Moth’s father was a foolish, impulsive, prideful man. One day he decided to go before the king with some other men, to propose a festival. He was a miller and the other men were variously a grain farmer, a cow herder, a baker and an orchardist and each of them called himself the master of his trade. Their idea was a festival that would involve an orgy of breadmaking and cake-devouring from which they would reap the profits. The king would have a goodly cut for his coffers. The trouble was that none of the masters had given much thought to what the festival should celebrate. Their sole desire was that as much bread and cake and butter and jam and cream be consumed as humanly possible.

When Moth heard them plotting in the parlour, she begged her mother to intervene. ‘They cannot go and dither before the king,’ she said urgently. ‘He will not stand for it.’

‘You know your father, Moth,’ her mother said, making a coy moue at herself in the looking glass in her bedchamber as she tried on a new hair ornament which her husband had bought her from a traveller.

She meant he would not listen to her, Moth supposed. It was true that her father listened to no one unless their opinion agreed with his own and then he thought them marvellously clever, though less so if it was a woman, for women were not of much account in the Middle Kingdom. Her father was not a cruel or hard man and it might have been different if her mother had spoken with gravity from time to time, but she did not trouble herself thinking much at all, claiming it produced wrinkles and constipation. Certainly Moth’s father had not wed her for her wit, but for her beauty, which was admittedly considerable. Her figure was the sort men desired, being softly full at the hip and bosom with a dainty waist between. Her skin was rosy pink and white as a naked breast, giving her a soft, exposed look, and her limpid eyes were as blue and guileless as a summer sky. Her crowning beauty was her hair: it hung to the floor in a warm, rich, honey-gold fall, which her husband described as the lovely colour of wealth. That the weight of it gave Moth’s mother endless headaches and neck aches did not trouble him, nor that when she walked, it literally swept up dust and twigs and even the odd spider. Not that she had to wash or brush it, of course. She had a servant for that, though as a girl Moth had liked to brush it herself.

Now she had the uncontrollable urge to shake her mother, for truly she was like a big, soft, stupid doll.

‘Moth, do not frown in that ferocious way or you will give yourself lines,’ her mother said, catching the grimace in the looking glass. But even before she got to the end of the sentence she was distracted by a freckle at the corner of her eye, asking Moth if she would call it a beauty spot or a freckle. Moth had no idea what to say. As far as she could see, such a mark was a beauty spot if it was on the face or form of a beauty and a mere freckle if the wearer was plain.

‘If my father gets his head chopped off you will be sorry,’ she muttered under her breath, and went out to try to waylay him, for while he could not be told a thing, he could be influenced if a matter were handled carefully. Sometimes Moth thought she had become clever to compensate for the foolishness of her parents.

‘My pretty thing,’ said her father, rising from the table and looking at her with a faint dissatisfaction. Her cleverness troubled him and he was always afraid she might produce some gnomic utterance that would humiliate him, not that she had spoken so since she was very small. Yet he loved her, too, with a baffled helpless love that did not know what to do with itself. The other men had risen, smiling, but with less judgement in their looks since she was not their daughter.

‘I heard you talking about a festival,’ Moth said. ‘What will it celebrate?’

The men looked at one another in consternation and Moth crossed to the window, pretending not to notice as they drew into a little clot by the fire to talk in soft urgent voices.

She leaned on the sill and saw the old, bow-legged beekeeper who dwelt on the land next door. He was in the farthest field from his cottage where he kept his hives, talking with the traveller who had sold the hair ornament to her father. Moth recognised the young man by his green breeches, for though she had not seen his face, she had seen him departing. She could not see it now because aside from the distance, both men wore hats with nets over their faces. Her father had told her the traveller had come down from the mountains to look into trade possibilities on the peninsula, which jutted in an elegant green and gold finger into the sea. Moth had never heard of anyone coming down from the Mountain Kingdom, much less a trader, but her father said he had a note marked with the seal of his king authorising his travel and recommending him as an honest man.

She wondered if her father had actually read the note.

Probably the beekeeper was showing the traveller the new hive with the removable frame that he had got from Oranda. There was a little cloud of smoke coming from the smudge pot under the hive, which stupefied the bees so that they would not swarm or sting or hurt themselves. Maybe he was interested in the secret of the special honey that the Middle Kingdom produced, which was famous for its unusual fragrance even in the lands beyond the lacy scalloped shores of Oranda. Dougal could not tell him the secret of the fragrance but Moth knew. The bees collected their pollen from wild roses and the rare black lavender that grew high on the cliffs that rose up on either side of the peninsula like wings, hiding the sea.

At length Moth’s father and the other masters went out of the parlour towards the mill which was built on a bend of the Esker River. The river ran down from the mountains, and flowed away to the salt sea at the endmost point of the peninsula in Oranda. Moth watched them until they were out of sight, crossing her fingers that they would come up with a sensible idea before they faced the king.

In any case there was no more she could do. If she had tried to suggest the sort of festival that might be had, they would have laughed indulgently and patted her head. Camber the wheat farmer, a pale-faced man with pockmarked skin and eyes like leeches, would more likely have pinched a buttock if he could manage it without her father seeing. He was a sly lustful man but her father would hear nothing against him. If Moth had told him bluntly that the man molested her every time he could get his hands on her, she was just as likely to find herself shut up in a tower, no matter what he did to the wheat farmer. That was the fate of young women who were put upon by men; somehow it was their fault. Nor could she tell her mother, who took every opportunity to have hysterics. She fainted so often that she had a special swooning couch for it.

Moth was pragmatic and sensible. With such parents, anything else would have been impossible for her, especially since, like the bees, she had her own secrets.

She went out to talk to the beekeeper.

‘Was that the traveller who is supposed to have come from the Mountain Kingdom, Dougal?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘Hearit I got a new sort of hive and wantit a look,’ he said in his toothless garble. ‘I was showing him how the frames need not be fixit. He said it was a marvel. But lookit . . .’ He began to explain how the new sort of hive exceeded the previous fixed-frame hive, and Moth listened though she had heard it all before. She liked the beekeeper because he told her all sort of things her father would have thought too difficult for her to bother her pretty head about. Indeed what she liked most about the old man was that he did not seem to think of her pretty head at all when they spoke. He liked her because his beloved bees liked her.

She stayed a while talking to him and when the sun began to wester, she thanked him for the candles he pressed on her, and went to pick some beans and carrots from the kitchen garden for supper. She carried the basket of vegetables into the shed and fetched Lavender in to be milked.

‘You smell good,’ Lavender told her, as they came in together.

Moth’s father had given her the mauve-brown cow as a calf, when she was seven and Lavender had been the first animal ever to speak to her. At first Moth had thought the cow was special and tried to get her to speak to the other children and to the farmhands but it soon became clear that she alone could hear her. For a time the other children teased her and she learned to pretend it had been a game. Pretending that an animal could speak was acceptable, but having an animal speak to you was not.

Not that the cow said anything more than mild bovine pleasantries but all the same Moth loved her and loved milking her, resting her forehead against the cow’s soft hide and listening to her occasional patient sigh. Bees now, she thought, bees were interesting to listen to because of the habit people had of telling them secrets, and because of the bees’ habits of making songs of the secrets and singing them over and over.

