The Rumpelstiltskin Problem (4 page)

And looked up again when she felt a gentle touch on her arm. "I wasn't crying," she pointed out.

"No," Rumpelstiltskin said, "but this time I was looking for you." He walked around the room, or at least that part of the room that wasn't filled with straw. "More straw into gold," he observed. "Is the king still threatening to cut off your head?"

Della nodded.

"Did he even pay you for the last batch?"

Della held out the three gold coins the king's page had given her.

"Quite a bargain." Rumpelstiltskin crouched down beside her. "Offer them to me, and I'll bring more gold."

"Offer you three gold coins for a roomful of gold?" Della said. "At least the ring had sentimental value."

Rumpelstiltskin just smiled at her. "Offer them to me," he repeated.

Della put the gold coins into his hand.

Then, just as they had done the previous night, Rumpelstiltskin brought armloads of gold from between the particles while Della threw straw out the window. But this time Della knew the king would be pleased, so, instead of worrying, she and Rumpelstiltskin talked and laughed together as though they were old friends.

By the time the king returned at dawn, all the straw was gone and the room was filled with gold.

"Thank you," Della whispered as they heard the key turn in the lock.

Rumpelstiltskin bowed, then disappeared.

The door banged open.

"Well done!" the king exclaimed once again. "Truly, magnificently well done."

"Yes," Della said. "And now I must be leaving or my father will be wor—"

"Nonsense," the king said. "Your father is fine. And we're having such a good time together. I insist you stay."

"
Stay?
" Della repeated.

"Of course," the king said. "Someone with your abilities will make an excellent queen."

"
Queen?
" Della repeated.

The king gave a gracious nod. "Spin another roomful of straw into gold, and we'll consider it your dowry. I'll marry you the following day."

"Oh my," Della said.

The king gestured to one of the servants. "Dress her in the finest silks and jewels," he ordered. "Feed her off my own dishes. Treat her like a queen till tonight."

"But," Della started, "but—"

The king kissed her hand and swept out of the room.

The servants dressed Della in a gown richer than any she'd ever seen, heavy with beads and jewels, and there were more jewels for around her neck and fingers and to hang from her ears; and they laid out a banquet for her, with food even more sumptuous than the day before, and they served it on dishes of ivory, with knives and spoons of gold; and all day long they played violins and harpsichords for her; and they brushed her hair till it shone like gold, and pedicured her nails, and were respectful in every way. But when evening came, they locked her in a room even bigger than the first two rooms and filled, except for the area around the spinning wheel, with straw.

"Rumpelstiltskin," Della said out loud, "if ever there was a time I needed you, now is it."

The young elf appeared before her. He bowed just as he'd been bowing when he'd disappeared that morning, as though he'd been waiting all day to come back to her.

"This time," Della said, "at least I have something to offer you." Taking off the ruby earrings, she said, "And I've thought of a way out of this: I'll tell the king that my magic spinning cannot be done more than three times for any one person. Three is a magical number, you know." She unfastened the diamond necklace, but Rumpelstiltskin hadn't even taken the earrings yet. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"Those aren't yours to give," he said. "Those are the king's."

"Oh." Della indicated her rings, and the jewels sewn into the bodice of her dress.

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. "Didn't the king pay you for the second roomful of gold?"

"No," Della said. "He told me he would marry me and make me queen."

"I see," Rumpelstiltskin said. "First he says, 'Spin the straw into gold, or I'll chop your head off,' then he says, 'Spin the straw into gold, or I'll chop your head off,' and then he says, 'Spin the straw into gold, and I'll marry you.' The man has a way with words. No wonder you want to marry him."

"That's not fair," Della protested. "It's not every day a miller's daughter gets the chance to marry a king."

"No," Rumpelstiltskin said softly. "I would imagine not."

Della shivered. Having come so far, she had finally let herself think that she might actually survive her father's plan. She said, "I have nothing to offer you."

