‘Where am I to go?’ the boy asked, in a small, husky voice.
‘To the court. I’ve secured a place for you there. You’re from a good family. Do you think I’d let you go if it was to anywhere else?’
‘Have you been arranging this these last few days?’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘Yes,’ Skimblaze said.
Jadrin climbed the curling, creaking stairs to the room he called his own. At the summit of the house, it had the smallest windows, all of ruby glass. It also felt near to the heart of the mill. Lying in bed at night, Jadrin could sense the great wooden machinery, turning, turning. The wall nearest to it, where he kept his bed, was always warm. Jadrin opened the window and gazed mournfully out over his beloved countryside. Half-heartedly, he threw a few belongings into a bag and then sat down on his bed, head in hands. He had no idea why his father should suddenly force such a thing on him, but he couldn’t help suspecting the reason behind it might be connected with his father’s weaknesses for good liquor and gambling for high stakes. He felt uncharitable thinking that, but the idea would not leave him. Jadrin shuddered. Inexperienced he was, and young, but as he watched the rising moon appear in the velvet sky beyond his window, as the wood cooled and creaked in the late evening, you could see, by looking at his eyes, that Jadrin would not be totally helpless out there in the unknown world.
In the morning, accompanied by Tufkin, Jadrin bid a mournful farewell to Amberina. As he leaned down from his horse, she placed a garland of woodland flowers about his neck, and offered him a velvet bag. ‘Here is half of the quartz we found,’ said she. ‘I have the other. Guard it well, my brother, for it may help you in the world.’
Jadrin smiled and kissed the top of her dark head, already feeling a hundred years older than she. Then he lifted his horse’s head with a swift command and glanced coldly at the mill-house door before cantering quickly off towards the west, Tufkin behind him.
In the doorway, Skimblaze drained the glass he held, grimaced, went back into the house and slammed the door behind him.
Amberina looked in at the kitchen window ‘Why are you doing this father?’ she asked.
Skimblaze sat upright in his chair, reached across the table for another mug of wine. ‘You have magic, both of you,’ he said, as if in explanation. ‘Skills beyond the mortal man. I’m right. I know I’m right...’
Amberina shut the window without another word and went down to the river-pool. In the still, morning water, she could see an image of Jadrin riding towards Ashbrilim, his head held high like a prince.
The palace of the king stood upon a high hill at the heart of Ashbrilim. Jadrin and Tufkin rode right up to the palace gate, which were six times the height of a man, where Tufkin presented the letter he carried from Skimblaze. Eyeing Jadrin stonily, the guards let them pass through.
Rarely having left his country home, Jadrin was amazed by the sights he beheld. Such opulence! The noise overwhelmed him, the bustle, the smells. He caught sight of willowy figures in splendid clothes leaning over balconies above the yard they crossed. One or two fingers pointed; he heard a stifled laugh. It was late afternoon and the walls of all the courtyards were afire with blooming vines beginning to release their heady, evening scent into the air.
Tufkin paused to ask directions and dogs ran between the horses’ legs as they found their way into the stable yard. Jadrin looked around, wide-eyed, studying all the day’s-end tasks being completed in noisy joviality by the well-fed servants of the king.
A tall, gaunt man in dark, voluminous clothes ducked away from a forkful of yellow hay carelessly held aloft by a passing stable-boy, waving away the almost disrespectfully cheerful apology. Jadrin realised the gaunt man was heading in their direction.
‘You are the miller’s people?’ the man asked and with a nod, Tufkin handed him Skimblaze’s letter. The man smiled. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, looking up at Jadrin. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Galbion Floom, King Ashalan’s secretary.’
Jadrin responded politely. He and Tufkin dismounted and their horses were led away to the stables.
‘Now, boy, if you would follow me please,’ Floom instructed, indicating the way with his hand.
Jadrin looked around. Tufkin was hanging back. ‘Am I to go alone?’ Jadrin asked.
‘It is not my place to follow,’ Tufkin replied edgily, stepping backwards. ‘I’ll just take a tankard of ale in the servants’ quarters.’
Shrugging, Jadrin curled his hand more tightly around the velvet bag that hung from his neck on a cord, and followed the gaunt man through a dark doorway.
