Heart of Stone
Aurelm is a kingdom of fair rulers and happy subjects, of peace and prosperity. But it hasn’t always been such.
There once lived a King, cruel and unjust, greedy and spoiled. Only three things he loved – his own self, power, and gold.
He fancied his own self a prankster as well. At night, he would dress as a commoner and visit commoners’ pubs to eavesdrop on commoners’ complaints against the crown. If nobody happened to complain, he would niggle and goad until somebody did. Then the royal guards would pay a visit to that man’s house and the man would never be seen again.
On one such night, in one such pub, the King lounged in the shadows, bored. A spider in his net. People had gotten clever, clever and fearful, and dared not speak ill of the crown in public (houses).
Yet… there was a miller who was well into his cups.
“My daughter”—hiccup—“she is the fairest maiden in the land. How dare you, Thatcher, ask for her hand in marriage for your no good son. She is a beauty worthy to wed a King. Never the likes of your lot, Thatcher the shoemaker.”
Grumbling into his tankard, the miller, whose surname was Carter by the way, swayed toward the bar.
“Another!” he ordered in a self-important manner indicative of boldness increase due to alcohol infusion.
And stumbled sideways into the King.
“Sorry, mate,” Carter the miller mumbled. “And one more for my buddy here!” he hollered at the barmaid.
When he made to leave, the King spoke, “Sit and drink with me, friend. Tell me more about this daughter of yours, the one befitting a King.”
“Yes, the single blossom of this old tree.” The miller’s eyes misted affectionately.
The King’s eyes glinted cruelly. Maybe he could go for a different sport tonight. “And what is the name of this blossom?”
“Gwendolyn. Her virtue and kindness have no bounds… and her hair is like spun gold.”
“More like straw,” the barmaid scoffed, thunking two full tankards on the table.
The whole tavern erupted into laughter.
Carter the miller turned beet red. “Oh yeah?” he bellowed. “Straw it may be, but she can make it into gold.”
The tavern patrons laughed even harder.
“She can!” The miller stood on wobbly legs. “Give her any bale of hay and by morning she’d spin it into gold threads.” He staggered for the exit. “Into pure gold…”
Jeers and taunts accompanied his retreat.
The King nodded to one of his guards, also disguised as a worker, and he followed Carter, Carter the miller to his home.
“You expect me to do what?!” Gwendolyn uttered, eyes wide.
She stood before the King in her nightgown. The men who came to “invite” her to the palace hadn’t given her time to even comb her sleep-mussed hair. The throne room was full of courtiers sporting cold, sneering expressions. There would be no help from them.
Straightening her shoulders, she smoothed her long flaxen hair, raised her chin and met the King’s gaze. Met and held. “Your highness, my father likes his mead a bit too much, and his tongue is prone to exaggerations. Surely, you cannot expect me to spin straw into gold just because an inebriated man claims I’m able to.”
The King furrowed his bushy brows. “Yes I can. I’m the ruler of this land. To lie to me is an offence punishable by death. So you will either accomplish this feat by morning, or I shall hang your father.”
“I cannot!” she cried out. “It’s unfeasible. Please, your highness, forgive the fibs of an old fool. Show mercy—“
“Mercy!” the King roared. “He dared say a lowly pleb’s progeny is worthy of being my Queen. I am showing mercy,” he said calmer. “I didn’t hang him immediately. I’m giving him—giving you—a chance to prove he’s not lying. You’d rather I call for the hangman now?”
A cloaked figure grabbed Carter the miller and dragged him toward a darkened corridor.
“NO! No. I will try, let me try, my King. Maybe… maybe I can spin straw into gold. I have never tried after all,” she pleaded, slender hands clasped in front of her bosom.
The King’s gaze lingered there. “You have till dawn,” he mumbled distractedly.
Two guards ushered Gwendolyn into a windy tower. The flickering flames of four lanterns illuminated the barren décor – a pile of straw, a spinning wheel, a tiny stool.
“Get on with it, fair maiden,” one of them sneered, and the other guffawed.
As soon as they left, locking her inside, the lass set her shoulders straight, smoothed her golden hair and sashayed to the spinning wheel. Primly sat on the stool, a smile emerging on her lips.
In the morning when the King arrived in the tower, he found all the straw gone and in its place a heap of glittering, shimmering gold threads.
He gaped at the maiden, her hair shimmering, glittering in the first light of the new dawn, a crown forming around her head. “You did it. You actually did it,” he gasped.
“I sure did. Will you release my father now?”
The King’s anger stirred. And his greed. “So you lied to me yesterday. You can do it. Therefore, your father told the truth and I shall release him. And hang you instead.”
“Now, now.” Gwendolyn slinked closer. “Why would you do that, o wise King?” She brought her mouth to his ear. “Won’t you rather make me your Queen? Then I could spin straw into gold for you every night.”
“Well, not every night,” the King muttered, the tips of his ears turning scarlet.
That very same day, the miller’s daughter and the King wed.
On the wedding night, he entered his Queen’s sleeping chamber. She was sitting in front of her vanity, brushing her fair tresses.
Mesmerized, he approached, placed his hands on her alabaster shoulders. “Tell me your secret, my love, how did you turn straw into gold?”
She stood, faced her husband and tickled his chin with the ends of her hair. “No human can achieve it. I am no human, however. I am not Gwendolyn, the daughter of Carter the miller. You defiled and killed her a year ago, remember? And when her betrothed, the son of Thatcher the shoemaker, dared seek justice, you ordered him killed as well.”
The King stumbled back, made to speak.
“Shh,” the Queen whispered.
A tendril of her hair floated up and wrapped around the King’s head, covering his mouth and nose. Other strands flew out and bound his body like spider silk a fly.
“Yet that was just the last drop,” she continued calmly. “Thousands of your people work in your goldmines for meager wages, under atrocious conditions. Work and die. Their orphaned children and widowed wives cry in hunger.
“Your oppressed subjects gathered in my forest at my feet, lit fires and danced around them for three days and three nights, seeking deliverance from the evil that plagues their kingdom, calling out for justice. Calling out for me:
Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin
Spirit of this great mountain
Cold as marble, pure as gold
Give our King what he is owed.
“And even I, my body made of stone, metal running through my veins, could not refuse their plea.”
She drew nearer to the suffocating King, the ropes of her hair keeping him upright. And inches off the floor.
“But you see, since I am not human, I cannot keep my current form unless a sacrifice is made. So I take your life, and your crown, and your kingdom. The gold that you obsess over, the noble metal that rules you, ought to be a better ruler than you. And after my mortal shell returns to the earth, my firstborn, Rumpelstiltskin’s daughter, will inherit the throne, not a child of yours. Never a child of your lot.”
Her now flaxen tresses released their victim and the King’s mortal shell crumpled to the ground.
And thus the golden age for the Queendom of Aurelm began.