Snow Read online

  Snow

  By Wheeler Scott

  Copyright © 2005 by Wheeler Scott

  ISBN: 978-1-934166-15-4, 1-934166-15-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Torquere Press, PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680.

  Chapter One

  Once upon a time she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The King met her while hunting in a snow-capped forest at the edge of his lands, saw her sitting eating a piece of ripe red fruit. The moment their eyes met his heart belonged to her.

  Rumors flew when he declared she was to be his consort, whispers that she had created some enchantment, that her beauty could be nothing but result of one. The day she was made Queen there was talk of the forest she'd lived in, stories almost forgotten recalled and passed person to person as the crowd stood waiting. But then she appeared, crowned and glorious, and she was enchantment personified, shimmering as she stepped through the streets with her husband, the King, by her side.

  She was so lovely even flowers paled next to her. To look at her was to know you'd seen a glimpse of something extraordinary, and the stories about her faded into silence. The King shone a little brighter every time he looked at her and together they ruled a kingdom made glorious by what they shared, their perfection.

  Then things became even more perfect, for there was going to be a baby. The Queen danced the day she found out, a delicate spinning turn that twirled her into the King's arms. The King smiled and the nobles in attendance clapped and cheered. The nation rejoiced.

  She grew even more beautiful, ordered baskets of fruit brought from her former home and ate them as she gazed into the mirrors of her room. Her belly rounded and when she walked her feet barely seemed to touch the ground. To look at her face once was to have it burned into your mind's eye forever.

  The babe grew but did not come. Nine months passed, then ten, then twelve, and she was still hugely ripe, swollen glorious and glowing. She paid for a witch woman, old and crooked-backed, bent by the wisdom she'd learned, to come to the castle as the thirteenth month started.

  "Is my babe dead?" she asked and her lovely voice trembled, tears sparkling in her eyes.

  The old woman shook her head and watched the Queen take a bite of fruit as she smoothed her other hand over her stomach. She noted the overflowing basket of it that sat by her side. "He's alive and healthy."

  "A son," the Queen said, and her smile lit up the room. "Will I give birth soon?"

  The old woman nodded.

  "When?"

  The old woman reached out and rested her hand on top of the basket, watched the Queen's eyes darken. "When he's more beautiful than you."

  The Queen laughed, mouth trembling, and had the old woman sent away. More beautiful than her? It couldn't be. She patted her stomach and looked in the mirrors, took another bite of the fruit she held. Her reflection glowed back at her.

  ***

  The babe did not come. The Queen waited. Day after day, alone with her silent attendants and her own thoughts. She found herself staring into the mirrors more, watching her reflection ripple golden back at her. On the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month she woke up screaming. She looked in her mirrors, saw her face drained white and contorted with pain.

  "It's true," she whispered, and then screamed again as her belly rippled and the child inside her made himself ready to be born.

  Outside, it began to snow.

  That was how the prince was born. He was given a long string of unpronounceable names and titles as soon as he drew his first breath. His nurse, upon hearing them, promptly forgot them all and called him David because that was the name of a saint she'd prayed to as a child. She was a simple creature.

  His mother closed her eyes when he was shown to her, shrank back when the royal physicians attempted to place him into her arms. "He's beautiful," they told her soothingly. "Look. There's nothing to be afraid of."

  "He's taken everything," she said, and turned her face away. When she was left alone, soft words of reassurance whispered to her and a cup of restoring wine placed where she could reach it, she got up. She walked over to her mirrors. She saw a pale creature, bloodied and hollowed out, her beauty taken from her as if it had never been.

  She smashed the mirrors with her hands and their pieces sank into her flesh. She closed her eyes.

  Outside, it continued to snow.

  ***

  The King mourned his Queen for six years. His kingdom mourned with him for one year, then two, and then moved on to bitterness, to murmurs of witchcraft and whispers of curses. Winter had descended upon the land, seemingly forever, and starvation drained any remaining sympathy the people felt away.

  It wasn't that the King couldn't govern. It was that he didn't want to. He listened to his ministers'

  reports and agreed that food had to be imported, that something had to be done. He said all the right things and nodded at all the right times, but it was clear his mind was elsewhere. His ministers weren't bad men, but they were men and the temptation to earn a fortune was too much for them to resist. Food prices grew, new taxes added seemingly every day, and the people began to spit whenever the King was mentioned, to grimace and curse his name. They remembered that the Queen had been from a strange place, a forest closed tight around itself, and that with her death it had grown stranger still, and cursed her name as well.

