Where was Godmother Lily then? She'd come to the funeral, but why hadn't she healed Rosa's mother? Why hadn't she kept her father from marrying that witch?
She could remember her old nurse saying something, though. It doesn't always take a spell to turn a man's head and wits.
Just as Rosa thought that, she felt movement at her back.
And what had been, she thought, the solid wood behind her abruptly vanished.
She squeaked, frightened, confused — had lightning knocked a hole in the tree? Had it been so rotten it was now falling to pieces?
But then she felt hands!
They were grabbing her, seizing her, hauling at her clothing, her hair, her arms!
She screamed, kicked, tried to squirm away, scrabbled frantically at the edge of the hollow to pull herself out and run — no matter that it was running into the storm. That didn't matter a bit when there were dozens of hands trying to grab her! But these hands were strong, rough, and grabbed her with grips of iron, bruising her arms, pulling her hair. She screamed again, tried to writhe, and suddenly her head was enveloped in harsh, fetid, mildew smelling cloth.
She screamed again, fought, hit, kicked, but was pulled backward and down. She continued to fight, trying to grab for things blindly, caught what felt like roots and had her hands torn away from them. Then there was a tremendous blow to the back of her head, and she saw stars and for a little while, lost consciousness.
When the stars and the dazzle cleared away, she felt herself being half dragged, half carried, and when she tried to wiggle free, knew immediately she had been trussed up like game. There were ropes around her upper arms and chest, more ropes tying her ankles and wrists together; two or three people had hold of her shoulders, but her heels were dragging along a dirt surface, and every so often one of them lost his grip and let her fall. She couldn't smell anything through the mildew of the bag, but it was cold and dank, like a cave.
A long time later, or so it seemed, as she collected a whole new set of bumps and bruises, she was summarily dropped on a stone floor, and the cloth was pulled off her head.
She looked up. She was in a rough stone-walled room, with seven people in it besides herself. Two of them had lanterns. She didn't have to look up very far, her captors were all very short and the two lanterns they had were more than enough for her to see them clearly. They were very dirty little men, with long beards of various colors, beards that had bits of stone and moss and probably food in them. Their rough clothing, made of what looked like canvas and leather, was ragged and in dire need of mending. No matter their short stature; they were all heavily muscled and looked very strong.
This was, of course, because they were indeed very strong, stronger than most human men. She knew what they were, of course. They were Dwarves.
Dwarves did a great deal of the mining here in Eltaria. They had an un canny feeling for rock and earth, where the best stuff was, and how to get it out without killing themselves or anyone else.
She had seen Dwarves before, quite a few of them in fact. When they got mining concessions, it was on the basis of sharing the wealth they extracted with the Crown as well as a tithe to their Clan, and the quarterly presentations of the Crown share were actually considered a sight not to be missed. The Dwarves would turn up in amazing outfits, entire gowns made of plates of metal scarcely larger than a head of a pin for their women, chain mail that looked like knitted silk for the men, and jewelry that never failed to make jaws drop for both sexes. Beards and hair were combed, braided, perfumed and bejeweled. They were truly gorgeous.
Not this lot. They were filthier than any living being Rosa had ever seen. They hadn't so much as a copper chain around their necks, nor a garnet earring. And they stank. She doubted that their beards had ever seen a brush.
There were, of course, renegade Dwarves; there were bad Dwarves just as there were bad humans, or virtually any other race. There were Dwarves who didn't want to hand over a share of what they found to the Crown or tithe to their Clan, and dug their hidden mines furtively. Of course, because they didn't hand over the proper share to Crown and Clan, that meant that they couldn't sell their takings in the open market, which meant they had to sell it all clandestinely. That meant they got a fraction of the price they would have gotten if they'd been honest. They also went in fear of some honest Dwarf happening upon their mine, and taking it over in a mining concession by Crown fiat.
It looked as if these seven were that sort of Dwarf.
Which, for Rosa, was good news. It meant they wouldn't immediately take her to the Queen.
And since they were men, it was unlikely that they would recognize in the somewhat battered remains of her clothing, the signs that she was at the very least, nobly born. Men didn't know much about clothing, at least, not when it was modest, and not all showy velvets and satins. She just might get them to believe —
'Help me!' she blurted, looking up at them. 'I'm running away from my stepmother! She hates me! She wants to do horrible things to me! I'll do anything if you'll help me!'
They erupted in laughter, raucous laughter that sounded like rocks banging together, slapping each other on the back and grinning evilly. 'A Bargain!' they shouted. 'A Bargain is made!'
Five of them turned, proving that there was a way out of this room, and lumbered on ahead up a staircase carved out of the rock wall that she hadn't seen until now. Two of them seized her, roughly cut her bonds from her, and then shoved her, stumbling, up the crudely cut stone staircase. They continued to shove her through what looked like a cellar — and a meagerly appointed one it was, too — then up another stone staircase to come out into —
A kitchen. A perfectly ordinary kitchen, if an extraordinarily filthy one. A dirty, sooty fireplace with two iron cranes for pots in it and a spit above the smoldering fire that currently was empty. A big wooden table in the middle, laden with wooden plates, cups and bowls, most of which could use a good scrubbing. A big iron sink with a pump, various bags, boxes and kitchen implements. Stone floor, stone walls and one tiny window.
And there were the other five, with tools in hand, waiting, and before she knew it, she had a shackle around one ankle, a chain leading from it to a big metal ring on the hearth. 'Take a look around, ugly!' said the one that seemed to be the leader. 'This'll be yer home from hence! Yon chain will reach anywhere in the house, if ye're careful, and ye'll be a-cookin' and a-doin' fer us now.'
And with a sudden sinking of her heart, she realized what it was she had gotten herself into. She was to be,
