The Rumpelstiltskin Problem (7 page)

So Otto didn't say anything when the king's servants came, but silently followed as they led Christina to a room filled with straw.

It was, Otto saw, an incredible amount of straw. Christina didn't point that out. She didn't object that even if all the straw had been wool, and even if she had only to spin it into yarn, there was no way she could have done it all in one night. Instead, she said, "This is a magnificent spinning wheel the king has provided for me, but it's not what I'm used to. I'm sure I could spin much better if my father brought me my own."

Word was sent to the king, who gave his permission, and the miller left on his errand for Christina, knowing that if he did not return in time, the king would have his daughter killed.

Luckily, the goldsmith was able to melt the necklace and pull it out into fine wire. Otto had him wrap it around a spool, which Otto then fastened to the bottom of Christina's spinning wheel. Placing the spinning wheel into the wagon, he returned to the king's castle.

There, he carried the spinning wheel up the stairs to Christina's lonely room, and—when nobody was looking—pointed to where the spool was set on a nail beneath the seat.

Christina blew him a kiss as the servants told him it was time for him to leave so that she could begin spinning for the king. "Such a brave girl," Otto pointed out to the servants.

But they really weren't interested.

Once darkness fell, Otto drove the wagon so that it was directly beneath the window of the room in which Christina was locked. She began to toss armful after armful of straw out the window. Below her, Otto arranged armful after armful of straw into the wagon.

It was hard work, and it took all night. Just as dawn was breaking, Otto drove the wagon around to the royal stables. "Straw delivery for you," he announced to the stable master, who helped him unload the wagon.

As soon as that was done, Otto raced back to the castle. He was just in time to see a crowd gathered in the hall in front of the room in which Christina was locked. He was just in time to hear the lord high chamberlain proclaim, "The king commands: 'Open the door.'"

A servant opened the door, and the lords and ladies of the court all crowded together, trying to see in. Standing in the center of the doorway, with nobody crowding him, was the king. Standing at the back of the crowd was Otto.

"No straw," Otto could hear various people murmur, as the news spread to the back of the crowd.

Until, finally, someone asked, "But where's the gold?"

Otto saw Christina take a deep breath, then she pulled out from behind her back the spinning wheel spindle. She had wrapped the gold wire from the goldsmith's spool around it.

More appreciative murmurings.

Except from the king. The king motioned with a lace handkerchief at the spindle, then around the room, which was empty save for Christina, the spinning wheel, and one or two stray pieces of broken straw.

"The king wonders," the lord high chamberlain interpreted, "where the rest of the gold is."

Uh-oh!
Otto thought.

But his brave Christina didn't look worried. She curtsied. "Apparently your majesty is not familiar with spinning. But if your majesty should ask one of the women who spins, such a woman could tell you that the raw wool—or flax—or straw—is always much bulkier than the finished thread it works down to."

From the court ladies—who of course never did their own spinning but who had seen their maids work—there came a gentle sigh of agreement.

The king was displeased, Otto could tell. He wanted more gold.

To protect his daughter, Otto said, "Christina can do a lot better than this. Just give her more straw."

Christina glared at her father, but it was too late.

The king finally took the spindle from her. He gestured with his handkerchief—Otto had no idea what he could possibly mean—then he turned and walked away, with the lords and ladies trailing behind him.

In the end, only the lord high chamberlain was left, and some servants, and Otto—who hadn't been able to get\ near while the crowd had been there. Now he held his arms wide, and Christina ran to hug him. "Sorry," Otto told her, "sorry," hoping that his bragging words had caused no harm.

The lord high chamberlain, who'd been busy with his snuff box, finally finished, and he told the servants, "Feed her and let her rest. The king commands that tonight she will spin more straw into gold, or she will pay with her life."

"But," Christina said as the servants took her by the arms and led her down the hall, away from her father. "But..."

