Read Snow White and Rose Red Online
Authors: Patricia Wrede
Snow White and Rose Red (5 page)
“Thou hast as much of mortal blood as I!”
“Thou speakest truth, yet thy ties to humankind are greater,” Hugh said. His pale face was inhumanly calm. “Our father had thee baptized.”
“Yet I chose Faerie freely,” John said angrily. “I’ve given no one cause for this harsh treatment!”
“Calm thyself,” Hugh advised. “The court meets for revels three days hence, on the Eve of All Hallows‘. Thou mayest then lay thy case before the Queen.”
“And if she denies me?”
“Why, then, thou‘lt spend the winter here, as thou hast always done, and speak to her again at May Eve,” Hugh responded. “It’s not so great a matter, after all.”
“Belike it seems not so to thee,” John said. “In me, it rankles.” He sighed and picked up his sack, then paused and looked at his brother. “Yet I am glad thou wast the bearer of these tidings, however ill they sit.”
Hugh gave a small, dispassionate smile of acknowledgment, and the two brothers, one more fay than mortal, the other far too mortal for Faerie comfort, walked side by side into the deep woods.
The shadows beneath the great oak tree remained empty as the twilight deepened. The stirring of the air ceased, and all was still, dark, and silent. The only movement was the all but imperceptible blending of the evening shadows with the growing gloom of night.
Shortly after moonrise a shiver ran through the leaves of the tree. A gnarled figure dropped into the open space below the boughs. He was short and twisted, with skin like wrinkled brown leather; his hair and beard were stiff and wiry, and several shades darker than his skin. His loose tunic was made of oak leaves stitched together, and he wore a red cap shaped like a toadstool. The smell of crushed moss rose strongly from beneath his flat, splayed feet, but he seemed not to notice. He glanced about him, snorted once, and leaned back against the tree, grimacing ferociously.
His wait was brief. A second figure joined him almost at once. It, too, was small, but there its resemblance to the first creature ended. Moonlight shone silver on its slick, scaly skin, and its mouth was wide and full of sharply pointed teeth. It was completely hairless, and there were webs between its fingers. A close-fitting garment of grey silk was wrapped about its loins; otherwise its skin was bare.
“Am I late?” the scaly creature asked without preamble.
“Madini’s later,” the first being growled.
“Didst thou suppose she would be otherwise? But check thy anger; see where she comes.”
As the second creature spoke, a tall, black-haired woman stepped into the circle of moonlight. She moved with unearthly grace, and the beauty of her face was the cruel, sharp-edged beauty of the great ones of Faerie. Her eyes were dark, and her lips were very red. She wore an elegant green gown of shot silk embroidered with gold sequins. “Wherefore hast thou summoned us, goblin?” she said imperiously.
“An thou‘dst learn it, call me not goblin,’ ” the brown-skinned dwarf replied, scowling. “Thou knowest my name.”
“Thou‘lt waste away to nothing, ere thou gettest aught of courtesy from Madini,” the silver-scaled creature said. “Come, Bochad-Bec, speak thy news.”
“The Queen’s eldest bastard is back,” the dwarf replied.
“John has returned?” snapped the woman called Madini. “Has he had speech with his brother?”
“Aye, beneath this very tree,” Bochad-Bec said with sour satisfaction. “So he’s warned of the Queen’s displeasure. He’ll speak to her at All Hallows‘.”
“Devils take him and tear out his tongue!” Madini said violently. “He’ll throw my plans awry.”
“Our plans, surely?” said the silver-scaled creature delicately. It paused and waited, but Madini said nothing. “I see but little reason for thy low spirits,” it went on. “To postpone our work will do no harm.”
“Thou‘rt wrong in that,” Madini snapped. “The land of Faerie’s balanced like a juggler’s plates; the longer we must hold our hands, the greater grows the chance that, by some accident or careless spell, that balance will be overset, and Faerie sent sliding toward the mortal world.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the thought.
“Then, if thou‘rt set on it, why can we not proceed as we’d intended?”
“And have those foolish humans catch John’s power before the whole of the Queen’s court?” Madini said scornfully. “Thou‘rt a fool, Furgen.”
“How so?” Furgen said, flashing its pointed teeth in the moonlight. “Or are there none at court who dislike John and mortals?”
“None who would cross our Queen’s most slender whim to say so,” Madini retorted bitterly. “Her fondness for her sons is known. ”
“What boots it? Will we, nil we, the human sorcerers will send their spells to seek for Faerie power on All Hallows’ Eve. If we do not guide those spells, they must still find something. If—”
“Hugh’s the greater menace,” Bochad-Bec interrupted. The dark boughs of the oak creaked overhead as if in agreement. “He’s human, and at court.”
“Thou‘st told us that till we have tired of hearing it,” Madini said. “Hugh’s blood is but half mortal, and his mind is wholly Faerie. ’Tis John whose wanderings keep our land close-tied to the mortal world.”
“If I may finish?” Furgen said. Madini nodded, and Furgen went on. “If we guide the human’s spells, as we had planned, then John will be struck helpless. What matters it that all the court may see? They’ll blame the humans, Dee and Kelly, and not think of us.”
“Thy point’s well taken,” Madini said, looking suddenly thoughtful. Her lips widened in a slow smile. “Yes, ‘tis well indeed; I’ll do’t. All Hallows’ Eve shall be John’s bane.”
