The Fairest of Them All (22 page)

“But you did no such thing!”

“This does not prevent them from saying it.”

“Will they start a war with us?” I was trying not to sound anxious, but had made my voice too loud. Lord Aubert was watching us closely. On the other side
of the hall, a group of dancers entered, draped in diaphanous veils.

It would be my fault if we went to war. The thought came at me like a hand around the throat.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But we should not want to give them more cause than they already have.”

“How can you be sure they won’t?”

“Because of Snow White,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“They hate us. They’ve always hated us.
But they love Snow White, and they won’t start a war when she’s a child in my palace, the heir to the kingdom.” He softened, leaning in closer to me. “It’s why I had to marry Teresa. We might have gone to war then if I had not.”

It was a painful thing to hear, even with his sweet, handsome face right next to mine, his warm breath on my skin. Suddenly I was back in the tower, my heart sinking
and the room going cold as he got up to leave.

I turned away from him, and stood abruptly.

“Rapunzel,” he said quietly. “These are old sorrows.”

“I’m not feeling so well, my lord,” I said, not meeting his eye. Around me, they were all watching—the king’s council, my ladies, all the members of the court, even the dancers who were doing handstands now in the center of the room.

I stepped down
from the high table with the assistance of a guard and quickly moved past them all, my ever-present ladies and maidservants following behind as I swept through the halls to my own chambers.

Back in my room, Clareta took my hand and led me to bed while Yolande dipped a cloth in hot water and placed it on my forehead. As she did, her hand brushed my hair, and I could feel her thoughts entering
me. Her disapproval of a queen and princess who distributed herbs to peasants, her affection for me despite it, her conviction that I would ruin the young princess with my teachings. I slapped her hand away, annoyed.

When they left, I took out the spell book Mathena had given me. I needed to look for new fertility spells, as well as for information on how to protect myself from ghosts.

I
filled my days with pleasure, but it was during the nights that my own restlessness overtook me, making me go back and back to the image of Teresa standing in the graveyard, her body in
the ground, the moment when Clareta had handed her a cup of steaming tea. The tears on Snow White’s face and those sad, sad eyes, the possibility of war—all so that I could be queen. I’d lie next to Josef, unable
to sleep, watching the mirror pulse and ripple on the wall, listening to the leaves that rustled outside the window and whispered to me, through the howling wind.
You don’t deserve any of this
.

One night, when I managed to finally fall asleep in Josef’s arms, I dreamed that I was awake still, lying alone in my high bed, furs and satins strewn around me. My hair stretched out from me like a thousand
snakes, spilling from the bed and onto the floor. It kept growing, streaming out, like a river rushing along the forest floor, pressing against the door and slipping through the open window and the whole time taking everything into itself, all the old secrets and heartbreaks, betrayals, longings, the old magic that spread through the palace like dew or fog, almost invisible, always there, and
it was choking me now, my hair flowing out, all that feeling flowing back to me until I could barely breathe, until I was gagging for air, and then it was running out in every direction, falling to the ground outside, getting tangled in tree branches, wrapping itself around the palace, while inside it poured through every hallway, filling all the great rooms, stuffing itself into the breathing
mouths of everyone who lay sleeping inside, including the king, including Snow White, and I tried to scream but I couldn’t make any sound anymore, it was all my fault, all of it, and then it was not just hair but vines and thorns and the palace was wrapped in them, thorns and brambles, the whole kingdom wiped out, every mouth filled with thorns and leaves.

I woke, gasping for air.

The room spun
around me. It looked so beautiful and clear and wide open. I relaxed, as relief moved through me. It had just been a dream.

I wrapped my arms around Josef, and tried to go back to sleep. After a while, I gave up, pushed back the covers, and went to the mirror.

It rippled in front of me. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” I said, keeping my voice low.

I stared at my distorted reflection, my pale
face. I could not bring myself to ask the usual question.

Behind me, there was a movement. A figure. I whirled around, but the room was the same as always. Josef lay sleeping calmly on the bed, the moon caressing his handsome features.

I turned back to the mirror, and it was there again, but closer now, a woman. Her eyes big and round, staring right into me.

I screamed.

“What is it?” Josef
asked, sitting up in bed.

“There’s someone here,” I said, turning back to him. Again, the vision had disappeared. “A woman. I saw her in the mirror.” I rushed back to bed, into his arms.

“What woman?”

“I don’t know. I just got a glimpse of her, but then she was gone.”

“A spirit, you mean? That is what you saw?”

“Yes!”

He laughed, shaking his head. He reached out and ran his hand over my
hair. I could feel what he was thinking: that I was as silly as his own mother had been, with her face always turned to the stars.

“Josef!” I said. “Do you not believe me?”

“I believe you,” he said. “My mother saw spirits all the time.”

“She did?”

“Yes. One in particular . . . ” He waved his hand dismissively.

“Who?”

He sighed. “My mother
claimed
that the spirit of the old prophetess inhabits
the castle. She often attempted to speak with her.”

