by Jane Yolen
All this Philomel dutifully reported in her increasingly too-loud voice, as if she believed the door kept her every utterance a secret from the queen.
“Golly, she’s big!” said Philomel, maybe meaning the troll, maybe meaning the queen. It was unclear to all of them.
It was also the last thing she was ever to say.
Lightning—or the hot, blue, magical equivalent of lightning—streamed through the keyhole, lit Philomel up for a moment till she looked like a star, and then struck her dead.
The room rocked with thunder. Every bit of Yarrow’s carefully arranged fire circles was scattered. The lumpy mattress slipped unaccountably through the arrow slit, landing four stories down in the garden below, though no one thought such a thing possible.
On one side of the door, Yarrow was lifted in the air and tossed the length of the room to hit the wall with an ugly thud.
On the other side the three midwives were treated the same. Only they didn’t hit the wall.
They hit Snail.
All that saved her was that she managed to curl into a ball as the three sizable midwives hurtled at her. They squashed her against the wall and she lay still, trying to consider each individual bone, hoping nothing was broken. Finally, she came to the conclusion that everything was whole—with the possible exception of her pride.
But as no one dared move for long minutes, Snail was afraid that having no broken bones wouldn’t matter. Instead, she would certainly end up crushed. Together, the midwives weighed almost as much as any troll.
She wiggled a finger painfully. After a long minute, she was able to move her right arm a bit. Once that arm was free, she was able to shift to one side so that her left arm could move as well. At last, with two free arms, she was able to drag herself out from under the midwives, though she was immediately exhausted by the effort.
That was when she heard a strange sound—like a pig in labor, she thought—coming from across the room. She knew what laboring pigs sounded like. Apprentice midwives got to practice on them before being allowed into any fey birthing room.
Looking around, she realized it was Yarrow making the ghastly noise.
Well, at least she’s alive, Snail thought. I won’t have to clean the whole room up myself.
But even that thought was a bit unwelcome. Yarrow was now whimpering so loudly, Snail was sure the queen, with her supersensitive hearing, would strike again.
“Shhhh,” Snail hissed at her. “Shhhhhh!” and pointed to the door.
Yarrow’s whimpering moderated a bit but never stopped.
As nothing more was heard from the door, no more lightning through the keyhole, no ogres or Red Caps coming in to eat them whole, Snail got to her hands and knees. She was pleased that—except for an extremely dirty pair of hands and her hair being all askew—she was fine. Nothing broken, nothing torn, nothing past saving.
She stood up slowly, then went over to the door, and knelt by poor Philomel’s remains, though all that was left of her was a bit of dust and a silver locket.
Oddly, Snail felt a tear in her eye. She wiped it brusquely away.
Hrmph! she thought. I hardly knew her, and what I did know I didn’t much like. But a push in the back didn’t warrant such an awful end. Snail knew she’d wanted revenge, but not this. Not just a pile of dust in a cold room.
Another tear came and dripped down onto the silver locket. It sizzled and disappeared where it hit. Snail was glad she hadn’t touched the thing. It obviously wasn’t cool yet, or free of the queen’s magic. Sometimes silver could hold the remnants of a spell for hours and even be dangerous a day later.
Wiping her eyes, she stood up.
It’s just this place. So much random pain and . . . and . . . meanness! She thought of Nettle and his pranks. Not on the same level as the queen’s anger, of course. But still . . .
She moved her right shoulder, which was beginning to stiffen up. Then, sighing, she turned back to look at the midwives. They seemed fine, if a bit shaken. Their eyes were wide open, watching her. But they didn’t look like they dared move yet.
Fine—lie there in a pile like sows after a feeding, she thought. But if I’m going to die, I’d rather it was while I was doing something.
Not that there was much to do. The room had been destroyed, and wouldn’t be suitable for any birthing, let alone the queen’s.
She glanced down at the locket and dust. There’s nothing I can do for Philomel now.
