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healthy baby girl was delivered. The best efforts of all the king’s physicians, however, could not save the beautiful queen. She died in her devastated husband’s arms. The magical pond in the forest turned bitter overnight. In tucked-away corners, the king’s advisors muttered that they could have predicted this. Happy as they had been, such a union was never meant to be.
    Eventually after a month spent locked away in his apartments, the heartbroken king took his baby daughter in his arms, and as she gurgled up at him, pure white streaks in her soft dark hair, he finally spoke.
    ‘Beauty,’ he said. ‘We shall call her Beauty.’



 
    4
    ‘A cursed deep sleep . . .’
    A fter two hours or more of hacking at the thick branches and vines, the tangle of which made up the thick wall, it was clear to all three of the travellers that there was nothing natural about this occurrence. It was also slow, hard work. As the huntsman cut with his axe, the prince and Petra would hold the space he made open and they would all edge forward and beat at the next section. When the branches behind them were released, they would close up again, the splintered wood and severed vines re-linking and entwining so tightly that no break in the join was visible.
    They had started the day bantering lightly – especially the prince and Petra, whose excitement was greater than the huntsman’s – but soon the only words any of them spoke were purely related to their task. They were all hot and exhausted and crammed together in a tight space that shuffled forwards very slowly, and the huntsman knew that should they stop, or their axes break, the forest would close in around them and they’d be trapped forever.
    They tied handkerchiefs over their faces trying to avoid the heady scents that sprang from several of the flowers and seemed determined to lull them to sleep. Even when Petra’s slim, firm body was pressed again his own as they moved, the huntsman’s body didn’t respond. This forest was dangerous and the trees were clearly against them in their work. The huntsman had always trusted the forest. Nature was honest . . . and nature was very keen to keep them away from whatever lay beyond this wall.
    Finally, however, the pig-headedness of men prevailed and they tumbled, gasping and free, from the grip of the wood. The spring sunshine was bright and warm, and they sat on the grass for a moment, laughing and sharing some water and regaining their strength. It was a few seconds before the eerie quiet around them became too much to ignore.
    ‘I can’t even hear any birds singing,’ Petra said softly as their moods and laughter quietened. ‘On a beautiful day like this they should be everywhere.’ She frowned up at the empty sky. Ahead of them lay a small city and in the distance, as was the way with all the kingdoms, there sat a castle at its heart.
    ‘It’s not just the birds,’ the prince said. ‘I can’t hear anything. No noise at all.’
    He was right. Even the trees dotted along the edges of the narrow road didn’t rustle as the warm breeze moved through them. The hairs on the back of the huntsman’s neck prickled and he kept one hand on the hilt of his hunting knife as they began to walk, once again cursing the king and the prince and the royal necessity for adventures. As if life wasn’t adventure enough.
    The cart was just over the other side of the slight hill from the forest’s edge and Petra gasped when it came into view. The huntsman didn’t blame her. It was a strange sight, that was for sure, stopped as it was in the middle of the road with the shire horse laying down in front of it. Around it were a dozen thick-wooled sheep with a dog lying in their midst He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it.
    As the prince clambered onto the cart, the huntsman crouched and touched the horse. It was warm and blood pumped in a steady rhythm through its body.
    ‘Hey,’ the prince said. ‘I think