^*  divination using entrails

Part I – Entrails

There was blood on the snow.  In a circle, ten or so feet across, the snow was churned and crimson, like a bite-wound torn from the side of the white landscape, like bridal sheets on a wedding night.  Beyond the gash in the snow, the greystone cottage squatted low and ugly, its shadow streaming long and dark behind it.  The winds that so often screamed their rage and wailed their loneliness across these lands for now were calm, and a column of thick grey smoke rose from the cottage chimney in an almost vertical, barely disturbed line. Smells carried, knife-edge sharp on the icy air: the iron tang of the recent slaughter, the sweet-tin almost-taste of more snow to come, the odd but familiar aroma of pungent herbs and spices burning, their bitter and exotic scents borne on the smoke, speaking of distant lands and marvelous secrets, of the deep, dark places under the earth.   

I pushed against the door of the cottage.  The door was made of oak, but time had blackened and toughened the wood, so now it was harder than the stone into which it was set, and it would not budge under my hand.  I muttered a string of syllables under my breath, and the door creaked gently inwards.       

Smoke stung my eyes as I stepped over the threshold, and it took a few moments for my vision to adjust to the gloom inside the cottage.  

The three old women were here, as I had known they would be, their heads, one dark grey, one pale grey, one pure white, hunched over the copper bath tub about which they had positioned themselves.  One stood, one knelt and one was seated on the only chair in the cottage.  Virgina, Genetrixa and Anicula, their eyes down-turned, their faces fixed, each woman intent on the contents of the copper tub, which gleamed in the dullness of the building’s interior and was by far the most opulent thing they owned.            

None of them remarked upon my arrival, but I knew that they had noticed.  They noticed everything.          

'There will be an ending,' intoned Genetrixa, in what she thought of as her mystic voice.          

'What?  Where does it say that?'  Anicula peered closer into the tub and I craned my neck to see what the old women were looking at.  Coils and gobbets of entrails lay in the bottom of the bath, steeping in a soup of bile and blood.  Even with the heady fragrances of burning herbs and spices, there was an unpleasantly organic edge to the air.            

A dirt-brown finger nail pointed at a something in the red and purple wetness.  'Here, see that, the way that loop is severed?  An end.  Unmistakeable.'          

'Of course it's severed,’ chided Anicula.  ‘The way you were flashing that gutting knife around, we're lucky to have ten fingers apiece and more than a heap of minced pig offal.  I told you to take more care with it.'          

‘Darkness,’ said Virgina softly, hesitantly, ‘moving in from the North.’          

'It looks to me like a pile of pig's guts,' I said, peering over their shoulders.           

Anicula sniffed her disapproval, but said nothing.          

Virgina prodded a glistening red-brown lump which wobbled unpleasantly.  ‘It’s all so vague,’ she said.  ’Something bad is coming, but I can’t see what it is.’            

‘We already know something bad is coming.  We all felt that.  We wouldn’t have cut a pig open if we thought all was well.’          

‘See this bit here?’  continued Virgina, indicating a glob of gristle.  ‘That could be a funeral or a wedding...’          

‘We could do a summoning,’ suggested Genetrixa hopefully.  ‘Invoke a demon, get some proper answers.  Guts are all very well, but they can’t speak when you ask them questions.’          

‘Hah!‘ spat Anicula caustically.  'Demons is a prideful lot, acting all clever, talking in riddles.  And summoning them is one thing, but sending ’em back is another.  You know where you stand with entrails, and there's a good meal in them when you're done.'           

Genetrixa sagged a little, looking deflated.  She liked her summonings.  On rare occasions when Anicula and Virgina would go out, leaving the two of us alone together, Genetrixa would tell me, with a distant and toothless smile on her old, doughy face, of past invocations.  She would speak of great and powerful demons with eyes that burned like suns and skins the colour of obsidian, of demiurges, pale and insubstantial as moonlit smoke; mighty and malevolent beings, old as the dark, who had seen empires rise and fall, cities vanish beneath waves, and entire galaxies coalesce from dust; creatures of utter darkness and infinite desire.  Of course, she would say, with a wistful, faraway look in her milky eyes, she had been much younger then.          

