Poison (2 page)

She had kept her thoughts to herself after that, but she could remember men who sang from the land of her own birth. Those men had been captured in foreign lands and brought across the seas, their dark skin so different from the milky cream of her own, and they too had sung as they’d been forced to beat at the earth and dig fresh roads. Sometimes a song was all a people had.

In its way the king’s reaction, however, had amused her. What was this need to be seen as benevolent? If you were going to be cruel, then admit it. Embrace it. Anything else was just self delusion and weakness.

The clatter of horse’s hooves sung out above the rain and she opened the window to peer out into the evening. The rain was cold on her face and she squinted against it. The slim, cloaked figure on the horse was holding a heavily laden basket, and a wisp of dark hair was blowing free in the wind.

* * *

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ the queen said haughtily. ‘I’d like my dinner now.’

The cooks and scullery maids kept their heads down. She could see their skin flushing from the rarity of this visit. She was the queen. She did not venture to the kitchens.

‘All of it. I know the courses and I expect to see them all here.’ Her words were greeted with silence. Outside, thunder rumbled. She walked carefully along the kitchen table where the platters from the dining room had been laid out. ‘And yet they are not. Where is the pigeon? And the venison? There is always a haunch.’ Her words were as sharp as the diamonds that covered her, shards of ice filling the air. ‘Has one of you stolen it?’

‘No, your Majesty.’ Finally, the head cook, a fat ageing woman with warts on her chin and yet the softness of expression that told stories of a long and happy marriage and children at her ankles, spoke up. ‘You know we would not do that.’

Lilith heard the slight reproach in her voice. As if she were talking to a spoilt child, rather than her queen.

‘Then who did?’

‘The princess. She said it was a shame for it all to go to waste. She said there were plenty that were in need of such a feast.’

‘Who exactly?’ Her stomach twisted in a knot of cold snakes as it so often did when the girl was mentioned, but she remained cool. She was practised at it. ‘My husband is a generous king. To say otherwise is treason.’

The servants’ heads dipped lower, suddenly aware that they had inadvertently trodden on dangerous ground, but the cook simply twitched an eyebrow.

‘The dwarves, your Majesty. She took the food to the dwarves. They’ve been working through the storm. She’s very fond of them.’

‘Why was she in the kitchens at all?’ The queen continued to move around the table, one slim pale hand poking and touching the dishes, spoiling them for whoever in the room might have thought to eat them for supper. ‘This is no place for the royal family.’

‘She’s always come in here,’ the cook said. ‘Ever since she was small and the good queen passed away.’

The
good
queen. The word didn’t escape her.

‘She needed some love,’ the cook continued. ‘It didn’t do her no harm.’

‘That’s debatable.’ Her smile was a razor slash. ‘She hardly behaves as a lady of her standing should. I fear your interference has spoiled her.’ She drew herself up tall. ‘She will not come in here again. If she does, I shall throw whichever of you condones it into the dungeons. You know the kind of creatures we keep down there. You would not last long.’

‘The king would not—’

‘The king isn’t here,’ Lilith cut her off. ‘And I doubt he’d be impressed at his fine dinners being given to the dwarves. He won’t be here for a long time, so you will do as I command.’ She turned to leave, her heavy dress scratching at the floor. ‘Oh, and one more thing.’ Her cold eyes rested on the cook. ‘You are dismissed. Get your things and leave the castle by morning. I will not have you here again.’

The gasps that rippled around the room were satisfaction enough, as was the expression on the woman’s face, her mouth and eyes wide in disbelief as if she’d suddenly been slapped hard. In a way she had.

‘And count yourself lucky,’ the queen added. ‘You’ve all heard the rumours about me. How I enchanted the king? How he calls me his witch? There is magic in my blood and you all know it. I have been kind, old woman. I could have turned you into a crone.’

She did not wait for their reaction but strode away from the suffocating warmth at the heart of the castle. She might not have their love. But she would have their fear.

