The Halcyon Fairy Book

by T. Kingfisher

  The queen sat in her bower, with the pig heart in a jewelry box beside her.

  She had dumped her jewels out on the vanity, careless of them, and held the box out to Arrin.

  “My queen,” he whispered, placing the bloody heart within, and left nearly at a run.

  She barely noticed.

  The old sow’s heart was larger than Snow’s would have been, but the queen was not a woman given to overseeing the kitchens and had never seen a pig’s organs taken out and washed and ground into sausage. And human hearts are usually smaller than you think they should be (which explains a great deal), so the queen found nothing unusual in the old sow’s heart.

  She laid her hand across the lid, and felt magic tingle underneath it.

  “The witchblood in that one was stronger than I thought,” she said to the mirror. “It is as well I did this now, before she had time to grow into her strength.”

  The mirror said nothing. It was not in the habit of volunteering information.

  “Now,” she said, sitting up straighter. “Now tell me! Who?”

  The mirror licked its lips, and cast its vision out, out, out …

  Snow curled in her nook in the fireplace. Her hair stuck to her forehead in strings. Her white skin had turned red and her nose was shiny and there was snot on her upper lip. Her mouth was open in a silent scream of grief.

  And the mirror saw her, her face screwed up and hideous with grief … and passed on.

  “You are the fairest,” said the demon in the mirror, and the queen stroked the box with the old sow’s heart and smiled.

  Snow woke slowly. It was not a terribly comfortable bed she had made for herself, huddled against the stones of the wall, but you cannot cry so hard and heavily and not exhaust yourself. She thought that she could have slept another hour at least, but the other residents of the den were up and moving.

  The pigs were bustling about, preparing food. The only sign that they had lost a loved one the night before came when three boars and one of the feral sows stood before the coals of the fire.

  Snow could not read their faces, but she thought that looks passed between them.

  “Well,” said one of the boars. “Well.”

  “Someone must,” said another boar.

  Two more gathered, and they looked to the feral sow called Greatspot.

  “Very well,” she said. “If you are sure.” She looked over their heads to her sisters.

  The saddle-marked one said, “Yes.” The other feral sow, the smallest of the seven, nodded.

  Greatspot caught a poker up in her teeth and knelt before the fire. She jabbed it once, twice in the fire, and the sparks blazed up. A boar beside her — Snow thought the others had called him Stomper — was ready with a log clasped in his teeth, and threw it into the fire.

  It caught quickly. Greatspot turned away from it, and that was that.

  Snow stood up. The saddle-marked sow (her name, Snow learned, was Juniper) stood on her hind legs and pulled one of the great frying pans down from the wall.

  They were odd pans. A boar’s trotters are not well suited to grasping, so they held the handles in their mouths. Each handle had a crosspiece made of oak, scarred and dented with the imprints of their teeth.

  It turned out that Snow was not required to cook with the frying pans right away (which was just as well, because she could barely lift them.) Where the boars ran into trouble was in preparing the food. They were very fond of omelets, but cracking an egg without getting shell everywhere is a difficult knack, even for human hands. They could hack potatoes apart (the boars were also very fond of potatoes) and use a few herbs, but there their skills deserted them. Without fingers, they could only do so much.

  So Snow, who was feeling very lost and very alone, went to the wooden table and rolled up her sleeves and began chopping up potatoes, because this was a skill that she understood very well.

  She had never particularly liked chopping potatoes, but she didn’t mind now. When you are in a room full of people who all know where they fit in and what to do next, there is nothing so cheering as a task that you can do and do well.

  She thought she had gone through most of a bushel before Juniper laughed a throaty hog-laugh and said, “Enough! Can you do onions as well?”

  She could and did. Juniper seemed so pleased with the results that the tears in Snow’s eyes were not all from onions.

  Breakfast was potatoes and onions fried on the fire, with rough salt tossed over it. (Juniper dug the salt out of a bag as big as Snow’s torso, using a rough wooden scoop held in her teeth, and flung it over the pan with a jerk of her head.)

