Snow Page 2

  "Yes," the Prince said, as if answering a question that only he'd heard. He and the Princess walked down the hall together hand in hand.

  ***

  David saw his father again as he entered his thirteenth year. He was in the cathedral sitting looking at the windows while his nurse prayed for a cure for her stiff joints. She'd been sleeping with an onion under her pillow every night but it hadn't helped. David tried to help out as much as he could--making gingerbread, singing his nurse the same songs she'd sung to him when he was young --but he didn't think he was being very helpful. She moved slowly now, every step she took seeming to cause her pain. The second chamberlain's wife had come to visit recently bearing a container of strong smelling ointment that she'd made his nurse promise to use. She'd helped her rub it into her hands and David watched his nurse smile for the first time in days, watch the knot of her hands unfurl. The chamberlain's wife sat down next to his nurse's bed then, took her hand and said, "You could ask someone to come and help out, you realize."

  "And who would come?" his nurse said tartly, smile fading, and the chamberlain's wife sighed and nodded. David had stared at both of them feeling helpless and miserable, and then he'd gone and gotten the broom that his nurse kept in the cleaning cupboard. He'd never swept a floor before but he'd seen her do it every day. It was easier than he thought it would be and he liked the sound the broom made as it scraped across the floor, a scratchy almost song he hummed along with. When he was done sweeping he bent down and lifted up a corner of the rug just like his nurse always did. He heard the chamberlain's wife's laugh.

  "Clearly he learned to sweep from you," she said to his nurse, a twinkling smile dancing across her eyes and curving her mouth. She looked at him then, the same expression on her face. "I'm afraid you'll never be a housekeeper," she said, and although he didn't know what a housekeeper was he liked her smile and the way it filled her voice. He thought perhaps she was the only person besides his nurse who'd ever truly smiled at him. He knew she was the only person other than his nurse who'd spoken to him in years. He smiled back at her and she blinked, eyes widening.

  "Goodness," she said, and a flush bloomed across her face, her voice faltering a bit.

  "His mother used to smile like that," his nurse said. "Remember? Right before he was born she was the loveliest thing in the world, wasn't she?"

  "She was," the chamberlain's wife said softly. A look flitted across her face, something surprised and perhaps a little scared. "She truly was."

  He saw his father come into the cathedral, heard murmurs of "The King!" break the silence of the church and saw people turn away from their prayers and look. Even his nurse did, twisting back to look behind her slowly.

  His father wasn't alone. David's brother and sister were with him, one on either side of the King, trailing just a little behind him.

  His father walked straight to the front of the cathedral, brisk long strides, and knelt by the altar.

  A priest immediately moved toward him, bent down and listened to his whispered request and then nodded, made the sign of a blessing. His father bent his head down under the gesture as if he felt it touching him. His brother and sister knelt too, their little fingers touching. They didn't bow their heads during their blessing.

  His father stood up while the priest was making the final sign of benediction over his brother and sister, turned away and strode back down the cathedral briskly. He looked at everyone as he passed, eyes skimming over them. David held his breath, but his father's gaze flickered across him, right through him.

  His brother and sister saw him when they left though. David watched them look at him and then at each other, their expressions a perfect mirror, right down to the arched eyebrows and quick amused quirk of the mouth.

  Next to him his nurse let out a soft pained gasp. David looked at her. Her hands had frozen to the pew, rested curved into it and coated with ice. He tried to pull them free but the ice grew thicker under his hands.

  "Look at the windows, love," she said, her voice tired and ragged. "Aren't they very pretty?"

  They were. David thought he could see colors under the ice that covered them, imagined them swirling and filling the church. Far over their heads the cathedral bells tolled, singing out that the King had been to worship, had been blessed. David hummed along with their song. By the time the song was over his nurse's hands were free and she said she was ready to leave.

  "Do you want me to help you stand up?" David asked.

  "No, no, don't fret," she said, and he watched her lever herself up slowly, slowly, fumbling to wrap her shawl around herself. Her hands were blue all the way home.

  "Do you think he saw me?" David asked later.

  "Of course," his nurse said. "He looked at everyone as he was leaving, didn't he?"

  "He didn't see me. And he doesn't--he doesn't want to, does he?"

  His nurse sighed and pulled the blanket she had wrapped around her knees up a bit, twisting it in her hands. "Did you know that once upon a time there used to be flowers and grass everywhere, as far as the eye could see?"

  "I'm too old for stories," David said, and watched as she smiled a faint sad smile.

  "There was. I promise you, there were all those things once back before you were born."

  He saw what she didn't say in the way her eyes didn't quite meet his. "I changed things."

  "Maybe," she said.

  "I didn't mean to."

  "Oh, love," she said, "I know. You can't help what you are."

  "What am I?"

