‘So, I had no choice but to leave the way open, knowing that eventually you would be drawn through it. And now here you are. Willow and her protector and champion, the Inquisitor.’
‘What happened to Willow’s mother, Charledine?’ asked the policeman.
The witch gave him a glimmering look, then she sighed and turned her gaze to me. ‘Your mother did not tell Rose what was happening. She had prepared her in a way, by filling her head with stories of towers and princesses and sacrifice. She had told Rose that a special destiny awaited her. She was to go to faerie and there face a wicked witch, and of course there was to be a prince.
‘But as she prepared to go, Rose turned back to her mother and said, “I love Willow and I don’t mind. Will you tell her that?” And Charledine saw then that Rose knew everything. It was not her faerie blood but her innocence that made her so wise. Rose knew that she had been born to save you. If she had cursed your mother and wept and begged to be spared, Charledine would not have been moved, but Rose gave herself willingly, because of her love for you.
‘I do not know what was in Charledine’s heart after Rose left her. Perhaps, at the very last, she loved the child, or maybe Rose’s words made her realise how you would feel when your beloved sister vanished, and she could not face it. She may even have feared that you would know what she had done, just as Rose did. Or maybe it is simply that, having freed you, she did not wish to go on without her prince, and so she lay down and gave up her spirit to the land.’
There was a long silence, and I felt the tears streaming down my face. I did not know if I wept more for my mother’s betrayal and death or for Rose’s sacrifice.
‘And Rose?’ asked the policeman.
But Griselda entered the room, this time with dessert. She put the small, eggshell-thin chocolate dishes of tiny forest strawberries in front of us, and I ate without tasting, certain the witch would say no more until the food was finished. Only as I put the last strawberry to my mouth did I notice the tips of my fingers were stained red. Something occurred to me. ‘In stories, when you eat a person’s food, you are in their power.’ There was a dull accusation in my voice.
‘My dear Willow, you were in my power from the moment you stepped into this land, for I am its queen,’ said the witch. She sighed a little and made an impatient gesture for Griselda to clear the table. In her haste to obey, the old woman dropped several of the strawberries, which rolled under the table. Seeing the poor old thing’s distress, I slipped from my seat to help her. When I put the berries into her gnarled hands, she gave me a toothless smile.
‘Your sister was kind too,’ she whispered, and scuttled out.
I turned to see Madame Torquemada watching me. She nodded. ‘Your sister came here, of course. Godred led her here. He took her the long way, for the tests. Her visit to me was the next-to-last test, and in being kind to my dear faithful Griselda, Rose showed her sweetness of nature. There remains only one test and it is the most dangerous. If she succeeds in it, she will become queen in my place. If she fails, she will be eaten by a dragon.’
‘I will take her place,’ I said at once.
Madam Torquemada laughed. ‘I have seen the passing of a thousand princesses and I have waited a thousand years for a worthy successor, though not always impatiently.’ She gave a secretive and rather sensuous smile, and glanced at the empty setting. Then her expression became weary and I saw that the red in her hair was now a mere burnish of gold on silver. ‘I will not release your sister, for none has ever come so close to winning my place.’
‘What is the test?’ asked the policeman.
The witch gave him her sharp-toothed smile. ‘She must make the queen’s choice, and not the choice of a princess.’
5.
The tower lay three hills further on from the hut, which had become a palace from the inside out, so that we only saw its true magnificence when we were departing. Madame Torquemada’s hair had reddened again, and she rode elegantly side-saddle on a beautiful horse, white as sugar, which had taken a liking to the policeman and kept nibbling his ear. Once, it nipped him, drawing blood, but he only mopped it with his handkerchief, saying the love of a horse was a terrible thing. The witch laughed a good deal at that, for some obscure reason. She had offered us horses to ride as well, but I had never ridden and the policeman said he needed to walk off his dinner of the previous night.
So we walked alongside the slow, high-stepping horse, the policeman keeping a light hold of my arm, though he no longer needed it.
‘I was wondering,’ I said, when we stopped beside a stream to let the horse drink, ‘why Mama was so afraid to have me come here if you meant me no harm.’
‘There are two parts to the answer,’ said the witch queen. ‘First, being a princess, Charledine did not ask herself what I meant to do with the child. She assumed the worst without even deciding what the worse would be. She was unable to imagine that I might have some less wicked purpose for the child than a mother who was prepared to give it up in order to ensure love at first sight. The second part to the answer is that of course I mean harm. Is not the bestowing of a world the greatest harm I could do to your sister? For I will be giving her pomp and ceremony and back-breaking, heart-wrenching, endless responsibility for all who dwell here, for all the princes and princesses who will see her as a witch just as they see me as a witch, and misjudge and malign and fear her. Indeed, you ought to wish she will fail her final test. It would be a kinder fate to be eaten by a dragon.’ She glanced up at the sun and nodded. ‘Let us make haste now, for we must reach the tower before he does.’