  By the castle cook’s standards, the meal was rough and awkwardly seasoned. By Snow’s standards, it was the greatest thing she had ever eaten. She had only had a single apple since leaving the castle the day before.

  The pigs ate astonishingly neatly. They did not use silverware, but they each had a deep bowl. They grunted and snuffled, true, each to their own, but did not slop them around, and when they had seconds and thirds, they did not squabble over who got which share.

  In fact, it was a great deal more civilized than watching the guards-men eat in the guardhouse.

  There were seven. The boars were named Stomper and Hoofblack, Puffball, and Truffleshadow. (Stomper was the one that Snow had ridden the night before.) The sows were Greatspot and Juniper, and the littlest one, who rarely spoke, was named Ashes.

  The boars were brothers, the sons of the old sow. Greatspot, Juniper, and Ashes had come from somewhere else, and speech had been given to them in some fashion that Snow did not quite understand.

  “A gift,” said Greatspot. “Not an easy gift, but a great one.”

  Ashes nodded.

  After breakfast, the pigs went outside. Snow trailed after them, gasping in the cold bright air.

  For the most part, the pigs seemed to be occupied in snuffling about for acorns, but Juniper and Puffball were doing something else, putting some kind of contraption on Puffball’s back.

  “Here,” said Juniper. “Can you help? This bit’s … stuck under … ”

  Snow jumped to help.

  The contraption was a pair of baskets, like panniers, that went over the boar’s back. These had clearly been made by human hands, the workmanship neat, if worn. A strap had gotten twisted, which was easy enough for Snow to correct. She settled the baskets more evenly on Puffball’s back.

  “There we are,” said Juniper, pleased. “Now we’re going to gather firewood. Would you like to help?”

  “Yes,” said Snow, grateful for the task, “I’d like that.”

  That night, when Snow settled into the nook beside the fire, Ashes appeared with a mouthful of rushes. She dropped them at Snow’s feet, then returned a moment later with more.

  “Thank you,” said Snow, when the rushes were ankle deep, and she thought that she might sleep far more comfortably tonight. “You’re very kind.”

  Ashes said nothing, but she met Snow’s eyes for a moment before she fled.

  The days passed and piled up into weeks. The apple bin emptied. There were still plenty of potatoes, and the boars filled up on acorns in the wood. Snow roasted potatoes on the great iron pans and learned to lift them, although it took both arms and she had to lean far back to brace them.

  She also learned what the great lumpy things in the bin were — truffles.

  When she realized that the entire bin was full of them, Snow’s jaw dropped. Every now and again someone would bring Cook one. “Rarer than gold,” Cook had said. She would shave them as fine as sawdust over dishes and they went to no one but the king and queen. Sometimes she would soak a slice of truffle in oil and use the oil to flavor dishes for months to come.

  But even the largest truffle Cook had ever gotten was the size of Snow’s fist, and here were truffles as large as her head, dozens of them, piled up so that the bin was overflowing. It was a treasure beyond imagining.

  “We trade them,” Juniper explained. “There’s
a peddler. He brings us potatoes and we give him truffles.” She sighed. “There was a tinker, years ago, who made our frying pans and baskets, and took truffles in trade as well. He stopped coming. We think he died. We miss him.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Snow.

  The sow tilted her snout upwards, and Snow, who was learning to read their expressions, smiled back. “We were hoping that perhaps, in spring, you could talk to the peddler for us. Humans are better at talking to humans.”

  The thought of talking to another human filled Snow with excitement and dread. She had fallen in love with the boars quite easily. They were easy creatures to love. They were cheerful, exuberant beasts, and they had wicked senses of humor. They had taken her in, and she was very glad to find that she was useful to them. They never failed to thank her for the little services that she could provide with her more nimble fingers, and she suspected that they had stopped eating the apples so that there were more for her. Even Ashes, who would go a full season without speaking a sentence, had stopped flinching when Snow made sudden movements.