Rumpelstiltskin looked at her for a long moment before answering. "Then," he said, "I will do it for you for nothing."

Once again they worked together, Rumpelstiltskin bringing gold from his world into the locked room while Della threw straw out the window. But while the first night they had worked frantically, unsure whether the king would be fooled, and while the second night they had worked enjoying each other's company—this third night they had nothing to say to each other, and they worked silently and grimly.

As Della threw the last handfuls of straw out the window, she turned to the young elf who had three times now saved her life and said, "Rumpelstiltskin, I—"

But he had already returned to his own world without a word, leaving Della to wait for the king alone in the graying dawn.

The king was delighted with his new roomful of gold, but when Della told him that the laws of magic prohibited her from spinning any more gold for him, he complained bitterly that she had tricked him. He was all for chopping her head off, but the king's advisors said that, since the royal marriage had already been announced, this would probably be a bad idea.

And so the king and the miller's daughter were married.

The king decreed that, as queen, Della was prohibited from doing common things such as spinning, and he used this as an excuse for why she no longer spun straw into gold. And as for the miller, the king pronounced him Master Miller of the Realm, and all the other millers had to pay a tax to support him so that the king's father-in-law wouldn't have to support himself by common labor either.

But the king begrudged the gold Della no longer spun, and the marriage was not a happy one.

Eventually Della announced that she was expecting a child. This made the king happy, for he said it was time he had an heir. But when the child was born, it was a girl, and the king, saying a girl did not make a fit heir, wouldn't even visit his new daughter.

"Name her what you will," the king told Della. "It's no concern of mine."

Della sat on the window ledge of the nursery and rocked her unnamed baby daughter back and forth, so furious her eyes filled with angry tears. She stared out the window, so that her tears wouldn't fall on the infant, for she was determined that the child should never learn how her own father did not love her.

From beside her, a soft voice said, "She's lovely," and Della turned and saw Rumpelstiltskin gently touch the baby's tiny hand. "She's lovely," Rumpelstiltskin repeated. "She looks just like you. Why are you crying?"

It was the first time Della had seen him in over a year, since that last morning in that room full of gold. She wanted to tell him how very pleased she was to see him, how she had thought of his kindness every day of her queenship, but instead she blurted out how the king was disappointed to have a daughter instead of a son.

"Anyone with any sense would be proud to have her as a daughter," Rumpelstiltskin said. "But maybe you could tell the king that when she gets to be older she'll be able to spin straw into gold." He knelt beside her. "I'll come back," he promised, "and bring him three more roomsful."

"That's very kind of you," Della said. "But I'm sure he'd love her if he only stopped to think about it."

In a very quiet voice Rumpelstiltskin said, "I don't think love is something you stop to think about."

"What I mean is," Della said, "I'm sure he
does
love her, but he just doesn't realize it. Maybe I should tell him she's sick. If he's worried about her, then he'll see how precious she is."

"But the servants would tell him she isn't sick," Rumpelstiltskin pointed out. "You could tell him a wicked old elf is going to steal her away unless..."

Rumpelstiltskin paused to consider, and Della said, "You don't look wicked or old."

Rumpelstiltskin smiled at her, which made him look even less wicked and old.

It almost made Della wish ... But that was too dangerous a thought.

"We'll tell him that you're the one who taught me how to spin straw into gold," she said. "And that in exchange I promised you my firstborn child. The only way to break the agreement..." She sighed. "Whatever you ask the king to do," she said, "it has to be something easy, to make sure he can do it."

"Certainly," Rumpelstiltskin agreed. "How easy?"

Della thought and finally said, "He has to guess your name."

"Easier," Rumpelstiltskin suggested. "It's not that common a name."

"Tell him you'll give him three days before you'll take the baby," Della said. "Surely in that time we can arrange some way for somebody to learn your name."

But it wasn't as easy as Della thought.

The king was too busy with councils and court decisions to even ask why a wicked old elf wanted his daughter. But he did have the servants in the castle write out a list of all the names they could think of.

