A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

“She’s a citizen of the Fourth Kingdom, the pardon covers her!” Wolf insisted immediately. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the revelations of the day, but he was quite certain that he didn’t want his sister hauled off to jail-or worse! Besides, if the pardon didn’t cover former citizens of the Second Kingdom, then it wouldn’t take long for Queen Red to decide that his own pardon didn’t cover him!

Predictably, she ignored his objection. “Give her to me, or I’ll tell the Kingdom Council that you interfere with how I rule my kingdom.”

The faces and muzzles of the entire crowd shifted from her to Wendell and back again, as if watching a tennis game.

Wendell leaned back on his makeshift throne, tapping his fingers irritably on the arm. “Be careful,” he warned, sounding angry as a wolf warning a rival off a kill, “I grow tired of hearing that accusation from someone who has attacked me.”

“I was provoked!”

“And I’m sure the Trolls have an equal excuse for their attacks!”

Red gasped so hard it was amazing she didn’t hyperventilate. “How dare you compare me to the trolls?”

“You have lovely shoes, my lady queen, you obviously care very much about them...”

For a sickening moment, Wolf wondered if they’d attack each other right there on the podium. Wendell and Red were on their feet, their supporters behind them with fists clenched, and their respective guards nervously shifting their grips on their weapons. Cinderella was making calming gestures, trying to rise, but the younger royals kept glaring at each other right over her head.

Virginia moved in her chair, and Wolf wondered if she was looking for a route to flee-he was certainly plotting an escape route! Instead, his mate also got to her feet, raising her voice to carry over their shouts. “Look, there’s no need to fight about this! Use the mirror to figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure ou-wait.” Red settled back into her throne, steepling her fingers delicately. “You! Elizabeth! Tell me who aided your escape from the punishment yard and I will be lenient.”

For the first time in a very long time, Littlebit felt her heart lift. At last, at last she could prove her innocence once and for all! No more would she have to fear the loss of Wendell’s favor if he heard the rumors from Red’s court. No more would she fear Red’s unjust punishments. She had done a terrible thing in killing her own child, yes, and the punishment for that would never be over. But at least now it wouldn’t be magnified by crimes she had not done.

“No one aided my escape.” As Queen Red curled a skeptical lip, Littlebit repeated the magic phrase. “I’m telling the truth, no one helped me escape.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the shimmer as the mirror changed to reflect a cold, dark courtyard. The last of her shames was about to be revealed, but Littlebit held her head high.

The mirror showed a courtyard lit only by cold stars and a few torches. Wendell swallowed as he saw his meek little embroideress hanging by her wrists from a scaffold, dressed in nothing but a short shift that had been ripped to ribbons by a whipping. Her tail stretched out behind her, the tip of it caught in a wicked-looking trap. The trap and her collar were chained to the scaffold.

In front of her was an executioner’s stump, with the scars of many deaths sliced into its surface. A short but wicked knife and a length of twine rested on it.

“What had she done?” he asked Red through a mouth suddenly grown dry. What were you going to do?

“She stole from me, then lied about it. So I had her whipped for lying, before the usual sentence for theft was carried out. I find it a great deterrent if I leave my condemned looking at the means of their punishment the night before sentence is carried out.”

“You were going to cut her hand off with a small knife?” Cinderella scoffed. “That seems unnecessarily sadistic. Why not use an axe, do it quick?”

Red exploded, smacking a hand down on the arm of her throne. “I am sick and tired of all of you assuming the worst of me! I know what you think,” she twisted to look at the crowd, “What you all think of me! I am not cruel! I am not capricious! I didn’t just grab someone out of the servant’s hall for random mutilation! There was a trial, a fair trial with witnesses who spoke against her. The missing bullion thread was found hidden under her mattress. What would you have done, Wendell? Don’t try to pretend that you wouldn’t convict on the same evidence!”

Wendell’s sinking gut pointed out that she was right. “Still, to chop off the hand of someone who sews for a living...”

“I do know mercy! I wasn’t going to have her whole hand cut off-just the two little fingers.” Red waved her left hand in the air, wriggling the fingers in question. “Enough to remind her not to rob her patrons. She would have been demoted as well, of course, but I wasn’t taking her entire career away. She’s far too valuable for that.”

“I trusted her with bullion thread,” Wendell mused. “None of it went missing.” That I know of. The only bullion she would agree to handle was the silver for Virginia’s wedding dress, and I never asked for the remnants back.

“Guess she learned her lesson while keeping her fingers,” Cinderella said nastily.

“I didn’t take it,” Littlebit suddenly spoke up. “As soon as you’ve seen what you asked for, I’ll prove in the mirror that I was innocent all along.”

Embarrassed, Wendell turned back to the mirror, but not before he noticed the guilty start Red gave.