Moth had just finished the milking when she heard the sound of a horse galloping so fast she thought it might be in a bolt. Setting down the brimming pail, she ran outside to see. To her astonishment it was her father, his cape all awry and his wig blown off so that his bald pate shone with perspiration. He pulled up the horse and leapt off, throwing down the reins. Moth hastened to catch them up and opened her mouth to reproach her father, for the mare was gentle and well-mannered and his brutality might have ruined her temperament. Then it struck her that there must be something badly wrong if her father would ride a valuable horse so carelessly.

‘What has happened, Father?’ she asked, and noticed with a little thrill of fear that his face was the colour of whey. She took his arm but he shook her off and then, as if for a moment he saw her properly, horror seeped into his eyes. Moth was so amazed she did not go after him when he turned and staggered towards the house.

The mare asked plaintively if she could have a mouthful of water, and that broke Moth out of her daze. Apologising, she led the poor beast into the stable, brushed her down and gave her water and a dollop of molasses in her oats, all the while telling her what a fine brave creature she was. Horses were always very receptive to praise and the mare nuzzled Moth gratefully. Closing the stable door, she went to get the pail of milk and the beeswax candles Dougal had given her. He had been gifted them by the traveller, who told him the wax was perfumed with oil extracted from heather along Oranda’s shore. When set alight, the candles would give off the scent of the sea. The traveller was seeking a market for the candles in the Middle Kingdom before he returned to the mountains. The trouble was old Dougal, who had no sense of smell but had not wanted to admit it to the young man.

Moth had promised to try them and let him know in time for him to pass her judgement on to the traveller. But candles were the last thing on her mind as she went into the house and poured the milk into a bowl, setting it in a cool place to let the cream rise. She washed her hands and, taking a deep breath to steady herself, she went into the parlour where her father was sitting in his high-backed chair, staring at the parquetry in front of him. Her mother was standing beside him wringing her hands, but it was only when they both looked at her so tragically that Moth’s heart gave a hard little rap at her ribs.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

Her mother gave her father a piteous look and he heaved a sigh. ‘We were waiting in the audience hall to make our proposal for the festival when a young fellow came in, a troubadour with golden curls that the king has made his pet. He sings and reads the future using cards or smoke or bowls of black ink, that sort of mummery. He sang a song about a clever young woman who outwitted a sorcerer and then he burst out laughing and said was it not a wondrous silliness for he had never in his life met a single woman who was not like every other woman he had ever met. The king agreed and said if he ever met a woman who had any wits, he would wed her. I told Camber standing next to me that I had a daughter who had more wits than most men, and was unique in the three kingdoms if not the whole world and no man but a king deserved her.’

‘Father,’ Moth whispered, suddenly terrified.

He made a little abortive clawing gesture in the air. ‘Camber said you had a touch of magic in your blood for certain sure, since you had snared the good opinion of all the men who knew you.’

Moth shivered, wondering that her father could not see the nasty sliminess in the other man’s words.

‘There was no harm in it,’ her father insisted. ‘But Camber has that booming voice and the king heard and . . . a king is not as other men. He bade me bring you to him and he would taste your magic.’ There was a sick, pleading look in her father’s face.

‘But I have no magic,’ Moth said. ‘Whatever he wants I can’t do it and he will kill me.’

Her father strangely gave a little strangled laugh. ‘You must try to do whatever he asks and then tell him the power has left you. Your beauty will protect you.’

‘I am not my mother,’ Moth said.

Moth’s father gave her a look of furious anguish and lurched to his feet. ‘Your mother will instruct you,’ he said, and swept out.

‘You must show him your value, Moth,’ her mother said, suddenly roused. ‘Throw yourself on his mercy.’

‘And if he has none?’ Moth asked, thinking of the stories she had heard of the treatment meted out by the king to the horses and dogs and hawks he took a-hunting with him, none of whom lasted long after he had whetted his famous cruelty on them. It struck her with a chill that this test of magic might be another kind of whetting. She had a sudden vivid picture in her mind of Camber, exchanging a gloating look with the handsome, hawk-faced king she knew from the statue in the main square.

Moth went to her chamber and paced back and forth, thinking of the things she had heard people say of the king. He was proud of his reputation for cruelty, and as changeable as the wind. Once he had told the ambassador from Oranda that a king ought to be cruel and capricious in order to keep his subjects properly submissive and apprehensive of his displeasure. ‘And what ought a queen to be?’ the ambassador had asked, for his ruler was a queen. This was tantamount to a reproof, but the king could do nothing to the ambassador without provoking a war against Oranda, so he kept his counsel.

There seemed some anomaly in this, and Moth pon- dered it.

Among the important men of the Middle Kingdom, there was sometimes talk of invading the tiny kingdom at the tip of the peninsula, which was said to be dripping with pearls and jewels, and rich from levying taxes on ships from other lands. Aside from the possibility of appropriating the wealth of Oranda, they disapproved in principle of a kingdom run by a woman, where women did the jobs that were supposed to be done by men and thought themselves the equals of men. Their mutterings would result in their assistants and secretaries squawking and fluttering off like chickens with a fox after them to see to sprucing up the army or training more war horses or to the smithy to see about new weapons.

But the king did nothing to advance the plot, although occasionally he would proffer so ambiguous a comment that the ministers would fall silent, no one wanting to say anything that might be construed as a disagreement. The rest of the time, he merely sat listening and watching from his hooded eyes. When judgements and laws were being discussed, he left it to his ministers entirely and sometimes he yawned openly and wandered out.

Was it possible he truly had no interest in acquiring Oranda? As far as Moth had heard, he had never even visited the tiny kingdom, despite invitations from its queen. In truth he seemed almost indifferent to the land he ruled, for he spent most of his time inside his vast black castle. He left it only for his midnight hunting expeditions, always alone and always in the dense forest at the foot of the mountains, said to be inhabited by wolves and ferocious bears and strange misshapen beasts with the faces of men or grizzled children. Moth had heard enough from animals to know the king liked to see things hurt and dying. People said he sometimes brought back strange and dreadful trophies, which he mounted upon the walls of his bedchamber, but that was likely an exaggeration, for few ever got beyond the audience chambers of the castle.

For all its size and complexity, it housed none of the king’s staff or servants or ladies-in-waiting or ministers. There were only three mute servants who dwelt within the walls in a hut and had the task of shutting the great gates at night and opening them again in the mornings.

Moth wondered if the queen of Oranda felt uneasy about the ministers’ plotting, for although there was little traffic between her land and the Middle Kingdom, there was enough for rumour to go along as a passenger. Despite only having a little fleet of ships with seamen warriors to protect her realm, she had made no effort to build up a land force. Indeed, according to one tale, when it was suggested Oranda might be invaded by the Middle Kingdom, the queen merely replied that the king would be brave indeed to turn his back on the vast and mysterious Mountain Kingdom whose own ruler was a mighty fighter and half giant besides.

