Never After

Can He Bake a Cherry Pie? LAURELL K. HAMILTON

The Earl of Chillswoth was a pervert, and everyone knew it. Elinore knew it, and the sensation of his age-spotted hand over her pale young one frightened her more than anything had ever frightened her before, because the earl, though a known abuser of every kind of vice, was wealthy and well connected at court. Her father was neither of these things, because of the small matter of a disagreement with the current king’s father about a war. The war was long over, the king’s father long dead, but Elinore’s father longed to regain his standing at court. It wasn’t just for himself, he reasoned, but for his two sons. The fact that the price for saving the family reputation was his only daughter’s health, happiness, and body didn’t seem to bother her father. Elinore found that… disappointing.

He’d never been particularly affectionate, except in that absent way that fathers have, but she had thought, truly, that he loved her as a daughter. The fact that he had already agreed to marry her to the aging earl, with his hungry eyes and wet lips and overly familiar hands, without so much as, I’m sorry, Elinore, had made her realize that to her father, she was not real. She was not a son, and thus was only something to negotiate with, to use as a bribe, like land, or a fine horse. She was property. Legally, she knew she was, but she hadn’t realized that her own father believed it.

Her mother had been deaf to her pleas, and even now sat smiling at the other end of the huge banquet table. It was the celebration for midsummer. It was a time of games, dancing, bright colors, and looking the other way when some of the young girls and men went off by themselves. Many a hurried marriage followed midsummer. Elinore had always been a good girl. She had refused all those handsome young men. She had been dutiful, and pure, and everything a daughter should be. She had her mother’s long yellow hair; skin like milk that had never known a hard day in the sun. Her eyes were the color of cornflowers—by far her best feature, so her mother told her. She had her grandmother’s eyes—again, so she was told. Her grandmother had been a great beauty in her day, but sadly stubborn. Elinore was even named after that lost ancestress. She’d always been very unlike the dead grandmother. She had been pliable, and look where all that good behavior had gotten her.

The Earl of Chillswoth—“Call me Donald”—leered down the table at her. He was sitting by her father, not because he had the highest rank, but because he was the highest in favor at the distant court of the king. She did not wish to call him Donald, and she did not wish to have her father announce to all that she would be the earl’s fourth wife. Or was it fifth? Two of them had been as young as Elinore, and they had not lived to see twenty-five. One had died in childbirth, but no one wanted to talk about what happened to the last one. She’d heard whispers that the old man was becoming unable to perform, and so his desire of the flesh had turned to harder things. She did not understand everything that was meant by that sentence, but she understood enough to know that she did not want to be the earl’s fourth, or fifth, wife.

Elinore would rather have lived as an old maid, done her sewing, overseen the cooking, and done what a good wife does. Their keep was small enough, and the time hard enough, that she could actually cook, and sew, and do all the things that made a woman’s world. Many noble girls were fairly useless. Elinore liked to be busy, and because her desires were all women’s work, no one had ever objected.

She herself had helped arrange the tails on the peacocks, stuffed and cooked and brought lifelike to the table. The head cook had said, “Begging the miss’s pardon, but you have a fine eye and hand for the kitchen.”

Elinore had taken that for the high praise it was, and not been insulted in the least. She loved the big kitchen, and would have spent more time there if her parents had allowed. She’d been mostly forgotten until she was too old to be mistaken for a little girl. Then, suddenly, it was time to find a husband.

If only she had gone with Bernie Woodstock last midsummer. He had asked her first, but she’d refused, and now he was married to Lucy of Aberly, and they had their first child. Bernie was heir to a fine estate, not as fine as their own, but he and Lucy seemed happy enough, though the baby cried every time she visited. As Elinore watched her father call for silence, and begin to stand, how she wished, she so wished, she had gone off with Bernie last year. Once her father announced her engagement officially, it could not be undone without causing great disgrace to her family.

Elinore rose faster than her father, with his one bad knee from the long ago war. She stood in the silence, and her father said, “Elinore, it is not necessary for you to stand.”

“I wish to make an announcement, Father, a traditional announcement for midsummer.” She spoke hurriedly, afraid her nerve would fail her.

Her father smiled indulgently at her, probably thinking she would do the traditional maiden’s toast for this time of year, for she was still a maiden in every sense of the word.

“I will go rescue Prince True.” It was an old saying now, older than the war that had gotten her father in trouble. It was more fairy tale now than truth to most people, for it had been more than fifty years since he vanished. But once, Prince True had been heir to the whole kingdom. Yet as often happens in fairy stories, he had been arrogant and unkind to women. He had declared that women’s work was worthless, and only men, and their work, had value. One day, so the story went, a witch overheard him and challenged him to come to her cave. She told him she would prove to him that a woman was stronger than a man. He laughed at her. She accused him of cowardice, and, being a foolish prince, he went to accept her challenge. He was never seen again.