  The only thing that could rouse the King was the sight of a mirror. He'd had all of them removed after the Queen died, declared them banned from his sight. A minister surprised by a morning visit from the King was caught arranging what was left of his hair by peering into one propped up against an open dresser drawer. His head rolled across the great courtyard that very day and the people dared to hope a little. Perhaps the King knew how they were suffering. Perhaps he cared.

  Nothing changed. The minister's belongings were burned, the mirror melting down to a silver puddle. It kept snowing.

  ***

  David saw his father for the first time when he was three. He was trailing down the hall after his nurse, distracted by the windows they were passing. They were covered with a thick layer of ice, rendering the outside world nothing more than a blur of glazed crystal white.

  His father was on his way to his afternoon meeting with the ministers. He was not thinking of anything or anyone as he walked down the hall, but the sight of the nurse caused him to stop for a moment, peer at her cowering against the wall. He thought perhaps he remembered her.

  Then he noticed the boy behind her. The boy didn't see him. He was staring out the windows, trying to see, and the King saw his wife's face etched in the boy's own, written in his cheekbones and the shape of his chin, the curve of his forehead. It made him smile. He bent down and peered at the boy, then turned to the nurse and said, “How old is he?” The nurse cowered back further against the wall. "Three," she said softly, and then added, "Your Majesty" in a tripping rush.

  The King touched his son's head, ruffled his dark hair. He opened his mouth to greet him, a tiny portion of his heart thawing, waking up.

  Then his son looked at him. He gazed up at his father with eyes the King knew. The last time he'd seen them his wife had been staring at him sightless and bloodied on the floor, jagged cold silver pieces of mirror all around her.

  He walked away. He did not meet his ministers. He went to his rooms and stayed there for five days. On the sixth day he emerged, told the waiting ministers he was ready to begin his day.

  "Would you like to see
your son?" one of them asked. His name was Hugh, and he nurtured hopes that the King had drifted so far into melancholy that overthrowing him would be as simple as a question of seven words. He'd told his wife of his plan the previous night, watched her dream of a crown and jewels. He'd dreamed of removing her head with a sword and marrying her cousin, a young maiden who was forever watching him with shyly downcast eyes.

  The King stared at him. "I have no son," he said softly, and motioned for his guards. Hugh's head rolled across the courtyard that afternoon. His wife entered a convent and found God to be a far more satisfactory husband.

  After that day the King came back to life. He began to take an interest in his kingdom. He discovered what his ministers had done. He had their heads removed, a river of blood racing across the courtyard until the next day's snowfall erased it. He promised that things would be better and they were. Food became affordable again and the feral starved eyes that gleamed out of everyone's face gradually disappeared.

  It continued to snow. There was talk of curses still, but mostly late at night as slurred whispers over cups of ale. Occasionally a prophet would proclaim that there was a way to end the snow. A few of them spoke so convincingly that people believed and gave away everything they had or traveled to faraway lands where all they found were slave traders waiting to make a profit from them.

  The snow never stopped falling. The prophets all either lost their heads or were shunned, wandering wrecked through the kingdom cursed by everyone they met.

  ***

  The day the King announced he would marry again the snow stopped for seven hours and when it started again it fell as a light mist so fine most people scarcely noticed it.

  That was the day David's nurse told him he was going to be getting a brother and sister. The nurse noticed that it stopped snowing after she'd given David the news but thought nothing of it.

  She was just happy to see him smile. She hadn't been sure he could until that day.

  Before she put him to bed he asked where his brother and sister were coming from. The nurse laughed and patted his pillow, almost touching his hair. "Why, your new mother," she said, and pulled blankets up around him. "They are her children from her marriage to the King of--oh, a faraway place."

  "Mother?" he asked anxiously, and she watched him mouth the word, rolling it around like it was a sweet he'd never had before. He was a strange boy. "What will happen when I see her?"

  "Don't worry, love," she said and smiled fondly down at him. "You won't hurt her. You didn't mean to kill your mother. All that nonsense the washwoman spouts--such piffle! Don't listen to a word she says. Now go to sleep and dream of sweet things."

  David nodded and closed his eyes. He'd never talked to the washwoman. No one ever talked to him except his nurse. After she left he opened his eyes and stared at the dark corners of his room.

  He didn't sleep.

  The day of the wedding came, finally, and the great cathedral blazed with candles, so many that the ice covering the stained glass windows melted, sending streams of water across the floor that ruined many a lady’s fine gown but also tinted the streaming sunlight’s glorious colored hues.

  David was there. He sat in the very back, his nurse by his side. He couldn't see very well--the cathedral was large and his father and new mother were golden dots gleaming almost out of sight. He wished he could see them. He could see the great windows though and stared at the light passing through them, watched it make patterns on the floor.

  He saw a few people looking at him, covert backward glances covered by prayer books or fans but the moment he looked back they always looked away, strange looks crossing their faces as if they saw something other than him when they looked at him.