No one knew what the Mountain King thought of it all, since few ever travelled there from the other two kingdoms. She thought of the young traveller, who might have had something to say about it, if there had been time to consult him, but her mind dwelt rather irrelevantly on the breadth of his shoulders under the long sleek tail of his black hair, and the muscular strength of his arms. Then she shook her head crossly and gathered her wits.

‘So where has all this thinking got me?’ she asked herself briskly. ‘The king is by his own account, and that of beasts, a cruel man who loves his solitude and his castle and his hunting, and who does not think much of women. More- over he has a penchant for cutting the heads off people who vex him.’

‘You must look on this as an opportunity,’ her mother said, coming in with a tray of lip salves and skin creams and hair ornaments and curling tongs. ‘If only you had not cut your hair, but the colour is lovely, like butter. And your skin is smooth and delicate as an eggshell. You are too thin but there is fragility in that. Present yourself humbly and sweetly, and the king will surely soften. You must not be bold but neither must you cringe lest you make him despise you. There must be courage but humility so that he can admire and pity you. Only then may he fall in love with you.’

‘The king wants magic from me. If I am fragile as an egg, and fail him, he will think only to smash me,’ Moth told her.

‘You must not talk like that,’ her mother said. ‘You must not think such things.’

‘You mean I must not think,’ said Moth, but not aloud. Suddenly she saw it all. The king was like Camber, only his lust was for pain, not flesh, or maybe both. The wheat farmer had recognised himself in the king and had brought Moth to his attention, relishing the knowledge that his master would do to her what he could not. For, once she failed to demonstrate magic, she would be his to do with as he desired.

That night Moth lay in her narrow bed. She lay very straight with her arms pressed to her sides and legs together as one might lie in a shroud. She imagined her mother bathing her and perfuming her cold skin, weeping tears over the marks that had been made. She watched the passage of the light from the waxing moon move across the floor. She watched the ribboning coils and curlicues of smoke from the candles Dougal had given her. The scent was very strange and she was not sure she liked it. But when at last she slept she dreamed of a vast silvery expanse of water running away to the horizon, heaving up and down and rising to frothy crests that folded in on themselves, and then she dreamed of high jagged mountains clothed in frozen white velvet under the starry sky, a black panther moving quiet as a shadow over the snow.

Day came and Moth did not want to get up, but she must and so she rose and slipped out in the misty dawn in her old clothes, knowing Dougal would be up with his bees. She had made a promise to the old man and wanted to keep it, but also, she wanted to solace herself with his gentle kindness. He gave her his black-gapped grin and a slice of rough black bread hot from the oven smeared with honey.

‘I do not know what other people will make of the scent of those candles,’ she said between bites, ‘but you ought to tell the traveller that I would buy them for the dreams they roused.’ She told the old man of the shining waves and the white foam peaks and the dark fierce mountains clawing at the sky, and of the panther. He listened wistfully and wished he might smell the dreams as well.

The mist began to melt away and the air went gauzy pink and filled with the scents of flowers and the morning. Moth did not want to go in, but knew she must be readied for her audience. She did not think it would save her, but at least it would comfort her mother. She was a wilfully foolish but warm-hearted woman with no real harm in her. Moth hugged the old beekeeper and he looked surprised and then gratified as he patted her on the back with his gnarled hands. But then he looked troubled.

‘Are ee aright girl? Not being bithered by that sour drake? That Camber, eh?’

Moth was startled to hear him speak of the wheat farmer in such a way, for she had not thought anyone else saw what he was, but she did not want to burden Dougal with her troubles. He was an old man and no match for someone like Camber, who would be swift to cause harm if he thought Dougal was his enemy. So she assured him brightly that all was well, adding that Camber and her father had arranged for her to visit the king. She had meant to impress and reassure him, but Dougal furrowed his whiskery brows and shook his head. Frightened, Moth kissed his cheek and hurried away.

The day had dawned fair and stayed that way, but when it was time to go, Moth’s father had the driver get out the closed carriage so that her finery should not be disturbed: her mother had spent hours dressing and combing and arranging her, and she had charged him with ensuring Moth reached the palace unruffled. He seemed quite to have forgotten why they were going to the palace and talked only of the festival of the birds that was to be proposed to the king, remarking that the queen of Oranda held such a festival and since the same birds that came to Oranda also stopped in the Middle Kingdom on their way south, why should they not have their own festival?

Moth hardly listened; a dreariness and dread had fallen over her.

‘You smell sad,’ said an old one-eyed dog reproachfully, when her father handed her down to the sunlit cobbles in the entrance yard of the palace. Dogs were very sensitive to the smell of emotions.

‘Here we are,’ her father said, smiling. ‘You look like a princess.’

They passed into the shadows under a stone arch and came to a small courtyard where, at the top of a flight of stairs on either side of an enormous set of doors, two sentries stood in red and silver livery. They presented arms without looking at Moth and her father and bade them go in, but made no move to open the great doors. Moth and her father obeyed, and the doors opened easily and smoothly on an entrance hall with a marble floor so coldly beautiful that Moth could feel the chill through the thin soles of her embroidered slippers. There were ornate mirrors with bevelled edges and a faintly golden sheen hung at intervals all along both sides of the hall, but no windows. From the corner of her eyes Moth passed a hundred princesses in cream silk gowns, pale hair all built up into a buttery yellow tower over a fall of false curls, dotted with seed pearls and sprigs of white jasmine. All of them held the arm of their short, stout, dark-clad father: an army of doomed princesses.

At the end of the hall of mirrors was another set of doors, smaller and inset exquisitely with a multitude of tiny enamelled blue tiles and decorated with gold leaf. There were two servants standing before them who swept open the doors as father and daughter entered an enormous red salon. A page ran ahead to announce their coming.

‘The audience chamber,’ murmured Moth’s father. ‘See all the gold touches and the alabaster and lapis lazuli? One wall alone would cost more than our farm makes in ten years.’ His voice was full of admiration. He pointed out several special features, and failed to notice that, other than the shining mosaic panels, the long room was the colour of blood. Here, too, there were no windows. The chamber was lit by banks of fat white candles.

They came into a smaller audience chamber and this too was red, though there were no animal trophies on the wall. The throne was black, and the king sat upon it looking down at them. He was very like his statue, with the same handsome face and beaked nose, but he was thinner and taller, his narrowness accentuated by the austere black clothes he wore. His eyes were hooded as she had been told, so that he looked out from the shadows with glimmering intent. Unlike the statue he wore not a chain nor ring nor bauble. He was all darkness.

‘Here is my daughter Moth, your majesty,’ said her father. His voice sounded small in that room, as if it was designed somehow to swallow sound and reduce it.

‘Moth? What sort of name is that?’ asked the king in a drawling languid voice. His eyes dwelt momentarily on Moth, but only as a hand would rest on a shelf. They did not see her, she felt, and knew that all of her mother’s finery and efforts were wasted. This was not a man who cared for beauty, at least not the beauty of a woman. Was it possible he was a man who loved other men? She had never heard a whisper that the king was such a one, yet neither had she heard he was a man who lusted after women either. Indeed he never left his palace save to hunt. There had been a princess who visited once, from across the sea, but Moth did not know whether she had come to offer friendship or to be a bride. She had not stayed long.

