Fairy Godmother

in the back of his mind; blue moons and purple sand, and a very sweet and lissome lady in his arms. For the very first time since he had left Kohlstania, he woke feeling good, warm and very pleased with himself. It had been a wonderful dream, apparently. He just wished that he could remember more of it.

But just because he wasn't waking as a donkey didn't mean that the work was going to stop. Hob had made sure he knew that weeks ago. Back when he'd been thinking he'd only be spending every other day as a donkey rather than most of a week, Hob had told him in bald terms that man or ass, if he didn't do his share, the same rule held: no work, no food. Alexander didn't think that things would have changed just because the Godmother had decided that he was going to be spending his time as himself from now on. This was the season of harvest, and there was work even for the untutored hands of a Prince.

'Alexander!' bellowed Hob from somewhere beneath him. 'Get your lazy royal ass down here!'

Royal ass — Maybe it was the good mood that he had awakened in, but the phrase that would have made him livid with anger yesterday struck him this morning as inexpressibly funny. He rolled out of bed and stuck his head through the hole in the floor. Hob was looking up at him.

'Lazy I am, but today, at least, I am no ass,' he replied. 'Give me but a moment.'

There were three new beasts to tend now, and one of the few good things about being a donkey had meant that he didn't have to tend himself. His first chore on his first morning waking as a man were quite enough to drive the last fragment of erotic dream out of his mind; nothing was less erotic than mucking out a stall.

Still it didn't spoil his good mood at all. The beasts were mild-tempered and easy to work around and he was done reasonably quickly. He joined Hob at the pump in the kitchen-yard just as the sun came up, the two of them doing a thorough-wash-up in the cold water. 'We won't be able to do that much longer,' Hob said, shaking his head, and sending droplets flying everywhere. 'Be too bloody cold before long. I don't fancy icicles off my nose.'

'I don't fancy them hanging off elsewhere on my anatomy,' replied Alexander, who had been a bit more thorough in his washing-up. But then, Hob hadn't been mucking out the stable, either.

Hob grinned at him.

'Come on, lad,' he said, and led the way up the kitchen stairs.

Alexander stopped where he was. 'Ah — '

'Come on, lad,' Hob repeated. Dubiously, and certain that he would be stopped dead at the door as he always had been before, Alexander followed him. Followed him right into the warm and fragrant kitchen, where he stood in the doorway, blinking stupidly in the light, just as Rose entered from the door opposite.

'Godmother won't be coming down until later,' she informed Master Robin, who was the source of the wonderful smells of sausage and egg, of baking bread and frying ham. 'She looks as if she hasn't had nearly enough sleep.'

'She was awake rather late last night,' Alexander offered. Both Rose, and Lily, who was already seated at the table, gave him odd looks. 'She was reading, I suppose,' he added. 'I could see her from my window.'

'I trust your room meets with your approval?' Rose asked tartly, managing to sound only the slightest bit sarcastic.

'Rosie — ' Hob injected, with a note of warning in his voice. 'Lad, sit down, have some breakfast.'

Alexander did sit where Hob indicated, but he also answered Rose. 'Mistress Rose, it is exceedingly comfortable, thank you,' he replied as courteously as if she really had asked him the question seriously. 'And I thank you for asking.'

Rose blinked at him for a moment, then sat down without another word.

She ignored him during the meal, speaking only to the other Brownies, but Hob, Robin, and even Lily addressed him from time to time, making him a part of the conversation whether Rose liked it or not.

'So, you'll be going out with Lily and a cart today, past the water-meadow,' Hob told him, after some discussion of what needed to be 'got in.' 'Time we beat them deer t'the orchard fruit, I'm thinking.'

'A fine plan, Hob,' Robin said, nodding with enthusiasm, as he cleared up the plates from the table. 'I've always said there was almost no point in having the orchard, we get so little out of it each fall. And nuts! With Alexander and the new beasts to help, we can rob the squirrels of the harvest of the nut orchard as well, later this fall!' He grinned. 'I mind me that there's none of you would object to apple cake and spiced nuts.'

So Alexander found himself harnessing up one of the mules to a small, two-wheeled cart, loading it with empty sacks and a couple of baskets and a ladder, and leading it out to meet the Brownie woman Lily. It was she who beckoned him down a path he was sure hadn't been there before today, past the meadow with the pond in it, and into what he had thought was just forest.

But it wasn't a forest; it was an incredibly ancient apple orchard.

The trees were huge and gnarled with age; the apples were small and a very bright red, but when he pulled one off a low-hanging branch and bit into it experimentally, expecting it to be sour or woody, he found it utterly delectable, tart and sweet at the same time, and bursting with juice.

'Finish that and let's get on with it,' Lily chided, but with a smile. 'I've a mind to fill the cart before the morning's over, at the least.'

In fact, about the time that breakfast was beginning to wear off, Robin appeared with a second cart, mule, and their luncheon of bread, onion, and chunks of cheese. He brought water, too, but they hardly needed it with the juicy apples all about.

'We'll have cider this year, I think,' Lily said with satisfaction as Robin led the mule and laden cart away. 'And preserves, and plenty of apples in store, too. First year we'll have had cider of our own pressing in a while.'

'Um — ' He paused, not sure how to word the question he had delicately. Then he decided to just blunder on with it. 'Why? I mean, why are we doing this by hand?'

'Why not use magic, you mean?' Lily didn't look in the least offended by his question. 'Well, it's like this. We Brownie-folk don't have all that much magic to use for that sort of thing. We're small