The Book of Snow & Silence

by Zoe Marriott

  Princess Theoai would approach no man, be he King or beggar, on her knees.

  I would show King Radugana and his court that I was the only dowry, the only prize worth caring for. Because they had the only prize I cared for: the chance to wear a crown, as I had been born to do.

  Straightening my back and lifting my chin, without allowing myself any hesitation, I stepped forward through the doors into the King’s receiving rooms.

  11

  “Crown Prince Uldarana and Princess The-ah-why of Yamarr!” the footman intoned as we entered the new space. His voice was deep and mellifluous, echoing beautifully, which made it all the more annoying that he had mispronounced my name.

  I had no time to dwell upon it, however. The chamber beyond was such a departure from everything that I had observed of the Silingana so far that I almost stopped in my tracks to stare.

  Gone were the high ceilings pierced by fantastical skylights. Gone the pale colours and icy walls. The ceiling was lower than in any other room I had seen here – though still tall enough – and flat, and painted in crimson, indigo, malachite and magenta, and spattered everywhere with gold leaf.

  The room had no windows, unless they hid behind the thick panels of tapestry that cloaked the walls from ceiling to floor. Light came from hundreds of strange devices that dangled from the painted ceiling on golden chains. Milky glass globes, smaller than my fist, that glowed with a strange, blue-white light. The lights pulsed as I watched, each brightening and darkening according to its own rhythm, like a living thing.

  The floor was uncarpeted. But if it was ice it was of a kind I had never seen. Scarlet and glossy, it looked as if barrels of aged wine had been spilled over it and frozen solid. Wine or blood.

  Courtiers clustered along the room’s curving walls, packed in rows five or six deep, brushing right up against the tapestries. They stared avidly at Uldar and me as we moved past them, shifting and stirring restlessly for a better view just like any large crowd. They were remarkably quiet, though. If this had been my Mother’s court the whole room would have been alive with furious gossipy whispering. Their eerie silence made my shoulders tighten.

  The only sound that disturbed the chamber was the fierce crackling of a pair of huge fires. They raged on either side of the dais at the far end of the room, each hearth large enough to roast a whole sheep. The room was almost unbearably warm, and the heat grew worse and worse the closer we came to the dais.

  The dais and the twin thrones that waited there.

  A massive banner – the Silingan star flag, elaborated at its edges with the branching tree sigil of the royal house – hung above the dais. Its magnificence made the royal thrones seem all the more strange by comparison. Fashioned of pitted, blackened wood and carved, or perhaps grown, into organic-seeming spikes, knots and curves, they had the appearance of objects no one had dared to move in centuries. Looking at them gave me an odd shivering sensation – almost as if they were looking back at me.

  Queen Miramand sat on the left, pale gown and skin almost glowing in the dark setting. The crown in her hair glinted with warm golden lights from the fire. Her eyes were fixed on the middle distance.

  The man in the throne beside her was – not what I had expected.

  King Radugana sat awkwardly, one large hand grasping at the chair’s arm hard enough to stripe his knuckles with yellow. The other hand clenched in his lap.

  His hair and full beard were a ruddy red-gold. The colour that Uldar’s might be, if he spent less time outdoors. His skin, which might perhaps have been as pale and freckled as Uldar’s once, was deeply coloured: purplish around his nose and down his neck where the beard revealed it, and blotched pink and red on his cheeks. Prominent brows met in a deeply carved frown, shadowing heavily lidded eyes. I could not determine their colour, even as Uldar and I reached the foot of the dais and came to a halt.

  He was a tall man, a broad-shouldered man. His head reached the top spikes of the throne and his knees thrust out far enough from the edge of the seat for his toes to touch the top step of the dais. Yet, wrapped up in a heavy scarlet robe edged in black fur, he seemed – shrunken. As if he had once been larger. His Crown – rubies, emeralds and pearls in red gold filigree – sat faintly askew on his heavily perspiring forehead.

  I took a long, slow breath through my nose, willing the squirming in my stomach to still. Woodsmoke made the back of my tongue furry, almost blocking out the strong smell of unfamiliar perfumes and the faint, acidic tang of – alcohol?