  "People are looking at me," he whispered to his nurse, tugging on her sleeve. "Why are they looking at me?"

  "Because you're so beautiful," she whispered back and tapped his knee. He moved his hand away. She shivered and drew her shawl more tightly around herself. "Why don't you read the prayer book for a little while?"

  He thought about the word “read”. It sounded like what baskets were made of but he didn't think that was what his nurse meant. He looked at the pictures in the prayer book instead. They were pretty. The ice that covered the pew he was sitting on started to thaw. His nurse stopped shivering. David didn't notice. He was wondering when he'd meet his brother and sister. He was looking at the pictures of saints and martyrs and watching the way the light broke them into bright colored fragments.

  He met his brother and sister three years later, long after he'd given up hope of ever seeing them.

  It had been a bad year for the kingdom, endless heavy snows for six months, a white icy blanket covering everything. In spite of all the King did, many starved. His new wife was from a place warm and sunny and she was not thriving in this land. She'd barred the King from her bed two months ago, screamed that he'd never told her about his dead wife and cursed child so loudly even the scullery maids heard. When the King said, "But I have no son," in a gentle voice she slammed her bedchamber door in his face and screamed that she wished she was dead, that the King was crazy and cursed and that now she was too.

  The sixth day of the sixth month of those endless heavy snows David's nurse taught him how to make gingerbread. It was the only recipe she'd ever been able to remember and they made it together after dinner, both of them burning their hands as they scooped pieces from it out of the baking tin they'd put on a tray above the fire.

  "I'm sorry your new mother hasn't been to see you," she said as he was eating his third piece of gingerbread. "I have half a mind to march up to those fancy rooms of hers and tell her how daft she's being."

  "Maybe she doesn't want to see me," David said. Ice pelted against the window, a sharp cutting rain.

  "Nonsense," his nurse said stoutly, tucking her shawl more firmly around herself. "You're a love, and you know it. And very clever too. You made that gingerbread all by yourself."

  "You told me how to," David said, but there was an almost smile on his face.

  His nurse kissed the top of his head. "But you did all the work. Finish up and then I'll tuck you into bed."

  David ate the rest of his gingerbread. His nurse leaned forward and let the heat of the fire melt the ice that coated her lips. Outside the furious falling snow slowed, and the clouds cleared enough to allow a glimpse of nighttime sky. Before David fell asleep his nurse told him stories of brave heroes and beautiful maidens and happily ever after, her voice quavering a bit every time the hero said "I love you" and the beautiful maiden said "I love you too." Then she pointed out the stars to him, smiled at his eager questions. She couldn't answer most of them, but she did name all the constellations for him. She made the names up, of course, but David didn't know that.

  He met his brother and sister as he was crossing the courtyard to sit with his nurse while she smoked a pipe and talked to the second chamberlain's wife. David liked going because the second chamberlain's wife made his nurse smile and always gave him almonds to eat. He was thinking about almonds when his nurse stopped so suddenly that he walked right into her back.

  "Your Highnesses," his nurse said, and her voice had gone high and terrified the way it did whenever anyone important was nearby. David leaned into the wall behind her.

  "Who are you?" a voice asked, low and sweet, and David looked around his nurse to see who was speaking.

  He knew they were his brother and sister right away. They were golden and lovely and dressed like his father, in jewels and glittering fabric, matching wreaths of flowers and diamonds on their heads. The one who spoke, the boy, raised his eyebrows when he saw David.

  "You must be--" he said and launched into a long list of names that David didn't know.

  "I'm David," he said in some confusion when the boy was done. "I'm your brother. And you're my brother. And sister."

  "Of course you are," his sister said. Her voice was low and sweet too. "And I suppose we are."

  She held o
ut her hand and David took it hesitantly, stared down at the rings covering it. It was very warm.

  His sister drew her hand away.

  "Your hands are very cold," the Prince said, taking his sister's hand with one of his own, the two of them looking deep into each other's eyes. When he looked back at David there was a smile curving his mouth, a strange sharp tooth-filled smile.

  "And you're quite pale," the Princess said and the same sharp smile was on her face. "Perhaps you're feeling poorly? Very sickly and soon to expire?"

  "Oh no, Your Highness, he's as healthy as can be," his nurse said. "Never ever even been sick, not one--" The Prince looked at her and she fell silent, stared down at the floor.

  "Insolent," the Prince said musingly. His eyes glowed bright green.

  "But we have to go now," the Princess said, a hot thick regret in her voice that made David press back against the wall, skin prickling. Her eyes were very brown, endless dark. "Father is waiting for us." She looked at the Prince.