It was a strange question. Snow didn’t know the answer, and turning it over in her mind, she wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to be.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s see what happens.”
Arrin was determined to go and speak with the king. Once he had seen Snow safely back to the boar’s den, he mounted his horse. “I’m going to tell him what has passed,” he said. “He should hear from me, what I was charged with, and what I have done.”
Greatspot stood patiently while Snow undid the panniers, and then she said, “Wait, hunter-man. I’ll come with you.”
Puffball nodded and stood up alongside.
“What?”
“It’s dangerous,” said Greatspot. “You plan to walk up to a king and tell him that you were sent to kill his daughter. Do you see that going well?”
“What does a pig know of kings?” asked Arrin.
“More than a king knows of pigs, I suspect,” said Greatspot, lowering her head. “We’ll stay well back, Puffball and I, but you may be glad of a friend in the woods, if all goes ill.”
“They’re right, you know,” said Snow. “I don’t recall my father being a terribly…ah…calm man.” Arrin grimaced.
“No one will see us,” said Puffball. “Unless we want to be seen.” He grinned with all his tusks.
“We can’t just leave Snow alone,” said Arrin. He looked around the wooded glade. Leaf buds were coating the trees in a fine green haze, and the other boars had dispersed through the woods to look for early mushrooms.
“They’ve been leaving me alone all winter,” said Snow, rolling her eyes. She slung the panniers over her shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
“The bears are waking up,” said Arrin stubbornly. “One could smell the food and try to come in.”
“Only ever two bears in this territory, hunter-man,” said Puffball. “The old black queen died in her den, and her oldest son’s been awake for a week. He’s over on the far side of the woods, digging up roots.”
Arrin opened his mouth to argue, and Snow stopped on the doorstep of the den. “Ashes is still here,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Go talk to the king.”
He looked into the mouth of the den and saw the pale, oblong face of Ashes, the small, silent sow. She saw him looking and ducked back inside.
He mounted his horse and went to face the king.
The queen had been in the woods for several days.
She did not sleep. Her dreams the first night were all of the mirror, and she did not try again.
The leaves crunched under her feet. By day, she followed the sun and by night, she followed the burning of the witchblood. Her joints ached and the small bones of her hands throbbed with age.
Her pockets were full of apples.
She had taken them from the kitchen, from the barrel of dried apples. It did not occur to her that the cook would not recognize her, as ancient as she now was. She hobbled through the kitchens and out the gate.
The cook saw an old, old woman, her eyes glazed with madness, and did not begrudge her food. She would have spoken and asked after the old woman’s people, but there was pride in the hard, crumbled lines of her back.
That sort doesn’t like to admit she’s been reduced to stealing food, thought the cook. Poor soul! It’s only a few apples. Lord, if you’re watching, those apples are freely given. You don’t hold them against her soul.
(The cook was in the habit of lecturing the Lord, whom she considered a colleague.)
The queen crept out of the castle and away from the grounds. There was a little door by the garden, which she left open behind her. The gardener had a few things to say about that in the morning, but no one suspected the truth.
Snow’s trail was thinner than a strand of spider silk, but the queen had all the patience of madness. The days in the woods passed, one after another, as she followed the thin threads of witchblood. She raveled them up like a warrior feeling her way through a labyrinth, as though she was minotaur and maiden both.
She was not often hungry. When she was, she ate apples.
Except for one.
It had been the finest of the dried apples, the closest to whole. It took only a little magic to make the skin swell, becoming firm and green and glossy. The smell that came from it was the essence of autumn. It smelled of crisp frosts and crackling leaves.
In the heart of it, wrapped around the core like a fist around a knife-hilt, lay a spell.
The queen caressed the skin of the apple often as she walked, the way she had caressed the lid of the box that held the boar’s heart.
Her way was painful and limping. She picked up a length of green wood and used it as a staff, but there was nothing to be done about the ache in her fingers or the way that her hips joints seemed to grate inside their sockets.
The only thought that beat in her brain was Snow, Snow, her daughter with her hair like flax and her eyebrows like scars, her daughter who was sometimes fair, her daughter who had witchblood in her veins.
Blood that would remind her own what it was like to flow thin and fast and hot.
She came to a place where the scent of Snow’s blood was wrapped through the branches of a tree, and she paused there. It was the place where Arrin had dismounted, the first night that he took Snow into the woods, and where the boars had found them.
She could sense the power that clung to the boars. Almost it masked the scent of witchblood, almost she passed by. But she ran her fingertips over the bark of the tree, and the tree shuddered, and the trail that led to Snow burned like a brand before her.
“When I am young again,” said the queen aloud, “I will deal with that fool I married. Let his new wife cry over his bones.”
The thought gave her a little strength and she toiled on, one hand on the apple in her pocket.
The king’s camp was a long ride from the boar’s den. They were not terribly far from the castle, all things considered, but an army moves slower than a single man on a horse.
Perhaps the king is moving slowly, Arrin thought. Perhaps he does not want to face what waits for him at home.
He rode on. The pigs moved silently through the forest behind him.