Hearing a whimper, she remembered Yarrow, and started toward her. “Are you all right?” she whispered when she got close.
She knew already the answer would be “No!” Yarrow’s usual response to her, but she bent over to inspect her anyway. Snail could see that Yarrow’s left foot was bruised and swelling—possibly not broken, but obviously badly injured. There was also a bump the size of a falcon’s egg on her forehead, and it seemed to be growing fast.
Yarrow looked up at her, eyes struggling a bit to focus. Then she scrunched her forehead and spit at Snail, “This is all your fault!”
“How?” Snail gasped, straightening up in amazement. “How is this my fault?”
“You were spying first! If you hadn’t been spying, she’d never have thought of it. She wasn’t that bright. You got Philomel killed!”
Snail bit her lip. There was some truth in what Yarrow said.
“Yes!” Mistress Treetop called from the midwife pile. “You got my apprentice killed!”
Then Yoke struggled to her feet and scuttled over to her wounded apprentice. “There, there, my dear girl,” she said, “we’ll make sure that nasty Snail gets her comeuppance.”
With a wrinkled, clawed hand she patted Yarrow’s midnight hair.
“But I . . .” Snail could think of nothing to say in her own defense so she turned to Mistress Softhands in the hope of finding some support there. But her midwife was just staring at the door, as if somehow blaming it for all that had happened.
Slumping to the floor, Snail let the buzz of the three women all talking at once fade into a cicada’s nighttime trill. They were blaming her for everything—from the troll’s slipping to the queen’s mood to the lightning through the door. It didn’t help to listen further.
Snail felt like whimpering herself. Like her namesake, she’d begun to pull herself into a kind of shell, curling away from the others, when there was a sudden knock on the door.
Three raps, two, three. The signal. All unaccountably, and quite beyond reason, the queen had chosen their chamber.
Without giving it further thought, Snail went over and opened the door.
ASPEN’S PACKED BAG
Aspen looked dejectedly at the small pile of possessions on his bed. Aside from the traveling necessities—stout leather breeches, sturdy boots and socks, a woolen cloak, a pack stuffed with dried meat and hard biscuits, a tinderbox in case magic failed him in the Wild Woods—there was only his sword, a small skinning dagger, five letters he’d received from his mother over the years, the ink faded to near invisibility from numerous rereadings, and his old pillow toy.
It’s not much to show for seven years in a place, he thought, picking a stray thread from the cloak thoughtfully. He shrugged and stood. Well, I was planning on traveling light anyway.
Scooping up the lot and pushing it into the pack, he shoved it under the bed, all the way to the center where a thousand years of dust had gathered.
My father would never let a servant get away with that kind of laziness! he thought.
But Unseelie laziness was a boon to Aspen now, as there was almost no chance of anyone accidentally coming upon his escape supplies and asking uncomfortable questions.
Changing into a sleeping shirt and cap, he closed the curtain and climbed into the large bed. He arranged the many pillows into a soft fortress to surround him, and then—despite his worries—he fell swiftly asleep. If he dreame
d at all, he was never to remember it.
* * *
HE WAS AWAKENED an unknowable amount of time later by a clawed hand shaking his shoulder softly. It was dark as a dungeon. Or as black as he assumed a dungeon was. He’d never actually been down to check the dungeons out.
“Your Serenity, you must wake!”
The voice was familiar.
Aspen opened one eye and squinted into the darkness. Two yellow ovals glowed at him. Jack Daw’s eyes, like a hunting wolf’s, reflected what little light shone through the now-uncovered window slit.
“Jack?” Aspen asked, then cursed himself for sounding young and afraid. He sat up, started again. “Explain yourself!” This time his voice was lower and—he hoped—more confident.
Jack leaned over the bed and moonlight through the window slit illuminated his grey face. “It is war,” he said quietly.
“War,” Aspen squeaked, no longer bothering to deepen his voice. “So soon? But I thought we had at least a season or, at worst, a few days. What now?”