The next day, when Rumpelstiltskin appeared in the throne room, the king read out every name they had, starting with Aaron and ending with Zachary.

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head after each name, and when it was over he said they had two more days but they'd never guess.

The king had to be at the dedication of a new ship that day, but he ordered the councillors and scholars of the castle to look through all the old history chronicles and put together a list of every name they could find.

The next day, Rumpelstiltskin again appeared in the throne room, and the king read out this new list, starting with Absalom and ending with Ziv.

Once again Rumpelstiltskin shook his head after each name, but this time he gave Della a worried look before announcing they had one more day but they'd never guess. He was beginning to worry, Della could tell, that they never would.

The king had been invited to a hunting party with the neighboring king, but before leaving he sent servants out of the castle into the countryside to see if they could discover any new names.

As the servants trickled back home that night and the next morning, one after another with no new names, Della decided that she would have to just blurt out the name Rumpelstiltskin and hope that the king didn't ask where she'd heard it.

Then the last of the castle servants returned.

"Good news, Your Majesty," this last man said to her. "Although I searched all day yesterday without finding any new names, as I was walking through the woods on the way back to the castle this morning, I came across that same elf who's been threatening the young princess. Fortunately he didn't see me. And even more fortunately he was dancing around a campfire singing, 'Yo-ho, Rumbleskilstin—"'

"Excuse me?" Della said. "
Rumbleskilstin?
"

The servant repeated it, incorrectly again, saying, "He sang, 'Yo-ho, Rumbleskilstin is my name. Rumbleskilstin, Rumbleskilstin, Rumbleskilstin. The king doesn't know it. The queen doesn't know it. Only I know it, and I'm Rumbleskilstin.'"

"That's quite a song," Della said, trying not to laugh at the picture of the normally dignified Rumpelstiltskin dancing around a campfire, and—after all that—the servant getting the name wrong. Still, Rumpelstiltskin certainly wouldn't complain that it wasn't exactly right. "Well," she agreed, "this is indeed fortunate. You have our gratitude, mine and the king's."

At least Della hoped the king would be grateful.

Rumpelstiltskin appeared in the throne room at the appointed time, but the king was late getting back from an appointment with the royal wigmaker. When the king did come in, laughing and chatting with his companions, he didn't appear nearly as worried as Rumpelstiltskin did.

"We discovered a likely name," Della told the king.

"Good," he said, fluffing his new wig, which was even curlier than his other 150 wigs.

Look at me,
Della thought at him furiously.
Look at your daughter.

But the king looked, instead, at his reflection in the mirror and blew kisses to himself.

Hugging the baby close, Della turned to Rumpelstiltskin, who
was
looking at them.
No one can change straw into gold,
Della thought to herself.
Some things are just straw, and some things are gold, and sometimes you just have to know which is which.

She walked past the king to put her hand on Rumpelstiltskin's arm, looked up into the young elf's eyes, and said, "Take us with you."

So Rumpelstiltskin put his arm around her and stepped sideways, as always, between the particles.

The king, of course, hired his own messengers to spread the news of what had happened. But as for Rumpelstiltskin and Della, they lived happily ever after. And it was Rumpelstiltskin who chose the name for Della's baby girl. He called her Abigail, which means "a father's joy."

Once upon a time, before home security systems and trained guard dogs, if you lived in Russia the way to keep your house safe and happy was to have a domovoi living beneath your basement. Domoviye were—or are: sometimes such things are hard to be certain of—short and hairy, looking something like overstuffed teddy bears, except with longer fur, smaller noses, and very nimble fingers. Shy but gentle hearted, domoviye would use their magical powers however they were needed to keep the people who lived in the houses above them safe and happy. Not every house had a domovoi, but every domovoi had a house. The way to keep a domovoi beneath
your
house and not running away to live beneath your neighbor's basement was to put out a saucer of cream every night, and—once in a while—a plate of sweets.