Many men tried to rescue him, but finally a body came back with a note that read, “Only a woman’s art can win the prince his freedom.” For many years after that, noble houses that had two daughters, or more, would make one or two of them learn to be a man. They learned weapons, and riding, and hunting, and all the things that make a hero a hero. They would ride off in their armor, and never be seen alive again. You could go to the edge of the first moat and gaze down upon the armored skeletons, complete with horses, that had been dashed to their deaths on the rocks below.

No one had tried to rescue the prince in a long time, because his father was now dead, his brother on the throne, and there was an idea that even if a rescue worked, the current king might not welcome his eldest brother’s return. But the idea that Prince True was held captive, young forever, tortured by the witch, would occasionally make some brave soul go out, and die.

Elinore had gazed upon the broken bodies once, with her brothers. She’d had nightmares for a week. But she knew the moment the earl cupped her breast with his horrible hand that she would rather die. She knew she could not run away, because her father would find her wherever she went, and anyone who helped her would be hurt. She’d learned that lesson from her cousin Matilda, who ran away once, and bore the scars on her back to this day. Matilda was married and the mother of three, but what had haunted Elinore was not the scars from the beating, but the death of the shepherd boy who had helped her cousin.

No, Elinore would endanger no one but herself, and a true suicide would mar her family’s name. But if she went to rescue the prince, then she could die, not marry the earl, and not disgrace her family. It seemed a perfect plan, or as perfect as she could come up with on the spur of the moment.

“Elinore, sit down,” her father said, in a tone that had quailed her since childhood. But that tone had lost its ability to frighten her. She had the earl to look at, and nothing her father could do was worse than that.

“I will rescue Prince True, or die in the effort, so I swear by my maid, mother, and crone. May the moon take me, if I lie, and the lightning of God strike any who try to prevent me from this most solemn duty.” She said the last looking directly at her father, and for the first time ever, the look of her dead grandmother was on her face, and in the set of her shoulders. Elinore the Younger had found her backbone at last.

Elinore was not brave, but she was not stupid either. She turned from the banquet table and went for the door. She knew that if she did not go now, in front of all these witnesses, her father would stop her. He did not believe in the lightning of God striking the evil. If it did, or could, the earl would have died long ago. She would go now, tonight. It was high summer; the sun was still up, and would not set for hours. She would call for her horse, and she could be there by twilight, and be dead before dark. It was a plan, and it was the only plan she had, so she stuck to it. The trick about such plans is to keep moving, and not think too hard, because if she thought too hard, she might decide that life with the horrible earl would be preferable to death.

It became a parade. Other young nobles joined her on their horses, and in carriages. Her mother tried to dissuade her once, but Elinore gave her such a look that her mother dropped her hand away. Her mother had grown up with that look, out of those eyes, and knew that when the grandmother had that look, nothing could move her from her course. Elinore mounted her white horse, with its sidesaddle, and her mother began to plan the funeral of her only daughter.

Elinore rode at the head of the parade. They sang behind her, the old songs about the other princesses and noble princes who had died trying to rescue the true prince. There was the Lament of Prince Yosphier, very dirgelike. There was the bawdy drinking song of Princess Jasmine. That one always implied she’d run away and joined a circus, Elinore thought, though as she grew older she wasn’t entirely sure that Jasmine was performing in a circus, after all. Then there was her favorite, Yellen’s hymn to the prince. Yellen was a minor noble daughter, but she had gotten the farthest and pronounced the prince handsome and still young as the day he vanished.

Elinore listened to the musicians and the singing, and hoped they wrote something pretty for her. She made sure she sat the horse well, and let her long yellow hair free of its ribbons so that it flew out behind her, with her horse’s white skin, and her pale yellow cloak that she had dyed herself. If she could not be brave, she hoped she made a pretty picture.

They came upon the bridge that crossed the first moat just as the sky was darkening, just at the beginning of twilight, as she had hoped. Elinore had always been a good judge of distances on horseback. If it had been more lady-like, she would’ve ridden more. Now she wished she had. She wished she had ridden her lovely white mare out in the sun, until her pale skin tanned like a peasant’s, and men like the earl would have seen her as headstrong and not worth looking at. Oh, she had so many regrets as she dismounted her white horse at the edge of the bridge. She did not think it possible to have accumulated so many regrets in but seventeen short years, but she had assumed there would be time, so much more time than this.

Servants began to bring up torches to sit at the edge of the drop, and she could see the skeletons far below, by the light of the dying sun, and the coming torches. She actually had turned from the sight of it, her nerve failing. Surely, life was better than this.

Then her father was there, whispering, “You have disgraced me, Elinore, before the earl. If you go to him tonight, before the wedding, then he will forgive all. He will marry you and our family will rise at court.”

“You once told me, Father, that to rescue Prince True was another way of saying you would rather die. Well I would rather rescue Prince True than go to the bed of the earl tonight.”

He struck her then, laid her low in front of them all. She tasted blood in her mouth, and the world swam for a moment. When she could see clearly again, she looked up at her father, and called out, in a loud ringing voice, “I will rescue Prince True or die in the effort.”

“You are a selfish, foolish girl,” he said.