Her father was explaining the significance of her name, telling how, as a baby, she had reached out to the candle and had burned herself before he could draw it away. The king listened, his lips curved in a simulacrum of a smile. Her father stammered to a halt. He was very pale and blinked too much.

At last the king looked at her properly. His eyes crawled over her face, her breasts, her belly and thighs. It felt as if Camber were running his hard hands over her, pressing and pinching and greedy for more. Those eyes watched to see what she would do. She tried to think what was best. He was the king after all, with the power of life and death. She thought of her mother’s advice. If she played a foolish doll, would he merely torment her then let her go? She tried to smile but it twisted on her face.

‘So, you would burn to have what you desire, little Moth?’ asked the king in a suggestive way that made Moth’s flesh creep. ‘Perhaps I will find out. What a pretty sight you would make, all whiteness and flame.’

He rose with supple grace and offered his long white fingers. She put her hand into his. His grip was icy cold.

Moth turned to her father. He looked old and frightened. His mouth twitched and she, fearing what he would confess in sudden remorse and belated courage, and knowing no confession would keep the king from his pleasure, said, ‘Goodbye father. You do not need to wait for me.’ She kept her voice serene and there was a flash of wild hope in his eyes.

‘My dearest daughter,’ he said tremulously. ‘Your majesty, I give my greatest treasure into your keeping.’

The king said suavely, ‘Be assured that I will cherish your treasure even as you have done, Master Miller. And if your daughter does what I ask of her, she will have her reward.’ He was looking at Moth, who stayed resolutely silent as she watched her father leave. The terror nipping at his heels would soon give way to self-congratulation, she knew. He would tell himself that his daughter would wed a king, that she had flown very high, his little moth. And if she did not return, he would learn not to think of her.

The king led her down a hall behind his throne to a small painted chamber. Here at last was a window, though it was very high and she could see only the sky through it, darkening as the day drew to a close. A page who had gone before them hastened here and there lighting candles from one he had carried with him.

The king glanced at the window as if to let her know that he had seen her eyes fly there first, betraying her. A dark hilarity bloomed in his own eyes. ‘Your wings will not save you, little Moth,’ he said. ‘See there,’ he gestured with his free hand to an alcove against the far wall where a spinning wheel, a three-legged stool and three bales of straw stood, ‘there is your freedom, if your magic will allow you to spin the straw to gold thread. If not, then you will forfeit your life.’

Moth could not speak.

The king released her hand and turned to face her. Reaching out to put his fingers against her lips he pried them open. He forced her teeth apart and touched her tongue with his forefinger and all the while his eager eyes bored into her. There was a salty bitterness to his skin. He felt the thickness of her tongue with his thumb and forefinger as Moth tried not to gag, tried not to feel.

The king took his fingers from her mouth and looked at them for a moment before he said, ‘Until dawn, little Moth, then we will see what we will see.’

He left and she heard the sound of a key turning in a lock. Moth sat down on the couch. The smell of straw was sweet and reminded her painfully of the barn and of Lavender, to whom she had forgotten to bid farewell. She thought with helpless love of her foolish pompous father and silly frivolous mother, of dear old Dougal and his bees. Her eyes took in the room more explicitly. There was a bed and a couch and a table; there was an embroidered chair drawn up to the table, tapestries on the wall and a tall mother-of-pearl screen on clawed feet beside a large trunk. In the hearth a neat fire had been lit and before it, stretched out and midnight black, was an animal pelt. It was the skin of a panther she saw with a little shock, the head still left grotesquely attached to it. Moth went to the pelt and knelt to touch the head in pity and shame and her tears fell into its lustrous fur.

‘This room has seen many tears,’ whispered the panther. ‘But never were they shed for me before.’

Moth had never heard a dead animal speak before. She saw then that the beast’s eyes were open and they were looking at her.

‘My tears are no help to either of us, I am afraid,’ she said.

But the panther whispered, ‘Your tears are full of compassion. Such tears have great value.’

‘Are they magic? Will they turn straw to gold?’ Moth asked. Then when the panther did not answer, she asked, ‘How did you come here?’

‘I dreamed of the sea. That is not such a rare thing, for those of us who dwell in the Mountain Kingdom can travel in our dreams. That is how our magic manifests. But I made the mistake of leaving my wife and my son to seek out my dream in the real world. So did I enter the Middle Kingdom where all magic is bent to serve its king. He caught me and, after a long and painful time, he let my body die, but he chained my spirit to it. Now I have magic enough only to be heard by one who will hear me.’

‘And I have magic enough only to hear you,’ Moth said sadly. ‘Yet I am glad not to be alone, for I am very frightened.’ She laid her head against the head of the panther, imagining it prowling the snowy mountains as in her dream, lithe and deadly. Better to die at the claws of the panther than to die for the wicked pleasures of a corrupt king, she thought. If only it could rise up and kill her. She saw that the high window had gone dark now, for night had fallen. She wept, thinking of her own bed, in which she would never again sleep, but suddenly a little stunted man with a hump appeared on the hearth. He had the proportions of a grotesque boy and one eye was half-closed by the distortions of his face so that he seemed to leer at her from under his bulging brow.

‘Who are you?’ Moth asked in astonishment.

‘I keep my name for myself,’ the little man answered. ‘Why were you crying so bitterly just now?’

‘I am crying because your master the king has bidden me spin that straw to gold by dawn and if I cannot do it, my life will be forfeit. But I have no magic.’

The small man gave her a sly look. ‘I am my own master. I could do what the king has bidden you do, but why should I?’

‘Out of kindness and because you can,’ said Moth.

‘It will cost me to give you what you want and so it should cost you, too. What will you pay me if I spin the bales of straw to gold thread?’

‘I have no coin,’ Moth said, certain she was dreaming.

‘I will have the ring you wear,’ said the little man.

It was her mother’s rose gold ring, given to her on her tenth birthday and lent to Moth for this occasion. It was precious to Moth, but she thought her mother would rather a daughter than a ring so she slipped it off and offered it readily to the little man.

‘You must not trust me until I have done what you ask,’ he said and gave her a malevolent smile before going hippity hop across to the spinning wheel in the alcove, where he climbed up onto a stool and began to work. The spindle whirred as he fed in straw and very soon the bobbin was filled with shining gold thread. Moth closely watched as he filled the next bobbin, but the transformation from straw to gold eluded her eye. In two hours, all of the straw had been spun into gold. The little man hopped down and put out his hand. Moth laid the ring on it and would have made a little speech to express her gratitude but he vanished without so much as a grunt.

‘Well,’ said Moth. She turned to look at the bobbins, still half-thinking she must be dreaming despite pinching herself hard several times. She did it once again for good measure, but the bobbins of golden thread remained.

The king looked at the thread shining softly in the morning sunlight, his face expressionless. Moth was careful to affect a look of grave deference and show no sign of triumph or relief, for she felt a violence raging in him. Finally he turned to her. ‘Clever little Moth to have eluded the flame,’ he said with a viciousness that took her breath away. Suddenly his eyes were alight with glee and she wondered if he was mad.

‘I have done what you asked and I would like to go home to my parents now, your majesty,’ she said.

