Read Snow White and Rose Red Online
Authors: Patricia Wrede
Snow White and Rose Red (4 page)
The Widow Arden was not blind to her younger daughter’s difficulty, and she tried to help as best she could. She assigned Rosamund the more active tasks, especially those which would take her out of the cottage and away from the forest that brooded behind it. When there were errands to run in the village, she sent Rosamund; when a tincture or potion was finished, Rosamund delivered it. If all else failed, the Widow sent the girl to gather rushes for Blanche to plait into winter coverings for the floor.
None of these measures did much to ease Rosamund’s mind. She could see what her mother was trying to do, and she was grateful for it, but struggling down the muddy path to Mortlak was not an adequate substitute for walking across the spongy moss that covered the forest floor. Nor was watching the swans floating on the river Thames a satisfying alternative to catching the merest glimpse of a strange, bright-plumed bird sailing through the forests of Faerie.
Rosamund did not voice any of this. She gritted her teeth and went about her work with fierce determination, hoping all the while that her mother would relent before winter closed in and adventuring in the woods became impossible. She took to spending as much of her time as she could away from home; if her mother had no errands for her, she would wander through the meadow, gathering herbs and sometimes chatting with the laborers working in the fields. When the sun began to sink toward the west, she would find a footpath and make her way home, swinging her basket and humming with stubborn cheerfulness.
Late one afternoon, Rosamund was heading homeward when she saw a flash of red among the branches of a hawthorn bush beside the path. She stopped and looked more closely, then smiled. Some berries still clung determinedly to the spiny branches near the center of the bush. Rosamund set her basket on the ground, then knelt and insinuated her arm carefully into the spaces between the thorns. So intent was she that she did not notice a man approaching from the direction of Mortlak.
The man slowed as he came up behind her, and commented in a mellow voice, “A curious task for such a pretty maid.”
Rosamund started, then exclaimed as the hawthorn scratched her hand. She turned, frowning. “The task is common enough, and better done had you not interrupted.”
“Why, here’s a lively tongue!” the man said, his eyes dancing. His face was shadowed by a soft, broad-brimmed hat; a large canvas sack was slung over one of his shoulders, and he had to lean to the other side to balance its weight. His clothes were patched and worn, and dusty with much traveling. He was the very picture of a wandering peddler.
Rosamund tried to meet the peddler’s eyes sternly, but after a moment she was forced to drop her gaze to her scratched hand. This irritated her more than ever, and she said crossly, “Go your ways and let me work, discourteous man.”
“In what courtesy have I failed so sorely?”
“You might have given better warning of your coming, goodman,” Rosamund said. “Or waited, at the least, until I’d withdrawn my hand. Now I’ve scratched myself and my berries are scattered, and all for your foolish lack of thought.”
“Why, then, I’ll make amends,” the peddler said. He lowered his sack to the pathway. Before Rosamund could protest, he was crouched at her side, reaching delicately among the hawthorn branches with long, slender fingers.
Rosamund studied him with interest, and a few misgivings. She did not feel afraid, though the Widow had often warned her daughters against the vagabonds and rogues who sometimes haunted the byways of the countryside, but she did not feel at ease with the man either. He was too contradictory; his actions and his hands were more those of a gentleman than a rogue, and they gave the lie to his pack and ragged clothing. Rosamund leaned forward slightly, hoping to catch a better glimpse of the peddler’s face.
The peddler turned, and held out his cupped hands. “Bring your basket hither,” he commanded.
Rosamund did as she was told. The peddler’s eyes smiled at her from the shadow beneath his hat; then he tilted his hands and poured a stream of hawthorn berries into the basket.
“Is that enough to quit me of your displeasure?” he said, dusting his long fingers. “Or will you demand the golden apples of the sun, or three feathers from the firebird, before you let me go?”
“I had not thought that bush held so many berries,” Rosamund said, staring at the shiny red pile that lay atop the herbs she had gathered earlier.
“Oh, I’m well versed in finding the nooks and crannies where such things hide,” the peddler said in a careless tone. “But am I quits with you?”
“Aye, and I must offer you my thanks as well,” Rosamund said. “Alone I’d never have gleaned so much.”
The peddler winced and rose quickly. “Then I’ll go along my way. Fare you well, sweet maid.”
“I am named Rosamund Arden,” Rosamund said as the peddler stooped to shoulder his pack. She felt she had misjudged the man, and, wishing to make amends, she added, “My home is just ahead, there by the forest. I’m sure you’d be welcome if you wish to stop and show your wares, though we’ve little coin with which to buy.”
For a moment, the peddler hesitated; then he shook his head. “I’ll walk along with you a little way, but I’ve too far to go tonight to break my journey now.”
“You are a most uncommon peddler,” Rosamund commented as she picked up her basket and fell into step beside the man.
“How say you so?” the peddler said, giving her a sharp look from under the brim of his hat.
“Why, because I’ve never known a peddler who refused to show his wares,” Rosamund replied lightly, though she was still thinking of the man’s speech and manners.
“Then I must answer that you’re as uncommon as I,” the peddler returned. “For, setting aside the fairness of your face—and, Rosamund, you are uncommon fair—I’ve never met a maid who did not blush and run from wayfarers of my ilk, unless a table spread with ribbons lay between.”
Rosamund, who was by this time blushing furiously, looked down at her basket and said nothing. She was not unaccustomed to hearing her charms made much of by the hopeful youths of Mortlak, but the peddler’s praise, dropped so casually into the middle of another subject, seemed more truthful and more serious than the exaggerated flattery of her would-be suitors.
