The Sleeper and the Spindle

he old woman peered out of the slitted window at the flames below her. Smoke drifted in through the window, but neither the flames nor the roses reached the highest tower. She knew that the castle was being attacked, and she would have hidden in the tower room, had there been anywhere to hide, had the sleeper not been on the bed.

She swore, and began, laboriously, to walk down the steps, one at a time. She intended to make it down as far as the castle’s battlements, from where she could reach the far side of the building, the cellars. She could hide there. She knew the building better than anybody. She was slow, but she was cunning, and she could wait. Oh, she could wait.

She heard their calls rising up the stairwell.

“This way!”

“Up here!”

“It feels worse this way. Come on! Quickly!”

She turned around, then, did her best to hurry upwards, but her legs moved no faster than they had when she was climbing earlier that day. They caught her just as she reached the top of the steps: three men, no higher than her hips, closely followed by a young woman in travel-stained clothes, with the blackest hair the old woman had ever seen.