“Yes, Father, I am all those things.” She got to her feet, a little shakily, for she had never been struck in the face. Whippings, yes, but never this. She straightened her cloak, settled her skirt, resisted the urge to touch the blood she could feel trickling from the corner of her mouth, and said, “Good-bye, father.”

She turned with no other word, and went straight for the bridge. She did not look down from the dizzying height to where her body would soon be lying. She did not look at the skeletons and their skeleton horses on the razor-sharp rocks below. She kept her eyes front, her back straight, as a well bred woman should.

Her father called, “Elinore!”

She did not answer, for she had said her good-byes. She was strangely calm, calmer than she had ever been outside of the kitchens. The bridge was wooden, and had no rails, but it was solid and wide enough to drive a large carriage across. She got halfway, when she felt the bridge move. She was already looking at the far end of the bridge, and the small watchtower that marked the end of this moat and the beginning of the second. She did not have time to look up, or look down, or be surprised. She saw the giant step out of thin air, and come striding toward her. He held a huge club the size of the great oak back home. It was just like the songs and stories. The first danger was a giant with a club, and when you fought him, he would smash you to the rocks below.

The bridge swayed and pitched, and she knelt, not out of fear of the coming giant, but because she did not want to fall off the bridge. It seemed important somehow that she should die by the giant’s club and not some silly fall. If this were to be the last thing she ever did, she would die well, and, if possible, in such a way to make her father regret his actions. Yes, seeing her fall would be horrible, but seeing her beaten to death by a giant, that well served her father right.

The giant thundered toward her, bellowing. He raised his great club, and at the last moment Elinore closed her eyes. She closed them for a long time, it seemed. She opened them, cautiously, and found herself staring at the giant’s ankles. They were very big ankles, big as barrels. She looked up from the ankles and found the giant looking down at her. His club was at his side.

They stared at each other for a moment or two, the girl and the giant. Elinore noticed that the giant’s eyes were brown, and the size of serving platters, but they were not unkind, those eyes. They were certainly kinder than the eyes of the earl.

“What is your name?” the giant asked, in a voice like thunder.

She swallowed hard, and then spoke up, so that the nobles watching could hear she’d died bravely. “I am Elinore the Younger.”

She got to her feet, carefully, making sure she did not trip on the hem of her skirt. There were still no rails on the bridge, and the giant was taking up a lot of room. She eased past him, holding her skirts up, delicately, wishing she had thought to change out of her dancing slippers and into something more serviceable. Dancing slippers were fine for quick deaths, but if it was to be slow, and there was to be a challenge, then there were other shoes she would have chosen.

When she was on the other side of the giant, and had more room to maneuver, she dropped him a perfect curtsy. “Thank you, giant.”

He pointed with a finger the size of a young tree. “Go there, Elinore the Younger. Go there and meet my cousin. Your death at my hands would have been quick. If you fail the next trial, your death will be slow and fulsome.”

She curtsied again. “I would rather die quickly, if it’s all the same to you, giant of the kind eyes. Could you not kill me now, and save me a slow and fulsome death?”

“No, I cannot, because you have passed my test. Now go, Elinore; go to my cousin, and remember kindness may get you further than anger.”

She curtsied again, frowning. “My mother says that it is easier to be kind to begin with, than to apologize later.”

“Your mother is wise. Now go, while I keep the crowd occupied.”

Elinore looked back where he motioned, and saw that some of the young men, growing brave, had started on the bridge. They were armed with sword and shield. Apparently they had decided the giant could not be as fierce as first thought, if Elinore could pass it so easily.

Elinore went to the other side of the bridge, and the wooden door in the gate. The moment she was off the bridge, the giant charged the noble young men, screaming and sweeping them to their deaths with his great club.

Elinore knocked upon the huge wooden door in the stone gate, to the sound of screams and fighting. She could not fight a giant, or save anyone foolish enough to try. She could only go on.

The door opened, silently, on well-oiled hinges. At first she saw nothing but a stony passageway. Then there was movement at the far end of the hallway. Something shifted in the shadows. She would have said something huge, but she had just seen the giant, and so the ogre seemed almost small.

“Where’s your sword, girl?” the ogre cried with his mouth full of sharp fangs, tusks like the boar’s head that hung on her father’s study wall.

“I have no sword,” she said.

“Then where’s your ax?”

She frowned at the ogre. “I have no weapon.”

“Then it will be easy to kill you.”

She nodded. “I suppose it will be.”

The ogre ran at her, with an ax that was bright and looked sharp enough to cut stone. Elinore didn’t wait, but closed her eyes immediately. Somehow dying from a fall, or a club, had seemed less awful than being chopped about by an ax. She did not want to see it, and tried desperately not to wonder how much it would hurt.

She had her eyes closed for a very long time, but no ax came. She opened her eyes, and found herself staring into the hairy, warty chest of the ogre. His great, gleaming ax was limp by his side. He was staring at her, intently, out of eyes that were almost as blue as her own.

“Are you not afraid of me, girl?”