Snow poked up the fire in the hearth, preparing an early meal. She had treated herself to dried apples drizzled with honey, which she shared with Ashes.
“And now we should probably eat something,” she said to the little white sow, “or else we’ll keep eating apples and honey all night. Not that that’s a bad thing, necessarily.”
Ashes spoke but rarely, but she dipped her snout in what was, for her, a smile.
Snow slid one of the great iron frying pans into the fire to warm up and went outside to gather some sticks.
She had half an armload and was straightening up when she saw the old woman.
Snow jumped, dropping the sticks. The old woman stared at her, leaning on her staff.
A person, here! Someone’s found us!
The old woman passed a hand slowly over her eyes. Her hands were gnarled like tree roots, and her eyes were gray and dim.
She had appeared practically in front of Snow. Snow’s instincts said to run away, to bolt into the den—and what good would that do?
Are you going to hide in the house from an old woman? She’s—lord, a thousand years old, at least. A strong wind will break her in half. You’re as bad as Arrin, thinking every person you meet is a danger.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” asked Snow.
The old woman licked her lips to moisten them. Her gaze stayed fixed on Snow’s face.
“Apples,” she said.
Snow was grateful for the excuse to glance away, toward the den. “Are you looking for some? We’re running low, but we could spare a few, if you’re hungry.”
The old woman shook her head. “No,” she said. “I am selling apples.” He voice gained strength as she used it. “Yes. I came to sell apples.”
“All right,” said Snow. She doesn’t have a pack. Well, maybe she’s le
ft it somewhere—or maybe she’s mad. I wonder. Her eyes don’t look right. “I could buy some apples.”
The old woman nodded and reached into her pocket to pull one out.
It was green. The familiarity of it struck Snow immediately—the shape, the color, something. She knew that apple, or at least the tree those apples came from.
The word home had not stirred her memory, but the sight of the apple did.
My tree. My friend. With the gnarled bark and the one branch you could sit in like a chair and watch people go by in the courtyard. It smelled like blossoms in spring and like thaw in winter.
“Where is that from?” asked Snow, hearing her voice shake a little.
The old woman took a step forward, looking down at the apple in her hand. Snow, half involuntarily, took a step back. She was almost on the doorstep of the den now. The walls rose low and solid behind her.
“From the tree in the courtyard,” said the old woman. She took another step forward, extending her hand. “Take it. It’s for you.”
Snow reached out her hand and took the apple.
It fit perfectly into her hand. The skin was crisp green silk. If she bit into it, it would be tart and sweet and the juice would run down her chin.
It was beautiful. It was the essence of autumn. And there was a green haze on the trees, because the world was in springtime now, and autumn was a long way off.
Snow looked up. There was a strange shine under the dimness of the woman’s eyes, like clouded mirrors.
“How do you have ripe apples in spring?” said Snow.
Rage flashed over the old woman’s face, so stark and sudden that Snow recoiled. The apple fell from her hand and struck the stone doorstep. The ripe skin split open.
“How dare you!” hissed the old woman.
“I’m sorry—” Snow began, but the old woman did not stop.
“How dare you stand there? When I made you?”
The smell of the apple’s flesh rose up around them, rotten-sweet. Snow had time to think What? What did I do to make her angry? and then the old woman’s hands closed around her throat.
They fell backward together into the den. Snow clawed at the old woman’s hands, feeling her throat slam shut, unable to get a breath in or out. Her pulse pounded in her head like drums.
“Who?” cried the old woman. “Who?”
Who is she talking to? Snow thought. She’s mad, she’s gone mad, if I can get her hands off I can tell her I’m not who she’s looking for I can’t breathe—
She got her fingers underneath one of the woman’s swollen-knuckled hands and wrenched it loose. The other was digging deep trenches in her flesh, but she got half a ragged breath into her lungs before the old woman got another grip.
There was no breaking this one. Her fingers were strong, frighteningly strong, strong as tree roots grinding stones.
And then the old woman screamed, a high cracked note, and the hands fell away. Snow stumbled back, away, hands going to her neck.
Ashes, shy timid Ashes, had sunk her teeth into the old woman’s thigh.
Snow had fallen into the habit of thinking of Ashes as small, compared to the horse-sized boars, but Ashes weighed three hundred pounds and had canine teeth like daggers. She jerked her head and the old woman fell across the sow’s back, shrieking.
Someone was making a terrible noise—ahh-hunggh—ahh-hunhggh—with a gurgle in it. Snow had a dreadful feeling that if she listened too closely, she’d find that it was coming from her own throat.
I have to do something—help Ashes—the poker, in the fireplace—
The old woman screamed again—and then Ashes squealed and there was a sharp crack! Snow thought she must be going mad, or she was going to faint, because it seemed to her that something picked Ashes up and flung her—flung her across the den, into the wall, where she struck and slid down and lay boneless against the floor.
(It was the witchblood, of course. Witchblood protects itself, even if the owner can’t. If you don’t believe me, go out and spill a great deal of it, and see how long you keep hold of the knife.)
Panting, the old woman staggered back to her feet. One leg dragged useless behind her, but she was too close and too fast and Snow was too far from the door.