  She didn't answer for a long time. But that evening, long after he went to bed, long after he was supposed to be asleep, he heard her shuffle slowly into his room, sit down next to him. "A curse," she said softly, sadly. Her hand touched his hair, stayed there till he could hear her shivering, teeth clattering together. When she got up and went to bed he heard her say her prayers and put a fresh onion under her pillow.

  He asked the second chamberlain's wife what a curse was the next time she and his nurse visited.

  She'd come and rubbed more of the strong smelling ointment into his nurse's hands again, said she'd try to get some more blankets sent to them. His nurse had smiled and said "Thank you,"

  then fallen asleep looking almost peaceful.

  "What's a curse?" he said and the second chamberlain's wife looked at him for a long time before she answered. When she was done talking she'd pulled her shawl tight around herself and her fingers had gone blue-white with cold. She said she had to go and she'd come to visit again soon.

  She didn't smile at him. When she was gone he sat watching his nurse, feeling his eyes prickle hot wet.

  "Did I fall asleep, love?" his nurse asked when she woke.

  "Just for a minute."

  "You look so sad," she said. "Are you unwell? I could make you some tea or--"

  "I'm fine," David said, voice cracking, and ice bloomed across the wall behind his head. It took two weeks to melt.

  ***

  The year he turned fifteen the new mother he'd never met died. She threw herself off the far tower, right down into the frozen river. Her body broke through the ice and came back up encased in it. It took four days in a room full of candles for all the water surrounding her to melt.

  David saw the funeral from a hallway looking out over the courtyard, stood next to his nurse while far down below his father lit a funeral pyre and then turned to hold his children's hands. He waited while his wife burned, nobles passing by and pressing ornate twisting folds of paper into his hands. "Sorrow notes," his nurse whispered when he asked what they were. David wished he was down there with paper resting in his hands. He wished his father was waiting to touch his hand. He would like to write out words for him, dozens of them, but he didn't know how to. He made gingerbread instead, later, but his nurse ate it all before he could think of a way to find his father.

  "You're a love to make this for me," she said, and her eyes were sparkling. David could see the swollen joints in her hands pressing hard against her skin.

  "We need to get more onions tomorrow," he said, and passed her the last piece of gingerbread.

  ***

  Two years later the second chamberlain's wife died of a wracking cough. She said the cough was nothing until the end, until she couldn't hide the red-brown drenched handkerchiefs any longer and blood streamed out of her mouth with every breath she took. In the days before she slipped into a sleep she never woke from David's nurse never left her side. David learned how to cook eggs and brew tea and tried to wash the sheets. The chamberlain's wife said it was fine that they ended up with holes in them. He heard her say, "The King never asks about him?" in a whisper-cracked voice to his nurse toward the end of her last day.

  "No," his nurse said. "The poor little love. Almost grown and what will happen to him then?”

  "Does he ever ask? About anything?"

  "He used to ask about his father. But never about anything else."

  "Odd," the chamberlain's wife said, and her voice was a wheeze now, a creaky wind whisper.

  "He asked me what a curse was once but then never brought it up again. Never asked another question. He's a strange one, you know. Just drifts along like he's asleep."

  "Who does he have to wake up for?" his nurse said, and her voice was sad.

  David rested his head against the window and watched the cup of tea he was holding freeze in his hands. He hugged his nurse when the chamberlain's wife breathed her last breath. Her tears rolled down her face in freezing cold rivulets, fell as tiny pieces of ice that shattered as soon as they hit the floor.

  Chapter Two

  Joseph met them in the forest. Night was falling and he was walking home, a stag slung over his shoulders and dripping blood down over his coat. He was whistling. He stopped when he saw them, two well-dressed figures appearing out of the woods right in front of him, mounted on horses that hadn't ever known hunger.

  "You've been hunting," one of the figures said, he dropped to his knees, looking at the ground.

  There was nothing to see but white, nothing to feel but cold.

  "Look at my sister when she's addressing you," another voice said, deeper but a twin to the first one, and he looked up.

  He knew who she was as soon as he saw her. His mother's sister had journeyed to the cathedral to pray for the safe return of her daughter, who'd decided to follow a prophet who'd decreed that the world would end unless the faithful journeyed West and visited a sacred spring. His cousin never returned and all his aunt had were stories of her own travels, of the great glass windows in the cathedral, of the priests' soft hands and the oil they used for anointing. Of the Princess and the Prince, who she'd seen at an afternoon service, sitting together with their heads bowed throughout. "So beautiful," his aunt had said. "The Princess--it's like the very stars of heaven shine through her. And the Prince! Oh my," and here her voice had gone fluttery and she'd paused, pressed one hand over her heart and shared a knowing smile with his mother. He hadn't said anything but thought that his cousin's certain death had loosened his aunt's mind. No one shone like the stars.