‘Fair enough,’ she murmured a little sadly, almost to herself.  ‘Entrails it is, then.’          

‘Couldn’t you have gutted a fish instead?’ I asked, looking at the mass of bowels and blood and bile.  ‘There’d be a lot less mess.’          

Anicula silenced me with an icy look.          

‘Sometimes, my dear,’ said Virgina, her eyes never leaving the bath tub, ‘the future’s too big to fit in a fish.’          

The women were silent for a while.          

‘There,’ said Anicula suddenly, in a voice as brittle as ancient bones breaking.  She reached into the copper tub and stirred the visceral mixture around, once, twice, three times, with her left hand.  Her old, gnarled fingers closed around what looked like it might be a heart.  It could have been my imagination, but for a brief moment I was sure I saw it beating in her grasp.          

Her eyes were closed and she raised the organ to her lips.  Her tongue darted out, long and shockingly pink in her colourless face, and licked it slowly, then took a tiny dainty bite from its side, as though from an exquisite fruit.  She bit down hard, three quick, decisive bites, and swallowed.  Her eyes snapped open.          

‘Hunger comes on four legs and on two,’ she said.          

A hush descended briefly as this statement was digested.                      

‘From the north...’ mused Virgina.          

‘You mean the wolf-clans?’ said Genetrixa.          

Anicula tossed the partially eaten organ back into the tub.  There was a daub of red on her thin lips, which she wiped away with the back of a blue-veined hand.            

‘I don’t mean anything,’ she said.  ‘But it could well be what the entrails mean.’          

‘Wolves?’ I queried.  ‘We’ve dealt with wolves before.’            

This was true enough.  When the harsh cold seasons ravaged the land and food became scarce, the packs would drift nearer to our settlements, picking off livestock.  Occasionally one would hear stories of wolves coming into the villages, savage and murderous, devouring infants in their cots, bringing down grown men.  I recalled the previous winter, the wolf that had stood between me and the cottage, one of our goats clamped in its jaws by its broken neck.  I remembered the goat’s dead eyes, the hideously lolling head, and I remembered the weight of the shovel as I hefted it in my hands, the sickening crack as it connected with the wolf’s skull.  I had acted out of panic, and out of anger: something had sought to take what was ours.  Yet the creature that lay slain on the ground had been no monster.  It was a pitiful beast, starved and sickly, just a handful of bones wrapped in shabby wolfskin.          

‘Yes, little wolf-slayer.  That we have,’ said Anicula.  ’But these are more than wolves.’          

'You mean...?'          

'Lycanthropes,' said Genetrixa.  'Shape-changers.  And believe me, you'd need more than a shovel to put these devils down.'          

'Werewolves?' I asked.  'But they're just myths, fairy stories.'          

'Of course they are,' snapped Anicula.  'Just as good you told us.  We'll know not to worry now,' and she muttered darkly to herself, words too low for me to hear.          

'Things,' explained Virgina gently, slowly, carefully, as though searching for the right words, 'can be fairy stories and real at the same time.'          

'All of the best fairy stories are real,' said Genetrixa, 'or at least, they were once.  They change in the retelling of course, some of the nasty bits get left out, or the tales get given happy endings, but the sense of the stories, the bleeding, beating heart of the story... that lives on.'          

All eyes turned to the eldest woman, and Virgina gave voice to the question that hung in the heavy, smoky air.            

'What shall we do, Anicula?'          

The white-haired crone looked very old all of a sudden, and very tired.          

'Tonight,' she said, 'we will eat pig, and we will sleep.  And tomorrow,' she turned to me, a long, bony finger pointed in my direction, 'tomorrow, you will go to the castle.  The Prince is said to be wise and kind.  You will speak to him.  If he is all they say he is, he will help.  If he doesn't... well, then he must answer to the wolf-clans also.'

And then we ate pig, and we slept. 

