White As Snow (Fairy Tale) (14 page)

Read White As Snow (Fairy Tale) Online

Authors: Tanith Lee

But the reflection answered, heard only by one, out of the glass of the night: No, Queen. You are where you find yourself. And your soul is a pebble.
Mirror, mirror, tell me true—
Who
is
the fairest?
Ah, not you.
P
RINCE TUSAJ OFTEN HEARD OF the great feasts at Korchlava.
He had become jealousy, one of the great sins, and covetous, another. As Midwinter-Mass approached there were always enormous preparations now at Belgra Demitu.
This furor of planning and rehearsal, as if for some war. or other world-rocking necessity, had mostly bypassed those on the court’s periphery, the ones who were not either its stars or slaves.
As the winter closed in and the mountains whitened and the sea changed to lead, Arpazia, one afternoon, saw again into the courtyard of Tusaj’s menagerie. There she beheld the lynx biting at a robe of cloth-of-gold they had tried to put on it, while the hear strode up and down, clad and crowned like a king.
The prince sometimes requested Arpazia’s presence at his mightier dinners. He did this to placate her. Not aware of this, always dislocated from the court, she seldom accepted.
Now he sent, too, a formal invitation to Draco’s daughter, and
with it a gown for Candacis and a decent woolen dress for her servant. He liked things to be aesthetically pleasing; also women, if they were before him. Besides, his spies told him the girl was going up to the woods, just as the mother did. Young sorceress and old; he wanted to make no mistakes with them, particularly as he too liked the woods, in their proper warm seasons. (Lust.)
The new gown was ilex-green, trimmed by squirrel fur. With it went a headdress for the feast, a white silk ring coiled by a gold vine, a drifting gilt-stitched veil.
Again Candacis gazed at sudden clothing which promised an event.
“He means you to be sumptuous,” said Ulvit. (Pride?)
Candacis did not say to Ulvit what was in her mind:
And must I go?
Since the Scorpion Moon, she had altered to Ulvit. Prosaic, Ulvit did not remark on this.
But Ulvit said, briskly, “The queen may not be there. Generally she avoids such things.”
Then Candacis spoke. “But not the wood.”
“Not always the wood.”
Until now, Candacis had not mentioned the meeting. Only that night, as they returned across the meadow, had Candacis asked, “Is the Woods Queen chosen again each Full Moon?” And Ulvit had said, “She may be.” “Good, then,” replied Candacis. “I have had my turn.”
She had known of the sacrifice, of that Ulvit had warned her, and anyway, she knew about their rites. Candacis had behaved well. She had known she was given to the king only in symbol. No, none of this burdened her. Only one thing. Had Ulvit been awaiting its mention?
For Ulvit’s kind, the compact between the queen and her daughter was constant and revealed as if by bright light. The waning moon and virgin crescent. Now they had adhered one moment. Such things must always be, and the psychic motivations of the gods, as of stars, were greater than men.
Yet Ulvit noted, when she put the new green gown into the
chest, that the white dress of the virgin Queen was now missing. Ulvit looked about, and did not find it. She grasped it was not virginity but the wood which had been rejected.
Candacis had taken the gown off the morning she came from the wood. Her face had still been grave and she was wan simply, perhaps, from lack of sleep. But she walked out again to an area below the palace, where gaunt trees grew and there was a weedy, stagnant pool. Into this she thrust the white dress, and when it floated like a corpse, she poked it under and down with a hazel stick.
The necklace of gold she left in the box with her child’s jewelry. The necklace belonged, she thought, most probably to the prince, and he might want to claim it back.
Every time after this, however, that Candacis moved through the corridors and spaces of the palace, she was iron, and her hands were knotted, as if each were crushed in some other, larger, harder hand.
Only once, in the succeeding months, did she glimpse the Woman, the queen. Her mother.
Had they really gone by each other before, unknowing? Perhaps. Truly it was not possible now.
But Arpazia was meandering slowly along a lower walk, when Candacis, herself unseen, saw
her.
The queen looked like a snake. Her head was held slightly forward, as if its own weight prevented her holding it quite upright any longer. But her back was straight. She wore a russet gown, good in its day, which had been ten years before.
Was she searching for something? Candacis formed the opinion that she was. Startling herself horribly, the girl whirled about and away.