* * *

The only place the queen truly relaxed was in the hidden room she had claimed for her own ever since she arrived. It was in the West Wing of the castle, the side that rarely caught the light and had therefore been mainly abandoned. The servants moved like ghosts through the rooms polishing the floors and ensuring everything sparkled regardless whether any but the queen ever visited.

Her sanctuary was at the back of the great library, a vast and beautiful domed room filled with row upon row of dusty books that held every story and history of this land, some true, some simply believed to be true, some that had somehow become truth as the years had passed. When they had first married the king had intended to clear the library out and turn it into a winter ballroom. What was the point of it? She had persuaded him otherwise. He had always found it hard to resist her persuasion, and when the day came that he could, then she would resort to other means to keep his interest. The rumours aside, she hadn’t needed to enchant him
yet
.

Her secret room had no windows but she didn’t mind that, preferring the softer light from candles and lamps as they danced on her treasures. She took a long swallow of red wine and leaned back in her chair, letting her fine blonde hair run down the mahogany back like a waterfall. Tatters of fabric were scattered across the floor and she viewed them with satisfaction. That was one mess she’d have to clean up herself. No servants were allowed in here.

Her gaze grazed the sparkling glass cabinets that housed her possessions. Some she had brought with her on her reluctant journey into marriage, others she had purchased surreptitiously, her nose always checking the wind for the scent of magic, but of late most had come from the boy she sent to search them out. Soon he’d be back again. What would he have found this time? As her great-grandmother had taught her, a wise woman could never have enough magic.

She got to her feet and tugged her black robe tighter, moving through the room and taking comfort from the items and bottled potions and poisons. It wasn’t enough to own them, you had to know how and when to use them. More than that, you had to be
prepared
to use them. Her face was reflected in the glass like a ghost on water; fascinating and untouchable. She was beautiful. She had always been the most beautiful woman wherever she was. Ethereal, that’s what they called her, both in her own lands and in this new one which she had been forced to take as her home.

Her mother had the same beauty and it was perhaps only that which had saved them both from burning when her father had discovered that they were cuckoos in the royal nest. When he’d found out about her great-grandmother in the woods, the crone in her candy house, where Lilith had spent childhood days learning the craft and playing with the bones of lost children. When he’d realised a witch’s curse ran through their blood, he’d locked them both away for days. But her mother was no fool. She’d used her beauty against him. Lilith had been banished into marriage and her father, the king, had declared that cottage and part of the forest out of bounds. Men would do a lot for beauty, that’s what Lilith learned in that time. Beauty had a magic all of its own.

‘I know you’re in there!’ The words were accompanied by a pummelling fist on the door. The queen jumped, her reverie broken. She looked down at the mess on the floor again.

Snow White.

‘I know you’re in there! Open the door!’

How did she know about this room? No one knew about this room! The king might have, once, but he’d have long ago forgotten. His interest in his wife didn’t extend very far. She stared at the thick wood and remained silent. The fists beat out another angry round on the other side.

‘You fired Maddy! You sent her home! I’m not going anywhere until you open this door. I’ll wait until you come out. You can’t hide from me forever!’

The queen heard the first hint of tears in the girl’s voice, and only then did she pull back the bolts that separated them. She stood in the doorway blocking her possessions from view. Not that it mattered. All of Snow White’s attention was on her step-mother. Tears spilled from her eyes, but her skin wasn’t blotchy. Her thick dark hair was like a wild mane around her shoulders. If Lilith’s beauty was ethereal then Snow’s was earthy. Raw and sensual. Standing there, anger and upset making her whole body tremble while her eyes were wild and full of rage, Lilith thought Snow had taken on the spirit of one of the magnificent horses she so loved to ride.

But horses were breakable. They
had
to be broken. That was the way of things. Snow White would be no different in the end.

Lilith remained impassive, a wall of cool ice before the pacing animal. Air and earth. Light and dark.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, eventually, pleased with the mild irritation in her tone. ‘This is a private place.’

‘This is where you hide,’ Snow said. ‘I’ve known about it for ages. Why did you fire Maddy? She’s been here since I was a child. You can’t fire her; you just can’t! I took the food to the forest, not her. It’s my fault. If anyone should be punished it’s me. And I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ She paused. ‘I never mean to upset you, although I seem to do it all the time.’