That night, I dreamed confused, winding dreams, of a tree hung with apples that were not apples, but hearts which pulsed and glistened amidst the branches.  I dreamed of a bed, vast and freezing, spotted with blood, of mirrors and moonlight and reflections that were not my own, of a thousand, a hundred thousand different futures written in the viscera, writhing into possibility; dreams of tooth and fur and eyes that shone golden in the darkness.  I woke once, slick with sweat and shivering, and believed that someone had called my name.  But there was only the stuttering crackle of the fire slowly dying and the wind outside as it howled its mournful litany to a dormant world.  Then these sounds too receded as I fell back into sleep's dark embrace, or else perhaps, as sleep rose once more to claim me. 

 

Part II – The Path

Nimmersdorf was roughly half a day's journey by foot across windswept snowplains and through dense, dark forests.  The principality sat precariously on the edge of a deep ravine, a modest settlement of dwellings scattered about Nimmersdorf Castle, a fantastical creation of towers, battlements and crenulations, which perched on the very lip of the precipice.  Below it, the land fell away in an array of cruel, jutting spikes of rock and sheer vertical drops, the bottom of the ravine obscured by the white mist of raging water.          

I had visited the town before, though never on my own.  Each summer, my elderly guardians would make at least one journey, to attend the market, trading knowledge for goods, reading palms, selling strange-smelling potions in little coloured glass bottles.  On such visits, I would go with them, helping to carry their wares to the market and to bring back their spoils.  We would set out for Nimmersdorf with charms and unguents and tonics, and return with clothes, food, livestock, pots and pans, the things we would need to sustain our isolated existence for another year.            

I looked forward to these expeditions with great anticipation: everything was so exciting in its newness!  And there were people, real people, not just the old, bickering women with whom I had lived my whole life.  Last summer, a boy a few years older than myself had asked me my name.  He had pretty blue eyes, the colour of cornflowers, and skin bronzed by the sun.  He’d smiled at me, as though seeing some great and wonderful joke, and gave me a necklace of milky white stones strung on a piece of leather.  Then Anicula had glared at him until he went away.  I had been grudgingly permitted to keep the necklace, and wore it all that summer, in spite of Anicula’s blatant disapproval, until one day I reached up to touch the smooth white stones and found the necklace gone.          

Even after the necklace had vanished, I found myself from time to time remembering that boy, recalling his carefree smile and pretty blue eyes.  As months became seasons and a strange new restlessness grew within me, I would find myself wondering where he was now, whether he still remembered me at all, or on shameful, sleepless nights, alone in the dark, wondering where the copper of his skin gave way to pristine, ivory flesh. 

Dawn was barely breaking when I left the greystone cottage.  Silvery half-light glinted off the snow outside, barely illuminating the room as Genetrixa gently shook me to wakefulness.  Huddled under their sackcloths and blankets, in the shadowy recesses, the other two women slept on.  From Virgina came the occasional quiet snore or mumble, while Anicula's sleeping form barely even seemed to be breathing.  Genetrixa kept her voice low to avoid waking them.          

'So,' she said, as she ran a toothless wooden comb through my hair, 'our little girl, an envoy to the castle, eh?'          

I shrugged.  'Maybe,' I said.  'We don't know that he'll see me yet.  We don't know that he'll help.'          

She carried on regardless.  'They say he's devil-handsome, this prince,' she said, as the comb's few remaining teeth conspired to find the tangles in my hair, snagging painfully.  'Devil-handsome, and all alone in that castle.  They say something terrible happened in his past, something tragic that just ripped him in pieces.'  She had stopped combing now, and had separated my hair into three sections which she proceeded to plait.  'Can't say as I know anything for sure of course.  Only ever seen him the once myself: a big procession one spring.  Too far away to see, really...'  She rambled gradually into silence.          

'Ow!' I exclaimed as something sharp and hooked lacerated my scalp.  'What was that?'          

'Just the bramble I've plaited into your hair, pet.  Didn't mean to catch you then.  All done now, anyways.'          