“What’s this? Struck dumb?” the peddler said. “I cry you pardon, Rosamund.” His tone was half teasing, half serious, as if he meant more than he was willing to admit, even to himself.
“You make yourself too free of my name,” Rosamund said tartly. They had almost reached the two rose trees that stood on either side of her mother’s gate, and she felt that the peddler’s boldness deserved some rebuke before she had to leave him.
“Why, then, I’ll make you free of mine,” the peddler responded, and then his eyes widened, as if he had said far more than he had intended.
“You need not, an it would discomfit you,” Rosamund said quickly. “Or else I’ll give my promise not to speak of it, save to my mother and my sister, Blanche.” It had occurred to her that the peddler’s evident reluctance to give his name might be due to fear of the Queen’s justice.
The peddler looked at her as she stood at the gate between the two rose trees, her expression a blend of curiosity, concern, and kindness. His lips twisted in a smile full of self-mockery. “Nay, I’ll not ask it of thee, Rosamund. I am called John, though I was baptized Thomas.”
Rosamund’s cheeks reddened once more at the peddler’s use of the intimate “thee,” but all she said was, “Will you not come in?”
“The offer’s kind, but I fear I must refuse it,” the peddler said. He studied Rosamund a moment longer, then leaned forward and broke a twig from the rose tree beside her. He bowed awkwardly, hampered by his heavy pack, and held out the rose, full-blown and richly crimson. “Yet pray accept a token of my gratitude.”
“Fie, rogue, to offer me my mother’s roses! Have you no shame?” Rosamund said, but she took the flower from the peddler’s hand and laid it gently in her basket.
“Little enough,” the peddler replied cheerfully. “Farewell, gentle Rosamund.”
“Farewell,” Rosamund said. As he started down the path toward the forest, she whispered under her breath, “And God go with thee, John.”
The peddler’s step faltered, and Rosamund feared that he might have overheard her whispered words. He straightened almost at once, however, and continued toward the forest without looking back. Rosamund gave a little sigh, and turned to go into the cottage, glancing down at the rose tree beside the gate. The leaves were limp and darkening toward winter dormancy, and where the full-blown roses had hung in midsummer there were now only the small, hard knobs of the rose hips.
Wide-eyed, Rosamund looked from the rose tree to the crimson flower nestled in her basket. Then she turned a thoughtful gaze toward the forest. The peddler was already out of sight among the trees.
Within the forest, the peddler’s stride lengthened. By twilight he had reached a small stand of young beech trees, near the brook where Rosamund and Blanche had found wild onions. There he paused. He swung his sack to the ground and opened it, then began to strip off his ragged clothing. The fading light showed him to be a much younger man than he had seemed in his peddler’s garb; he looked to be in his mid-twenties, and well formed.
From his canvas sack, he drew a doublet and breeches made of brown velvet, a starched white ruff, silk hose, and a pair of narrow shoes with pointed toes. Swiftly, he donned the finer clothes, shoving his tattered rags and broad-brimmed hat into the sack in their place. When he had finished, he rose and shouldered the sack once more. Whistling through his teeth, he left the stand of trees and crossed the brook.
A breath of warm air greeted him as he passed under the boughs of the first great oak tree, just outside the copse. He smiled, noting the crystalline quality of the twilight and the sudden absence of the signs of coming winter. Heaving a deep sigh of satisfaction, he glanced around to choose his path.
Under the next oak, a figure moved out of the shadows. “Welcome, John,” said a clear, cold voice. “How went thy travels?”
The man called John turned. “Hugh!” he said in a tone of pleased surprise. He dropped his canvas sack to the ground and embraced the other man. The two were nearly of an age, and they shared the same high forehead and dark, wavy hair. Their heights were identical, too, and both men had wide-set brown eyes and square, determined chins. But Hugh’s eyes and smile held a coolness that set him apart from John, despite their physical resemblance, and the unearthly composure of Faerie was present in his expression and his stance.
“‘Tis good to see thee, brother mine,” John said, smiling warmly.
“It’s good to have thee home at last, and safe,” Hugh said. He returned the smile, and though it could not be described as warm his expression came closer to it than anyone familiar with the denizens of Faerie would have expected.
“What brings thee out to wait for me?” John asked.
The vestige of warmth left Hugh’s face. “Ill tidings. Yet I’d not have thee hear them from another tongue. Thou art aware that Faerie’s Queen hath long been little pleased by all thy wanderings?”
“I am.”
“Her patience hath now reached its end,” Hugh said bluntly. “She hath decreed thou mayest not, for any cause, depart from Faerie more.”
A black and yellow bird sailed across the sky above, its wings gleaming golden in the setting sun. John blinked, as if he did not believe what he had just heard. “How if I should turn this instant and cross back to mortal lands?”
“The border would not be there for thee to find,” Hugh said with visible reluctance. “She hath bespelled it against thee, that thou mayest not discover it without aid. And there’s none in Faerie that will aid thee ‘gainst the Queen’s command.”
John stared blankly for a long moment; then his lips thinned. “Why has our mother done this?”
“She is Queen, and fears for Faerie and for thee,” Hugh replied. “If she hath another reason, I know it not.” A breath of cool air stirred the leaves of the oak above him, and their rustling sounded loud and foreign in the clearing.
“Does she mistrust me?” John said in a tight voice.
Hugh shrugged. “It’s possible. There are those among her councillors who’d gladly urge her to it. Thy travels in the mortal world have not endeared thee to the greater part of Faerie, and there are many who mislike thy human blood.”
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