That evening, before the servants locked Christina into her new prison room—a room that was even bigger than the first and even more full of straw—Otto asked to see her.

"I've brought this pillow," he said. "I forgot to bring it last night for you to sit on." He spoke loudly, because the servants were listening. Then he whispered to her, "Same plan as last night?"

"I only had one necklace," she reminded him.

Otto told her, "I sold all our clothes and furniture. There are two spools of gold wire sewn into the pillow. The wagon is outside this window. Start throwing."

So Christina did.

Otto collected the straw in the wagon and brought it to the stable, to the stable master, who was relieved to receive it, for—he told Otto—there seemed to be a sudden shortage of straw in the last couple of days.

By the time Otto arrived at Christina's room, the servant was just opening the door for the king and his court.

Otto saw Christina immediately hold out the spindle with two spoolsful of gold wire. "Thank you for your kind hospitality," she told the king. "But I've been so lonely for home, I cannot stay a moment longer."

Hardly even glancing at the gold, the king took out his handkerchief and began waving.

Otto sincerely hoped he was saying good-bye.

The lord high chamberlain said, "The king understands your distress. But he says that from now on this is your home. In fact, the king has graciously agreed to marry you tomorrow."

Otto saw the horror with which Christina looked at him.

How could he possibly think she'd want to marry someone who keeps threatening to kill her?
Otto wondered. The crowd, however, broke into polite applause.

"Of course," the lord high chamberlain continued, "as queen, you will not only spin straw into gold every day; you will also teach the castle servants how to do so."

He didn't have to add, "Or else." Otto could read it in his eyes. No doubt Christina could, too.

Once again, the king and his court left Christina with the servants, and—waiting at the edge of the crowd—her father. "I had the feeling you might need this second pillow," he said.

"Oh, Father!" She threw her arms around his neck.

"I thought this might happen," he whispered. "Well, not the marriage part, but the more gold part. So I sold the mill."

"Father!" she gasped. The mill was their livelihood. And after all, they both knew it would gain them only one day.

Unless one of them came up with a better plan.

Otto hoped it would be Christina, because he'd had enough trouble just keeping up with her first plan.

That night the servants locked Christina in the main audience hall—the largest room in the castle. But when Otto drove the wagon around the castle, he saw to his dismay that the room was built out so that it hung over the river that surrounded the castle. In fact, it was directly over the entrance to the little cove where the king's ships were anchored. There was no way Otto could get his wagon out into the deep water.

He saw that Christina had opened the window. In the moonlight they looked at each other hopelessly. Then, because there was nothing else they could do, Christina began throwing the straw into the river. If they were lucky, Otto thought, the current would carry it away.

But they hadn't been lucky yet, and by the earliest morning's light, they could see that Christina had thrown in so much that the straw had mounded up, forming a pile that showed through the surface of the water. As soon as anybody looked, what she had done would be discovered.

There was no time to worry. In the new pillow Otto had brought, there were three spools of gold wire—all that was left of their mill—and Christina went to hurriedly wrap these around a spindle as Otto raced to be at the door when it was opened.

He got there just as the king and his court arrived. Beyond them, he could see that Christina remained sitting at the spinning wheel, the filled spindle on the floor beside her, and she was sobbing loudly.

Otto sincerely hoped she was faking. He hoped she had come up with a new plan, for all he could think was to try to get all their friends and neighbors to sign a petition asking the king to let Christina go, and somehow Otto doubted the king would put off his wedding because the townspeople asked him to.

Seeing Christina's tears, the lord high chamberlain demanded, "What's happened?"

"Someone came during the night," Christina gasped between sobs. "The little man who originally taught me to spin straw into gold. When I first wanted to learn, I agreed that in return I would give him my firstborn son. Now that I am to marry the king, the little man insists he shall have the royal child."

Good plan!
Otto thought. The king would never allow such a thing.

The crowd in the doorway cried out in dismay. But Otto saw the king wave his handkerchief airily.

