wrath, and trotted down the lane to the high road, heads erect and uncompromising, and up the high road toward the palace.
Thursey went out finally to the old mare, her eyes swollen from weeping. The poor dress was beyond repair, and she could only go to the mare for comfort. For spirit comfort and for creature comfort, for someone gentle to be alone with, this loneliest of nights.
But the mare was gone.
Her stepsisters had left the gate open. Oh, how cruel and horrible they were! Thursey would have dissolved into weeping again, but this turn of events made her so mad that she pounded the fence with her fist, then started out after the mare.
She had left the torn dress on her bed, closing the doors across it and unable to look again. She felt so bad for Gillie. She didn't know what she would say to him, it was as if she had betrayed a sacred trust that he had put in her. He had given her a gift that must have cost him something very dear, and she had let it be destroyed.
She searched and searched among the hoofprints on the high road, but so many horses had gone along it that she had to walk a long way, first in one direction, then in the other, before she could locate the familiar broken-hooved trail. Then she hurried along it, alone, up the high road.