The True Story of Rumplestiltskin Chapter Four

*** Author’s Note***

First, an apology for not putting this out last Tuesday. I have started taking a class through the OSU extension, and will probably not get these chapters out each week. Thank you for your patience.

Second, a warning: this story is taking on a life of its own and I can no longer guarantee the ending. Read at your own risk.

Chapter Four

Aurianna spent the next few days waiting. She wasn’t quite sure what she was waiting for, but she was definitely waiting. She paced around their small cabin, picking up her sewing and putting it down again, only to pick it back up a few minutes later. Aurianna’s mother, who was more shrewd by half than Aurianna’s  father, couldn’t help but notice her daughter’s distress.

“Sit down, child. You’re  making me dizzy.”

“Sorry,” Aurianna perched on her wooden stool.

“You have been as tense as a bow string since the market last week. What is going on?”

Aurianna had made her father swear not to tell anyone about the incident on their way home from town a week ago. It had become, for her,  a superstition, as though not speaking about it would erase it from history. “It’s nothing, Mother. I just need some air.” Aurianna bolted back off the stool and grabbed her cloak from its peg. She flung the woolen wrapping around her shoulders and stumbled toward the door.

She flipped the little rope latch off its nail and shoved the door open. The chill of the air outside rushed in to fight in vain with the heat from the fire. Aurianna paid no attention to the change in temperature or her mother’s protest. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she had to get out of there.

But it was not to be. Aurianna’s father was coming up the walk, and he was not alone.

. “Ah, good,” he said, taking his daughter’s hand.“I was just coming for you. We have some exciting news.”

Aurianna eyed the man standing beside her father. He was tall but thin, well dressed, with the king’s insignia on his sleeve. Hmph. No wonder Father was grinning like a child with a honeycomb. This must be someone from the castle.

The visitor did not seem nearly as happy to be there. He held his face in a sort of contrived smile, as though he smelled something awful, but was pretending not to notice. In his hand, he held a piece of parchment with markings on it. She couldn’t read, but Aurianna knew that the message was for her.

She tried to arrange her own face into a pleasant expression. She only hoped that her smile was more convincing than the messenger’s. “What is it, Father?” she asked, with what she hoped would pass for enthusiasm. It wouldn’t do to offend someone from the royal house. People had been hanged for less.

“His royal highness, King Philliam, has sent for you. For you specifically, my dear. By name.” Her father bounced up and down with pure joy as he spoke.

“For what reason could the king want to see me?” she asked. But there could be only one answer.  The rumor from the market had spread to the royal house, and that greedy lout on the throne wanted to capitalize on her supposed talent. This message was doom.

Aurianna looked at her father. His face was filled with the blinding light of pride. He nudged her, “I hear he is searching for a suitable bride for his son.”

Right. The king of the land is searching through the pig sties and thatched huts of Bergen for a peasant girl to be his daughter in law, she thought, but she held her tongue. Time stopped as the messenger waited for her response. At that moment, a big, black crow caught her eye as it glided across the fallow wheat field behind the two men and disappeared into the forest beyond. The woods. Maybe she could escape. Aurianna lurched forward and ran after the bird.

She was quick, but she was no match for the messenger. She hadn’t gotten a dozen paces into the field before she felt herself tackled from behind. She heard the crunch as she landed on the decimated wheat. The breath rushed out of her sweeping her hope along with it.