  He was wrong. The Princess did, glowed golden sitting on her horse, dressed in furs and jewels, hair streaming out around her with diamonds woven through it. Her eyes were enormous and dark, soft with an emotion he couldn't name, and her skin wasn't pitted from disease or gray from hunger. Her cheeks were flushed a gentle pink and the rest of her, forehead to the slash of skin that showed where her furs overlapped, was the softest, warmest color he'd ever seen. He'd never seen anyone so beautiful.

  She smiled then, a gentle curve of her mouth. "Stand up and tell me who you are."

  He did. "My name is Joseph," he said. "I'm a woodsman, Your Highness." Looking at her was making him dizzy so he bowed to her and then turned, bowed to the person riding beside her.

  He knew at once it was her brother. They did not have similar faces--her brother's was sharper, longer, his eyes bright where hers were dark -- but there was no way they could be anything but siblings. He had the same glow she did, the same look in his eyes.

  "You're a hunter," the Prince said. His voice was low and soft, as golden as his skin. The woodsman actually felt his words rush over him, soothing and exciting at the same time. He wondered if he was about to die. Hunting was illegal except for those of noble birth and blood.

  He looked at the Prince. The Prince was watching him, eyes bright.

  Joseph nodded, and the Prince smiled.

  "We won't keep you," the Princess said, and her voice was softer now, warm and low, a caress of words. Joseph looked at her and knew he'd do anything to have her speak to him in that voice again. "Do you live close by?"

  "In the village," he said. "In the house with the mark of the stag on the door." He flushed then, saw how the Prince and Princess had turned away from him, were looking at each other. He wanted them to look at him again but knew, somehow, that they wouldn't. He walked home.

  "I'll send a summons," the Prince said on the ride back.

  "For me?" the Princess said.

  "Greedy," the Prince said, laughter in his voice, and smiled at her in perfect understanding.

  ***

  Joseph was summoned to see the Princess, but before he saw her he was told he had to meet with the Prince. He rubbed his sweaty hands along his best trousers and nodded, watched the guards who had escorted him into the castle stare at him blankly, their eyes giving nothing away.

  The Prince was waiting for him in his rooms. "I'm shocked she wants to see you," he said. "But I can deny her nothing. She's my sister, my heart, and I love her. But she is not to be trifled with.

  Do you understand?"

  "I would never--" Joseph said, aghast. "Not ever, Your Highness. I don't know why she would want to talk to me. I don't know what she wants from me."

  "But you have hopes," the Prince said, and smiled. "I see them written all over your face."

  "I don't--"Joseph said and then broke off, silenced as the Prince moved forward and touched the back of his hand to Joseph's face.

  "You realize," he said, "that I want to make my sister happy. It's very important that she be happy."

  Afterwards, he helped Joseph straighten his clothes before he went to see the Princess. "That was…you are," Joseph said and reached eager hands out, swept them down across the Prince's golden skin. His eyes shone hot and longing. "I want to stay with you."

  "So sweet," the Prince said and yawned, stretching naked into Joseph's hands. He watched Joseph's eyes heat more and then smiled quickly, a sharp flash of teeth. He moved away and said, "She's waiting for you."

  The Princess sat surrounded by attendants when Joseph walked in. He knelt down and touched his head to the floor. "I'm so glad you came," she said, her voice rich and warm. Knowing. "You may rise."

  He did, and looked at her. She smiled and told her attendants to leave her. She said she had to discuss a hunt she was planning for her brother.

  "It has to be perfect," she said as her attendants were leaving. "I only want the very best for my brother."

  In the silence of the room she watched him, the space between them. "I suppose you thought you didn't want to leave him," she said, and her voice was still rich and warm.

  "I don't--I don't understand," Joseph said.

  "Of course you do," the Princess said, and leaned back against the chaise she was reclining on. "I wouldn't have summoned you if you didn't." She closed her eyes and ran one fingertip down her neck, between the valley of her breasts, down over her stomach. Her skirts parted. Her skin was as golden as her brother's, as smooth.

  "Come here," she said.

  Joseph did.

  He was sent away afterwards, dismissed as she arched and stretched and told him he was wonderful, powerful, and that he should not forget to close the door behind him when he left.

  When he arrived home his house looked cramped and small and the smell of smoke and dung bothered him. His family seemed coarse and gray, nothing but shadows. The woods held no interest for him but he walked through them, hoping. He hunted, because he knew it was what had drawn them to him, and waited. When another summons came, he went. He went and drowned in skin and touch. Back home again and he attended mass, listened to sermons about evil, about hell and what would take him there. Everything he'd done was listed. He listened and didn't care. No one knew what he did. He thought of the Prince, hands fisted in his hair and golden body wrapped around his, cock in his mouth and legs squeezing him tight. He thought about the Princess, hair flowing down around her back and spilling over his hands as their bodies worked together. He thought of his mouth between her legs, of seeing the bright flushed core of her arching towards him. He knew all of these things and no one else sitting in church with him did or ever would. He felt mighty. He felt like a King. He liked the feeling.