"The king says," the lord high chamberlain said, "he is rich enough and powerful enough to protect against any such person. The king says: The wedding will proceed as planned."

The crowd cheered.

This time Otto didn't have a chance to even speak to his daughter before she was led away.

Do you have a plan, Christina?
Otto thought at her.

But of course there was no way for her to answer.

Otto had to come up with his own plan.

By the time Otto got back to the castle that afternoon, the spinning wheel had been removed from the audience hall and the floor had been swept clean. Servants had dressed Christina in a gown decorated with sparkling gems. They had put a gold and ruby necklace around her neck, a gold and sapphire bracelet on one wrist, a gold and emerald bracelet on the other wrist, and a gold and diamond tiara on her head. Presents, no doubt, from the king. This finery cost much more than the gold she had supposedly spun for the king so far, but the king was counting on her to spin for him every day for the rest of her life.

Golden sunlight poured in through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the walls. The king was sitting on his throne, looking very regal and not at all forgiving, when Otto flung the door open and strode into the room.

"What's all this?" Otto shouted in as big a voice as he could make.

Without Christina to provide him with a plan, Otto had decided that what he needed was a disguise. Except, of course, he had no money to buy one. So he had rolled his clothes in the fireplace of the mill that had used to be theirs, getting the soot of the previous night's fire all over them till they looked as though they were made of black cloth. He smeared more soot into his hair to make that look black, too, and drew a black moustache on his lip. He was aware that as he moved, he left little billows of blackness behind, but he felt that actually the effect was rather dramatic. No one, he thought, would ever recognize him—not in a hundred years.

The king made a dismissive gesture with his handkerchief.

The lord high chamberlain said, "Christina's father, what is the meaning of this?"

"I am not Christina's father," Otto said. "I don't even know who Christina's father is."
Now what?
He continued, "I ... might bear a slight resemblance to the man, but in truth I am a dangerous magical creature who knows all sorts of enchantments
besides
the spinning of gold from straw, and I have come to take what is rightfully mine. If you don't hand over my—this girl, I will put a terrible spell on all of you."

He had been worried that he looked so frightening, Christina might not realize she was being rescued. And, indeed, he saw that she had clapped her hand to her forehead and that she was shaking her head.

"Of course you're Christina's father," the lord high chamberlain insisted. "You look like him, you sound like him. You're maybe a tiny bit dirtier than him ..." Impatiently, he called out, "Guards," and two soldiers started approaching. But they were afraid of him—Otto was sure of it. They were laughing, which must mean they were hysterical with fear. Still, they were between Otto and the door.

Christina took her father by the arm and pulled him toward the window through which she had thrown the straw the previous night. This probably meant she recognized him, but—just to be sure—he whispered to her, "It's me. Your father." He could see her wince as though his words gave her a sudden headache. To the king, Otto said, "This girl's firstborn son has been pledged to me. And if that son is yours, too, then once you are dead I will rule your kingdom through him."

Christina smacked him on the back of the head. She hissed into his ear, "There
is
no baby. And there's not going to be one if we get out of here."

"Right," Otto said. "Ahmm..." To delay pursuit, he added, "But guess my name, and the bargain is forfeit." He could feel the wall against his back and Christina's tugging on his arm to get him to step up.

The lord high chamberlain insisted, "You
are
Christina's father."

"That's not a name," Otto pointed out.

The king jumped to his feet and spoke for the first time in Otto's hearing—or Christina's hearing, Otto guessed from her expression. The king shouted, "Is the name Rumpelstiltskin?"

Otto was pleased for the opportunity to say, "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard." And with that Christina leapt out the window, so that she landed on the wet heap of straw that clogged the river. Just beyond, the little rowboat Otto had traded the wagon for bobbed in the water.

"Stop them!" the lord high chamberlain's voice cried as Otto jumped and landed with a wet
plop!
beside his daughter.