“It’s easy to say,” Bochad-Bec muttered.
“‘Twill be easy, too, to do, an ye follow my direction,” Madini said. “Keep watch on the human wizards, Furgen, lest our preparations fail through some mischance of theirs. We’ll meet again All Hallows’ Eve.”
“If thou‘lt have it so,” Furgen murmured.
Madini nodded regally, and departed. The remaining two conspirators peered through the darkness after her for a moment; then Furgen said, “That one’s ambition may soon reach so high that she’ll too easily forget those who aided her.”
“Then we must remind her,” Bochad-Bec said, scowling. The two exchanged glances of perfect understanding, then faded into the silent, moonlit forest of Faerie.
CHAPTER · THREE
“The two girls were very fond of each other, and always went out together. Sometimes Snow White would say, ‘We will never part,’ and Rose Red would answer, ‘Never, as long as we
live. ’
Their mother encouraged them in this, and always added, ‘You must share whatever you have with each
othef.”’
THE WIDOW ARDEN ACCEPTED ROSAMUND’S STORY, and the unseasonable rose she carried, with outward calm. Inwardly, she was seriously unsettled. Like her daughter, the Widow strongly suspected that the “peddler” had been more than mortal, and she knew that Faerie folk seldom showed themselves to mortals, even within their own borders. The peddler’s unexpected visitation, therefore, made her profoundly uneasy. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to turn away Faerie interest in her daughter, or so she told herself.
This conclusion was not, in the strictest sense, correct. Though the townsfolk called her “wisewoman” because of her knowledge of herbs, the Widow had more right than they knew to be so named. She seldom made use of her knowledge of magic, and when she did it was the lesser spells of scrying or protection to which she turned. Even then, she kept her proceedings carefully hidden. The Widow had no mind to be among the women hanged each year as witches.
The thought of using a scrying spell to seek the truth of Rosamund’s encounter certainly crossed the Widow’s mind. She dismissed it at once. If the hosts of Faerie so much as suspected that she might try to spy on them, she would be in even greater trouble than if she were caught in mid-spell by a church informant. The Widow had gone to great lengths to remain, if not on good terms with her unearthly neighbors, at least in a position of neutrality. She was not willing to endanger that neutrality out of unproven fear.
She could, however, explain those fears to her daughters, and warn them to take more care than usual. On the morning after Rosamund’s encounter with the peddler, the Widow did just that, while the uncanny and impossible rose nodded at them over the edge of a tin cup in the center of the table.
The girls listened closely, and when she finished, Rosamund asked, “Thinkest thou that the peddler would try to carry me off to Faerie, then?”
“Belike,” the Widow replied. “Thou hast what safeguards I can give thee, yet that may not suffice to turn a determined attempt. And ‘tis not for thyself alone I fear.”
“Blanche?” Rosamund paled, more disturbed by a threat to her gentle sister than by one to herself. “Thou thinkest they might take her in my stead?”
“An they’re minded to,” the Widow said. “Wherefore, I counsel you both to keep a watch upon each other. When you go out, go together, and do not stray from each other’s sight. The folk of Faerie work most often by trickery and guile, and ‘tis easier to befool one pair of eyes than two.”
“We’ll stay together, Mother,” Blanche said with quiet determination. Then she smiled. “‘Tis no great hardship.” Rosamund nodded her agreement.
“You may prove your promises now, ” the Widow said, rising from the three-legged stool where she sat. “I’ll bring you both with me into Mortlak this morning, and you shall practice your watchfulness. ”
The girls scrambled to their feet, and for a few moments the cottage was a whirl of locating baskets, straightening linen caps, donning extra petticoats, and tucking up the top layer of their skirts to keep the hems out of the dirt.
They set out as soon as the girls had finished. The Widow led the way along the narrow footpath. Rosamund and Blanche followed, side by side as they had promised. The day was grey and rainy, and by the time they reached Mortlak all three women were half covered in mud. The Widow sent her daughters to the apothecary, to try and trade some of their extra herbs for tooth-soap.
The girls departed happily enough, and the Widow was left to pursue her own errands. She began by stopping at one and another of the tall, half-timbered shops and houses to deliver various mixtures they had requested, then went on to make brief calls upon some of the women who had not made orders. At each house, the Widow found an excuse to open the subject of her daughters, then probed delicately for misgivings on the part of her companion. In several places, she led her listeners to the subject of witchcraft, and joined with them in deploring the existence of such a vile pursuit.
The results of this haphazard examination reassured the Widow greatly. Everyone spoke highly of Blanche and Rosamund, and though one or two remarked Rosamund’s “high spirits,” the comments were plainly meant to be kind. No one seemed more concerned than usual with witchcraft, though there were the usual grumblings about the presence of Master John Dee in the town. It was all very well to call him the Queen’s Astrologer and to point out that Her Majesty had actually ridden into Mortlak several times to visit him, one disgruntled taverner told the Widow, but the man was still nothing less than a sorcerer, and no honest man would deal with him. And that friend of his, Talbot or Kelly or whatever he called himself, was no better than a common thief and lecher. Why, word was that Joan Cooper of Chipping Norton had had to marry the man last spring, and she a good, respectable girl until Kelly had taken up with her!
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