The king wagged a long sallow finger at her. ‘That’s not how it works, little Moth. Don’t you know that already? Didn’t your mother tell you any stories ? Things never go in ones when it comes to magic. Tonight you shall have your second task. Until then, you may stay here. I must go now to play at being king, but before I go, little Moth, kiss me. I would feel the desperate flutter of your wings.’

Moth felt she would rather kiss a piece of rotten meat, but she forced herself not to recoil as the king stepped forward and pressed his mouth to hers. Unlike his hands, his lips were hot. She trembled, but he did not violate her. He stepped back and though his eyes glowed with lust, he said softly, ‘All in good time. Pleasure delayed is deeper and darker. Have you ever heard that saying out there on your farm where you walk barefoot in cow dung and chew on a straw?’ He gave her a bright curious look as if for a moment he wondered who she was and what she did when he was not terrorising her.

‘What would you have me do until night, your majesty?’ asked Moth woodenly.

‘Why, you will eat and drink and lie abed here and contemplate your future.’

After the king had gone out and locked the door behind him, Moth went to the panther pelt, but its eyes were lifeless as jet beads. Had she imagined it talking to her, she wondered. A servant brought some food and she ate and then later, water and a bath were brought, and perfumed oils. Moth splashed her face and washed her feet and hands but she would not undress here. She lay for a time on the bed, but it was too soft and made her back ache. In the middle of the afternoon, she was sitting on the footstool gazing into the fire and wondering what her task might be that night, thinking of the strange little man who had appeared. A trail of servants entered carrying more bales of straw, until thirty were lined up along the wall and the room smelled like a barn.

The king came just before dusk.

‘Tonight, your task is to weave that into gold, clever little spinner, but mind you have it done by dawn.’ The king came over to her and stood close enough that she had to crane her neck to look at him. His eyes were greedy, eating up the dismay she could not hide.

‘I will try,’ she said, for she must say something.

‘Little Moth, you fly ever closer to the flame,’ he whispered. Moth said nothing but it seemed to her that she saw tiny flames flickering in his black eyes.

After the king had gone out again, she paced back and forth, willing the little man to come again, but just as the sun was setting the panther opened its eyes. She was so glad to hear it that she wept as she told it what she must do.

‘This is very strange. I saw no one enter but the king, but then I can only see and hear for the brief time when night and day overlap. Your little man must have come outside that time. But what does he want with a golden finger ring if he can spin straw into gold? And what sort of creature is he that appears here without fear of the king? If he heard you weeping, he must have been listening somehow. Maybe he lives in the walls. There are such creatures in the Mountain Kingdom.’

Moth did not know. ‘He must be magic,’ she said.

‘If he spins gold out of straw, he must work magic. One can be magic or do magic, but never both.’

‘If only he will come,’ Moth said.

‘Shall I tell you what I dreamed about to pass the time?’ asked the panther. Moth nodded, brushing a scatter of tears from her cheeks. ‘I dreamed of the mountains. Then I saw my son. He has been seeking me for long years. I did not know that. He was a just a cub when I was taken, yet there is no mistaking who he is. I had closed my eyes to my dreams until you came and wept for me and heard me speak. It was your magic that brought me back to myself. ’

Moth was startled. ‘I did not know I had any magic. I thought it a queer knack I have of hearing what other people cannot hear. I keep it hidden because people in the Middle Kingdom don’t like things that are out of the ordinary.’

‘Perhaps that is why the king can so easily draw all that is extraordinary to himself. The people’s fear of such things would drive them towards him. I doubt your father’s boasting about you or even the ill will of the man Camber had much to do with your coming here.’

‘What does he want with magical things since he has his own?’ Moth asked.

‘If one understood that, one might escape,’ said the panther bleakly.

Moth was stricken. ‘Dear Panther, if the little man comes again, and spins the straw into gold, and I am freed, I will find some way to take you with me. I swear it.’

‘I will not hold you to your vow,’ said the panther, ‘for I am already lost.’

‘I will take you and show you the sea,’ Moth said in her soft stubborn way. ‘Or if you wish, I will carry you to the border of the Mountain Kingdom and find your son.’

‘You have a good heart,’ said the panther, before his eyes went blank and sightless.

Moth stroked his head for a little longer and then she glanced up to see that, once again, the window was full night. She gazed into the fire. It never seemed to need any more wood but there was scant warmth in it. Was it magical? she wondered. What did the king do with all the magic he drew to him? How did he use it? What did he truly want of her? Not gold thread if he had magic of his own. Then she looked at the bales of straw and all her fortitude crumbled into despair. There was so much of it! She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.

There was a flash of ruby light and the little man stood on the hearth. She scrambled to her feet, noticing that one of his eyes was black and the other a muddy brown, and there were dirty tufts of hair on his earlobes.

‘Oh I am so glad you have come,’ she said. ‘Will you help me again? There is even more straw and it must all be spun by dawn.’

The little man looked at the piled-up bales and gave her a cocky smile. ‘Oh I can do anything you can imagine, but if I spin all of this into gold, what will you give me?’

‘My locket,’ she said at once, and she took it off and held it up to show him how the tiny ruby glinted. But when she opened it and made to remove the tiny miniature of her grandparents, he stopped her. ‘I want the picture as well, and those pearls in your hair and ears.’

Moth swallowed hard, because the picture of her grandparents was irreplaceable, and yet was not life more precious than a memory of life, even if those remembered were beloved? Thinking thus, she slowly took out the handful of seed pearls and the matching earbobs, and with the locket, gave them to the little man.

This time he said nothing about doing the work before he took the payment, and he thrust the things he had taken from her so carelessly into his pocket that Moth remembered the panther wondering why the little man would want jewellery when he could make his own gold.

None of this is about gold and jewels, she thought, but she said nothing and watched the little man work. Again the transition from straw to gold eluded her eyes, but bit by bit, the bales were consumed by the whirring spindle, and the bobbins of gold thread mounted. Midway through the long night, Moth was thirsty, and getting a jug of water and two glasses, she asked the little man if he would not drink and walk about to ease his back and eyes. She knew from her own experience that spinning was hard work. But he did not seem to hear her. At last, when the moon had set and the stars she could see through the high window were beginning to fade, the little man finished the last bale. He leapt up at once and vanished without a word.

Moth looked at the great heap of bobbins in awe, thinking the little man had spun gold enough to coat the palace walls. Then she composed herself to wait for the king and the dawn. The latter arrived first and the king moments later. He widened his eyes and made a show of counting the bobbins, but Moth saw he was not surprised to find the task he had set her completed. But did he truly think she had magic that would let her spin the straw into gold? Was that all he had wanted of her?

She told herself it did not matter and she drew herself up and said as clearly as she could, ‘I have done as you asked and I would like to go home to my parents, your majesty.’ But even as she spoke, her heart was sinking, for she remembered what the king had said about things to do with magic not coming in ones. Because they did not come in twos either. They came in threes. Sure enough, the king said, ‘Tonight you must complete the final task. If you succeed you will keep your life and have your reward.’

‘What is the final task?’ she asked.

‘Why, it is more of the same,’ said the king, and he laughed hard and long before leaving the chamber and locking the door.