“Tell me who is fair!” she cried, and her tree-root fingers reached for Snow again.
“I don’t know!” Snow tried to say, but her throat was ruined and she gagged on blood when she tried to speak.
The old woman slammed into her, half-falling. Snow went to one knee, feeling blindly for the poker.
“Fair,” said her attacker, “fair fair fair!” It no longer sounded like words, but like the hunting cry of some strange beast.
Snow’s hands closed over something, just as the old woman’s hands closed over her throat.
It was a bad angle for both of them. The woman had to adjust her grip, and that gave Snow time to grab with the other hand, brace herself, and swing.
Not with the poker. With the gigantic frying pan that the boars used to cook potatoes.
The great iron slab struck the old woman in the side, and one corner caught the wound where Ashes had bit her. Iron touched witchblood and set it burning.
The old woman made a sound that Snow had never heard before and hoped to never hear again, a high, bitter wail, and fell to the floor. She fell partly on top of Snow, still wailing, and Snow croaked her disgust and scrabbled backward, dropping the pan, unable to think of anything except the desperate need to get away.
But it was over. The old woman’s limbs drew in on themselves, jerkily, like a dying spider. Her flesh collapsed as the witchblood boiled away, splitting across her cheeks and puckering into the hollows of her bones.
Snow thought she looked as if she had died a long time ago.
But what do I know? I can barely breathe…and those spots on my eyes weren’t there a minute ago…
Her whole body buckled. It was a very strange sensation and she seemed to fall over very slowly onto her side, and then even that was too much, and she was lying on her back.
Two things, thought Snow, gazing up at the ceiling. There was a darkness seeping in around the corners of her vision. My life came down to two things. Knowing that truffles are worth more than potatoes, and knowing that you don’t get ripe apples in spring.
I will have to tell Arrin, she thought, and she would have laughed if her throat were not in ruins.
There was a dragging, scuffling sound. Snow listened to it coming closer.
Something was crawling across the floor toward her.
Not the old woman. Please, not her. She must be dead. I am probably going to die anyway, but please let me have taken the old woman with me.
Something touched her elbow.
The pain took her breath away—or would have, if she could breathe—but Snow turned her head.
It was Ashes.
The little sow’s eyes were glazed with pain and her breath was ragged, but she had crawled across the floor to Snow. As Snow watched, she tilted her head so that her snout fit under Snow’s elbow, and she nudged it upward, so that Snow’s hand laid against her skin.
Snow smiled. In all the world, there were only two living creatures, and perhaps neither of them would be living for much longer.
The darkness closed in around her eyes, until she seemed to see Ashes at the end of a long tunnel, and the two of them lay on the floor in the earthen den and waited for death to come for them.
When Arrin returned to the boar’s den with Puffball and Greatspot, the house was dark and cold.
The boars moved more quickly than he did. Arrin swung off his mare and had one foot on the ground when he heard a squealing cry of dismay.
The huntsman’s mind was full of the king’s words, and when he heard it, he did not run immediately toward the den. Instead he bent his forehead to his mare’s neck and failure engulfed him.
The king had not been kind.
But Arrin was a good and responsible man, so he pushe
d himself away and hurried to the den.
“We didn’t know how to move her!” Hoofblack was saying miserably. “What else could we do? We can’t make her eat wild garlic until she throws up or pack her with mud and what else is there?”
“You should have gotten a human!” roared Puffball. “Humans need human medicine! If they could take boar medicine, they wouldn’t be so damnably fragile!”
“But—”
“Both of you, be silent!” snapped Greatspot, and slashed at them with her tusks. The boars fell quiet and backed away.
Juniper was lying alongside Snow, embracing the girl awkwardly. “She’s still warm,” said the sow. “And still breathing. I don’t like the look of her throat, but I can’t do anything about it.”
“What happened?” asked Arrin. He went to his knees beside Snow. Juniper rolled a mild eye up at him. There were no obvious wounds, she was not bleeding, but her throat was red and violet and hideously swollen.
The little white pig, the one whose name he couldn’t remember, was lying across her feet.
Hoofblack tossed his head. “That happened,” he said contemptuously. “That thing over there. It stinks of magic, what’s left of it.”
Arrin turned to the bundle of cloth. There was something sticking out of it that looked like the dried claws of a bird of prey. It took him a moment to realize that they were hands.
He flipped the cloth back to see the face, and looked immediately away.
“It’s the queen,” he said.
“You can tell that?” asked Hoofblack.
“It’s the gown. The embroidery. She was wearing it the day that she sent me…never mind.”
It came to him distantly that the king would be relieved, and also a trifle annoyed. “I’ll see that witch hanged,” he’d said, “or burned. She bewitched me once, but she’ll not do it again.”
Well. The queen had placed herself beyond his vengeance. Now it fell to Arrin to place Snow beyond his fears.
“I’m not saying you did the wrong thing, leaving her in the woods,” the king had said, so quietly that his voice was almost lost in the snap of banners overhead. “But perhaps it would have been better that way. I shall disinherit her, but distaff heirs have a way of turning up and making trouble.”
Toad Words Page 13