In silence they began to climb a winding staircase. They climbed and climbed. Soon, it seemed, the bustle of the courtyard was left far behind and they had entered a sleeping, ensorcelled place, deep in the core of the palace. Jadrin’s guide did not speak. They walked down long, dusty corridors, silent, but lit by bars of golden evening sunlight, fighting its way through dusty glass. More stairs.
‘Is it much farther sir?’ Jadrin asked, wondering what desolate spot a miller’s son (no matter how affluent) would be given in the palace of a king.
‘No, my boy. We are here.’
Before them was an ancient, iron-studded door. Galbion Floom struggled with the heavy metal latch. No-one has come here for a while, Jadrin thought with a not altogether unpleasant thrill of dread.
Floom had managed to open the door and was now fastidiously wiping his hands on a large handkerchief. Without a word, Jadrin walked past him and into the room beyond. He dropped his bag onto the floor and dust lazily raised itself and eddied round his feet. He was in a high-ceilinged chamber, a gloomy place. What windows existed were narrow and far above Jadrin’s head. Only a little of the evening sunlight came down onto the wooden floor, having to fight through shrouds of cobwebs and dust. ‘Well!’ Jadrin said, half amused, half aghast. In the shadows, he could see only a mean, narrow bed, a washstand and, of all things, a spinning-wheel. Whatever else the room might contain was hidden in the darkest corners, except for several neatly twined bales of straw, which had been placed just inside the door. Jadrin looked at these askance and said, ‘Well!’ again. Was this some kind of joke? Was he expected to bed down in straw like an animal?
‘Am I to live here?’ Jadrin asked, unable to hide the dismay from his voice.
‘For the time being.’
Jadrin shook his head. Dismay gave way to anger. Surely he could not be treated like this. His father’s animals lived in stables more comfortable and cleaner than this!
‘And are all your guests accommodated in rooms of this type?’ he couldn’t help asking.
There was a moment’s pause before Floom said, ‘You do know why you are here, of course?’
Jadrin looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t believe I do!’
‘You are Jadrin, the miller Skimblaze’s son?’
‘Yes.’
Floom stroked his chin. ‘And you are, as he claimed, something of a... wonder worker?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A magician,’ the man said irritably. ‘That was the term, I think.’
‘Term? Magician? I think you’d better explain!’ Jadrin, on the whole, was a stranger to anger. Now his indignation was tinged with fear. The gaunt man bowed, stiffly, smiling widely.
‘Oh, forgive me!’ he exclaimed. ‘It was understood your father would have explained all this to you; the... er... circumstances of your being here.’
Jadrin remained silent, numb with the horror of betrayal.
‘Obviously not,’ Floom continued, with a sigh. He stepped over the threshold and pushed the door to a little. ‘Several nights ago your father was involved in a... little wager. He played the King in a game of dice, making outrageous claims concerning his luck, which sadly for him, proved to be unfounded. The stakes were high, boy. King Ashalan does not play for trinkets. Debts were incurred and subsequently, agreements reached. Your father had lost everything, even the mill itself. But Ashalan is not a harsh man
. They came to an arrangement between them. The agreement was that you should come to Ashbrilim to meet your father’s debts.’
‘He was drunk,’ Jadrin said bitterly.
Floom shrugged. ‘Wine had flowed, I believe. Don’t look so forlorn, boy. I must say, the first thing your father said about you is true; you are one of the loveliest creatures on God’s earth. The other, well, that remains to be seen doesn’t it!’
‘What do you mean?’ Jadrin cried. ‘What else did he say?’
‘No idea at all, my lad?’
Jadrin shook his head fiercely, sick with fear at what his drunken father might have come out with.
‘He thinks you can clear his debt for him. He says you have magical powers, so great, so potent, that you can even spin straw into gold!’
Jadrin could not stifle a surprised bark of laughter. ‘What!’
‘Use your magic, boy! Spin your father’s way out of debt, as he claims you can. Spin this, all this, to gold!’
With a barely caustic grin, Galbion Floom gestured eloquently at the straw by their feet.
