Trigger Warning

Outside, the townsfolk were hanging bunting in the streets and decorating their doors and windows with white flowers. Silverware had been polished and protesting children had been forced into tubs of lukewarm water (the oldest child always got the first dunk and the hottest, cleanest water) and then scrubbed with rough flannels until their faces were raw and red. They were then ducked under the water, and the backs of their ears were washed as well.

‘I am afraid,’ said the queen, ‘that there will be no wedding tomorrow.’

She called for a map of the kingdom, identified the villages closest to the mountains, sent messengers to tell the inhabitants to evacuate to the coast or risk royal displeasure.

She called for her first minister and informed him that he would be responsible for the kingdom in her absence, and that he should do his best neither to lose it nor to break it.

She called for her fiancé and told him not to take on so, and that they would still be married, even if he was but a prince and she already a queen, and she chucked him beneath his pretty chin and kissed him until he smiled.

She called for her mail shirt.

She called for her sword.

She called for provisions, and for her horse, and then she rode out of the palace, towards the east.

* * *

It was a full day’s ride before she saw, ghostly and distant, like clouds against the sky, the shape of the mountains that bordered the edge of her kingdom.

The dwarfs were waiting for her, at the last inn in the foothills of the mountains, and they led her down deep into the tunnels, the way that the dwarfs travel. She had lived with them, when she was little more than a child, and she was not afraid.

The dwarfs did not speak to her as they walked the deep paths, except, on more than one occasion, to say, ‘Mind your head.’

* * *

‘Have you noticed,’ asked the shortest of the dwarfs, ‘something unusual?’ They had names, the dwarfs, but human beings were not permitted to know what they were, such things being sacred.

The queen had a name, but nowadays people only ever called her Your Majesty. Names are in short supply in this telling.

‘I have noticed many unusual things,’ said the tallest of the dwarfs.

They were in Goodmaster Foxen’s inn.

‘Have you noticed, that even amongst all the sleepers, there is something that does not sleep?’

‘I have not,’ said the second tallest, scratching his beard. ‘For each of them is just as we left him or her. Head down, drowsing, scarcely breathing enough to disturb the cobwebs that now festoon them . . .’

‘The cobweb spinners do not sleep,’ said the tallest dwarf.

It was the truth. Industrious spiders had threaded their webs from finger to face, from beard to table. There was a modest web in the deep cleavage of the pot girl’s breasts. There was a thick cobweb that stained the sot’s beard grey. The webs shook and swayed in the draught of air from the open door.

‘I wonder,’ said one of the dwarfs, ‘whether they will starve and die, or whether there is some magical source of energy that gives them the ability to sleep for a long time.’

‘I would presume the latter,’ said the queen. ‘If, as you say, the original spell was cast by a witch, seventy years ago, and those who were there sleep even now, like Red-beard beneath his hill, then obviously they have not starved or aged or died.’

The dwarfs nodded. ‘You are very wise,’ said a dwarf. ‘You always were wise.’

The queen made a sound of horror and of surprise.

‘That man,’ she said, pointing. ‘He looked at me.’

It was the fat-faced man. He had moved slowly, tearing the webbing, moved his face so that he was facing her. He had looked at her, yes, but he had not opened his eyes.

‘People move in their sleep,’ said the smallest dwarf.

‘Yes,’ said the queen. ‘They do. But not like that. That was too slow, too stretched, too meant.’

‘Or perhaps you imagined it,’ said a dwarf.

The rest of the sleeping heads in that place moved slowly, in a stretched way, as if they meant to move. Now each of the sleeping faces was facing the queen.

‘You did not imagine it,’ said the same dwarf. He was the one with the red-brown beard. ‘But they are only looking at you with their eyes closed. That is not a bad thing.’

The lips of the sleepers moved in unison. No voice, only the whisper of breath through sleeping lips.

‘Did they just say what I thought they said?’ asked the shortest dwarf.

‘They said, “Mama. It is my birthday”,’ said the queen, and she shivered.

* * *

They rode no horses. The horses they passed all slept, standing in fields, and could not be woken.

The queen walked fast. The dwarfs walked twice as fast as she did, in order to keep up.

The queen found herself yawning.

‘Bend over, towards me,’ said the tallest dwarf. She did so. The dwarf slapped her around the face. ‘Best to stay awake,’ he said, cheerfully.

‘I only yawned,’ said the queen.

‘How long, do you think, to the castle?’ asked the smallest dwarf.