Chapter 8 The Yellow Maiden

Several more days of  riding across moors and hills proved to be uneventful. Diana and Celeste met the shepherds, farmers, millers and villagers on their journey. It was with great delight that they ate and rested with the welcoming and capable people of the hills. They worked with them and practised their trades in order to repay them for their kind hospitality. For the first time in their lives they were truly amongst the people, those who the Kings cared for and those people who respected their good rulers. The hill people had little news of the war and their days ran on in much the same way. They were frightened in case their way of life should be threatened. Diana and Celeste took this very seriously and wanted to fulfil their quest in order to bring harmony to the land, for if they found and returned Genia she would one day be their Queen and would attend to her subjects with dedication and respect.

They certainly gained some wisdom from the people as time went by. They had settled into the habit of arriving at farms and villages along the way without the rashness to hurry along as Diana had once wished. But by and by they approached The River Glan and were a stone’s throw from Twycross. As it happened, the day was so beautiful and bright that they chose to meander downstream and cross at the ancient stone bridge built by good dwarves a great many years ago. To their great surprise there was a grey tower in the woods to their left. It was surrounded by rose gardens and sweet smelling lavender. Pretty music was coming from a high window and a lady with a clear voice was singing a joyful song.

            “Let us visit this lady,” said Celeste. “She may offer us refreshment. We could ask her if she has ever met an Old Soothsayer in these parts.”

“I agree,” replied Diana . “This is indeed a wondrous place to stop and I am most curious to meet the lady who sings so sweetly.”

So the ladies arrived at the tower and rested their ponies. The lady leant down from her window and with a most charming smile, called to them.

“Welcome dear ladies, welcome. Very few pass this way and it is a delight to see you. Come through the wooden door and up to my apartments.”

Diana and Celeste thought this to be a refreshing and delightful meeting. What joy to meet a fellow lady in such a pretty tower, after all a pleasant meal and conversation could do no harm.

In the elegant apartment of this lady, who was called The Yellow Maiden, they ate and drank and lay on soft couches. It was so comforting to talk to a fellow gentlewoman. She was dressed beautifully in primrose-yellow chiffon and wore delicate jewels around her soft neck with amber gemstones set in the patterned gold. A charming brooch of copper adorned her slight breast, it was in the shape of a damsel fly and was embellished with red enamel. Her tender, loving hands were covered in soft lace gloves made from many silkworms threads. What a glorious rest after having been in the saddle for so long! They fell into a dreamy state as the lady played her harp and sang in her clear glassy voice. The round room in the round tower was bathed in sunlight and they had never felt more refreshed or more comfortable. Before long they were both fast asleep.

When they awoke the sun had left the room and it was cold with shade. The lady had ceased to sing. The food and drink had been removed and she sat staring at them from a high backed wooden chair. They were both shivering with cold but despite her thin gown The Yellow Maiden seemed to feel no cold at all, her skin gleamed with a slightly yellow pallor. Her shining jewels no longer sparkled but were dull like corroded copper and had a greenish, degraded appearance.

Celeste then Diana tried to sit up but felt strangely heavy and groggy. They did not notice how the Yellow Maiden had changed as they couldn’t focus their eyes straight and they both had beating headaches.

“This is your lucky day ladies. I am the daughter of the Old Soothsayer who I have heard that you desire to meet. It is my great honour to invite you to stay in our tower. In a few weeks my father will return and he will be most interested to find you here. It will give him great pleasure to answer any questions you may have for him. But until he returns you are welcome to stay in his laboratory at the top of the tower. You shall be most comfortable there.

So it was that the weary women were led up to the highest room. There was but one small window and the light was very poor. The Yellow Maiden lit a small yellow lamp. An old servant brought more good food and wine. They ate hungrily as if they craved this particular food. The top of the turret was indeed a laboratory, a most disused one with a great deal of dust and very old equipment that had not been touched lately.

“Madame,” murmured Celeste, “Your hospitality is most gracious but we happily live outside amongst the trees and under the stars. We can return when your father is home.”

“Oh no ladies! That would not be wise, there are so many dangers in this part of the wood. At night there roams a beast of old with horns and cloven feet. It is large and has the fangs of a wolf and the claws of a bear. No one ventures abroad by night. When it smells a feast it will enter into a farm or tower and devour families in their sleep. None of us are safe! We must wait patiently for the return of my father as he alone can tame the beast by magic and ward it away.”

Before Diana and Celeste could object the wine was taking effect and within moments they were compelled to lie upon the dusty couches to rest. As the Yellow Maiden walked towards the door they saw that she drew out a large key for the door as she approached it.

Weakly Diana said, “Lady do you mean to lock us in this turret?”