“Prophetess?”

“Yes. Her name was Serena. She lived here a very long time ago, back when this kingdom held its rightful place in the world. There was powerful magic at work here then. Most people have forgotten her, but my mother put great stock in Serena’s predictions.

“What did she predict?”

“Many things, over the years. She knew that priests
were coming, and that the old ways would die. She knew there would be war between the West and East. She saw all of it. They used to say she was crazy when the visions came over her. She predicted the end of the Chauvin line. She said that the kingdom would fall when a . . . ” He stopped himself.

“When what?”

“It’s all madness, Rapunzel,” he said, shaking his head. “Serena was a young girl taken
from her home and forced to give prophecies for the king and queen, almost a thousand years ago. The stories of her in the old epics are wonderful. But for a woman like my mother to sit in the dark and try to make her appear, to have so much faith in those old stories . . . it was madness.”

“But maybe I saw her,” I said.

He smiled. “Maybe you’re half dreaming. Maybe it’s the hour when dreams
are more real than rocks or rivers.”

“Perhaps,” I said, pressing up against him, trying to feel safe.

T
hat year, the snow and ice came quickly. One day the ground was covered in dead leaves, and the next
we were submerged in snow, which piled up in great, gleaming mounds under a silver sky. Inside, everyone massed together. The great hall was constantly full of courtiers, who came in from their estates all over the kingdom to gather around the king and eat from his table. There was little else to do at the estates, when at court there was endless entertainment and wonderful gossip to pass the time.
I knew I myself was a favorite subject, but I made sure to focus on Josef and Snow White, both of whom I loved more than I could have ever imagined loving anyone. I would not let petty talk and petty jealousies distract me from those pleasures, and kept my hair tightly wrapped.

I did appreciate being surrounded by all that life. I spent less time in my chambers and more time in the great hall
or one of the galleries, playing chess or cards with Snow White, or Clareta or Yolande. It was the best way to soothe myself in a palace full of ghosts and secrets, reminders of my past wrongs.

Outside, the wind howled. Snow piled up so high I could barely see outside. I often asked the mirror to show Mathena to
me, and watched as she sat every day in front of that fire with only Loup and Brune
for company, and the occasional desperate soul. I was sorry for her, that her ambition for me had left her so alone.

My main focus that winter was on giving the king an heir. I’d been at the palace since the previous spring, and many had expected me to be pregnant by the time the first snow fell. I continued to study my spell book and use every spell I could find to help me conceive. I used every
trick I could to seduce my husband, keeping him enchanted, and we spent whole nights and the occasional afternoon blissfully tangled up in each other’s arms. But as my belly stayed flat and my cycle kept returning, I began to despair, wondering if my magic was leaving me.

The painter, Monsieur Morel, finally finished the unicorn ceiling and we all admired it, danced under it, and the master was
free to paint my portrait, which he did in the same room, the unicorn and hunters rushing overhead. I spent many hours that winter frozen in place in front of the small man as he captured me on his canvas. I wore my most elaborate silk damask gown with the Chauvin family crest woven into it, along with my crown and the heaviest and largest of the royal jewels, which hung from my ears and neck and
wrists.

When I took breaks from posing, Snow White came to visit me. She’d sit at my feet and I’d brush mashed-up horsetail and aloe pulp through her thick black hair. As black as can be. I liked to brush it up and let it fall, in waves, along her back. Once in a while she’d shiver, and look up at me.

“This will make your hair very strong,” I said once. “Impossible to break. And then it will
grow and grow. Did you know that my hair is so strong your father was able to climb it?”

“What?”

“He climbed my hair,” I said.

“Why would he do that?”

“I was in a tower when he came to me,” I said, “to make me his wife.”

“So you let down your hair?” She whipped around to face me, her hair flicking to the side and hurling pulp across the room.

“Careful,” I said, gently turning her back around,
“and yes. It fell right out the window, streamed down like a waterfall. He grabbed it with his hands and hoisted himself up.”

“That is so silly,” she said.

“You can’t imagine your father doing such a thing?”

I leaned down to see her scrunch up her face, the way she always did when she was considering something. “I suppose I can,” she said. “But that doesn’t make it any less silly.”

“Are you
calling your father silly?” I asked, smiling.

“Well, he paid a lot of gold for this unicorn painting,” she said. “That seems pretty silly to me.”

“It’s very important to him,” I said, “to fill this palace with treasures. And it’s a stunning work of art, don’t you agree?”

She looked up and my hands slid to her forehead. I leaned down and kissed her there, making her laugh. “It is,” she said.
“Even if unicorns aren’t real.” She leaned her head back even more so that she could see me. “They’re not real, right?”

“Not as far as I know,” I said. “But the world is strange. It’s impossible to predict what new miracle you’ll run into, from one moment to the next.”

“That’s true,” she said, nodding. “I did not know I would meet you.”

I winced. “I suppose it was unexpected for you, wasn’t
it?”

“Yes,” she said. “But you make my father so happy. And me, too.”