The Queen with Cold Feet

There was once a queen called Maud who had cold feet, and a dragon called Cinder who lived in her chimney, and for a long time neither of them knew about the other.

Queen Maud was a good queen. She never said a thing was so unless it was, even when the truth was inconvenient, which it usually is. But her castle stood on a hill, and the wind got in under every door, and the coldest place in the whole kingdom was the bottom of the queen’s bed.

Every night she slid her feet down into that cold, and every night she pulled them straight back up again. She tried two pairs of socks. She tried three. She tried the copper warming pan, which was lovely for ten minutes and after that was just a cold pan in the bed with her. So she lay curled up like a hedgehog and wriggled till morning, and every morning she came down to breakfast cross. She was cross with the toast. She was cross with the butter. Once she was cross with a boiled egg, and had to go down to the kitchen afterwards and apologise.

Cinder was a small dragon, and he was warm all the way through. He lived up the queen’s chimney because it was the snuggest spot in the castle. What he loved best was a story. The trouble with living up a chimney is that nobody ever tells you one.

One freezing night, when the queen was wriggling worse than ever, a small voice came out of the fireplace.

“Excuse me,” it said. “I couldn’t help hearing your feet.”

The queen sat up. On her hearth, shaking soot off his wings, sat a dragon no bigger than a loaf. He glowed a little orange at the edges, the way a loaf would if loaves did that.

“I’m Cinder,” he said. “I live up there. I’m very warm. Feel.”

The queen held out her hand. It was like holding it over a teapot.

“I could keep your feet warm,” said Cinder. “All night. Every night.”

“And what would you want for it?” said the queen.

“A story,” said Cinder. “One every night.” He thought for a moment. “A new one, mind.”

The queen had stories from her nurse and stories from her books, and she thought that would be plenty. “A new one,” she said.

They shook on it, her hand and his claw. Cinder climbed up the bedclothes and curled across her feet. And Queen Maud’s toes were warm, and they stayed warm, all night long, for the first time in her whole life.

So she kept her side. She told him about a goose who wanted to be a weathervane and got stuck on the stable roof, and how the blacksmith fetched it down with a ladder and a cabbage. Cinder listened with his eyes shut and his tail twitching at the good parts. When it was over he leaned out and blew one thin, careful flame at the bedpost, and there was a tiny black mark on the wood.

“One,” he said. “So we don’t lose count.”

Then he fell asleep, and so did she. In the morning the queen said good morning to the butter, and meant it.

* * *

By the third night there were little brown scorches on the sheets, because a dragon who is dreaming about a good story tends to glow. So the maids took the old copper warming pan and sewed it into a sleeve for Cinder to sleep in. How you sew copper I could not tell you. But they were very good maids, and Cinder said it fitted like a sock.

So the nights went on. “A new one, mind,” Cinder said each night, and the queen said, “A new one,” and he settled on her feet. She told him about three sisters who knitted a scarf for a giant. She told him about a king who was frightened of soup. She told him about a postman who delivered a letter to the moon and was asked to stay for tea. Every night the bedpost got another mark, and it began to look like a piece of toast somebody had forgotten about.

The kingdom did very well that winter. A queen who has slept is a much better queen.

By the fortieth night, the queen was saving up ideas in the daytime. She wrote them in the margins of important letters, so that more than one duke got a reply with “a bear who is afraid of heights?” scribbled down the side.

And she was running out. By the eightieth night she had told every story from her nurse. By the ninetieth she had told every story from her books. On the ninety-ninth night she told him about a duck she had seen on the moat that morning. It was not much of a story, but it was new, and Cinder scorched his mark and said it was a good duck.

* * *

On the hundredth night, the wind was coming in under the door colder than ever. Cinder came down the chimney and climbed into his copper sleeve.

“A new one, mind,” he said.

The queen opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

“There was once a hen,” she began at last, “who wanted to be a weathervane, and—”

She stopped. “No. That’s the goose. I’ve only made it a hen.”

“Does it still get stuck on the stable roof?” said Cinder.

“It does,” said the queen. “That isn’t fair, and I’m sorry.”

So she rang for the cook, who came up in a nightcap, heard the whole trouble, and sat on the end of the bed looking very worried.

“I don’t know any stories, ma’am,” said the cook. “Only recipes.”

“Then tell us your best one,” said the queen.

“Take a pound of raisins,” said the cook. “Good raisins. Raisins you can trust.” Then came the currants and the candied peel and the grated rind of one lemon. Then came the stirring, and how everyone in the house must take a turn and make a wish. The cook’s voice went quite shaky over the breadcrumbs. “And then you wrap it in a cloth, and you put it on the high shelf, and you leave it six whole weeks, and you do not peek.” The cook wiped one eye on a corner of the apron. “And on Midwinter Day you bring it down, and it is ready.”

Nobody said anything for a moment.

“That was lovely,” said Cinder. “Was it a story?”

The queen was honest even when it was inconvenient, and it was very inconvenient now.

“No,” she said. “It was a recipe for plum pudding.”

The cook agreed that it was, and went back to bed, and promised, to make up for it, that there would be a pudding.

The queen’s feet were getting cold. “We could miss a night,” said Cinder. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“No,” said the queen. “A bargain is a bargain.” She lay back and thought. Then she began.

“Once there was a queen with cold feet,” she said.

She told him how the queen was cross with the toast and the butter, and once with a boiled egg. She told him how a dragon the size of a loaf came down the chimney with a bargain. She told him about the maids sewing copper, and a bedpost slowly turning into toast, and raisins you can trust. “And on the hundredth night,” she said, “the queen ran out of stories. She was very sorry, because by then she liked the bargain even more than she liked warm feet.”

Cinder’s tail had been twitching the whole way through.

“I’ve never heard that one,” he said.

“Nobody has,” said the queen. “It’s only just happened.”

“Is it true?”

“Every word.”

“Then it’s new,” said Cinder, “and it’s the best one yet.” He leaned out and scorched the hundredth mark right at the top of the bedpost, and it was the biggest mark of all, as big as a thumbprint.

Then he curled up across her feet and fell asleep, and the queen’s toes were warm right to the tips, and she fell asleep too.

* * *

In the morning the queen said good morning to the butter, and the cook had already bought the raisins.

That night, when Cinder came down the chimney, the queen spoke first.

“Your turn,” she said. “A new one, mind.”

Cinder looked very surprised, and then very pleased. “A new one,” he said, and he settled on her feet. He told her about the view from the top of the chimney on a clear night, and a pigeon he knew who was late for everything. Then he scorched a mark on the other bedpost, because it was only fair to start a new count.

From then on they took turns, one night the queen and the next night Cinder. And on any night when neither of them could think of a thing, there was always today to tell, because nobody had heard today before. By the end of the next winter, both bedposts looked like toast.

So there is still a queen called Maud in a castle on a cold hill, and a dragon called Cinder in her chimney, and each of them always has a story the other has not heard yet. And every night, her feet are warm.

The end.