“Yes, I am,” she said.

“Then why do you not fight me, or scream?”

“I am no fighter, and if I am to die this day, I will die without screaming.”

He leaned forward with his tusks and teeth, and growled, “I can make you scream.”

“Yes, you can. I’m sure you can.”

“You say you are afraid, girl, but you do not act it.”

“I am Elinore the Younger, and I have come to rescue Prince True or die in the effort.”

The ogre gave a harsh snuff, and his breath was not pleasant, as if he’d eaten too much garlic for dinner, but it was not the breath of a monster, just of a very large man. His eyes were not as kind as the giant’s, but they were not cruel either.

“You may pass me, Elinore the Younger. My aunt waits for you in the next room. I would have cut you up and eaten you for supper tomorrow. My aunt will eat you while you are still alive.” And he leaned in close to add menace to the threat.

Elinore felt her pulse in her throat, because being eaten alive sounded even more awful than being cut up by an ax and cooked later, or knocked off a bridge by a giant, but she couldn’t go back. She had to go forward. Surely, eventually, someone would kill her and it would be done.

She curtsied to the ogre. “Thank you, ogre. I hope you have a pleasant supper tomorrow, but I am glad it will not be me.”

“You will not be glad,” he called after her, “once you see my aunt.”

Elinore went to the end of the stone corridor, and found a much smaller door. She hesitated with her hand above the curved metal of the door handle. She really did not want to be eaten alive. That seemed a worse fate than marrying the Earl of Chillswoth; didn’t it?

She stood there so long that the ogre came at her back, and asked, “Why do you hesitate, girl?”

“I am afraid,” she answered simply; “I do not want to be eaten alive.”

“You can go back,” the ogre said. “As you passed me and my cousin the first time, you may pass the other way.”

She turned and looked at him, and she could not see that her eyes were very blue and very wide, and full of a trust that was rare in one her age. The ogre saw.

“I may truly leave, and you will not harm me?”

“I have said before, you have passed our tests. My cousin and I will not harm you now.”

“But your aunt, behind this door, may eat me alive,” Elinore said, and she did not try to keep the fear out of her voice.

The ogre nodded. “She will if you fail her test.” He touched her yellow cloak with one dirty finger. “Who dyed this cloth for you?”

“I dyed it myself, with the help of servants, but I gathered the herbs for the dye.”

Elinore wasn’t certain, but she thought the ogre smiled around his mouth full of tusks. “Go forward, girl, if you have the courage. Go back, if you have not, but whatever brought you to us is still waiting for you on the other side of the bridge.”

She nodded. “The Earl of Chillswoth,” she said.

“I do not know that name.”

“If I fail your aunt’s test, will she really, truly eat me alive?”

The ogre nodded. “She will. She has. She likes her meat fresh and wriggling.”

Elinore shuddered, and swallowed hard enough that it hurt her throat. Was marriage to the earl truly a fate worse than that?

She remembered his hands on her. The moment in the dance when he had not just brushed her breast, but held it, caressed it. Her father would have had any of the young nobles beaten for such liberties, or at least thrown out of the banquet. She remembered how her skin had crawled, and her very being had shrunk from the touch, and the look in his eyes. Was it a fate worse than death? Perhaps not, but Elinore had come to die rather than marry the earl. She would do it. Even if the death were horrible, it would last only moments, and then she would be free. Marriage to that man could last years. She shuddered again, but not from fear of what lay behind the door.

She wrapped her hand around the handle, and said, “Thank you, ogre. You have been kinder than I would have ever dreamed.”

“You are welcome, Elinore the Younger.”

She let go the door long enough to give him a curtsy; then she opened the door, and found herself in an empty stone room, where the only light was a great fireplace against the far wall.

She hesitated only a moment, then stepped through in her impractical dancing slippers. She closed the door firmly behind her, and faced the empty firelit room. Her moment of fear was past. She was calm again.

“Your nephew the ogre has sent me,” she said to the emptiness. “I await your test.”

“You sound very brave,” said a woman’s voice from the shadows.

Elinore swallowed hard again, and could not keep her pulse from racing, but she answered firm enough. She would die bravely for the song they would write about her. It would be a shame to have them write a laughing ballad like they had for the one princess who died screaming.

“I am not certain I am brave, but I am here for your test.” She peered into the shadows, trying to see the woman, or ogre, for there was no room for a giant.

There was a shape in the dimness, but it was not a woman’s shape. Elinore’s eyes could not make sense of it, at first; then the voice’s owner stepped into the firelight, and Elinore did scream. She clapped her hand over her mouth to hold in the sound, but never had she dreamt of anything like what stood before her. It was worth a scream, or two.

It was a great predatory cat, the color of ripe wheat, glowing and golden in the light. It padded toward her on huge cat feet. But it wasn’t a lion, or even a cat, for the upper part of the animal had breasts and arms, and a woman’s face with long, wavy brown hair. Her eyes were the yellow slits of a cat’s, but if you hadn’t seen the lower part, you’d say she was beautiful.

