Kissing the Witch Read Online Free PDF Page B

bridal dresses on her for size. My hands looked like hen’s claws against the shining brocade. The queen told her daughter not to be sad, never to be wilful, and always to remember her royal
blood. I listened, my mouth full of pins.
    If I had had such a mother I would never have left her to journey into a strange country. I would have fought and screamed and clung to the folds of her cloak. But then, my blood is not
royal.
    Ahead of her daughter the queen sent gold and silver and a box full of crystals. She took the princess into the chamber where I was packing furs, and there she took out a knife and pressed the
point into her own finger. I could hardly believe it; I almost cried out to stop her. The queen let three drops of blood fall on to her lawn handkerchief. She tucked this into the girl’s
bosom, saying that as long as she kept the handkerchief, she could come to no great harm.
    And then the queen led her daughter out into the courtyard, and swung her up on to her own great horse. I would come with you myself, she said, if only my kingdom were secure. In these troubled
times, you will be safer where you’re going. In my place, you will have my own horse to carry you, and your own maid to ride behind you.
    This was the first I had heard of it. I went to pack my clean linen. The rest of my bits and pieces I left under the mattress for the next maid; I had nothing worth taking into a far country. In
the courtyard, a stableman hoisted me on to a nag weighed down with all the princess’s paraphernalia.
    I watched the queen and the princess kiss goodbye in the early-morning sunlight. The horse’s mane shone like a torch, but where the mother’s forehead rested against the
daughter’s, the sun behind them was blotted out.
    We trotted along for some hours without speaking; the princess seemed lost in daydreams, and my mother had taught me never to be the first to break a silence. The day grew hotter as the sun
crawled up the sky. Sweat began to break through the princess’s white throat, trickling down the neck of her heavy gold dress. My thin smock was scorching through.
    Suddenly there was a glint in the trees. The princess brought her great white horse to a halt and said, without looking at me, Please fill my golden cup with some cool water from that
stream.
    The heat in my head was a hammer on an anvil, pounding a sword into shape. It was the first order I ever disobeyed in my life. If you’re thirsty, I told her, get it yourself.
    The princess turned her milky face and stared at me. When my eyes refused to fall she climbed down, a little awkwardly, and untied her cup. She pulled back her veil as she walked to the stream.
I was thirsty myself, but I didn’t move. The white horse looked round at me with its long eyes that seemed to say, If her mother only knew, it would break her heart. When the princess walked
back from the stream, her mouth was wet and her cheeks were pale.
    We rode on for several hours until the sun was beginning to sink. The princess reined in at the edge of a river and asked me again, more shyly, if I would fetch her some water. I did mean to say
yes this time, now that I had taught her a lesson; I was not plotting anything. But when I opened my mouth the sound that came out was No. If you want to drink, I said hoarsely, you have to stoop
down for it.
    I held her gaze until her eyes fell. She got down and stepped through the rushes to the water. The horse tossed its foam-coloured head and neighed as if warning of an enemy approach. My lips
were cracked; my tongue rasped against them as I watched the princess. She bent over the stream to fill her cup, and something fluttered from the curve of her breast into the water. My
handkerchief, she cried, as it slid away. As if saying what it was would bring it back.
    With that I leaped down from my knock-kneed horse and waded into the river. I found the square of linen caught in a knot of reeds, mud silting over the three brown drops. I