CHAPTER 64
He woke in the morning to sunlight upon his face.
Iron Shoes stepped into the room, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She rushed to the Woodcutter. “Oh, Woodcutter, I could not wake him. Try as I might, he slept as if dead. This was all in vain.”
The Woodcutter stroked the young woman’s hair and hushed her. “Today is a new day, and we still have two spools of thread. Despair not. Tonight you shall see your love.”
She looked at him, wiping away her sadness with the back of her hand.
They stepped out of the tower room and into Baba Yaga’s kitchen.
Foul stew sat boiling over the fire.
Baba Yaga looked at the twosome and gave a wicked grin. “Did you get all that you wanted in your night with the Prince? It seems I have some more mending if you are game.”
Baba Yaga lifted a spoonful of the stew to her lips and gave Iron Shoes a knowing wink.
Iron Shoes straightened her back and spoke. “My services are available if there is work to be done.”
“And what’ll be your wage?” Baba Yaga spat.
“A night with the Prince,” replied Iron Shoes.
“Very well,” Baba Yaga said. “This stew is a bit runny for my taste, and I have some honored guests coming for the wedding.” Baba Yaga threw down the spoon. “Come, let us get started.”
She walked Iron Shoes and the Woodcutter to a second tower room that housed twice as many garments with twice as many rips.
“You shall mend my garments so that not a thistle can slip through the seams. You do this, and you shall have a night with your prince. If you do not, I shall cook you in my stew.”
And with the bargain laid, Baba Yaga left.
The Woodcutter stayed only long enough to watch Iron Shoes thread her needle and to watch once more as her fingers flew.
He then stepped out of the room quietly, so as not to disturb her sewing.
The Woodcutter sat at the fire as Baba Yaga puttered around the kitchen.
She pretended to ignore him.
He lit his pipe.
She turned and gave him a glare. “That smoke of yours will ruin my dinner, Woodcutter.”
He gave her a smile.
Baba Yaga spooned something vile into a bowl and threw it upon the table. “Taste and see.”
The Woodcutter did not touch it.
Baba Yaga laughed. “Do you remember when you were too polite to turn down my cooking?”
She sat down beside him and propped her feet upon a chair. “Now, who is this one, coming into my home reeking of true love?”
“Just a girl,” replied the Woodcutter.
“Just a girl, you say,” said Baba Yaga. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Just a girl wouldn’t demand a night with the Prince for a day’s wage. Just a girl couldn’t have finished all my sewing.”
The Woodcutter shrugged and then said as he tapped out his pipe, “She said that the Prince slept soundly and she could not wake him. Would you know why?”
Baba Yaga gave him a wink. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Why do you consort with the Queen and the Gentleman?” the Woodcutter chided.
Baba Yaga got up. “What do you know? You, who come waltzing in here with a pretty girl and a pipe of smoke? You, who have a house that stands still?”
“So they said you could keep your castle here if you helped them?” asked the Woodcutter.
“Bah. Why don’t you ask them? They’ll be here soon enough,” said Baba Yaga.
The Woodcutter did not let her see the emotions that coursed through his chest.
“How soon?” he asked.
“In time for the wedding.” Baba Yaga leered toward him. “Your face looks as if a bone were stuck in your throat, Woodcutter. I don’t play sides. A bargain is a bargain, and I have made a bargain with the Queen and her Gentleman.”
“What about a bargain with me?” asked the Woodcutter.
Baba Yaga chuckled. “A bargain with you? I suppose I have a mountain of rice and wheat you could sort or a quest to get a devil’s hair I could send you upon, but it won’t do you any good. I have given my word.”
The Woodcutter held up his hand. “I do not ask you to break a binding. I ask only you not to tell the Queen or the Gentleman we are here, nor hinder us in our actions.”
Baba Yaga sat back down before him. “And what do you offer me if I should agree to such terms?”
The Woodcutter puffed his pipe before speaking. “Do roses grow here at the castle?”
Baba Yaga’s face grew pale. “Indeed they do.”
Baba Yaga and the Woodcutter stood in the garden of the Prince’s palace, a short walk away.
She licked her lips and watched the Woodcutter as he stepped toward a rosebush.
“Get on with it,” she urged. Her eyes shone with greed.
The Woodcutter placed his hands upon a rose. He turned to Baba Yaga, binding her to the pledge. “In return for this gift, you will not speak to anyone of me or Iron Shoes. If asked, you have no knowledge of who we are. You will not hinder us as we attempt to defeat the Queen and her Gentleman.”
Baba Yaga nodded furiously. “Agreed! Agreed! Do your work!”
The Woodcutter closed his eyes and whispered to the plant.
The rose sighed and the petals began to fall, fall until nothing was left but the swollen ovary. The ovary opened and dropped its pollinated seeds into the Woodcutter’s palm.
He walked to an adjoining bed and patted the seeds into the soil. He spread his hands and whispered a quiet request. The ground warmed beneath his fingers, and a small green seedling poked its head out from the dirt.
The Woodcutter smiled before turning back to Baba Yaga. “If you remain true to your word, in three days’ time this plant will bloom a single blue rose.”
Baba Yaga swayed and tasted the word upon her lips. “A blue rose…”
But the Woodcutter continued. “If you do not remain true to your word, this ground will become barren to blue roses for eternity.”
Baba Yaga stopped. “I never said that was part of the deal.”
The Woodcutter placed his finger aside his nose. “You never said it was not.”
Baba Yaga glared at him. “I hope your seamstress fails. I shall look forward to boiling her in my soup.”
But Iron Shoes’s fingers flew, and as the sun set upon the second day and the second spool emptied, the mending was done so that not even a thistle could fit between the seams.
Grudgingly, Baba Yaga took Iron Shoes to her husband’s bedroom for a second night.
For a second night, the Woodcutter slept in the dark of the laundry room.