“You must go.” Jack began pulling pillows from the bed and tossing them to the floor. “Are you prepared?”
Aspen threw his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes once. He thought about the pack under the bed. Would it be enough? Too late to change it now. “Yes.”
“Good lad.”
Aspen didn’t correct him.
“The Water Gate is open and a boat is waiting. The guards are . . . indisposed.”
“Water Gate. Boat. Got it.” Aspen stood, then knelt down, digging under the bed for his pack and the supplies, this time cursing the thick dust and holding back a sneeze.
“Good lad,” Jack repeated. “You are prepared. That makes things easier. The river will take you south—too far south if you let it. The bridges will be guarded. Going by ferry at the Water Gate will save you time. No one, not even the Border Lords, will cross there. They will go downstream, which takes a goodly day or so longer. It buys you time.”
“Is the river dangerous?” He’d heard whispers, of course, but nothing concrete.
“Dangerous to those without a boat if they are, like the Border Lords, mostly human. Very dangerous for those of us who cannot cross running water.”
“Except by bridge . . .” Aspen mused aloud.
“Except by a very high bridge,” Jack conceded. “You should land in the Hunting Grounds at this time of year. You will have to travel on foot from there, over the Silver Hills and into Seelie lands. Be cautious, as the Borderlands may shift. If you find yourself there, be sure to travel only by day. Otherwise . . .”
Jack turned his back for modesty and Aspen quickly tugged on his leather traveling breeches and a fresh brown tunic before slipping his feet into his walking boots. “I hope my father’s armies will be in the Borderlands by the time I get there.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “A hope. If not . . .”
Tunic on now, Aspen belted on his sword and tucked his dagger in his boot. He went back over to the chest and grabbed a shearling jacket for extra warmth. “I know my way through Seelie lands well enough, Jack, even though it has been years since last I was there.”
He spoke with much more confidence than he felt. After all, he had been seven when sent to the Unseelie court. And though he had been out every day of his sixth and seventh year with either his father or his father’s forester, learning the woods and how to live in them, how to cross the hills without hurt, that was seven long, lonely years ago.
When he turned back, Jack was sitting on the bed, the pack on his lap, as if guarding it.
Aspen swung the shearling jacket around his waist and tied the arms over his belly. Then he pulled the dark cape over his shoulders, pulling the hood up to disguise himself.
“I will not forget this kindness, Old Jack Daw,” he said formally.
Jack nodded but didn’t answer directly. “Be off now, Your Serenity. I’ve stuffed some things to eat into your pack—journeybread, some green apples, a small wheel of cheese.”
Aspen nodded back. Best to be manly about it. No hugs. No tears. No tears, no fears, as his foster father liked to tell him, especially when in his cups.
There seemed nothing more to say, and Aspen knew he needed to hurry if he was to get to that boat before the guards were done being indisposed. He had no doubt that Jack had done the indisposing.
Good man, Aspen thought, and not for the first time. Though that wasn’t right. Jack was a drow, neither fey nor finn, not quite creature and not quite a man. But certainly a friend in a place where Aspen had few.
Well, no friends, he thought bleakly, honestly.
“Thank you,” he said to the air since Jack had somehow managed to leave before him. Without checking further to see where the old drow had gone, he rushed out of the bedroom door, pack on his back.
SNAIL UNDERGROUND
Afterward, Snail realized she never should have opened the door without first looking thorough the keyhole. Looking might be dangerous, but opening the door turned out to be the true disaster. Though if she hadn’t opened the door then, that would only have delayed the disaster, not averted it. She understood that at once.
The door screamed as it was opened. Or maybe that was Yarrow. Or one of the midwives. Snail was never to know.
The one standing there, hand raised to give the knock again, was neither the queen on her birth bed ready for their ministrations and competent hands, nor any of the four blind trolls who actually would have been much too busy holding on to the bedstead to knock.