Elinore stood, her hand to her mouth, and watched the woman-cat pad toward her, in a graceful walk that reminded her of the kitchen cats.

“Do you know what I am?” she asked.

Elinore shook her head, and finally forced herself to move her hand from her mouth. She tried to stand like a lady, and not a frightened child.

“I am a sphinx, and my kind loves to ask riddles and questions. I will ask you three questions, and if you fail to answer correctly, I will kill you.”

Elinore’s voice came out, breathy and afraid, but she could not help it. “Your nephew, the ogre, said you would eat me alive. Is that true?”

The sphinx smiled, and though a lady’s mouth did the smiling, it was the smile a cat would have, if it could. Elinore knew the answer, and it was not good.

“I am part cat, and we like our meat fresh.”

Elinore nodded again. “Ask your question, and when I fail, I would ask only that you kill me before you start eating me. Surely, I will be freshly dead, and that is fresh enough. I ask this one thing, dear sphinx.”

“I am not your dear anything, girl, but I will think upon your request.” She sat back on her curved haunches, so that her human upper body was very visible. “Here is my first question to you. Get it wrong, and I will kill you. Answer correctly, and you will have two more chances to die.”

“Or to live,” Elinore said, in a voice that sounded squeaky as a mouse, even to her.

The sphinx laughed, head back, face sparkling with joy. “Only two in fifty years have gotten past me, and I do not think it will be three before the calendar doth turn again.”

Elinore nodded. “You are quite right. I am not bright enough to answer questions from such as you. But ask, sphinx; ask and let me die.”

The sphinx turned her head to one side, the way a cat will when it’s trying to judge a thing. “I thought you were here to rescue Prince True and become queen of all.”

“That is supposed to be the goal, yes, but in all honesty, I came to die, rather than marry the Earl of Chillswoth. If I commit suicide, then my family is disgraced, but if I die trying to rescue the prince, then I am dead, and my family can go on.”

“Is the earl such an odious man?”

“Yes, I believe he is, or I would not be here.”

The sphinx looked at her. “What is your name?”

“I am called Elinore the Younger.”

“Who is the elder?”

“My grandmother.”

“Does she yet live?”

“No.”

“Ah, then they will soon need another Elinore.” The sphinx began to pace around her. She tried to hold still, but finally began to turn to keep the monster in sight. She could not fight it off, but at least she could see it coming. It was the best she could think to do.

“What was used to make the dye of your cloak, Elinore the Soon to be Dead?”

Elinore frowned at her. This couldn’t be the first question, because it was too easy. Was it a trap? “Is this the first question?”

“Yes, unless you want a different one.”

“No, this is a lovely question. Yarrow. Yarrow made the dye.”

“Hmm,” said the sphinx, gliding around and around her. “The ingredients for gingerbread, what are they?”

Gingerbread was a rare treat, very expensive, but Elinore’s family had money enough for such luxuries. “Butter and sugar, spices and flour, eggs and molasses and milk.”

“Did you supervise the baking at your home?”

“No, I would never dream of supervising our head cook; she would not tolerate it, not from me.”

“Then how did you learn to make such a delicacy?”

“She allowed me to make it last Winter’s Moon.” Elinore almost reached out and touched the sphinx, then dropped her hand. “You must not tell Mother, for Cook would get in trouble for risking such expensive ingredients with me, but Cook says I have a good hand and eye for the kitchen.”

“Indeed,” said the sphinx. She looked Elinore up and down, and then said, “Let me see your shoes.”

Elinore did as she was asked, because she was certain that now there would be some question of history or mathematics that would be too hard to answer, though she could not fathom what her slippers had to do with mathematics.

She raised her party dress and showed her dancing slippers with their jeweled embroidery. “Did you think dancing slippers were the thing to wear to fight monsters?” the sphinx asked.

Elinore hesitated, and then said, “No, ma’am, I did not.”

“Then why did you wear them?”

Elinore almost pointed out that wasn’t that a fourth question, but it seemed impolite to say that to someone who could gut you and eat you alive.

“I had to leave as soon as I announced I would rescue Prince True. If I had waited, even to change my slippers, my father would have found a way to detain me. Also, in truth, I wanted to be pretty when I died, so they would sing of it.”

“Is it better to be pretty or brave, Elinore the Younger?”

A fifth question. Should she point it out, that she’d answered four already? “It is better to be brave, but since I am not, I thought I would be pretty for the bards and musicians, and jeweled slippers are prettier than muck boots.”

“You own a pair of muck boots?” the sphinx asked.

“Well, yes; you can’t wear dancing slippers to gather herbs and things for dyes. Also, how do you know the kitchen boy is giving you the best vegetables unless you go out into the fields for yourself?”

“Do you garden, then?”

Finally, Elinore braved the question, “That is the sixth question you’ve asked me, ma’am. Have I passed your test?”

The sphinx waved a careless hand. “Yes, yes, you pass. Go through the door by the fireplace and you have but one more task to complete.”

“Only one more?” Elinore asked.

The sphinx nodded.

