The mirror misted over, leaving only grey.
I was troubled. It seemed the green-eyed girl might be coming not to my rescue but to her husband’s. And if she was climbing the glass mountain, that meant the beautiful man was here. Here, but under a curse only she could break. If he was the Prince of the Far Isles, how could he marry me? He had called the green-eyed girl Wife.
I thought again about the storeroom, the guards outside the walled garden, my mother’s orders that I was not to stray. I thought about the blue-clad servant. I remembered the other way in, through the cellars and along a narrow passageway. The green-eyed girl was not here and time was running short. Be brave, Hulde, I told myself, shivering. As I made my way to the cellars, what frightened me most was not the prospect of my mother’s wrath. It was the knowledge that to get to the heart of this, I would have to do what I had spent my whole life trying not to do. I would have to act as she would. I would have to be what I had most feared to see in the mirror: my mother’s daughter.
Outside, it was close to dusk. Down in the maze of passageways and chambers that ran into the heart of the mountain, lamps hung along the walls to light the way. Here and there servants perched on ladders to trim wicks and top up the oil. I tried not to remember the time my mother had lost her temper and kicked out a ladder from under a boy. She had escaped unhurt; he had not. I could still see him burning.
The entry to the storeroom ran off a guard post. In this small chamber three men were sitting over a jug of ale, but they leaped to their feet when I appeared. I did not need to do anything to make folk frightened. And yet, I had never spoken an unkind word to them. I had hardly spoken any word at all.
“I understand…” That voice would not do; it was too soft, too hesitant, not the sort of voice the green-eyed girl would use. “I understand you have someone staying in that storeroom.” That was better; a poor imitation of Mother’s imperious tone, but firm and strong nonetheless. I pointed to the narrow way that led to the storeroom door.
The men exchanged nervous glances. No doubt Mother had given them orders that I was not to be let in; not to be told anything. There was an assortment of bottles, large and small, and the remains of some bread and cheese on the table. I wondered if they had broken a rule and were expecting me to punish them.
“Yes, my lady,” said the oldest of them.
“That is an odd place to house a guest,” I said.
“The queen’s orders, my lady.” The man shifted his feet.
“Who is it?”
They looked at each other again; looked at the floor.
“Answer me!” I took a step toward them and saw them cringe, though I had no whip in my hand. I had not even clenched my fists. I realised I was as tall now as the tallest of the guards, and as strongly built. I was almost as tall as my mother. “Speak up!” My belly churned; I wanted to be sick. I hated this Hulde, the one who could make folk shrink back in terror. I wished she had never been born.
“A nobleman, my lady. A visitor.”
“Has this nobleman a name?”
“It’s the prince,” one of the others blurted out, earning himself a scowl from his superior. “The Prince of the Far Isles.”
“The chamber has been comfortably fitted out, my lady.” The head guard was pale. “This was… it was the prince’s choice.”
I was not as surprised as I might have been, having seen the green-eyed girl weeping over the man she called her husband. How could there be two such beautiful men in the world? I wanted to order the storeroom door opened, so I could confront the prince with the fact that he was already married. But perhaps the story in the mirror had been all my own imagining. And if it turned out the tale about ill luck and thirty days was true, charging in to confront the prince might set my whole future in jeopardy.
I thought could hear someone moving about in the storeroom, pacing to and fro with an odd, dragging kind of step. I wondered if my mother, in furnishing the place to befit my future husband, had ordered Rune’s drawings to be scratched off the wall. That was his room. It was my room. Within its stone walls I had wept long for him. I did not want anyone else in there. I did not want anyone touching what he had made for me.
“I imagine the prince is not confined there night and day,” I said, turning what I hoped was a fearsome glare on the head guard. “Yet I have not seen him at the supper table or in the garden. Does he receive visitors?”
“No visitors, my lady. We’re under orders to leave him alone during the day. We take in a breakfast tray before dawn and a supper tray in the evening, goblet of wine and all. Cooks send the food down.”
“The prince did not travel with his own servants?”
“No, my lady.”
“I thought I saw someone in the walled garden. A man in a blue shirt.”
That glance again, as if they were weighing up my mother’s anger against mine. “There’s a fellow,” the head guard said. “A mute. Does the dirty jobs. He goes in there to clean up sometimes.”
“A mute? What is that?” I had never heard the word.
“Fellow’s got no tongue, my lady. Can’t talk.” I thought he was going to say something more, but he thought better of it.
“I see.” What I saw was another part of Mother’s plan to keep the truth from me. Perhaps my future husband was already married. Perhaps he would think me so appalling to look upon that he would turn tail and flee at first sight—that would be why she was making me wear the wretched veil. Perhaps he was appalling to look upon, though I would not mind that very much, provided he was kind. Especially if he took me away from the glass mountain. Would he be strong enough to stand up to Mother? Was anyone?
“Thank you,” I said, and made my way back up to ground level. What now? Three days and three nights left, and I had no idea what to do.
The mirror had no answers. Its surface had turned to a sullen, flat grey with not the least sign of an image. Where was the green-eyed girl? Had she fallen to her doom half way up the mountain? Or was she still climbing? I wanted to rip the poxy bridal gown to shreds. I wanted to hurl the silver shoes out the window. I wanted to scream.
And then, when I had dismissed my maids after supper and was attempting to tidy my hair, there came a tap at my bedchamber door.
“I told you to go away!” I snarled as the comb caught in a tangle.
“My lady.”
The voice was not that of Marit or Lina. It was not my mother’s voice. It was… I did not dare turn around, for fear I should be only imagining her. I held up the mirror to show the doorway behind me, and there she was, looking right at me.
I wanted to leap up, to throw my arms around her, to confide my whole story. I wanted to ask every question at once. I had so longed for her to come, a friend, a companion, a confidante… But the look on her face halted me. That look told me what courage she had had to find in order to come near me. It told me how scared she was. Of me. Even she found me loathsome, though she was working hard to stay calm.
“Lady Hulde?” she said. “I am but newly arrived in this house. A maidservant. I have something here, a gift for you. I… I heard that you liked kittens.”
A kitten! I had longed for one since I was three years old. My hands ached to hold it. But I was no longer a child; I would soon be married. “I can’t have a pet,” I said. “I would kill it with my clumsy hands.”
“Oh, no!” the girl said, breaking all my mother’s rules by coming right into my bedchamber. She had a little bag with her, and now she set it down and lifted out something small and black. “You would not kill this kitten; it is very sturdy. If you wind up this little handle here, it runs about and chases a ball, and if you touch this little button here, it mews so sweetly. Its fur is very soft, and you can pet it all you like. When you are tired of it, just put it away somewhere. Let me show you.”