At that moment, a gentle but insistent tapping sounded upon the kitchen door. Columbine wiped her eyes before answering. She did not want Mistress Slab, Ned or Beetle to see she had been crying.
A draught of sharp, wintry air came biting in when she opened the stout oak door. Standing upon the frost-glittering step was the bent figure of an old woman, wrapped in a thin shawl that was no defence against the icy wind. A large wicker basket sat heavily on her crooked back and the wide brim of a black straw bonnet hid her downcast face. In her cold, pinched hands she carried another basket. When the door swung inward, she lifted it in greeting.
“Chestnuts,” her cracked and weary voice said. “And apples, as sweet and juicy as last autumn when they was picked off the bough.”
Columbine did not recognise her, but there were many strange folk who dwelt in the woods and forests. She wondered how far the woman had walked that day. Even the effort of lifting the basket seemed too much. For a moment, she forgot her own predicament and pitied her.
“I cannot buy your wares,” the girl answered apologetically. “I have no purse and my mistress is busy. She would box my ears if I disturbed her. Have you called on the lesser kitchens in the castle? Or down in the village?”
The old woman’s shoulders sagged even more.
“Slammed doors and curt words are the only blessings Granny Oakwright has been given this bitter day,” she said unhappily. “I must return to my hut in the Haunted Wood, where no fire, no crust and no cheer await me.”
She turned to leave, looking more hunched and feeble with each shambling step. Columbine could not bear it.
“Wait!” she called. “I haven’t any pennies, but there are no warmer hearths in all Mooncaster than here. Come you in, old dame, and thaw yourself.”
The woman shuffled about and entered the kitchen, muttering her thanks. Columbine guided her to the stool by the largest fire where she eased herself down and removed the basket from her back.
“Oh – my old bones!” Granny Oakwright exclaimed, holding her mittened hands towards the leaping flames. “Granny can feel her chilblains resurrecting! What a tingling in her knobby fingers!”
Columbine smiled then ran to the larder, returning with a thick slice of mutton pie and a wedge of cheese. She knew Mistress Slab would beat her for this charity, but what did that matter?
“Here,” she said kindly. “’Tis a meal fit for the Lord Ismus’s table and you shall have hot spiced ale to wash it down.”
The old woman gasped in astonishment and clapped her hands at the sight of such princely fare.
“What a virtuous, generous child you are!” she cried, with her mouth full. “The most unselfish heart in the whole Realm – and a pretty face to match.”
Columbine busied herself with adding cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to a mug of the best October ale. Then she plunged a glowing fire iron into it, causing a ribbon of fragrant steam to hiss upwards as it bubbled and foamed over the sides.
When she handed the hot brew over, the old woman had already finished the pie and cheese and was dabbing at the crumbs on her shabby kirtle.
“I could wrap more cheese in a scrap of muslin for you to take home,” the girl suggested. “If we had any bread, you’d be welcome to that too, but the kitchen boys are fetching it from the miller’s even now.”
Nursing the steaming mug in both hands, her guest took appreciative sips whilst regarding her keenly. Two dark little eyes, webbed with age, shone out from the shade of the bonnet’s wide brim.
“I would rather eat poisoned snake livers than the finest table loaf baked by Gristabel Smallrynd, the miller’s wife,” she said with sudden vehemence. “Threatened to set her wall-eyed dog on me this day she did and swung a stick at Granny’s head… but she’ll come to rue that.”
Her warty chin moved from side to side as she glugged the ale down. Then, with a contented sigh, she said, “I will take no cheese. Though I thank you for the offer of it. You have been open-handed enough already – and with such victuals that will be missed, which I wager you’ll be punished for. No other in Mooncaster would show such tenderness to a wizened, friendless crone such as I.”
“I could not see you hobble from this door, on so cold a day as this, tired and hungry.”
“Then I must repay you, child. Is there aught you would ask of a grateful forest hag? Granny is in your debt and that must be settled at once.”
Columbine almost laughed, but checked herself in time so as not to bruise the old woman’s feelings. What could one so steeped in poverty afford to give her?
“I wish for nothing,” she said.
The old woman leaned forward and her dark eyes glinted.
“Yet your face tells a different tale,” she said. “Tears leave loud tracks upon cheeks smirched with soot and ashes. And there are bloody stains of violence upon you. How came ye by such gory daubs? What troubles you so sorely? Tell Granny your woe; she may find a way of easing your burden.”
And so Columbine told her what had happened, how the Jockey had caught her, peeping out at the Jack of Clubs, and his unwanted attention afterwards.
“He has sworn to return later,” she said. “But I will not surrender unto him. He or I will die.”
To her surprise, the crone began to chuckle. It was the last reaction she had expected.
“I mean it!” Columbine cried. “I would rather jig a deserving dance at the gibbet than have that fat villain steal my maidenhead.”
Granny Oakwright slapped her bony knees and laughed all the louder.
“I see no merriment in this!” the girl shouted angrily. “My plight is most hopeless and grim. Is this how you reward my kindness? Be still and silent, old dame! How can you laugh so cruelly?”
The woman’s mirth eased and she fixed the girl with a glare so powerful that Columbine caught her breath and took a step back.
“Large in heart thou mayest be, child,” Granny Oakwright said, her voice now harsh. “But thy wits are shrivelled for balance. Let this be an end to play-acting. No more pretence, no more poor old grateful Granny.”
“I do not understand…”
The old woman’s face became sour and severe. “Dost thou truly believe any aged dweller of the forest would brave this deadly frost and tramp the many leagues from their squalid hovel to beg at this door? Hestia Slab is renowned for her parsimony. She is too mean to bait the traps. I can hear a mouse even now, over by the salt sack. No empty-bellied wretch would come a-knocking here.”
“Then…?”
“I am no peasant!” the stranger proclaimed. “I am no starveling, scratching a life in the wild wood. I am she whose name is whispered with awe and dread, with powers enough to challenge even the Holy Enchanter.”
Columbine gasped. “Malinda!” she blurted. “Malinda – the Fairy Godmother!”
“Malinda?” the crone shrieked with indignation. “Malinda of the clipped wings and mangled wand? Idiot girl! Malinda is no more than a mere dabbler and a faded one at that! That spangle-dusted amateur gave up knocking on doors and granting hearts’ desires to silly young maidens many years ago. I am not she!”
“Then who are you?”
“I am Haxxentrot!” the old woman announced and, when she spoke her name, the nearby hearth roared and the flames blazed violet, shooting high up the chimney.
“The witch of the Forbidden Tower!” Columbine uttered