“I must dear friend, for if the horned beast should come and smell you here it would walk through that door and eat you up. You shall be safe here and I shall keep the key with me at all times.”

Celeste wanted to protest and say something, anything, but her body was heavy and the words would not come. Diana had already fallen back upon her pillow and was in a dark and enchanted sleep. A moment later Celeste was also oblivious to all around her.

The Maiden stared a yellow stare at the princesses. She smiled a yellow smile and  licked her yellow teeth then dribbled out of the corner of her thin mouth.

She locked them in noisily with the big iron key. Her father would come, to be sure, but that’s another story.

Days and nights became meaningless to the ladies. Two strong women of the world had walked into the enchanted tower and two pale, weak and feeble women now sat in the turret. Day after day they were fed, and with each meal their enchantment was renewed. Their strong wills had disappeared, they barely spoke to one another because their minds were so full of a foggy mist. They floated through the days just managing to dress, brush their hair, and stare before them as if they were in a stupor or a trance. All sense of real life had vanished. Memories seemed to evade them. This situation continued for many months and while they appeared to be alive they barely lived at all. Then one day a change came upon them. The Yellow Maiden came to them one morning with beauty shining from her. She gave them a reviving draught and greeted them as if no time had passed at all.

“Good morrow my fine friends. What a glorious day it is. Let us go to the garden and make use of the better part of the day. Don’t you remember what a lovely day we had yesterday reading and playing music in the sun?”

Diana and Celeste believed the Maiden because she said this was true, but they struggled to fix a tangible memory in their mind.

“Diana, I am so forgetful these days, I had such a deep sleep yesterday that I barely remember the day in the garden with our dear friend.”

“I know,” replied Diana rubbing her eyes as if to see more clearly. “ I think that we must have worked so hard in the garden yesterday that I must have slept like the dead.”

Oh what luck it was that they had not slept like the dead! The Yellow Maiden had revived them after all those months because her father was indeed returning. If he had been many more months in returning The Maiden may well have killed Diana and Celeste giving up on her wicked plan out of sheer boredom.

One day as the poor ladies descended the many steps of the round tower they passed the fine and highly decorated quarters of the Yellow Maiden and espied their armour and weapons in a wire case beside some strange and hideous tapestries. 

“Lady,” asked Diana, “Why do you have our weapons in this locked case, surely you must have taken them without our knowledge, for we are never separated from them.”

“Why no dear friend!” exclaimed the maiden “Do you not remember that evening of joy and music when we pledged life-long love and peace between us? You put away your weapons of war not needing them anymore in our happy home. When you decided to live and work with me and my good father, you said that you would shun all conflict and need your bow no more. You are so funny, sometimes I think you would lose your head if I didn’t remind you where it was dear heart!”

“Yes, oh yes I remember,” said Diana. She and Celeste looked at each other vaguely but they were dumbfounded and really had no idea what was happening. The wine they had drunk in the morning had warmed and revived them so much they were greatly elevated with false feelings of love and happiness. They were so drugged that it did not seem to matter that they had no real memories of anything other than this very day.

It was fortunate that there were no mirrors in the tower because the women were so changed. They were completely bewitched and when they looked upon each other and upon the Yellow Maiden they mistakenly only saw beauty and good health.

Over the next few weeks The Maiden brought them down from the turret each day. Gradually they grew healthier and stronger from being outside and toiling relentlessly in the tower’s garden but they were still constantly drugged and enchanted. One fine day they were both tending to their chores when an old man rode towards them, he tied up his pony and was warmly greeted by the Yellow Maiden.

“My dear ladies, what an honour to meet you. I can see that my daughter has welcomed you with all the love in her pure heart to our humble home. I wonder my dears if you know who I am? Sit my children and I shall reveal all.”

Slightly surprised, but willing as ever, Diana and Celeste seated themselves with this very old, wise looking man.

“I am the Old Soothsayer of the Yellow Tower,” he lied! “ My age is long like my memory, I can see far behind and far in front. In short, I can predict my future and yours. Your future is very bright indeed. Together we seek the same thing, I have much knowledge and magical powers and I sense that you also have the blessing of great magic. Together we shall solve your quest, for I know what you are seeking……. you are seeking the portal to the other universe!”

Suddenly in a flash Diana and Celeste had a clear memory.

“Yes, yes Old Soothsayer! We have come from King Mallus’ castle to find you, and then by so doing we may find the portal by which we can travel through space to save our dear friend, and future Queen, Genia.”

“Yes dear ladies, I know this because I can see the future. I knew that you were coming and thus we must work together and work with haste.”