'Bramble...?'  Bemused, I reached up and sure enough, twisted through my hair I could feel thin, supple twine, barbed with vicious thorns.  'Why?'          

'You know, she said awkwardly, 'for the journey, for safety.'  She lapsed into an odd, uncomfortable silence.            

'Will it help?' I asked.          

'Well,’ she said, sounding doubtful and uneasy, ‘it won't do any harm.'

I wasn't scared, as I left the cottage.  I didn't believe that Genetrixa's bramble would offer me protection in the journey ahead, but I was not afraid.  Looking back, I was rarely afraid back then.  Anicula made me nervous, with her sharp tongue and short temper, and I sometimes felt uneasy in the cottage, when the women were at work and the very air was thick with things I did not understand, but I wasn't frightened.          

I can only remember two occasions from that time, when I had been truly afraid.            

The first had been the time when I stole Anicula's mirror.            

I'd waited until the women were asleep.  I thought I knew what I was doing - I'd heard Genetrixa talking about the ritual at the summer markets, instructing young, flushed women as to how it should be performed: look into a mirror in the moonlight - has to be a full moon, mind - stare deep down, past your reflection, and you'll see the man you'll marry.  The mirror was old: dulled, black-flecked glass, its edges crazed with razor-sharp chips that could slice unwary fingers.  It felt cold in my hands, and very heavy, as I carried it outside, careful not to trip on sleeping bodies.   

I faltered, on the threshold, as the door opened under my touch with an inordinately loud groan.  I was sure the sound must have woken someone, waited long, drawn-out minutes in the doorway, until I was satisfied it had not, and stepped outside. 

The summer was nearing its end.  The days were still long and warm and bright, and the first leaf of autumn was still months from falling, but there was a chill in the night air, a certain serrated edge to the breeze that promised colder, darker times.  A full moon hung low and heavy in a dark sky.  I knelt on dew-damp grass, the mirror in front of me.  By moonlight, my reflection in the glass was transformed: alien and ghostly, but still my own.  I concentrated harder, thinking back to Genetrixa's words, past your reflection, and I searched long and hard, as the slow, creeping coldness of the earth beneath me seeped into my flesh and bones.  I looked for something hidden beyond my own distorted image.  The surface of the mirror looked like water, swam before my eyes.  Deep, deep down.          

Underneath the glass, brief as summer lightning, something flickered.  Snapping, snarling, utterly inhuman; just for a moment, something dark and ancient and savage stared back.            

The mirror exploded.  The air came alive in a blaze of flying shards.  The sound of my screams woke the women in the cottage, who found me, incoherent and inconsolable, sobbing and shrieking on the ground outside, surrounded by hundreds of glittering fragments.            

Genetrixa took me in her meaty arms and held me against her as she muttered soothing words, until, exhausted by my own fear, I cried myself dry.          

Then Anicula beat me until I cried again.          

The second time I can remember being frightened was my first bleeding.  I didn't understand, and the sight of so much blood issuing from my own body, slicking my thighs with its dark, violent red, terrified me.            

Genetrixa explained gently that my body was changing.  The blood was a mark of my passage to womanhood. 

Even when I understood the reason for my monthly bleed, knew that from it new life could be born, it still unnerved me.  I couldn't reconcile myself with the idea that the essence of life could have the same rank smell as slaughter.            

Those were the only two occasions when I remember being scared.  Strange that they fell exactly a month apart. 

I made good time travelling to Nimmersdorf.  I was young, unencumbered this time by slow-trudging crones.  I covered the ground between the cottage and the woods in less than an hour.  I was travelling light.  On previous journeys I had been loaded down with the tools of what passed as my guardians' trade.  This time, I carried only a small bag of provisions: a meagre supply of whatever could be spared.            

The forest, which had loomed stark and black against the distant horizon what seemed like only moments earlier, was now around me.  I walked between leafless trees which cast dark shadows across the snow.  Although the sun was high in the sky - not strong enough to melt the snow, but warm and bright - here, amidst the trees, the light could barely penetrate.            