She could not recall a single face from the night of the Scorpion Moon but this one. Her mother’s. And she had no one to speak to now. No one at all, for Ulvit had lost her value; Ulvit also had betrayed.
Reaching her room that day, though she had breakfasted, Candacis had seized some bread and raisins, eating them ferociously.
She had the urge to fill her body. She was ashamed, yet raging. And also an imperious mockery made her jibe at Arpazia in her mind, calling her
Ugly Witch.
Then vast enervation made Candacis lie down and sleep at once. And when she woke again her shame had grown in her, unanswerable.
Gluttony, anger, pride, sloth …
But at that very time. the queen was copulating with Brother Gaborous after confession. And she had said to him, “You would wish me another, wouldn’t you, now I’m old?”
Oh God, if only she could have that girl’s youth and beauty. have them back and begin again, and be free of all This dross.
Lust. Envy. Covetousness.
S
TORMY WAS THEIR LEADER, BUT that did not count for much.
Cirpoz owned them. They were slaves—but also, they were Wonders: monsters. That was always made clear.
It was freezing weather as they rode in the wagon through the town. They sat gloomily, hidden from the public gaze, now and then exchanging dubious looks—all but Greedy, who as usual was asleep. Perhaps it was odd that it was Greedy who could sleep, while Soporo was an insomniac. But then, of course, their names only came from the thing they represented before market crowds, or lords in castles—the very thing they were due to put on here, for the prince, at the Midwinter festival. This activity was not their only talent. God had made them for the amusement and instruction of real humans. but also, because of their size, to work in small and narrow confines. They had been employed in the mountain lands, when Cirpoz saw them and bought them from the crooked overseer. Now they would ornament Prince Tusaj’s pageant. After that, they were
bound for Korchlava, for the mines and quarries, out of which the king’s city was still being hewn.
Some seventeen years Korchlava had been in the making, and not done yet. Worse than the great city of Romus on its seven hills. They said Korchlava also covered seven hills—doubtless hillocks. “One for each of us,” Greedy had remarked. But they would never properly see Korchlava, only her pits.
The wagon stopped.
All knew better than to lift the flap and look out. But Greedy gave a snort in his sleep. And Tickle combed her hair. It was lush, apricot-colored hair, newly washed, and fell softly round her crag of face. Despite her tresses, she was not the glamorous one; that was Jealous Vinka, whose face was a perfect ivory cameo, with eyes smoky green as goblet glass. But Vinka had the nasty temper Stormy was named for. She would take a fist or knife to you soon as breathe, on her bad days.
Presently the leather flap was pulled aside. Cirpoz stood there, eyeing them as if to be sure they were, all seven, still themselves.
“Come on, shift your bones, get out.”
A box had been put by the wagon to make it easy. They scrambled down, Greedy last, finicking and yawning, so Cirpoz cuffed him.
On the journey there had been forests, rivers, villages. White sea fog had concealed this town. Now the wagon was in a paved, walled yard, with other wagons, carts, donkeys and a horse or two. It was so cold out here it was like being in a crystal box, the sort of crystal Stormy had been made to mine, transparent and unbreakable. Want began to snivel at once. Cirpoz raised his hand, put it down. Want was not unappealing, he would spare her face.
Of the males, Proud was the golden handsome one, and chosen for that to play the part he always did. (Stormy had looks, too, but did not think of it.)
None of them remembered their original names, except Vinka, and Stormy himself, who never bothered with that either. A mountain
lord had collected and trained them first. In his house of stone rubble and logs, they had learned their other function—they already knew their nature. The lord died of red wine, out hunting, and then the overseer put them back in the mines. They only came up for the festivals, to act their mystery for yet more drunk lords. Until Cirpoz.
Cirpoz served King Draco, the conqueror. Cirpoz vaunted his closeness to the king so much, everyone knew he was a nobody, probably only in the tax-collecting business for Korchlava’s coffers.
A palace servant came—they were apparently in a palace yard—haughty among the grooms, and led Cirpoz into the building.
They
were to follow. Thank the Christ. It would be warmer indoors.
The palace was nearly aged as the earth in parts, they heard. Only Stormy was at all interested. Mountains were older.
 