  “Your Majesty,” Uldar said firmly. “I have the pleasure of presenting to you our most esteemed guest, her Royal Highness Princess Theoai Herim, daughter of Queen Theoan, ruler of Yamarr.”

  The King shifted forward and opened his mouth. The faint tang became a stink of stale beer and dried sweat. “Welcome, Princess!” His voice was completely steady, but as his clenched hand uncurled it revealed a fine shake in his fingers. The other hand continued to clutch at the throne, probably for balance. “Welcome to our shores, and to the Silingana. You have our very warmest welcome.”

  He was drunk.

  I held myself as rigid and cold as iron, suppressing my recoil.

  Suddenly the Queen and Uldar’s cautious, making-the-best-of-it attitude toward this presentation made perfect sense.

  Training and duty surged forward to overwhelm my shock and offence, automatically parting my lips for the expected responses. “Thank you, your Majesty. I am humbly grateful for your hospitality. Silinga and your palace are every bit as beautiful as I was promised, and I am delighted to be invited to dwell here.”

  The King’s long robe parted as he shifted again, revealing soft golden slippers on his feet. Bed slippers. Rich and kingly bed slippers, but slippers nonetheless.

  “Very prettily said,” he praised, waving his shaking hand expansively. “Pretty words from a very pretty girl. Eh?” He let out a low, slurring chuckle. “Well done, my boy!”

  I felt myself go even colder and more rigid as the massed courtiers rustled with sheepish amusement. The Queen was completely unmoving, gaze distant. Her face might have been a wax mask. Beside me, Uldar’s cheeks were slowly suffusing with their own mantle of blotched pink. His hand covered mine where it rested on his forearm, and squeezed, eyes flicking sidelong to meet mine with a look of appeal.

  Wrenched with involuntary sympathy, I shifted my fingers to squeeze back. It’s all right. It’s not your fault.

  The tortured look melted into one of gratitude. I felt his sides heave with a deep breath. “Father!” he said heartily, his robust tone almost but not quite concealing his unease. “I have come before you today to beg a great boon.”

  The King nodded, and the movement sent him collapsing back into the throne, his brief burst of animation having apparently exhausted him. “Speak then, my son.”

  “Princess Theoai has done me the honour of agreeing to unite our houses in marriage. I beg your blessing for our union, so that the betrothal ceremony and preparations for our wedding may commence.” He let out a small sigh of relief at having got the words out despite his anxiety.

  “Oh, yes – yes, of course, my blessing. Yes, very nice. Lovely girl.” His voice dwindled to a mumble as his head drooped. Beside me Uldar moved abortively, as if tempted to step forward, give the dais a hard kick, and jolt King Radugana awake.

  Or maybe that’s just me.

  Queen Miramand’s hand snaked across the narrow gap separating the thrones, and came to rest on her husband’s. It ought to have been a perfectly everyday touch between the couple. But her eyelids flickered and her lips thinned, as if even that small contact was painful.

  Then her fingers closed in a vicious pinch.

  The King’s head jerked up and he yanked his hand away, massaging it gingerly. “Yes! My blessing on your union. May joy and fruitfulness follow you all your days, and may Morogana himself smile upon you. A toast! Bring wine! We shall drink to the couple’s health!”

  Uldar sagged next to me as the courtie
rs broke out into a subdued but merry babble. Servants appeared, weaving through the crowd with trays of wine. A large, ornate goblet, its sides worked with patterns of seashells, was ceremoniously presented to the Prince.

  He released me to take it in both hands, and then offered it to me with his fingers cupped around the bowl. It seemed straightforward enough a gesture. I bowed my head to sip, my lip brushing the tip of his longest finger. The wine was warm, sweetened with honey and spiced with flavours that reminded me of home: ginger, nutmeg, orange. It was good. Still blushing, Uldar took the cup back, then offered it to me again. Catching on, I took it from him, cupping it in my own hands, feeling the imprint of warmth his had left upon the metal, and held it up high for him to take his own sip.