Later in the day a line of servants came bearing so many bales of straw that once they were all piled up, there was only a narrow corridor between the stacks, going from the door to the bed and the table and chair, and from them to the spindle alcove. They were careful to leave a wide area around the fire clear. Moth paced between the towering bales, half-smothered by the sweet smell, and thought the king must desire her death very badly. Yet how could it possibly serve him? Then she told herself the little man would come again but how should he spin so much straw in one night? With the best will in the world, he could not succeed. She was doomed.

When dusk came, the panther pelt woke and once more there were golden flecks and shifting lights in his dark sorrowful eyes. Moth poured out all that had happened, begging him to help her.

‘I can do nothing but listen and speak,’ he said sadly.

‘The little man is the only one who can help me. He will come again. He must, for why would he come twice and not a third time?’ Moth asked.

‘I think he will come, for it seems to me that he has some particular interest in these matters, or some connection to them,’ said the panther pelt. ‘But what will you offer him?’

‘I might have offered him my hair if I had not been such a fool and cut it all off,’ Moth said. ‘He might have my gown. It is very finely made. The skirt is pure spider silk and the lace fichu is very old and beautiful. And there are the shoes to go with it, all crusted over with beads. Yet he may not think it is enough for so much work.’

‘Ask him what he will have of you,’ suggested the panther pelt. ‘Maybe he will accept a kiss.’

‘I would give it, and my dress and shoes, if only he will help me to get away from the king,’ Moth said. Then despair overtook her again as she looked around at the bales piled on all sides. An absurdity of straw, she thought. Then she looked at the panther pelt and shame filled her. ‘I think only of myself and yet your plight is worse by far, for there is no end to it. If I fail I will only die. How I wish I could help you.’

‘There is nothing that can be done,’ he said. ‘I will never leave this curst place.’

‘Wait!’ said Moth, in sudden excitement, as an idea struck her. She removed her slippers, hiked up her dress and climbed awkwardly up the bales of straw until she was able to look out the high window. She was startled to discover that she was looking down from a great height. Indeed it seemed to her that she was looking out of the highest window of the highest tower, for she could see the whole of the rest of the castle, which might have been a child’s model. Beyond it, the village was spread out in an apron of streets and square and cottages with light shining out of the windows. She could even make out her father’s mill hunkered darkly on the banks of the silvery Esker River and, far off on the horizon, she could see a gleam of brightness like the edge of a knife, which might be the sea. Even as she watched, the moon rose, glowing as orange as an ember in the fire.

The bars were widely set in the window frame and she was able to fit her head through them. She waited impatiently until she saw what she had been seeking. A tiny bat of the sort that fluttered about in the trees catching insects in the confusion of night and day that was dusk.

‘Little bat, can you hear me?’ she called. The bat swerved towards her and asked what she wanted of it. Its blind eyes were very bright.

‘I can hear you,’ it said in its high-pitched voice. ‘No other creature can hear half so well as a bat.’

‘A bat’s hearing is justly famous,’ said Moth gravely. ‘But I think I have made a mistake in calling you, for you are so small and it is a very difficult and heavy thing I would ask of you. You might beg the help of your brothers and sisters, of course, but to manage it they would have to be able to work together and most creatures do not co-operate very well.’ She let her voice sound regretful, for she knew from listening to the bats that roosted in the plum trees beside the mill that bats were very prideful, and what they were most proud of, after their hearing, was their solidarity.

Indeed the little bat squeaked, ‘You have asked exactly the right creature to help you, for no creatures co-operate so well as bats!’ She let herself be convinced and told the bat exactly what she wanted done, exaggerating the difficulties and her doubts until the bat was in a frenzy of desire to prove himself. He flew away to fetch his brothers and sisters and cousins, and Moth scrambled down to the pelt. To her regret, it had fallen silent, but she told herself it did not matter if they said goodbye. She heaved and shoved and dragged it up onto the bales of straw by the window. The bats were waiting, and after plucking off several tufts of fur, she fed the pelt out carefully through the bars to them until hundreds of them had their tiny claws hooked into it. Last of all she eased the head out and the bats rose in a chittering cloud and bore it away towards the mountains.

‘I cannot restore you to life, but the bats will bring you to the border of the Mountain Kingdom and maybe your son will find you there,’ Moth said softly. She climbed back down the bales and smoothed her dress and picked the bits of straw from her hair. Finally, she took the tufts of fur plucked from the pelt, went to the fireplace and scattered them at the edge of the fire to singe in case she needed to explain the disappearance of the pelt.

The hearth looked very bare now, and while she was happy to have freed the panther from the castle, she felt her own loneliness and fear all the more keenly. A desolate tear slipped down her cheeks.

There was a flash of brightness and the little man stood looking at her. There was a spot of colour on each of his cheeks. ‘Why do you weep so miserably, girl?’ he asked.

‘All of this straw you see must be spun into gold thread before dawn,’ said Moth, getting to her feet. ‘Will you help me again? Can you?’

‘I can spin all the straw I see to gold,’ he said with a sly sideways look at her. ‘But what will you give me?’

‘I have no more jewellery,’ Moth said. ‘I have only this dress and my shoes.’ She put out a dainty foot in its sparkling beaded slipper.

‘That is not enough,’ said the little man.

‘What would you have of me?’ asked Moth.

‘I would have your firstborn child,’ said the little man.

Moth stared at him aghast, for of all the things he might have said this was not one she would ever have guessed. ‘What would you do with a child?’ she asked.

‘That is none of your affair,’ cried the little man, flying into a sudden rage. ‘Now decide, for I have more to do with my time than stay and listen to a snot-nosed maid dither!’

Moth knew there was nothing she could do but agree, if she wished to live, and life seemed very precious to her now. ‘It shall be as you say. You shall have my firstborn child,’ she vowed, swearing to herself that she would never wed, never bear a child. Sadness lodged in her throat, but what else could she have done, she wondered. To be childless was better than being dead; better than bearing a child that would be taken from her and used in some foul and unimaginable way.

The little man had gone immediately to the spindle and now he began to spin at a furious speed. Hour after hour the spindle whirred and bobbin after bobbin was filled and set aside. His hands moved in a blur and the straw bales began to disappear. But there were so many. As the sky grew steadily lighter and the stars winked out, Moth could only clasp her hands and pray the little man would be done by dawn.

‘There!’ he cried at last, and she saw, with a relief that made her dizzy, that there was not a straw left in the room, and the sky was still a dark blue which meant the sun had yet to rise.

‘Thank you,’ she said numbly.

‘I do not need your thanks. I will return for the child in a year,’ said the little man.

Moth looked at him, uncomprehending. ‘But . . . I am a husbandless virgin. I do not know if I will be wed and with child in a single year.’

‘Oh you will be,’ sneered the little man. ‘For now that your task is completed, you will have your reward.’

Moth stared at him in dawning horror. The king and her father had spoken of a reward, but she had thought only that they meant she would have her life.

‘Why do you look like that? Is it not the desire of every girl to wed and bed a prince, and you have gone one better. You will have a king!’

‘Better to be dead!’ Moth cried passionately.