  And yet they were not human.

  Long before the peddler came, however, Snow saw another human face again.

  “I’ve looked all over for you,” said Arrin, swinging down from his mare. “I’ve been over this patch of ground a dozen times, and you’d never know there were a half-dozen boars living here.”

  Snow shrank back a little. Part of her responded to Arrin with wild enthusiasm — One of my people! Someone from home! — and another part said, He was told to kill you! What if he’s come to finish the job?

  One does not become a hunter without learning the ways of shy creatures. Arrin saw Snow step back, and saw one of the boars moving purposefully in their direction. He very wisely stopped in his tracks.

  Arrin held up both hands, empty. “I don’t mean any harm.” His eyes moved from Snow’s white face to the boar’s black bristly one. “If I did, I expect I’d be out of luck.”

  The boar was Puffball, who had an enormous sense of humor even for a pig. Puffball grinned, and said, “Ah, but you might taste good with potatoes, hunter-man. We could find out.”

  “I’d rather not,” said Arrin. He could see the other boars drifting closer through the trees. “I haven’t come to take her back.”

  Snow let her breath out in a long sigh. She had hoped. She knew that the queen would never let her back, that the queen, if she was very lucky, would never even know that she was still alive — and yet she was human, and had hoped.

  “The queen believes you are dead. The heart satisfied her.” Arrin sketched a little bow in Puffball’s direction and the boar grinned.

  “My father hasn’t sent word,” said Snow. It was not — quite — a question.

  Arrin shook his head.

  She took a deep breath, feeling the cold air go all the way to the bottom of her lungs. It hurt a little. Maybe it was supposed to. “Then I’ll stay here.”

  The huntsman took a step closer. “Are you sure? Snow — my lady — ”

  “Snow,” said Snow firmly. “Just Snow.”

  “Snow, then. I could take you away. To the crossroads, where I took the kitchen boy and the underfootman and the others. There’s a town not far. I have a little money saved, and the midwife gave me a little more. You could get quite far from here — ”

  Snow was already shaking her head.

  “They need me,” she said. “There is a peddler — they dig up truffles to trade, you see, enormous truffles, like you’ve never seen — and trade them for potatoes, and he can’t be paying them enough. They’d be eating off gold-plated dishes if he paid them enough. And they aren’t good at chopping potatoes. And — ” she could see him shaking his head, “and I have to stay close by, for when my father comes back. He’ll want to see me, you know.”

  (He has never wanted to see you, whispered the traitorous little voice.)

  Perhaps Arrin heard the voice as well, because his face was sad. “How long will you wait?” he asked. “He might have settled elsewhere, or died on Crusade. The queen might live forever. Witches do, sometimes. How long will you stay in the woods?”

  “At least until I talk to the peddler,” said Snow firmly.

  She did not send him away empty-handed. She made him a list of things she needed, and the boars gave her the smallest truffle — not much larger than a walnut — to pay for it.

  “A rope,” she said. “A blanket. A ball of twine. Needle and thread. My clothes, if you can get them without any questions.” She smiled, a little sadly. “And any apples that Cook can spare.”

  “I will do my best,” said Arrin. He reached out and touched her arm, and it had been so long since a human had touched her that Snow felt her breath catch.

  She watched him ride away on his tall brown mare, and when she turned away she shook herself, as if something deep inside had shivered.

  It was a hard time at the castle. The midwife spoke to no one. She would have thrown herself on the queen and throttled her with her bare hands, but she knew that her gardener might suffer for it, killed as a co-conspirator perhaps, so she grew quieter and quieter until she did not speak at all, and the gardener had to beg her to eat.

  The steward met Arrin’s eyes and knew that Snow was not dead, but Arrin dared not speak and the steward dared not speak, and everyone knew that the huntsman had brought the queen a heart.