To spin straw into gold? Jadrin was left alone, the door firmly locked behind him. How could his father do this to him? he wondered with helpless dismay. Was this the education he had been promised? Did Skimblaze really think his son was the possessor of supernatural powers? No, Jadrin decided. He suspected that Skimblaze had merely sent him to the king, hoping (perhaps sure?) that Ashalan would be content with his beauty alone. Amberina had been spared, perhaps, because of the fact she was younger than her brother. Surely, all this business with the straw and the spinning-wheel was some dark joke on Ashalan’s part, so that when Jadrin could not complete the task some other, more tangible, form of payment would be demanded? This much was obvious to Jadrin, who had little knowledge of the ways of men and their desires. The spinning-wheel stood in a diminishing pool of sunlight, its wheel gently rocking as if moved by an unseen hand. Jadrin put out his hand and touched it. He shook his head and sat down on the bed to wait.
Night fell. Nobody came to his door and silver fronds of moonlight came to replace those of the sinking sun, falling over the floor, over the skeletal form of the spinning-wheel, onto Jadrin’s bed. The boy sighed, stood up and walked around the room. In a corner, he found bread and cheese laid upon a low table, next to a jug of red wine. He found a lamp and a tinderbox. Lighting the lamp, he took some wine and began to eat the bread and cheese. For comfort, he removed the quartz Amberina had given him from its bag and stared at the sharp lilac points of it, the hollow in its centre that shivered with the brightest threads. Straw into gold indeed! he thought. No-one, nothing, can do that! Oh Amberina, if only you were here now!
Dismally, he breathed on the stone, thinking of Amberina prancing, colt-like, beside the Fleercut; free as freedom itself. He felt so alone. Straw into gold...
A shadow fell over him. Something obscured the moonlight from the window, something that also caused the lamplight to flicker and dim. Jadrin looked up.
‘Faithless boy! I can do that!’ said a voice.
Jadrin squinted at the cobwebby ledge. A spirit was crouching there, almost featureless within a smoky veil. It hopped from the window ledge to the floor, leaving a trail of sparkling dust in the air behind it. Jadrin had seen spirits before. He was not afraid.
‘You can spin straw into gold?’ He indicated the forlorn-looking spinning wheel across the room.
‘But of course... For a price.’
Jadrin inspected the quartz warily. Had his contemplation of it summoned the spirit? He knew the potential power of crystals. Obviously, this particular one possessed powers he and his sister had been unaware of. ‘A price. Such as?’
The spirit cavorted around in front of him for a moment, emitting blushes of colour that made Jadrin’s eyes ache. ‘Something precious,’ it said.
Jadrin held out the quartz. ‘This is all I have.’
The spirit glowed pink. ‘No! Something more precious that that!’
‘Name it!’
‘I want a kiss. A kiss from your warm, warm lips. A taste of life!’ The spirit chittered and glowed and spun until the whole room was lit up like a firework display.
‘Oh, is that all?’ Jadrin replied guardedly. He was well aware of how the very life could be sucked from a person under the guise of a kiss.
‘Just that. Nothing more. Oh, you think badly of me! You fear I will harm you! I won’t! I won’t!’ The spirit’s voice took on a sly tone. ‘The king will ask for more, believe me!’
Jadrin considered for a moment, looking from the quartz to the wavering form of the spirit. He felt he had little to lose. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Maybe, if you can do this thing, the king will be content with gold alone, and I can go home again. It will be a fine joke, in fact! Go ahead.’
‘After you sleep,’ the spirit said.
‘As you wish.’ Still suspicious, Jadrin went over to the narrow bed and lay down upon it. After a few moments, his eyes became heavy and sleep crept upon him, but not before it seemed, behind his closed lids, the whole room became radiant as if with the lustre of gold.
In the grey before the dawn, the spirit woke him up. Beyond its pale, gauzy body, Jadrin could see a glittering, unbelievable heap of coins piled upon the floor around the spinning-wheel. ‘Now for my price,’ said the spirit, in a low, chilling voice.