“Then I will live?”

“We shall see.”

“I never really expected to succeed.”

“Perhaps that is why you are doing so well.” The sphinx walked back into the shadows and vanished.

Elinore was left with another door, and another challenge, and no hint what lay ahead, but she had survived, and only one more task lay before her. She might actually rescue Prince True. All the stories made him out to be a womanizing bounder, and a scoundrel. Had Elinore run from one bad marriage into another? They never tell you in fairy tales that sometimes the prize may not be worth the effort. But she went for the last door, because what else could she do?>

It was a throne room, bigger than the king’s room. The throne at the end of that long walk gleamed silver, and was studded with pearls and soft, gleaming jewels. A beautiful woman sat in the chair. Her long yellow hair lay in heavy, straight folds, like a second cloak to decorate the black dress she wore. The underdress was silver thread, and as Elinore got closer, she saw embroidery at the sleeves and collar. The bright colors contrasted with the silver and black starkness of the rest of the dress.

She kept expecting there to be guards, or servants, or someone, but the woman sat alone on the throne. This had to be the sorceress, didn’t it?

When she was almost touching the steps that led upward to the throne, Elinore dropped a curtsy as low as any she’d given at the courts of the king.

“You may rise,” the woman said in a deep, pleasant voice, as if she would sing low, but well.

Elinore stood, hands clasped in front of her. “Are you the sorceress?”

“I am she.”

“I have come to rescue Prince True.”

“Why?” the sorceress asked.

Elinore frowned at her, and then answered truthfully. She told of her father trying to marry her to the earl, and her decision.

“So, in truth, Elinore the Younger, you do not wish to rescue the prince at all. You merely wish to die in such a way as to free yourself from the earl, and not disgrace your family.”

“That is true, but I have come so far through all your challenges, it has made me wonder if perhaps I might live, after all.”

“So you do wish to try to rescue the prince?

“If that is the only way to free myself, yes.”

“I will give you three choices, Elinore. I can offer you a quick and painless death. Does that please you?”

“You said there were three choices. I would like to hear the other two, if it’s all right. A quick and painless death is not a bad choice, especially since at one point today I thought I would be eaten alive, but I would like to know my options, please.”

“You are most polite, child.”

“My mother would be pleased that you say so.” The sorceress smiled, a small smile, and then continued. “The second choice is to show you a secret way out of my lair. You may go forth and never see your father or the earl again. You can make your way in the world, Elinore.”

“I suppose I could do that, but I have never been out in the world. I’m not certain I would know how to make my way. What is the third choice?”

“That you try to rescue the prince.”

“What happens if I fail?”

The sorceress clapped her hands, and two young women walked out, one from each side of the room. There must have been doors there that Elinore couldn’t see, or was it the same kind of magic that had made the sphinx able to vanish and appear?

The women took up their posts on either side of the throne. One held a bowl of fruit, the other a jug of wine, and a goblet. The sorceress took the wine but did not touch the fruit.

“This is Princess Meriwether”—she pointed at the tall one with wavy brown hair—“and this is the Baroness Vanessa,” she said of the raven-haired one.

Elinore gaped at them. “The Princess Meriwether and the Vanessa from the songs?”

“The very same,” the sorceress said.

“The songs say they died valiantly.”

“No. They failed to save Prince True, and as punishment they have served me these long years.”

“So if I fail, then I will become your servant?”

“Yes.”

Elinore thought about her options, and then asked, “Could I meet the prince before I decide?”

The sorceress smiled, and waved the two failed rescuers to posts at either side of her throne. “That is a wise question, Elinore. You wish to see if he is worth the risk, eh?”

Elinore nodded. “I do.”

The sorceress drew a silver chain out of her bosom. There was a silver whistle on the chain. She blew it, one clear, birdlike note.

A man walked out of the wall just behind the throne. Were there no normal doors in this room or were they all bewitched so that Elinore could not see them?

The prince, for he still looked like his portrait in the great hall at court, knelt before the throne. “My mistress calls and I must answer.”

“You have another rescuer, but she wished to see you first.”

The prince looked over his shoulder, still kneeling, but definitely looking at Elinore. His brown hair was cut short, but still had tiny curls in it. His eyes were a blue as deep as her own. The brows that curved above those eyes were graceful and a little darker than his hair. He was pale of skin, though in the portrait he was tanned. But then, he had not been outside of this place for more than fifty years. He had grown pale in his long years of captivity. But beyond that, he looked as if he had just ridden through the doors. As with the two women who had come and failed, they had not aged a day.

“Stand up; let her see you better.”

The prince came to his feet and faced Elinore. His face was arrogant, defiant, and almost angry.

Normally, she would have lowered her eyes from such a stare, but this was too important to look away. She studied his face, and found him handsome enough, and his spirit was not broken. So many years, yet he still stared out like that. This was a strong man, not just of arm, but of character, as her grandmother had said.

“May I ask the prince a question?”

“You may, though whether he will answer is another question.”

“Your highness, are you worth the risk of my freedom, and maybe my life?”