  The queen’s chambers stank of rotting meat. The maids put sweet rushes on the floor and burned candles and hung bundles of dried herbs over the doors, but the sow’s heart was rotting in its box. They took to wearing cloths dipped in rose oil over their faces, and the first flies of spring scrabbled at the panes.

  The queen spoke very little. If she smelled the rotting heart, she did not show it. Occasionally she would stroke the lid of the box as if it were a cat. But she also did not ask the mirror if she was the fairest in the kingdom.

  She was troubled.

  I do not want you to believe, my readers, that what the queen felt was remorse. When witchblood breaks good, it makes saints, but when it breaks bad, it makes monsters.

  No, what troubled the queen was this. Sooner or later, the king would return. He would return with a new bride, most likely (the queen had no illusions about his feelings), and the new woman would be installed in the castle. The king would want to know where Snow was, because any heirs his new wife might beget would find an older daughter an inconvenience. And the steward and perhaps the huntsman would tell him, and then …

  “Hmm,” said the queen to the mirror.

  On the other hand, removing the steward and the huntsman might prove difficult. The huntsman could be executed, but the queen was aware, however dimly, that when the steward took to his bed with a fever, the household ground to a halt.

  The mirror yawned. Spring made it sleepy, and there was enough magic in the old sow’s heart that the smell of it rotting left trails like fingerprints across its glass. “Yes, my queen?” it asked.

  “It occurs to me that the king might not be pleased that Snow is dead,” said the queen.

  “Possibly,” agreed the mirror. “There is a very large difference between an inconvenient daughter having a convenient accident, and an heir being murdered.” It yawned again. “Particularly if one is already looking for a reason to shed one’s current wife, O queen.”

  “We think the same thoughts,” said the queen. She pulled her brush through her hair again.

  “I very much doubt that,” said the mirror, and sank back into slumber.

  When the peddler came, Snow’s worst suspicions were confirmed immediately.

  He was a slovenly man, not neat in his manner, and his donkey looked ill-used and tired. He came with a dozen bulging sacks of potatoes and threw them down on the ground at Greatspot’s feet.

  “Here,” he said. “Twelve sacks of potatoes for twelve truffles.”

  The sow snuffled at them. “Good clean potatoes,” she said. “Not rotted. But we thought, maybe this year, we mi
ght get a little more — ”

  “What?” asked the peddler. “One for one, as agreed! Or don’t you have the truffles?”

  “They’ve got plenty of truffles,” said Snow, coming out from behind a tree. “They just don’t plan to trade them for potatoes — or not just for potatoes.”

  The peddler scowled when he saw her, and something uneasy moved in his eyes. “What? You’re no pig!”

  “Very true,” said Snow. “Although I begin to think that’s no great thing.”

  He glared at her. Snow had been the target of many glares before, but not from strangers, and part of her wanted to sink back and become quiet and biddable and agreeable.

  The other part, the stubborn part that climbed apple trees, said No. He’s stealing from the boars, or as good as. You can’t let him keep doing that. They deserve better.

  She put a hand on Greatspot’s back, and found it hot and solid in the cold air.

  “We have an agreement,” said the peddler. “Them and me. It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He turned back to Greatspot. “Do we have a deal or not?”

  Greatspot scuffled her feet and looked at Snow.

  “Not,” said Snow firmly.

  The peddler drew a deep breath through his nose. “Come on,” he said, turning to Snow, “I’m trying to make an honest living here.”

  “An honest living wouldn’t involve trading potatoes for truffles worth their weight in gold.” Snow folded her arms over her chest.

  She had been looking forward to seeing another human face. Now she simply wished that he would leave. He looked strange to her after a winter of looking at boars — too flat, too tall, too smooth-skinned.

  The peddler took a step toward her, and then Hoofblack rumbled behind her and he thought better of taking another one.

  “It’s value for value,” he whined. “They can’t grow potatoes, and I’m the only one who will come into the forest to deal with them. I deserve to make something extra for my time!”