  As if that set the seal on the blessing, a cheer – all the more genuine, I thought, for being laced with a trace of the relief that came with averted dread – went up from both servants and courtiers, then dissolved into laughter and cheerful conversation. Laughing a little himself, Uldar reclaimed the cup, and downed the rest of the contents in one gulp. Another cheer rang out, this one seemingly mostly from the male courtiers.

  In her place on the dais, Queen Miramand lifted her hand to refuse a drink, even as her husband gladly snatched up his own cup from the servant. She turned her gaze to me, nodding slightly. Her face still seemed distant, but I thought there might be a trace of relief there, too, in the ease of her shoulders.

  I had done well.

  My knees felt a little shaky, and I would have been grateful for the support of Uldar’s arm again. But as he turned to hand the goblet back to the waiting servant, he stepped away from me, toward the little cluster of young courtiers that stood closest to the dais.

  I didn’t realise what was happening – didn’t recognise the figure who suddenly appeared among the courtiers – until it was too late. Until Uldar gently put his arm around her shoulders and drew her forward.

  It was Shell.

  12

  The other girl was resplendent in lace and velvet, in shades of gold and turquoise. Her gown strongly resembled the scanty one I had rejected out of hand – translucent over her arms and shoulders, and over much of her chest, with patterns of flowers that swirled suggestively, standing out like decoration across her nearly bare, milk white skin. The vivid dark red of her hair had been drawn back from her temples, but allowed to cascade down her back in a glorious riot of curls.

  She wore no jewellery and no other ornaments. She needed none. She cast every other woman in the room effortlessly into the shade. Her lips were scarlet and her cheeks flushed with excitement and happiness as Uldar drew her against him, moving her to stand before his Father. Like me. As if...

  My facial muscles seemed to seize up, twitching and cramping as I forced my lips into a bland, close-lipped smile. Every trace of composure had fled, but I could not, could not let it show. I could not reveal my vulnerability, the seething mixture of confusion, disbelief, and rage that made my stomach slosh and my fingers curl into claws.

  But there was guilt, too. I had forgotten the girl. She was vulnerable and lost, harmed by the same storm that had injured me, but without my advantages of rank and privilege. Without even the ability to communicate with her rescuers. Yet I hadn’t enquired after her. Instead, unnerved by her strangeness, by her glowing beauty and by Uldar’s reaction to her, I had gladly put her from my mind.

  Uldar had not forgotten.

  Why was she was here? Now? At my presentation to the court? Why was she standing in the circle of my Prince’s arms in a near-embrace more intimate than any he and I had shared, with a look of sweet adoration in her face as she stared up at him?

  “Uldar, what is this?” I hissed out of one side of my rictus smile. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, don’t worry,” he said hastily. He did not reach for my arm. “It’s nothing to do with us.”

  Before I could open my mouth to express how very much that was not the case, he called for his Father’s attention with a confidence I barely recognised from the blushing boy of a few moments before. “Sire, at this time of joy I take the liberty of asking for another boon. This girl was a castaway in the same great storm that nearly took my own life. She is friendless, lost, and without support. Her ordeal has left her mute. I present her to you now in the hope that you will grant her a place here at court, until such time as her true family and home can be located.”

  Smile, Theoai. Smile.

  There was whispering from the crowd now. Laughter, muffled but unmistakeable. I could not make out words, but the emotions were clear. Shock, interest, outrage – and titillation. Oh yes, definitely a healthy helping of that. Their eyes made my skin burn like the lick of flame. Behind the mask of my wooden smile my teeth found the sore place on my lip and sank into it again, flooding my mouth with the tang of blood. The taste made me want to gag, but the pain was the only thing keeping me in place – keeping me from turning on Uldar with bared fangs, sinking my nails into Shell’s lovely hair, and dragging them apart.

  I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have any power here. Not yet. My position depended on Uldar. Damn him.

  Keep smiling. Don’t let anyone see.

  The King licked his lower lip, leaning forward again. His gaze slithered up and down Shell’s form with a kind of speculation that made me shudder. Shell seemed entirely oblivious. She wasn’t even looking at Radugana. Her eyes hadn’t left Uldar’s face. It was as if I were invisible.