The arrogance faltered, and she watched him have a thought. She wasn’t sure what that thought was, but she saw it. “In all these long years no one has asked that. If you win my freedom, then you will be my wife, and queen of all. Isn’t that worth risking your freedom?”

“Your brother has been king for over twenty years, longer than I have been alive. Do you truly think he will simply give up his throne to you and your queen, just like that?”

“Of course he will. I am the heir to the throne. I am his older brother.”

“Prince True, your younger brother is as old as your father was when you vanished. He has two sons and two daughters of his own now.”

“I am the heir, and our laws will force him to give up the throne to me.”

Elinore studied the handsome, but oh, so arrogant face. She turned to the sorceress. “What would the challenge be, if I took it?”

“You would either face the prince in combat, or cook a dinner. Combat is simple: defeat the prince, and you win his hand. The meal is more complicated: you will prepare your best food, and it is my taste you must please. I have yet to taste anyone’s pies that can rival Prince True’s.”

Elinore knew she would not choose combat, but she was confident of her pies. Cook said she was good enough to cook at the palace, and Cook would not lie.

“If the prince had pretended to be bested at combat, would you have let him go?”

“If he had been willing to allow himself to lose, then he would have learned his lesson, and earned his freedom.”

“But he bested them all?” Elinore asked.

“He killed them all,” the sorceress said, and she watched Elinore as she said it.

“They came to save him, and he slew them?”

“He did.”

“And if he put salt in the pie instead of sugar, then one of the other women would have won the contest and he could have been free, yes?”

“Yes, but he still cannot bear to lose, not at anything, and definitely not to a woman.”

Elinore folded her hands along the soft edge of the cloak she had woven and dyed. “I think I could best him at cooking, because our head cook praises me. Never in front of my parents, for they would not understand that her approval meant more to me than theirs.”

“Your head cook is a servant,” the prince said, “and she has to tell you that you are good at something.”

“So you will take the challenge?” the sorceress asked.

“No, I will not,” Elinore said.

The prince stared at her. “What?”

“I have seen and talked to you and I do not think your freedom is worth mine.”

“But I am Prince True, heir to the kingdom.”

“You are Prince True, but I think your brother, or his children, would find a way to deny you the throne. They could say your years with the sorceress had driven you mad and lock you up in a tower.”

“They would not dare!”

“Sorceress, you said there was a secret way out.”

“I did, but what will you do, Elinore the Younger, by yourself, in the wide world?”

“I can sew and cook, and garden. I know my herbs and their uses.”

“So does every peasant woman,” the prince said.

“I bake the finest pies in our lands.”

“I bake a finer pie than you, girl.”

“I propose a different challenge,” the sorceress said.

“I propose that the two of you bake me a pie. If Elinore makes the best pie, then I will give her a dowry so she may set herself up in business, or wed a baker, or a weaver. If the prince is best, then Elinore may leave empty-handed, but she may go with my blessing.”

“And what do I win?” the prince asked.

“A lesson in humility, I hope.”

The kitchen was large and airy, and made Elinore wish she could give Cook such a kitchen back home. The moment she thought “home,” her chest tightened, and her throat closed around something hard and hurtful. She would never see home again, unless she won the prince his freedom and went back to be queen. But Elinore had been to court, though only once, with the other fifteen-year-old noble daughters. She had been introduced to the king and his queen. She had danced with their sons, tried to talk to their daughters. She didn’t think they would so easily give up their throne to a long lost brother and uncle.

She would not miss her father, but would miss her mother, and some of the servants, and she did have a friend or two, that it would matter to her if she never once spoke to them again.

She thought that she and the prince were the only ones in the kitchen, until something she could not see picked up an apron and offered it to her. She was startled for a moment, but then allowed the invisible hands to help her cover her dress and tie the bow in the back. She had laid her cloak on a bench to the side of the room out of the way of flour and ingredients.

She asked the air for a ribbon to tie back her hair and one floated to her. Things she could not see bound her hair back from her face.

Prince True in his own apron busied himself around the kitchen. His hands were strong and sure of themselves. He rolled his dough with sure, hard strokes, but not too hard. If you pressed too hard, you tore the dough.

Elinore realized she was spending too much time watching the prince, and not enough doing her own cooking. She formed her own dough, and began to roll it out carefully on her section of floured counter. She was not as quick as the prince, but she was careful, and thoughtful. There was no need to rush, because there was no time limit. Best to do it right, if there was no need to hurry.

Elinore thought about having enough money of her own to start a business, buy her own house. It was a frightening idea. It was an idea so new that her hands began to shake as she rolled out her dough.

“Why are you afraid, girl?” the prince asked.

Elinore folded her hands back against the apron. “I am not afraid, your highness; I am excited.”

He stood a little taller. “Are you having second thoughts about trying to rescue me?”

“I was thinking that your rescue was the only way I could ever see my family and friends again.”

He smiled, and it was such an arrogant look that Elinore knew there was no going back. There would be no living with this man, even if his brother didn’t execute them both.