There was a path through the forest, rust red clay, winding like a ribbon discarded on the black earth.  I had been told, by Virgina, Genetrixa and Anicula in turn, of the importance of sticking to the path.  The forest was old and vast and sprawling, home to bears and wolves, to other things about which my guardians only ever darkly hinted.            

But the path was safe.          

The path, by my reckoning, would also lead me more than three hours' travel further west than I needed to go.            

I cut instead, through dense, deeply shadowed woodland, where the tracks of various animals criss-crossed in the snow and dirt.  A spiders web was suspended between the boughs of a tree, jewelled with frost, gleaming in the little light that fell here.  Moss, the silver-white of Anicula's hair, clung to trunks, and scarlet berries shone on otherwise bare branches, crimson spatters against the snow.          

Fallen leaves and twigs, rigid with rime, cracked under my feet.  Occasionally, from the forest around me, I thought I heard answering snaps and rustling.  From time to time, I would halt and wait, motionless and silent as possible, straining to hear, but I could never be sure.          

I stopped at a clearing and ate from the bag of provisions Virgina had packed for my journey.  At the centre of the clearing, was a pond, spikes of reeds protruding from it frozen surface, ice-brittle and withered by the cold.  The sun had reached the zenith of its arc and its light reflected off the frozen water, blinding and hypnotic, and painted the glade in its magical golden glow.          

A few hours later, after picking my way between trees and around bramble, crossing ground strewn with pebbles, crusted in compacted snow that hadn't melted since it first fell at the start of the season, I emerged from the forest.            

Daylight had all but left the sky.  The shadow of Nimmersdorf castle poured long and dark before it, as the last crimson traces of sunset ignited the horizon.            

I walked along the main street that ran through the small principality, a straight-ish line connecting the castle and the red dirt track that meandered through the forest.  Smoke poured from chimneys of the houses on either side.  From the doorway of an inn, came the smell of cooking meat, the sounds of laughter, a blast of heat as I passed by.            

A few people crossed my path: a huntsman returning triumphant with a brace of plump birds tied together and thrown over his shoulder; a woman fetching kindling; two young children, their genders utterly indeterminate under the mismatch of layers they wore against the cold, leading a goat down the road.  They acknowledged my presence with polite, friendly nods and I nodded in return.            

I only realised, when Nimmersdorf castle loomed huge and dreamlike in front of me, that I had been looking out for the fair-haired boy who had given me the necklace last summer, and I felt an odd little wrench of disappointment.          

The gate to the castle was before me, set into the wall that surrounded it, hung on hinges larger than my head.  I raised my hand to knock.  This was it: it was time.  I was tired and a little uncertain, but unsurprisingly, I was not afraid.          

The sound of my fist against the wood of the massive gate was louder than I expected.  It sounded like thunder in the gathering gloom.            

A narrow hatch opened in the gate.  A panel I hadn't noticed slid aside to reveal a gap, just big enough for a person to see through, or fire a crossbow.  Through the gap, two eyes looked me up and down and a voice asked me to state my business.          

'I seek an audience with the prince.  I come on behalf of the Grey Women who live on the other side of the forest.  I carry important tidings, of which the prince must be told.'  My voice was steady.  I knew I sounded older than my years.          

The eyes looked doubtful for a moment.          

'Oh...'  The panel slammed back into place.          

I heard muttered words being exchanged on the other side of the gate: 'I dunno... some young girl in a red cloak... says she's got important news for the prince.'            

The hatch opened again.  'One moment, miss.'          

Slow, quiet moments passed like that, standing outside the castle gate.  I don't know how many.  A fine, dry, powder-like snow began to fall, settled on the stones of the walls, on my clothes, in my hair, and a wind began to rise, blowing in from the forests.  The flakes swirled and undulated in the newly awoken breeze, as the last glowing licks of daylight faded from the sky.          

A groaning of ancient timber: slowly, the gate rose.          

I squinted to see past the flurry of snow that danced in front of my eyes, to make out anything in the near-dark of the winter evening.            