Back in the courtyard, the image of Littlebit had put a foot on each post of her scaffold, her spread-eagled pose taking the pressure off her wrists. While they had been arguing, she’d been gnawing desperately at her bonds. One arm soon came free, and her nimble fingers untied the other arm almost immediately.

That left the problems of her collar and the trap. The collar had been chained to the cross bar of the scaffold, over her head. She rattled the chain fruitlessly, then grabbed the collar in both hands and jumped.

The crowd and royalty (including Red) shouted as she hung by her neck for a moment, only her grip on the collar keeping her from an ugly death. She twisted at the end of the chain until she could get her feet braced on the scaffold again. Another heart-stopping jump, a third... on the fourth one, the collar broke and she fell to the ground.

The triumphant smile on the real woman was echoed for a moment in the mirror. Then she turned to release her tail.

It was an old, ugly, and rusted trap. Littlebit tried frantically to open it, but it was too tough for her. She scrabbled her fingertips bloody at the catch, then tried to rip her tail out by main force. None of it worked. Finally, she looked to the stump and what lay on it.

The crowd moaned as the reflection’s expression showed her decision. Many of the women covered their faces as Littlebit tied the twine tight around the base of her tail and picked up the knife.

Her hands must have been trembling badly; the knife flashed several times in the torchlight as she held it aloft. The reflection gulped and looked away herself, her tail stretched tight over the stump.

The knife swept down, and Wendell was glad there was no sound. He couldn’t help it; he shut his eyes at the last second, opening them to see Littlebit stumbling into the darkness, clutching the bleeding stump.

“So.” The real Littlebit had obviously had time to deal with her mutilation; her voice was frosty instead of broken. “You see the truth; I was aided by no one.”

“I was told you had been released by rebels who helped condemned wolves pass as human.” Everyone stared at Red, who shrugged. “What else was I supposed to think? To remove a tail or collar is death!”

“To lose fingers on the word of a jealous courtier is worse than death!” Littlebit spat. “Show them the truth!” she ordered the mirror. “I did not steal that thread!”

The mirror obediently flickered.

Red remembered the first scene the mirror showed very clearly. Elizabeth the Wolf had just delivered a dress that would make even Cinderella jealous... judging from the way she was grinding her teeth, the ancient queen coveted its very reflection. Ha! It’s mine, you old bat!

The wolf really was the most amazingly talented seamstress. The only thing that would make her work more perfect would be the use of bullion thread. There wasn’t much of it in the treasury, and that had been handed down from her mother; Red had more practical uses for gold and silver than to beat it down and twist it into thread. She’d never used it on her clothing. Still, there was some to be had, and Red had just known that Elizabeth could make it sing. She’d made a little presentation of giving the valuable spools to Elizabeth right there as a reward for work well done.

Huh. She’d been so busy looking at the wolf at the time, she had never noticed the expressions on her other seamstresses. One of them was even clutching a pair of scissors like a knife, as if she would stab Elizabeth right then and there. Suddenly, even without knowing what the mirror would show next, Red started to wonder about the testimony they had given at the trial. Would meek little Elizabeth really have bragged in the sewing room that Red would never notice if she took some of the precious thread?

The mirror followed Elizabeth out of the throne room and into the hall, where she met...

Benjamin?

Yes, that was her pet lurking in the shadows in a most uncharacteristic manner. Now why would he start doing that? Was he afraid of Elizabeth, as he claimed to be afraid of most of the castle wolves?

Funny, he didn’t look very frightened. He was positively swaggering as he stepped up to the seamstress, with only the quickest of glances towards the now-shut throne room door. Maybe it was bravado. Wolves were impressed by shows of strength, after all. He was just faking it, he probably didn’t really feel it.

Then he really did feel Elizabeth’s breast.

Red froze. She didn’t see that, she couldn’t have! Her darling pet was far too civilized and respectful to be molesting castle staff. Maybe he was picking off a thread, brushing out a wrinkle, something like that. It was all some kind of mistake, so there was no reason for Red to mistrust him, and certainly no reason for Elizabeth to be scowling at him like that as she tried to push past him.

The reflection of Benjamin held up his hands as if to say “who, me?” and his soundless lips even framed the shapes of those words. Elizabeth stomped past, her nose in the air, and Red was about to ask Wendell to make the mirror tell what they were saying when Benjamin did something that didn’t require sound to translate. Just as Elizabeth was almost past him, he grabbed her by the neck and threw her back-first against the wall, leaning against her and even rubbing a bit like a dog humping a leg.

The reflected Elizabeth squirmed and kicked, only to be slapped hard, her shout cut short by a sharp yank on her collar. The real Elizabeth stared right into Red’s face, haughty and furious, her back to the picture of Benjamin trying to climb down her blouse and up her skirt. The mirror Elizabeth eventually managed to shove him off.

But not before the mirror clearly showed him picking her pocket for a couple of the precious spools of gold bullion thread.