“You will not best me at cooking, girl. I have mastered it as I have mastered everything I have ever tried to do in my life.”

She nodded. “As you say, Prince True, you are master of many things, but you are not mistress.”

He frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means cook your pie, and I will cook mine, and we will see.” It was high summer, so there were berries on the table, in glazed bowls of many colors. Elinore tasted the berries to make certain they were as ripe as they appeared, because she had learned when making pies and jellies that a pretty fruit was not always the sweetest.

The prince was done long before Elinore. But she let nothing rush her, not even his taunts. For he did taunt, like all bullies. She ignored him, and as she shaped her top crust so that the edges formed that perfect waved edge that Cook had been teaching her since she was old enough to reach the counter on a stool, she was pleased. She knew she had done her best. She cut out a design of the crescent moon in the center, for it represented the maiden form of the Goddess, and Elinore was still a maiden in every sense. She prayed as she baked, for the other meaning for maiden, virgin, was a woman whole and of herself. A woman who depended on no one. She wished to be such a woman.

They carried their pies to a banquet hall, as rich and marbled as the throne room had been. The king himself had no room so fine. The sorceress was at the table, but so were the giant, and the ogre, and the sphinx. Elinore could not hide her surprise.

The giant said, “You did not expect to see the monsters sitting down to the table, did you, Elinore the Brave?”

“I did not, kind giant, and I am still Elinore the Younger.”

“No,” said the ogre. “Elinore the Brave, we name you, and a name given by the monsters you defeat is a telling name.”

“Yes,” said the sphinx, who crouched closest to the sorceress, “I approve of such a name.”

“As do I,” said the sorceress.

“You have not given me such a name,” the prince said.

“No,” she said, “we have not.”

He scowled, and put his pie before her with a little more force than needed. The edge of the crust broke, and fell upon the table.

Elinore placed her perfectly browned and unbroken pie before the sorceress.

“Elinore the Brave is the winner,” she said.

“But you have not tasted the pies,” the prince said.

“But hers is the prettiest, and appearances count.”

“Taste them,” he ordered.

She sighed. “It has been over fifty years, and though a good cook you have become, you have learned little else.” Everyone took a fork and tasted the pies. The vote was unanimous; Elinore’s pie was the sweetest.

“No,” said the prince. “I did not lose.”

“You did, but you lost to someone who was not bidding for your freedom.”

“Will you give me enough money to set up a shop of my own?” Elinore asked.

“A fine shop, but what shall you sell?”

“I think I will bake.”

The sorceress conjured a bag from thin air and the weight of it almost made Elinore drop the bag. “Our aunt the sphinx will show you the way out, Elinore the Brave.”

“But she has beaten me. She will be my queen, and I will be free.”

“She does not wish to be your queen,” the sorceress said.

He looked at Elinore, and he was finally perplexed. “How can you not want to be my queen?”

“You are not kind enough to marry.”

“Kind? A man is not kind. A man is strong.”

“It was gentleness that made the crust of that pie. It was too much strength that broke its crust. I want a husband who can bake a pie without breaking it in anger.”

“That makes no sense, girl.”

“My name is Elinore the Younger, named Elinore the Brave by a giant, and an ogre, and a sphinx.”

“Free me, Elinore.” A look passed his face, a look of pain at last. “Please, let me go.”

She looked at him, studied his fine blue eyes. She looked at the sorceress. “I have won the contest fairly, have I not?”

“You have; do you want him to husband now?”

“No, but could he be freed, and tell the story of how I died bravely in the attempt?”

“Why would you free him, Elinore the Brave?”

“Because he said ‘please.’ ”

The sorceress seemed to think about that, and then nodded. “Very well, it will be done.”

And it was; the prince rode free, and told a heart-wrenching story of how Elinore was madly in love with him, but died tragically before he could bring her out as his queen. He made himself save her from the giant, the ogre, and the sphinx, but even in his version, she was Elinore the Brave.

A few months after his triumphant return, when the balls and banquets that his brother threw were done, the prince fell ill. He died soon after, of a stomach complaint. On his deathbed he kept repeating, “It was in the pie. It was in the pie.” Funny, the things people rave about when they know they’ve been poisoned.

Elinore passed herself off as the bastard daughter of a noble. He had given her enough money to set herself up in business, but wanted no more of her. She bought into a family business of bakers where the elderly couple, though having raised a large brood, had none who wanted to be bakers. Elinore learned the business from them, and they found a child who loved their business as much as they did. In the years to come Elinore would meet and marry a baker. Her pies were the talk of the kingdom, but if anyone ever thought she looked like the dead Elinore, well, she was the bastard daughter of a noble. People winked and nodded, and believed.

Elinore’s husband was as gentle and firm as he needed to be with his dough, and his family. He could never equal Elinore’s pies, but she could never quite get the bread to crust as he could. But they didn’t see that as a bad thing, for they understood that life wasn’t about being the best; it was about being happy. And at that Elinore, her husband, and their children were very good, indeed.