 
The prince had had to deal with the town’s business all morning, merchants, and other things beneath him. He longed to get back to his pageant, the costumes, and training of beasts. When Cirpoz was shown in, the prince was pleased.
“Yes, a lucky find of yours. Seven of them, you said?”
“Seven, lord prince. Four males and three females. A couple are even attractive, you might say. The face, that is. Their bodies are misshapen, as with all their breed.”
Cirpoz, Draco’s campaign-soldier turned servant, groveled, yet he had too familiar an air. Tusaj disliked him, but as soon as he was able, he went with the man to see his dwarves, glad to stretch his legs.
When the prince entered the room, they were seated by a fire, on two long benches, from which their legs dangled. Tusaj found that comic and was at once moved to smile. Then they got down like docile children. The four males bowed with courtly precision, and the three dwarvixens curtseyed.
“Ah! Quaintly done!”
He saw no reason to stand off from them.
Obviously such creatures
are like animals, and evidently intelligent, in their way.
One of the dwarvixens was fair of face, as Cirpoz had said. And one of the males had a splendid head, maned with black hair, though the skull was far too large, Tusaj the connoisseur decided, for the distorted, hideous trunk. Tusaj knew that some peasants still exposed such infants in the hills. A silly reaction. They were so fascinating and potentially hilarious.
“Ah, now,
you’re
the one they call for Pride.”
“No, master. That is Proud, there, who plays Pride.”
Tusaj nodded amenably, though he privately considered the black-haired dwarf handsomer than the golden-haired one.
She,
meanwhile, was unnerving to Tusaj—that female with green eyes and the face of a lascivious madonna screwed down on her goblin’s body. She unsettled him in a sexual way he did not acknowledge. “And what do they call
you?”
he asked her.
The green eyes sliced at him—he took it for absurd flirtatiousness—then humbly lowered.
“Vinka, sir master prince.”
“And what Sin do you play?”
“Jealousy.”
“For your eyes. You’re a dainty one,” he added, and stealed himself to pat her head. But her dark hair was unpleasantly tough and wiry, spoiling the effect.
That second female one, though, was not so comely; while the third dwarvixen was ugly as sin itself.
“And who will
you
be, eh, my good woman?” Jovial, he liked to talk to them as if they were normal persons in his employ.
“I am Lust, master.”
“Are you, by the stars.” Tusaj roared with mirth. A glorious jest, this horror to represent fleshly desire.
They stood round the prince in a circle, the tallest, Pride or Proud or however they called him, reaching only to the prince’s upper ribs. Abruptly their childish height, coupled to their haggard ancient look, repelled him. They were brawny, both males and females, and three or four were humped. That black-haired one had
crooked feet, though he moved well enough that you did not note it at first. Tusaj brushed them aside and walked off across the room.
“Very good, Cirpoz. Find my steward. He can kit them out. You’ve done well. Will my father the king see them, in the city?”
“Perhaps, my lord. King Draco doesn’t have much taste for their sort. They’re for the mines. Their old trade.”
“Perhaps
she’ll
find emeralds, jealousy there, just by looking with those eyes.”
Vinka veiled her glance. She spat in the tire when they were gone.
“A prince., a provincial oaf,” said Pride, proudly. He had seen another city, once. “Came all the way down to look at us rather than call us to his rooms.”
“Afraid we’d piddle on his royal floor,” said Greedy, who had woken up. He could fart at will, and did so with disdain.
 