Instead, at the door hulked a woodwose, his tangled locks all but obscuring green eyes, a snarling Red Cap holding tight to the cap that was ready to be dipped in their spilt blood, and three soldiers with a three-headed wolf straining at its leash.
“Oh!” Snail said in an unusually short and unusually quiet voice. She knew that the wolf could be tamed. She’d long ago learned several spells for taming wild animals, though she’d never actually used any of them. The woodwose and soldiers could surely be charmed. The midwives probably had such incants memorized. It was only the Red Cap, guided by a dark instinct, an unquenchable anger, and a passion for fresh blood, who was truly dangerous. The others were just there for show.
“Oh,” Snail said again, this time in a whisper.
Behind her, making up for her reticence, the three midwives and Yarrow all began to wail uncontrollably, as if all small spells and incants had simultaneously left them.
Snail wondered if the birth tower was so warded that no spells other than midwifery magic could be done there. And the queen’s magic, of course. Nowhere could be warded against that.
The women’s wailing made the wolf lie down and whimper and caused the Red Cap to laugh. It was a strange cawing laugh, like the sound a murder of crows makes.
“It’s her fault! Hers!” Yarrow screamed.
Snail did not have to turn around to know that Yarrow was pointing a finger like an arrow at her back.
But it didn’t matter to the woodwose or the soldiers—or the wolf—whose fault it was, or if it had been only an awful set of circumstances. It was clear the guards had been sent by the furious queen to collect anyone left alive in the room. And collect them was what they planned to do.
What the Red Cap planned was anyone’s guess.
The wolf, its ears still smarting from all the wailing, was of no use at all.
Actually, Snail felt sorry for the poor thing. Though she felt more sorry for the midwives and herself. She little cared what happened to Yarrow, but didn’t say that.
Or say anything else for that matter.
* * *
THE WOMEN WERE ALL bound together by silver manacles and led through a hidden passage down into the dungeon. Not iron, of course. No fey can bear the touch of iron. Being of a magical substance, silver worked well for binding but would not burn them to th
e bone.
Snail had never been in the passage and was surprised to see that it was opened by the tallest soldier lifting the torch out of a nearby sconce, and then yanking the sconce down with a swift pull. The mechanism made a groaning sound as if rarely used.
“All these years,” Snail heard Mistress Yoke say, “and I never . . .”
A soldier growled at her, “Haud yer wheesht, woman!” And the wolf, now sufficiently recovered from the wailing, growled as well.
So Mistress Yoke shut up and didn’t say another word. Nor did anyone else, though the Red Cap continued his cawing laughter long past the time there could be anything funny to laugh at.
The midwives, Yarrow, and Snail stumbled along down the stone steps. It was difficult to walk, chained as they were, and all the while the Red Cap poked at them with his bone knife, though not so hard as to let any blood actually flow.
Yet.
Snail wondered if he was just there to frighten them or was waiting to do them serious harm after.
He certainly frightens me! Snail was pretty sure he terrified them all, but she wasn’t about to ask.
Yarrow limped, sniffled, and moaned, and each time it was her turn for a poke from the Red Cap’s knife, she let out a little shriek as well. Each shriek occasioned another giggle from the Red Cap, which put everyone on edge. Even the wolf.
But Snail neither sniffled nor moaned. She observed. Or observed as much as could be seen between the torch’s small light and the terrifying shadows on the wall.
And she counted, just in case it might be useful later.
They went down six flights of steps, which—Snail figured—included four flights from the tower to the ground floor, and then two flights belowground.
Suddenly, one of the guards gave the silver chain a hard yank. After that, Snail stopped thinking of anything but putting one foot safely in front of the other so as not to fall and drag them all down the stairs with her. But she didn’t mind, for she’d already counted. It was a hundred and eighty stone steps—thirty steps between each floor—from the tower down to the dungeon, for it was clear that they’d come into the dungeon once they got to the final floor.
