There was a selection of bone-handled brushes, combs, and soft cloths on a shelf on the stall’s outer wall, I groomed the horse carefully, but still I lingered; I did not want to be finished, to leave him in the stable and go by myself into the castle, where the Beast was doubtless waiting for me. The Beast had said that no harm would come to me, but how did I know? I thought of how ready I had been to believe those promises of safety when I had first heard Father’s tale, beside our own hearth. He was only a Beast, What could he possibly want with me anyway? I banished that thought as I had many times before in the past month. I recalled unhappily the tales of the insatiable monster that lived in the forest and ate all the game. Perhaps the Beast found young maiden a difficult dish to procure, and had to resort to trickery, I had cut and carried too much wood in the last two and a half years to make a very delicate morsel; but this was no comfort, since it would undoubtedly be discovered too late.

I remembered that Father’s tack had been mysteriously cleaned while it hung on a rack overnight. The rack I found, it having conjured itself outside the stall while I was in it. “Won’t you let me wash it myself?” I said to the air, looking up as if expecting to see something looking down; I lowered my gaze hastily and was unnerved by the appearance of a bucket of warm water, soap, sponges, cloths, and oil. “Well, that is what you asked for,” I told myself aloud; and then “Thank you,” louder, and was rewarded by the same feeling that Father had had: that the air was listening. I didn’t like it.

By the time I had done everything I could do twice over, the sun was nearly gone; lanterns set in the doorposts of the stalls were lighting themselves. It then occurred to me that I liked the idea of going into the castle for the first time after dark even less than I had liked it a few hours ago while daylight was with me, keeping trolls and witches under cover. Greatheart had finished the grain, and was happily working on the hay hanging in a net; he was not inclined to be sympathetic to my fidgets. I patted him for the last time and went reluctantly out. The horse was calm and relaxed again, as he had always been at home until the last few days. I tried to tell myself that this was a good omen, but I felt more as if I were being betrayed in my last extremity. I closed the stable door—or anyway my hand was on it when it closed itself—on the sound of quiet chewing. I found myself twisting the griffin ring on my finger as I stepped down from the threshold.

As I stepped outside, the lanterns in the garden were lighting up; there was a warm sweet smell of perfumed lamp oil. The silence was unbroken but for the clear tinkling of the little streams, and the slow scuff of my booted feet; there was still no sign of any living thing. I felt very small and shabby amid all this magnificence; riding Greatheart lent its own dignity, for he shone through his battered harness. The size and grandness of his new environment suited him; he might have been coming home after exile among the savages. But there was nothing grand about a small plain girl, poorly dressed, self-conscious, and jittery. I looked around me, blinking, and then turned back towards the castle. The courtyard was dark as I turned; but it leaped into a blaze of light as I looked towards it. The silver arch around the enormous front doors glittered and gleamed, and the figures molded on it seemed to come to life: a king’s hunting party, the horses’ manes flying, and banners and pennoncels bucking in the wind. There were hounds scattered, tails high, before the galloping horses, and two or three riders carried hooded falcons on their wrists. There were several ladies riding sidesaddle, their skirts mixing with the trailing saddle-skirts. In front of the field the king rode, leaning forwards over his horse’s neck; he wore a thin circlet around his forehead, his sleeves and collar were trimmed with fur, and his horse was the largest and finest. I found myself trying to read his face, and could not. He was galloping towards a great wood that stood at the peak of the arch, branches bowed like the petals of a flower. On the other side of the arch the scene was a mirror image of the first, but the story told was changed. The king’s horse was plunging wildly away from die forest, riderless, its eyes rolling. The other hunters were reining back hard at the forest’s edge, with expressions of shock, dismay, and dawning horror on their faces. The dogs were fleeing, tails between legs and ears flat, and the falcons struggled to be free, wings spread, claws tearing at tasseled hoods. Both scenes were colourless, icy pale, yet sharp and vigorous; I expected to see the next hoof hit the ground as I looked at a galloping horse, to see the lady’s raised hand brush the scarf from her eyes; and I looked with nervous fascination at the wood, but saw nothing but the silver trees.

I saw this very clearly, but all in the space of a moment. The doors swung silently but ponderously open, revealing a great hall lit by hundreds of candles in crystal sconces. As I stood dumb and staring, a little singing breeze swept out through the doors and curled around me. I could almost hear voices in it, but when I tried to listen I lost them. It was a very small wind, and it seemed to exist only for the purpose of tugging at my sleeves and twitching the hem of my divided riding skirt, and uttering what sounded like little cries of dismay at the condition of my hair and my boots. No candle flame shivered in a draft, and no leaves tapped one against another. The breeze circled eagerly around my shoulders, and feeling that I was being encouraged, I took a few steps forwards^ towards the enormous doors. I wondered how King Cophetua’s beggar-maid had felt when the palace gates had first opened for her. But there was little resemblance between us; she had a king in love with her, because of her innate nobility, and a beauty that sparkled even through her rags. So much for comparisons. I went inside.

The breeze giggled and chirped at me as if I were a reluctant horse, and then dashed off before me into the hall. As I crossed the threshold a door swung open, to my right, about fifty feet down the broad from corridor. The clicking of my boot-heels had as much effect on that massive silence as the sweep of a butterfly’s wings might. I went through the open door. This was a dining hall, big enough to be two ballrooms; there were three fireplaces, with windows on the fourth wall that were each three times as tall as I was, and a many-legged rectangular table that might take half an hour to walk around, but only ten minutes to walk across. I looked up. There was a musicians’ gallery at one end of the room, with heavy dark velvet drapes drawn across it. Its balcony was built where the second storey should have been; the ceilings were very high. I tipped my head farther back, squinting: There seemed to be a design, painted or sculptured, on the ceiling, but the candles were set no higher than the foot of the musicians’ gallery, and their light did not reach so far.

I returned my gaze to the table, I saw now that it was crowded with covered dishes, silver and gold. Bottles of wine stood in buckets full of gleaming crushed ice; a bowl big enough to be a hip bath stood on a pedestal two feet tall, in the shape of Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders; and the hollow globe was full of shining fresh fruit. A hundred delightful odors assailed me. At the head of the table, near the door I had entered by, stood a huge wooden chair, carved and gilded and lined with chestnut-brown brocade over straw-coloured satin. The garnet-set peak was as tall as a schooner’s mast. It could have been a throne. As I looked, it slid away slightly from the table and turned itself towards me, as another chair had beckoned to my father. I noticed for the first time that it was the only chair at that great table, and there was only one place laid, although the table gleamed to its farther end with the curved backs of plate covers, and with goblets and tureens and tall jeweled pitchers.