Jadrin offered up his mouth for the cold, cold touch of bodiless lips, dry as paper yet wet as grave-slime. He gasped, fighting for breath. In a moment, the spirit leapt, triumphant, into the air, whirled around a few times and vanished with a pop. Jadrin lay dazed upon the bed until the morning truly came.
First, it was Galbion Floom who looked in at the peephole of the door. Jadrin heard a gasp, then running footsteps. Soon, there was a babble beyond the door and it was thrown wide. Many brightly dressed people burst into the room, all talking at once. Jadrin sat up on the bed yawning. A tall young man with golden hair shouldered his way through the chattering crowd and stared, wide-eyed, at the heaps of gold. ‘What is this?’ he demanded.
‘Look sire!’ Floom spluttered. ‘The scoundrel Skimblaze spoke the truth for once. The boy can spin straw into gold!’
Ashalan, king of Ashbrilim, reluctantly tore his gaze away from the shining heaps of coins and saw, for the first time, the shining thing upon the narrow bed, whose beauty of flesh easily eclipsed that of the treasure.
‘Indeed he did!’ the king agreed, but in a strange and guarded tone. He strode forward. ‘Miller’s son, I am most impressed by what I have seen. Surprised too, for I thought it was you yourself that Skimblaze had in mind to pay the debt he owed me. I did not, for one moment, really believe you could accomplish this magic.’
Jadrin thought, And neither did I! but considered it wiser to remain silent.
Ashalan eyed the gold once more. ‘However,’ he said. ‘Beauty does not deceive me. Neither do I always trust the evidence of my own eyes. This may well be a fairy gold that turns to leaves within hours, or perhaps a single spell that you and your father have worked out between you. No, I must have more proof.’ He strode to the door.
His cronies shrank back, allowing him to speak with his secretary.
‘Bring more straw!’ Ashalan ordered and left the room without a backward glance.
Jadrin was in despair. Now the lonely chamber was piled high with bursting bales of straw, the spinning-wheel nearly lost amongst it. All day, he sat on the bed with his chin in his hands, staring miserably at the straw. At nightfall, he took out the quartz from its bag, but without hope that he could be so fortunate twice. However, within an instant of his forming the thought, the spirit returned, once more nonchalant about the task in hand. ‘And what price this time?’ Jadrin enquired wearily.
‘Well, that is simple. Merely this: to sleep in your arms,’ it replied.
‘Just that?’ Jadrin asked.
‘Just that,’ the spirit answered.
By morning, the room was full of gold once more an
d Jadrin awoke feeling as drugged and chilled as if he’d spent the night under several feet of snow. He had not sensed the spirit beside him; neither did he see it leave.
To Jadrin, it seemed that Ashalan’s greed was only whipped into further frenzy when he caught sight of the supposed fruits of the boy’s night’s work.
‘Once more,’ the king decided (without much consideration) ‘One more night of this and, I promise you, you shall never see this room again. No more spinning! It is too incredible, this talent of yours. Tomorrow, I shall make you a gentleman of the court. You shall have apartments of your own within the palace, whatever you require...’
Jadrin thought he must already have produced ten times as much gold as Skimblaze could have owed the king. No doubt he wants to keep me around to make further use of my magical abilities later on, he thought cynically, for not once while he was speaking did Ashalan’s eyes stray from the gold to Jadrin himself.
By dusk, hardly even able to find a space within the room in which to sit, Jadrin was desperate to call up the spirit again. Punctual, it materialised upon the window-sill as usual, preening its slim, glowing features with languid paws. ‘Well, as you see,’ Jadrin began, gesturing round the room, ‘I begin to doubt whether you could ever spin enough gold to satisfy him!’
The spirit made a nonchalant gesture. ‘Hmm. It would seem that way... Do you want to remain here at court, Jadrin?’
Jadrin shook his head. ‘No, not really, but I can hardly go against the wishes of the king, can I?’
‘Even after he has used you in this way?’
Jadrin paused for a moment to think. ‘I have no choice. I doubt if my father would welcome me back if I ran away and where else could I go?’
‘Oh, you are a foolish boy!’ the spirit cried gaily, as if glad of the fact, hopping to the floor, dancing in the pale rays of the moon. ‘And do you wish for me to spin?’