  Look at me. Everyone else is staring at me because of you. At least look at me!

  “Oh ho!” the King said at last. He slumped back, the speculative look turning to a leer. “And this one can’t talk? If I were a decade younger I should be jealous.”

  Uldar shifted a little uncomfortably, eyes flicking in my direction and away without daring to meet my gaze, even as the King turned his look on me. There was a different kind of speculation on his face now, as if he was waiting for me to react. I would not give him, or any of them, the satisfaction.

  Smile. Smile. Smile.

  One of Radugana’s heavy brows arched, and then he carelessly beckoned a servant forward with more wine. “Very well. I wish you luck. The wench can stay.”

  Shell clapped, and turned to fling her arms around Uldar’s neck. The same group of male courtiers who had cheered for me a moment before let out a chorus of war-like hoots, cheerfully ribald.

  Uldar still didn’t look at me.

  What do I do? What just happened?

  Queen Miramand stood.

  “The Princess is still recovering from the shipwreck,” she stated, her voice silencing the room instantly. “And must not become overtired. We will withdraw. Good day, Sire.” She bobbed her head in the King’s direction. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  With unhurried grace she descended the dais, took my elbow, and turned me forcibly away from where Uldar and the other girl still embraced each other. A quick gesture from the Queen and the small knot of women who had accompanied us to the chamber re-materialised from the crowd, surrounding us, shielding me from view as I was towed from the room of blood and smoke and fire, out into the light of the antechamber beyond.

  I was shaking. My hands wouldn’t unknot. But I was still smiling, smiling, smiling. I wanted to scream, cry, plough my fist into Uldar’s smug, blushing face. I needed to go back to my rooms – if they were even mine now. I needed to be alone. To let my smile shatter where no one could see.

  Miramand dragged me a little way down the corridor, through some random door into a small sitting room. A solar. The tall, dyed-ice windows were uncurtained, and golden midday light illuminated the feminine, lived-in space. There was an embroidery frame with a half-finished piece stretched across it near the window, a book abandoned on the seat of the sofa, a bowl of dried flower petals on a low table. I could smell their faded scent. The door thudded shut behind me. It was quiet.

  I turned to see that Miramand was in the room. That was one too many people.

 
Words cracked the shape of my stiff, numb smile. “I would like to be alone.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I can’t leave you like this. You’re bleeding, do you need – ”

  “I would like to be alone.”

  She moved toward me. I flinched back. She stopped short, for once at a loss. “He didn’t mean it.”

  He didn’t mean it?

  Some strange sound – half croak, half sob – tore from my throat. I whirled around again, hiding my face in my hands. No. You can’t give way. Control yourself.

  I am calm.

  I am calm.

  I. Am. Calm.

  “He didn’t understand that it would make you feel this way. He is a good boy. But he is impulsive and a little reckless, as all young men can be. And that nasty, scheming little trollop has dug her claws right into all his better feelings. She is responsible for this. She will ruin him.”

  “They only met yesterday,” I muttered into my palms. “She can’t even speak or write his language.”

  “But that’s just it, don’t you see?” Miramand said, almost eagerly. “If she really is mute – which I take leave to doubt – that only makes her more attractive. She has cast herself on his mercy, and he thinks her some helpless, innocent creature who needs his protection. Women like that are all the same, they know just how to get to a man, how to exploit him. Please try not to blame him too much.”

  “What is she to him then? His mistress?”

  “Oh no! Not – ” her voice cut off abruptly.

  “Not yet.” I dropped my hands and turned to face her again, lifting my chin. Only pride was keeping me from falling apart now, and I used every bit that had been baked into me under the relentless desert sun. “Understand me. I was raised the daughter of a Queen, and Yamarr’s Queens do not marry. My Father was selected by the Whisperers to give my Mother children. She barely knew him, and never saw him as more than a friend. I did not expect romantic love when I agreed to this marriage. But this? This was cruel – and more than that, stupid. Why did he go through with the presentation, with the sham of asking for his Father’s blessing? Why humiliate me rather than simply breaking our contract honestly? The betrothal is not official yet – it may still be undone.”