A courtyard; a fountain (no water arcing from its spouts); someone walking towards me.          

He seemed to be lit from within.  His face looked as though it had been chiselled from some perfect white stone, or formed perhaps from moonlight itself.  His hair was fair - not the straw-coloured fairness of the boy who had given me a necklace one summer that now seemed a very long time ago, but the silver of snow plains on cloudless nights - and it framed his impossibly beautiful face like a halo.  His eyes were very green and very kind.          

He stood in the gateway: the prince of Nimmersdorf.  And he smiled.            

I felt that smile embrace me, shutting out the cold and the wind, making me forget the distance I had covered that day.  For a moment, I couldn't even remember why I was there.          

'You are welcome here, child,' he said, in a voice which, though quiet, was oddly resonant.  'Please, follow me.'          

He turned on heel and walked away from me.            

And not sure I could do anything else, even if I wanted to, I followed him.

 

Part III – Developments

The prince threw another log onto the fire, and I watched as the flames licked around it, dancing blue and green for a moment as they encountered wet bark, before they commenced to consume the wood entirely.            

Two dogs, huge and sinewy, lolled at the prince's feet.  They yawned happily, tails thrashing their enthusiasm, as and when he'd reach out to pet them.          

'So,' he said, as the firelight played across his features, 'what is it the old crows want to tell me?'          

I was shocked mute for a second.  I had thought bad things about my elderly guardians in the past.  I had called them far worse names than 'crows', but only ever in my head.  Hearing someone say those words out loud - even with the women far away in their remote little cottage, even knowing that the someone in question was a prince - I felt the blood drain from my face.          

He grinned at my stupefied expression, and I laughed too, suddenly amazed by the thrall that three old women could have held over me, for such a long time.          

'What of these important tidings then?' he asked.          

I did my best to sound grown-up.  'The Grey Women think something bad is coming,' I said.  'They felt it, and they divined it with extispicy^*.  Danger heading in from the north: they believe it may have something to do with the wolf-clans.'          

'The wolf-clans...?'  One eyebrow arched.          

'Hunger comes on four legs and on two,' I continued.  'That was what the entrails said.'          

The prince stared into the fire for a long time and was silent.  The air of joviality there had been, moments earlier, was gone, replaced by one of sombre anticipation.  The firelight cast strange, flickering shadows.  The flames' crackle was the only sound in the room.          

Eventually, the prince spoke.  'It was always just a matter of time,' he said.  'I had hoped, rather selfishly, that it would be later rather than sooner.'          

'What are you going to do?' I asked.          

The prince's face was set: grim but resolute, and the flames' dancing light played oddly across his features.  'Whatever I must,' he replied.          

Twin embers glowed in the centres of his green eyes.  In spite the warmth of the fire, I shuddered. 

It was decided best that I stay at the castle.  The prince insisted.  The winter, which had barely broken its teeth when I had set out that morning, had suddenly closed in, in full force.  By nightfall, icy gusts were tearing across the lands, and the snow started to fall in earnest, mute and blank and smothering.  It was too hazardous to attempt the journey back to the cottage, the prince had said.  The elements alone made it perilous enough: a person could lose their way in a blizzard like that, freeze to death and not be found until spring.  If the message in the entrails was accurate, this would be the least of one's concerns.         

Instead I was to remain at the castle, a guest of the prince, for as long as I was happy there.   

Four armed riders were despatched, to go to the cottage and confirm to my guardians my safe arrival in Nimmersdorf, and avow the prince's pledge to protect his people from whatever danger may be threatening from the north.  They were charged to stay at the cottage and keep watch over the Grey Women.  For all their charms and mysticism, the prince pointed out, they were still elderly and frail, and the wolf-clans were merciless.          

Over the following days, maybe weeks (for in the castle, time seemed to pass differently to how it did outside), barons, generals, men of note from the realms all around Nimmersdorf passed through the great wooden gates to talk with the prince.  I would sit at his side during these meetings, and repeat, when prompted, the message my custodians had sent me to deliver.  I saw men the size of bears fall silent at the words.  Faces, ravaged by years of war, knotted with the scars of violent conflict, turned sickly and ashen upon hearing the solemn warning.            

