Rumplestiltskin Read Free

Tilly and her kind heart! She proved to be his biggest ally back then, and risked her job and life many a time to see that her little Rumplestiltskin was fed and clothed in what she could find.
    She would even sneak in old abandoned broken toys from Marcus for him to play with, in the room she helped him design and keep. He had a new pile of straw brought in every few months from the stables and Tilly and the other women would patch him up a royal quilt from the fine discarded clothing for his blanket each Christmas.
    Rumplestiltskin had hid in the castle so long, working as best he could to ease the others from the demands of his parents and now brother, he truly did not remember much of the time before servitude anymore. It was all a blur.
    His family knew he was hidden in the castle somewhere. They knew it, because he would see them stare at him from time to time and then blankly turn away. His mother’s horrified sneers had grown less over the years, and since his father had died he had been able to be seen more and more as a servant and not as an awful curse. There were times there when if the king had seen him, he knew he had just moments to escape back to the small cellar before the king’s guards were searching the premises for him. He did not come up often when the royal family was out and about in those days. However, now he was simply Rumplestiltskin, no one but the crippled servant, whose world they would not acknowledge or deem worthy of their notice.
    Rumple rubbed harder into the beautiful wooden legs of the table, paying particular attention to the clawed feet. He had hours to think and perfect his wood-shining abilities. Hours to hide unnoticed in a room somewhere and polish and polish until everything in that room gleamed.
    He did not mind working, though it hurt him greatly on certain days when his rheumatism was acting up and his joints did not respond as he wished. However, it gave him purpose. Something to do that would beautify his beloved home.
    Though the castle was not his anymore, it was still the home he lived in and took great pride in seeing it stunningly on display. Nevertheless, today was a day more full of harm and despair than pride. Today pierced his heart and wounded his crippled frame more than he had felt in years.
    In two days’ time all the villagers would come once again to weep over his false grave. To lament at the saddened state of his early death. All of them would come at the king’s insistence. But none would truly be there because they cared. No, they were more frightened of what would happen if they did not show proper respect than if they did.
    They were sore afraid of Marcus. Even his mother was fearful of the king. And yet, they pretended to love a boy they discarded years ago. It was all a mockery! A sham!
    His mother and brother could not have cared less and the villagers honestly wished themselves miles away from their commencement duties. No one wanted him. No one would ever want him again. And certainly no one wished to mourn for him either.
    Tilly had left specific orders to the groomsmen and womenfolk to continue to provide the fresh hay and create the quilt for him as she lay within her sickbed last year. She had made them all promise they would continue to love and protect her Rumplestiltskin, but she was gone now. He had gained favor with the servants and groomsmen and the like. He had. They all respected his quiet, hardworking, cheerful ways. But they still revered him and feared him more than truly loved him as Tilly had.
    Perhaps that is why it was so hard this year to bear the silliness that would happen below. Because Tilly would not be there to wrap her arm around his shoulder later that night and jest and mock in great humor all the patrons who had come.
    How she would make him laugh! His chuckles at her remembered antics would keep him up many a night afterward thinking of the oddity of it all.
    How Tilly had loved him!
    How she truly cared about her