 
At Belgra Demitu, they found they were not ill-treated. They were even given separate quarters, and a curtain hung up, to shield the modesty of the dwarf women. In the log-palace on the mountain, they had been rigorously segregated by order of a malign priest. Even so, they had managed carnal relations with each other, those of them that wished for it; while Soporo, who had the looks, proper men said, of a bristle-hog, had been the favorite of a kitchen maid and dallied with her all night, his insomnia proving useful.
One steward of Tusaj’s sent them to tailors for their pageant clothes. Another drilled them, making them go through their performance of the Sins over and over. But they knew this act better than the act of living.
The palace food was good. Greedy, who was, stuffed himself. They all did. When this was done, life no doubt would get harder.
Only Vinka was constantly in a temper here. She tore cushions to pieces with her white teeth sharp as a cat’s. Stormy stayed pragmatic, even after one of the nobles felt him over.
Cirpoz did not keep so much of an eye on them here. They
were impossible to miss, could not really make off or hide, since everywhere they went they were, in one way or another, accosted. Masters and servants, also the slaves, jeered at or petted them, spoke of them over their heads as if they had either no hearing or did not speak the same tongue.
But they were used to all that, the dwarves. Wary of men, they expected nothing much from them, save disturbance. They, too, kept up the fiction of their own subhuman animal cleverness, obtuseness, and infantile qualities. Where they must—and as a rule they must—they were always obedient. Even Stormy would have let the nobleman have him, if it had been unavoidable. They were talented survivors of the dangerous world. They feared mankind cunningly, exploited it if they could. But God, giving them such odds to struggle with, had thereby made them secretly arrogant, and dismissive of any but themselves. They had been told they were lower than humanity. They had believed it, but this depth, to them, was like a height.
 
 
On that evening before Midwinrer-Mass, the queen saw Cirpoz, the king’s servant.
It was twilight, and the candles were being lit in the palace, but where she was wandering about among the ruinous byways, there were few or no lights. So he came up a stair out of the blue smother of the dusk, a phantom, shocking her. She shocked him, too.
Cirpoz had been prowling, seeing what was to be seen, a habit of his. He thought himself canny and alert, able to uncover plots, or flatter the great and trick them, bend events to his will. He was wrong in all of that. those he fastened on saw through him. His prying looked suspicious and had never gained him any valuable knowledge. Only this afternoon, an eldritch woman in the pagan temple had made him start out of his skin, cackling suddenly at him, then seeming to disappear in the empty space between two columns. Now this other gaunt woman materialized. She was cranky enough, dressed lavishly but not tidily. Nor was she young, yet her hair hung down like a girl’s. Was she deranged? How she glared at him!
Being prudent, Cirpoz bowed. He drew aside to let her go by, and by she went. Only later did he recall bits of chat he had heard and grasp she was the castoff queen Draco had left here to rot. Perhaps Cirpoz had been wise to fawn on her. He was unaware (canny, quick Cirpoz) he had ever met her before.
Arpazia took longer to identify the man on the stair.
She wandered down the terraces, went among the plants of an unruly garden—there were many of these now at Belgra Demitu. An owl floated over, and windows reddened in the palace. She always carried her little knife now. She snipped off a twig of thorn-apple before returning to her rooms.
No one had been there.
Her
lamps and candles had been given no life. She lit one thin wax taper, and saw the flame litter across the mirror’s lid. When she had undone the lid, looking in the glass, she could see a black forest of pines and, there inside, something shining, which was the candle-flame, but then it became a bulbous golden tent. Draco’s tent, far in the past, to which a Cirpoz, almost two decades younger, had conducted her. She saw the dragon standard too, with its red tassels. She saw a flickering mote, which might have been herself, trapped, strangled in trees and night and men.
Cirpoz had raped her maid, Lilca, but not Arpazia. All he had done with
her
was give her to Draco.
She remembered very vividly now. In the glass, she made him out, pushing her on between the campfires, this slight, white-faced girl of fourteen years.
Oddly and ironically, canny-quick Cirpoz himself continued not to remember any of this. Nor did he know that Draco had married that very girl taken to the tent. That very girl—who was the addled queen encountered on the stair. Women did not interest Cirpoz except in one way. In the forest she had been untouchable, meant for a powerful other. And now she was much too old.

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