It was not in fact true that the old man could see the future, he had no prior knowledge of the women’s presence. He had been wandering the coastal lands selling his cheap and shoddy medicinal wares when his daughter had sent word for him to hurry home. This is the message that the hideous maiden had sent:

“Father, hurry home. I have two ladies of the court here who know that there is a portal, as you always imagined. I have bewitched them and upon your return we must use their magic to find the portal for our own ends.”

Diana and Celeste were thrilled that they had finally met the Old Soothsayer with no idea that he was an imposter. They dined with him and heard his wonderful stories, none of which were true. They were delighted with their two new friends and every time they gazed upon them they saw two beautiful, kindly people. All the time they were drinking more and more of the addictive elixir that the Maiden controlled them with. The longer they lived like this the more enamoured with their captors they were. They would go to bed at night talking happily about their new friends and congratulated themselves on how clever they had been to find the old man, for that was their quest!

One day when the old man was confident that the maidens were truly in his power he laid a task before them.

            “As we now love each other like true friends I will share with you ladies one of my greatest secrets.”

They looked up in amazement and gratitude. They only saw the face of a kindly old man and not his true likeness, which was too terrifying to look upon. In truth his features were rough and mean, his clothes stale and unwashed. He had an unfortunate habit of rubbing his grimy nose with his forefinger and poking it around and around in his ear. He grimaced rather than smiled at them. His crooked smile followed a sharp pushing forward of his prominent nose. His beady eye, half shut, with his greasy head tilted as if stuck to his neck, squinted at the ladies and looked them up and down in a most personal and disgusting way. If only they had not been drugged they would have seen through his wicked façade straight away, but as long as the Yellow Maiden drugged them daily they were completely duped and in the power of their captors. Moreover Diana and Celeste liked them, they liked the pretty faces that they believed they saw. They liked the sweet voices that they believed they heard. The old man grunted and scratched his words out of his dry and hoarse throat, as he spoke his dry lips cracked and often bled. To Diana and Celeste he sounded like a softly spoken wise father of a man. Oh if only some knight or lady could have come along and broken this evil enchantment!

“I shall teach you how to weave the fine, strong metal zirconium with the bark of the willow tree,” he said one day. “Yes, I can do it, it has taken me a lifetime but I have succeeded. No metal in Grieglands compares with its strength and no tree can bend and shape itself so perfectly as the willow. These materials are both from this universe so the land will not reject the willow and space will not reject the metal. In short I shall teach you how to weave the threads into twine, and twine into rope that can pass through the portal and always be tied to home. This magical rope will keep you safe in your distant travels and you will never get lost. By holding your end of the rope you will always be able to get home and bring your friends with you. The rope cannot be seen once finished, it can only be felt. It can be galaxies long and light as a feather. You will have it in your bag as it flows out through space with you. As you travel through the portal this rope will transform into many shifting molecules and it will reassemble itself again once it is through, then when you need again it can bring you home!”

“This is a truly wondrous thing sir, we are most honoured. I had no idea that such a things was possible. Pray teach us and we shall do our duty and weave night and day until it is done!” exclaimed Celeste.

Oh poor fools that they were! They could not see beyond their enchantment and felt nothing but love for the suspicious and revolting old fellow and his yellow drooling and  mouldering daughter.

So it was that they toiled by day in a dim room beneath the turret and wove the magic rope. Month after month and year after year they wove the rope until it coiled up all around them. When they asked if it was done the maiden would say,

“A little more my dears, a little more, one more day should do it.”

Dear Diana and Celeste had no concept of a week or a month or a year, they just kept weaving in their drugged stupor and sleeping in the locked turret at night. The old man had calculated that the rope needed to be many hundreds of miles long and his old book of magic said,

“Ivy grown and Ivy twisted, war is come and not resisted.

Through the gate with rope of willow, made by courtly hands in sorrow,

It takes you through, just one alone, with riches it will bring you home.”

There was the rub. The wicked old man’s luck had changed when the sad maidens had arrived at his tower. Of courtly blood and easy to enchant, he would use them to ride forth and find the portal, watching the rope all the while ready for his own use. He would tie it secretly to a nearby tree and fly through the gateway, seek out the riches and return with more gold than any one in Greiglands had ever known. The greedy old man had no idea at all what an enterprise it would be to travel through space to another universe, but then greed and power can make men do strange things.

The years passed and the ladies wove in their dim tower occasionally being let out into the garden and revived enough to keep them healthy. Their whole life had disappeared from their memory and all they knew was the tower and their new, trusted friends who looked after them.

Diana and Celeste had no idea that their dearest friends from the castle thought about them every day, firmly believing that they were making their way towards the true Soothsayer and finding out how they could find Genia. While the ladies were weaving with their yellow pallor under their nasty captors, Honeybee and Lilliana were trying hard to conquer quests that presented themselves and then looked forward to meeting their dear friends at Sorre’s castle.