‘He?’ I echoed.
‘The prince,’ said the witch.
Less than an hour later, we came to the green slope facing the tower. The witch dismounted and commanded Griselda, who was travelling with us in a little trap pulled by a doe-eyed donkey, to climb down. I stood looking at the tower, which was a narrow grey tube of stone rising high to a needle-point shingled roof. There was no door and only a single window under the eave of the roof. Looking at the window, I thought I saw a flash of gold.
‘Rose,’ I murmured, and drew breath to shout, but the witch laid a hand on my arm.
‘She will not hear you,’ said a deep scratchy voice. I turned to find the great shaggy black bear I had seen with the witch. Godred apologised for his failure to return the previous night, saying things had taken longer than expected. I would have been frightened, but Godred had such a mild eye and a gentle manner that it was impossible to fear him. Besides all else, there was a good deal of grey about his muzzle and ears that made me realise he was quite old.
Madame Torquemada came to stand beside the bear, shading her eyes to look at the tower window, now where I saw clearly a white hand on the sill, and a skein of golden hair. ‘The princess looks for her prince. And here he comes,’ said the witch. She turned around. I turned too, and was stunned to see Silk hurrying across the hillside. His usual immaculate attire was shredded and his face scratched and bleeding. He carried a short sword in one hand and a mirror in the other, and, to my astonishment, my stepfather came stumbling along beside him, leaning on his arm.
‘Well, that is unexpected,’ murmured the witch.
‘Silk is not a prince,’ I said.
‘Not yet, but he has done better than any of the others, considering he came from the other world. And bringing the old man is very unexpected. Indeed, it makes me think he might even be worthy of her. Most young men can think only of possessing the princess. All of their sense and morality is contained within that quest, but not so this one. Of course he started out to rescue a child, but I made sure he learned she is no longer a child, for he must make his choices in the face of the knowledge that he is seeking a princess.’
‘What has happened to him?’ I asked.
The witch gave me a sharp-toothed, knowing smile that seemed to sneer at the secret fantasies I had once had of Silk. ‘He looks a bit the worse for wear because of the tests. Godred said he did quite well
. Just goes to show scholars are adaptable and intelligence serves as well as brawn,’ said Madame Torquemada, looking with teasing fondness at the bear, who nodded sagely.
‘He passed the last test only because of the old man’s blindness,’ said Godred.
‘He sees her,’ said the policeman as Silk ran past us, oblivious. His eyes were wild and passionate, but he stopped to help the older man when he stumbled. Then they were at the foot of the incline and he began to shout up to Rose.
‘They always do that,’ sighed Madame Torquemada. ‘Why do they never imagine I might be close enough to hear and come gnashing my teeth to murder the pair of them?’
‘She must have told him to be quiet,’ said the policeman, for now Silk had ceased shouting and was trying to climb the tower.
‘It’s glass, of course,’ murmured the witch.
Something was flung from the tower, a long golden rope of what looked like hair, that ran all the way down to Silk. He gave his sword to my stepfather and began to climb it.
‘But Rose does not have so much hair!’ I cried.
‘Not when you saw her. She would have been, what? Eight or so then? But time here runs differently than in your world. After all, she would hardly have been a fitting prize for a prince if she was a little girl with no bosom to bury his face in. A bosom is essential to a prince. But that is the beauty of her coming to me bosomless, as it were, for it meant I had more time to train her and influence her. And of course to encourage her to grow her hair. I never spent so much time with the other princesses. Such is the sweetness of her nature that it was impossible not to love her and hope for her more than I hoped for all the others.’ Madame Torquemada spoke without taking her eyes from the tower, riveted as the rest of us to Silk, slowly scaling the golden rope. ‘It is hair woven with silk thread. She always had a way with the enchanted silkworms, but I am afraid her skills at weaving are never going to be more than merely adequate. Still, you can’t have everything. The main thing is that it will hold his weight. Such a disappointment if he plummets to his death now.’
Silk had managed to get himself halfway up the tower, and the rope was holding firm. I told myself that it would have given way by now if it was going to. But even if the rope held, Silk was clearly growing tired and I knew the rope must be burning and blistering his soft scholar’s hands.
‘That is the worst bit,’ murmured Godred, and I noticed Madame Torquemada rest a hand on his neck.
‘He’s up,’ said the policeman. ‘But he left his sword on the ground and you can bet he will regret that.’
Madame Torquemada gave him a wicked look. Then she turned into a raven. One minute she was a striking, red-haired woman, and the next she was a gleaming black bird with blood-red eyes, launching itself into the air. I closed my mouth with difficulty.
‘I always hate it when she does that,’ grumbled Godred.
‘It is disconcerting,’ said the policeman.
‘There she goes,’ said Godred, as the raven swooped down through the window into the chamber.
‘What will happen?’ I asked the bear.
‘It depends, but mostly it is about choices. And about sacrifice. And love, of course. Right now you can be sure that the yo