'I am the first to admit,' the prince would say, 'that I am no warlord.  My reign has been blessedly peaceful.  I have not had to face the trials and hardships that my forefathers had to brave.  It has been many years since I stood, knee-deep in death, on the field of combat.  Some of you may respect me less for that.          

'But I would ask you, for the sake of your people as well as mine, to put such personal feelings aside.  If the Grey Women are right, and I do not doubt that they are, we must stand united if we are to have any hope of survival.  We must look beyond the petty grudges of our past, or else there will be no future.'          

Alliances were formed.  One thing was unanimous.  Defeat was not an option.          

All the while, all around us, there was the sense of the kingdom preparing itself for battle.  The armouries were manned day and night.  The kingdom itself seemed poised and ready to spring.          

I spent a great deal of time in the prince's company.  His reputation for kindness was well-founded, and I felt content and at ease in his presence.  He in turn seemed happy enough to pass quiet hours with me.  He said that being near me made him feel young again.  I reminded him, he told me, of simpler, happier times.          

When affairs of state took him away, the castle offered a multitude of distractions for me.  There were horses in the stables, sleek and powerful, muscle and sinew rippling under gleaming coats.  Their hot breath would tickle my palm when I gave them spoiled apples from the castle kitchens.          

There was a library.  There had been few books in the cottage of the Grey Women.  They had been distrustful of the written word and Anicula had professed to have little time for the scribblings of fools.  Nonetheless, I had taught myself to read, as best I could, and now set about the task of working my way through the entirety of the library.  I was utterly indiscriminate in what I read: consumed volumes of poetry, dense tomes of historical treatise, books of fables and fantastical tales, written in ornate italics with lavish illustrations: ghouls and goblins, witches and werewolves, pixies, cambions, bicorns, creatures of dream and stardust.            

For the first time in my life, I had a room of my own, with a bed.  The ceilings were high and vaulted, the walls hung with rich tapestries.  A leaded window looked out over the whiteness of outside.  I’d leave the room each morning and when I returned in the evening, the bed would be made, a fire lit in the grate, new clothes laid out for me - not the patched hand-me-downs I was used to, but fine, pristine garments of all different colours.  Silks and velvets felt very different against my skin to the coarse wools and hessian I had worn before.          

Every night, the prince and I would take dinner together in the winter banqueting hall.  There was another hall, he told me, in a different wing of the castle, larger and grander than this.  It was also, however, colder and draughtier, so the prince had thought it best to forgo pomp and grandeur in this case, in favour of eating somewhere easier to heat.            

It was on one such evening, a month or so after my arrival in Nimmersdorf, that the prince asked me a question I had never thought to ask myself.            

The cook had brought through the dishes of steaming food, and the royal tasters had taken tiny bites of each, short sips from the flagon of dark red wine.  They had professed that all seemed to be as it should, and had slipped discreetly away.          

‘Are you...’ the prince paused for a moment, as though searching for the right words.  ‘Are you happy living with the Grey Women?’          

I considered this, long and hard, stared at the knots and whorls of the oak table.  I thought about the cottage, about the old women’s bickering, about the wet-goat smell that permeated the wiry blankets on which I used to sleep.  I thought about Anicula and the way her stone cold silences could make the whole cottage echo.            

‘I...  don’t know,’ I replied truthfully.  ‘I don’t suppose I’ve ever given it much thought.’  Something more was needed.  ‘I wasn’t unhappy.’          

We ate for a while without speaking.          

‘I’d like for you to be more than “not unhappy”,’ said the prince.  ‘And I’ve come to enjoy your company.’  The words sounded stilted, alien in his mouth.  He seemed uncomfortable and uncertain.  ‘I was wondering if, when all of this is over,’ he gestured vaguely towards the world outside and whatever dangers might be heading our way, ‘you might like to stay here, with me, for good...’