‘That will be your sincere prayer, if you defy him,’ said the little man savagely.

‘Please,’ Moth cried, falling to her knees. ‘Help me!’

The little man looked down at her with a blank, almost puzzled expression. Then his face cleared and delighted mischief filled his queer eyes. ‘I will offer you a bargain. If you can tell me my name before the king weds you at dawn in three days, I will prevent the wedding and any child you bear in the future will be yours to keep.’

‘Your name?’ Moth echoed stupidly, too shattered to think.

‘Each night I will come to you after the sun has set and I will hear your guesses until the dawn or until you have no more to offer,’ said the little man. ‘If you fail, there will be no talk of suicide or refusal. You will marry the king and smile at the wedding. You will be sweet and willing and obedient to him, no matter what he requires of you, and when the child is born, you will give it freely to me. Swear it now and you will have your chance to escape your fate.’

Once again, Moth knew she had no choice but to agree, and as soon as she had given her word, the little man vanished. Moments later, the sun rose and the key turned in the lock. The door flew open to admit the king. His eyes swept the room, taking in the hundreds of bobbins piled on the table, all filled with gold thread. He smiled his hooded, secretive smile and said, ‘Well, little Moth. You have won this time. Now you will have your reward.’ He leaned forward and took her hand, pressing his hot lips into her palm. ‘You will become my bride.’ He looked at her the whole time, his eyes very dark. ‘I will dress you in fine white silk from across the sea, all sewn over with Orandan pearls. All shall see how the moth has become a butterfly. Then I will bring you into my bedchamber and we will see what you will become there.’ All the words he spoke were uttered with an undertone of mockery.

‘Please, your majesty, let us be wed in three days, for I need time to make my preparations and say goodbye to my parents,’ Moth said.

The king beamed at her, his eyes dancing. ‘Of course. Time enough for your wedding dress to be made.’ Then, incredibly, he took her hand and led her through the castle to the blood-red audience room.

‘Flutter away, little Moth, and in three days, I will send my carriage for you and your parents an hour before dawn. Then we will be wed in splendour under the newly risen sun.’

‘My dearest girl!’ shrieked her mother, smothering her with kisses. ‘I feared I would never see you again! And yet here you are all in triumph, to be wed to the king!’

‘I knew it all the time,’ said her father, beaming. ‘Wait till I tell that Camber. Didn’t I say my daughter would wed a king and no other?’

As they babbled and laughed and congratulated one another, they did not ask about the test of magic nor did they seem to notice the wan silence of their daughter. She thought they did not see her at all, but then her mother suddenly put a silk-clad arm about her shoulders and said she looked dirty and weary and should have a bath and a hot toddy and be put to bed.

Moth was exhausted and would have given in mindlessly to her mother’s cosseting, but she was all too conscious that she had only three days to save herself. There was no use in asking her mother and father to help her, for if she told them everything, they would be bewildered and frightened and what could they do to help her? She must help herself. Somehow, she must learn the name of the little man. She begged her parents’ pardon and ran out to see Dougal. The old man was elated to see her, and tears ran down his grizzled old face. ‘I was feart for ee,’ he whispered when she kissed him.

‘You did well to fear, and I am not out of danger yet,’ she told him, but not aloud.

The old man patted her shoulder awkwardly and insisted on getting a glass of honey mead for her, for she looked pale and shaken. When he had gone, her tears would not be held back and as they slipped down her cheeks, the bees came buzzing out in a coil that wound around her, for bees find the scent of tears intoxicating. On impulse, she told them what she could tell no one else. In this she did what any lass or old crone would do, for it was well known that one could tell secrets to the bees. They would be kept, for she alone heard the songs bees made of the secrets entrusted to them.

She heard a step on the path and turned, but the smile she had been trying to paste on her face faded, for it was not Dougal with a mug of honey mead but a tall, handsome young man with heavy, beautifully shaped brows and fine dark eyes. He wore a deep brown cloak and green breeches and, even as she realised he must be the traveller from the Mountain Kingdom, he bowed gracefully.

‘Forgive me for not waiting to be introduced but I know who you are. I am in your debt and you must let me repay you.’

‘No one can help me,’ Moth said, unable to stop the words. The young man’s eyes looked into hers, a question forming in them. She saw that they were not black as she had first thought, but a very dark dense green. Dougal returned but suddenly Moth could not bear to sit there anymore. She felt half out of her mind with fear and weariness. ‘I cannot linger. I am just returned from the palace and I . . . I am to be wed.’ She swallowed a great gulp of terror and the young man reached out and took her hands as if he thought she might faint. She looked into his beautiful eyes and said, ‘I am doomed to be shut up in the black castle unless I can learn the name of a little magical man who dwells there in secret. If you would repay me for praising your candles, then make me a list of all the names you have ever heard in your travels and send it to my father’s house.’ She could say no more; tears blocked her throat and blinded her. She took her hands back and fled to the barn and wept a storm of tears against Lavender’s warm and willing flank.

‘There, there,’ the cow said tenderly.

By the time she returned to the house she had got herself under control and she submitted bonelessly to her mother’s ministrations. She was bathed and her hair combed and she scarcely heard her mother’s excited plans for the wedding. She slept awhile and then her mother woke her with a glass of warm honeyed milk at dusk and the puzzled news that Dougal had sent a list of names over with a pot of honey to welcome her home. Moth’s heart began to beat harder as she took the list from her mother and carried it into the garden. She sipped the honeyed milk and prayed that the little man’s name was on the list.

When night fell, she refused her mother’s plea to come inside, saying that it was a warm sweet night and she would sit awhile. Her mother had only just gone in when the little man appeared in a soft flash of ruby light. Moth did not hesitate, and read out the names one at a time.

‘Is your name Izander? Neil, Oran, Torvald, Tom?’ He shook his head over and over. ‘Is it Exon? It is Volander? Is it Matthew?’ No, no and no. ‘Is it William? Is it Rook? Is it Tristram?’ No and no again. A hundred names she read and the little man shook his head to all of them. When she had finished the list, Moth said the name of every villager she knew, and then the name of every man and boy in every story. But it was always no. Finally, she could not think of another name, and the little man said she must try again the next night.

She went inside and forced herself to eat, knowing she must be strong and clear-headed now. Pushing her despair away, she pretended to consider the names that might be given to the children she would bear the king, and she emptied her mother and father of all the names they knew. She wrote them in a list and then she went to bed and slept. More names came to her in her dreams, and in the morning she wrote them all down, then she went into the village ostensibly to buy shoes and a veil and a nightdress, and culled more names from the villagers who wished to curry favour since the news had spread that she would wed the king.

That night, she bade her mother let her sit in peace in the garden again, and when dusk ended, the little man appeared. She read her new list out, trying variations of names and even diminutives. But it was no, and no again and again. She was hoarse when the little man vanished after saying he would come back one last night, and if by then she had failed to learn his name, she must live up to her oath and willingly wed the king and bear him a child which must be given over as soon as it was weaned.