Now that they were face to face, her fire was dying. Snow White had never learned to harness her anger as Lilith had. The queen had watched her over the past three years, since marriage had made them family. The girl was quick to anger, just as quick to forget. Always thinking the best of people. Always wanting everyone to be happy. There were only four years between them but it felt like a lifetime. Lilith was a woman. She’d had to grow up fast. Snow White? She was still a foolish girl.

‘She was insolent,’ the queen said. ‘Not that I have to explain myself to you.’

‘You can’t dismiss her. My father would hate it.’

Lilith raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly. ‘Your father isn’t here. I think you’ll find I’m in charge. And as for your punishment,’ she swung the door open slightly revealing the scraps of cloth on the floor, ‘you will no longer go out riding in breeches.’

Snow White’s perfect mouth dropped open. ‘You cut up my clothes?’ Her voice had softened. The anger was fading into something else. ‘Why would you do something like that?’

‘It’s time for you to stop behaving like a child. This will be better for you in the long run. You can’t be wild forever, the world won’t let you. It doesn’t work like that. Trust me.’

‘Trust you?’ The tears were flowing free now, clear warm streams on the gentle curves of her face. ‘Why should I trust you? You hate me! I don’t even know why you hate me!’ Snow’s hands had balled into fists of frustration, and it seemed as if even the dust on the books that surrounded them scuttled away to hide from her anger. ‘Are you jealous that my father loves me so much, is that it? Do you want him all for yourself?’

The queen was so surprised she burst into a fit of unexpected laughter. She saw it hit Snow like a punch. Laughter didn’t come easily to Lilith – her great-grandmother had taught her to hide her emotions where possible – and she doubted she’d had a belly laugh like this in all the three years of her marriage.

‘Oh, that’s priceless,’ she wiped a tear from her own eye, a laughing mockery of Snow’s own, ‘truly, it is.’ She gasped again as another wave of giggles threatened to overwhelm her. Snow was so wrong it was funny. She thought of the children’s bones her great-grandmother used to rap her knuckles with, took two deep breaths to contain her laughter and let the icy mantle that shielded her from the world settle over her once more.

‘I don’t love your father,’ she whispered, the sound somewhere between a hiss and a snarl. ‘I loathe him. He repulses me. He’s a stupid, fat, arrogant man.’ She stepped forward; a precise deadly movement. Snow White didn’t move.

‘You can’t mean that. You can’t. You
married
him.’

‘You foolish spoilt little princess. Is that what you think? It’s all about
true love
? Love and marriage have nothing to do with each other.’

‘But he loves you,’ Snow said. ‘He always says he loves you.’

‘He wants me. That’s different.’ Lilith smiled. ‘And I want his power. Men take it so much for granted. You need to learn that the only way to wield it in the kingdoms is by making a great match.’ She leaned forward slightly. ‘Now he’s gone to war and I have it. I will train you to be a lady. I will find you a husband. Then you’ll be gone from here and I will have some
peace
.’ She spat the last words out before turning back into her room. She slammed the door in the dark beauty’s face and shot the bolts across.

Beneath her milky complexion her face was burning and she rested her forehead against the cool wood for a moment. Only the sound of her own ragged breath filled her ears. No fists beat from the other side. Eventually, she straightened up and poured another glass of wine. Snow White had gone. No doubt crying on her bed already, mourning her dead mother and wishing her father had never married again.

The candlelight was softly comforting and she lost herself in its dance on the crimson surface. Her thoughts were as dark as the liquid she swirled in the glass and she was drowning in them, the here and now forgotten. In the corner, hidden in the shadows, a black cabinet hung on the wall. The imp who’d sold it to her, long ago, had said it was made from the bones of burned saints from the barbaric lands across the sea, that the glass the cabinet housed came from the blood of mermaids, and the magic bound in it came from the Far Mountain itself.

For a long while she’d tried to ignore it. As the door creaked open, she took a deep drink from the glass. Her head would hurt in the morning.