Moth had no heart for hope after that, for her mind was awash with names, all of them said. She wept herself to sleep and when she woke, her pillow was so sodden that she knew she must have wept all night. She bathed her swollen eyes and nose and went out in the misty dawn. She went to see Dougal to ask if he had any new names, and after that, she would go through all the books in the house and get any names she had not said from them. She would ask every beast she met if they knew any human names. She told herself she must not give up hope.

The day was ending when she was coming home with her final meagre list. Her feet were sore from walking from house to house and her throat was sore from asking names and her heart was sore from trying to pretend she was happy to be marrying the king. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she trudged along, but she brushed them away when she heard her own name called, and turned wearily. The dark-haired traveller came striding up and looked at her with consternation. ‘You have been crying.’

She gave a soft laugh. ‘Someone once told me that my tears were magic, but they will not save me.’

‘I heard you have been seeking more names. I was away yesterday and this morning and I was coming to see you now,’ he said. He held out his arm and she took it.

‘Do you have more names for me?’

‘Just one,’ he said. ‘But now we must speak swiftly, for it is not long until dusk and then the little man will come to hear what you have found out and this is the last day.’

‘How do you know he will come at dusk?’

‘The bees told me,’ he said. ‘They told me all that you had whispered to them, and what they did not tell me, I learned from my father. The rest I figured out for myself, since I am a clever fellow.’

Moth stared at him. ‘You can understand the bees?’

‘I can understand all beasts when I am in the shape of a beast.’

‘You are a shape-changer?’ asked Moth, distracted from her grief.

The young man bowed. ‘I am only in human shape in the daytime. I hope that does not shock you. It is common enough in the mountains and even in Oranda, though there, the shape-changers prefer the forms of sea creatures. But it is not hereditary. My father and mother were not shape-changers, though my father’s brother is. Which brings me to the words I began to say when we met. I wanted to thank you for saving my father’s life.’

Moth stared at him. Her mind leapt like a cat on a beetle. ‘The panther was your father!’

He nodded. ‘The bats carried him as far as they could, but the further they went from the castle, the heavier his pelt became. Finally the pelt began to move and they realised with a shock that they were carrying a live panther. Luckily by that time they were flying very low, for they dropped him and fluttered away.’

‘But . . . he was . . . he said he had been killed and that it was enchantment that bound his spirit to his pelt,’ Moth cried.

‘So he believed, but in fact the enchantment was an illusion and when my father was far enough away from the king, the spell weakened and broke, so that he took on his true form.’

‘But why would the king create such an illusion?’

‘Because his appetite is for pain and my father suffered far more in that form than if he had simply been killed,’ said the young man. ‘He sent a cat to find me, for he had found out that I had come looking for him in the Middle Kingdom. He did not dare return for fear of being ensnared by the spell again. He told me you had saved him and bade me help you to escape the king. He did not trust the little man who had appeared twice to save you. I was coming to the palace when I heard that you had left it, and were going home to your parents. There was much gossip about the news that the king would wed you. It was not until the bees sang your secrets to me that I understood. I went back to consult with my father and then last night I went to the castle after I had transformed and I learned the king’s secret.’

Moth noticed all at once that the sun had set and the moon was rising. There was a red flash and the little man stood before her, but the dark-haired young man was gone.

‘Tell me my name,’ the little man invited.

Moth swallowed and spoke the names on her last list, one at a time, her mind racing. Then she felt a tickle in her ear and she heard a name whispered. She thought she must have misheard. She said to the little man, ‘Is your name Orabald?’ No. ‘Is your name Hedilbart?’ No. ‘Is your name Baltazar?’ No. The little man’s smile grew broader with each denial.

Again the voice whispered a name. She shook her head, for it was impossible that this was the name of the little man, but the voice whispered it for a third time.

Moth took a deep breath and said, ‘Is your name Rumpelstiltskin?’

The little man uttered a shriek of rage and his cheeks grew red and redder as he danced from one foot to the other in fury. Then, just like that, spectacularly, horribly, he burst.

‘How did you know?’ asked Moth as they stared at the small burned patch on the great green meadow beside the village, that had once been the black stone palace of the king. It was day now, and the young man had resumed his human form.

‘I suspected the king’s magic was all illusion from the way the spell over my father weakened and then broke when he got away from the palace,’ said the young man. ‘A real spell is not dependent on being close to its maker. The magic for an illusion must be continually worked. ’

‘But how did you know about the name?’

‘It was the only answer, once I saw the king transform into the little man. If they were one and the same, they must have the same name. Of course the stunted little man was the true form of the king and all else was wrought upon that first illusion that made him tall and handsome. The castle and the halls. The straw that was spun into gold of course. And when you spoke his name, it all exploded.’

‘It never occurred to me for a second to say the king’s name,’ Moth said. ‘You saved me.’ She gave him a shy smile. ‘How can I thank you?’

‘You owe me nothing, for not only did you save my father, you saved yourself with your kindness to him and by your courage and the steadfastness of your hope,’ said the young man. He gave her a sidelong look out of his dark green eyes. ‘You know the village want you to be their queen now.’

Moth laughed. ‘What silliness! They have no need of a king or a queen. Besides, I have had enough of palaces and royalty.’

The young man gave an exaggerated heartfelt sigh. ‘That is a pity, for I was about to tell you that my father is the brother of the Mountain King, which makes me a prince. I meant to ask you to wed me but it seems there is no hope for me.’

She smothered a smile. ‘Well, perhaps a prince would be bearable if he sometimes can become a butterfly or a bird or a wolf.’

‘Indeed you would be the perfect wife for such a prince, since you will always understand him,’ said the prince, and they both laughed, but then their laughter died and they looked at one another gravely. ‘Could you love me, Moth?’ asked the prince. ‘I was half in love with you even before we met and before you saved my father’s life, for the bees and the birds and the horses sang your name and your praises to me. I came to your house that first day to sell hair ornaments purely in the hope of getting a glimpse of you.’

‘I will love you,’ she answered simply; ‘I do,’ and stopped his mouth with a kiss.

Moth and her shape-changing prince left the Middle King- dom that afternoon, with only a note left behind to tell her parents she had fallen in love with an unsuitable man, and was eloping to spare them any shame. She loved them, she wrote, and bade them be happy.

There were many rumours in the wake of her departure and in the wake of the mysterious destruction of the castle. It was said by some that a wicked sorcerer had slain the king and destroyed the castle before stealing his bride and turning her into a bird in a cage until a prince should rescue her. One popular story claimed a dwarf had helped Moth pass the tests set by the king, in exchange for a promise of her first child unless she could speak his name, for all remembered Moth’s frantic quest for names. In that story, a servant overheard the dwarf singing his name gleefully, though no one could give a sensible reason why he would do that when keeping his name secret was his only hope of winning his prize. Other tales said the king himself had been wicked and the little man a hero who had burned the king and his palace with a spell before turning into a handsome prince who had swept Moth away to his fairy kingdom in the clouds. In some versions of that story, the king turned out to be a merman and Moth was given a tail so she could swim in the sea with him and live happily ever after. In other stories the king had died heroically to vanquish the wicked little man and, heartbroken, Moth crept away in everlasting sorrow to live in a hovel in one of the lands beyond the sea. Some foolish people must have a tragedy, for they cannot believe in happy endings.