White As Snow (Fairy Tale)

by Tanith Lee

  As she and Ulvit continued, a badger rambled across their path, a beast of two kinds, its bundled body and striped serpentine head at odds.

  Birds pattered above in the cold cages of the trees. This year, hardly any leaves had been left; only the needled pines, the larches, the flagged hemlock, the spurs of the ilex, to hold off so much sky.

  The moon showed late. She was a hunter’s moon, ripe like a peach.

  On the lawn between the tree trunks, great bonfires blazed. The gathering there made way for Ulvit, and the maiden. Candacis saw how some bowed to her, some dipped their eyes. She was not afraid of these people, did not hate or scorn them. Others were real enough to her, and she was seldom unkind. She would hurt none, if she could help it, for she knew what being hurt entailed. Nor would she love a single thing.

  But the sacred and uncanny wood, that did command her emotional attention. She felt again an intimation of what she had felt here in childhood, the sharp tremor of electric fear that was not fear at all.

  Arpazia, passing the natural fountain, stayed a few seconds to look down into the basin of the water. She saw her own figure, but could not make out her face. Perhaps because of this, the reflection did not seem to be her own, but that of another, left behind.

  A white owl skimmed high between the open boughs,. As she went on, a fox screamed miles away but sounding near as her left hand.

  The torch cast fire and shadow-shapes everywhere, as if she were one of a score of women. Then the fires of the avenue grew visible, and she saw the dancers were already making their patterns there. And the yellow moon stared.

  Go down and dance then. Find some new rough lover, let him roll you in the grass, you slut, like his sow.

  “Hush,” Arpazia said aloud to the reviling voice in her head.

  But, Why else are you here? What else are you seeking? The disgusting game foul Draco taught you—was that why you never escaped him? You wanted what he did? If he were here, wouldn’t you gladly welcome him? You whore. You would be better off dead.

  Dancing, the fingers of Candacis met with those of young men, and mature men, and old men. And, going another way, of women—also youthful, mature, and old. Ulvit had taught her the dances of the court and the wood. Candacis, so graceful, liked to dance.

  Soon, in the hot firelight, she pushed off her cloak, as others did; and the white dress rang out like a clear bell.

  “Oh, my darling sweet,” a young man breathed to her as they clasped hands for an instant. Her face was not unfriendly, only grave, and did not alter. She was not insulted, nor enthused. Another man whispered, “I’d die for one kiss, White Queen.” Her face was grave. The same.

  The line of dancers swung aside, Candacis with them. She turned to the women’s side in the dance, and one by one they went by each other, hands and skirts brushing over and away. Maidens and matrons and grannies. Some were bare-breasted under the moon, on naked feet. It was not indecorous, here.

  There was one woman—there, all in black, her cloak, her gown, which was a rich one, and her long hair.

  As she drew nearer, and Candacis. nearer to her, the girl saw this woman was vastly strange, beautiful and terrible like the winter wood, and the firelight found after all a tinsel-white tracery in her hair, as if the frost had scorched it.

  Hands met, and parted. Candacis arrived before the woman. They were of equal height. Extraordinary eyes were fixed on her own.

  Hands touched. Her hand was narrow and chill, lifeless. It had three rings that clinked together, as if grown slightly too big.

  In the dance, Candacis must slide by. The woman slid away.

  Two faces, both the same. The lips drawn in, the eyes wide and set like ice.

  Then, both turning, to look back, and the eyes clashing against each other with a flash.

  Candacis moved out of the dance, and looked up and down for Ulvit. But Ulvit was not to be seen. the Woman too had left the dance. She stood under a tree and stared on at Candacis, as Candacis stared.

  The image and its reflection. But which was which?

  An awful sensation, like a well of tears about to burst, but reasonless, for they felt nothing, either of them, for the other, except a confusion worse than heartbreak.

  Candacis thought, Why is the queen here? Why didn’t Ulvit warn me of this?

  How could it be she had never seen her, through all these ten years, not once in the byways of the palace or the town, on the terraces, in the orchards? Not once even in the great Church of St. Belor, to which every Christian, even the pagan sort, must go?

  Oh, they had seen each other. But expurgated each other, not known each other. Not until this hour in the wood, beneath the Scorpion Moon.

  It was the moonlight. It was Time. Candacis had become herself, and Arpazia lost herself entirely.

  Like two awesome planets they gleamed, ray into ray, and the dancing unraveled between them.

  Just then the moon marked the end of the avenue, and a being appeared there.

  It was the King of the Wood, Orion the Hunter, Dianus, Klymeno, in his winter robe of blood and diadem of bramble and berries.

  Arpazia became aware of him first, and her eyes left the mirror image of her daughter. She scanned the Hunter King and knew he was no longer hers. Indeed, it was shown to her very clearly. For it was to her other self he went, the maiden in her white. And he took her hand, and Candacis was gazing up at him, for a moment overwhelmed because here was her memoried dream.

  He led her away, toward the boulder thrones. King and Queen.

  The Woods People followed, leaving the castoff queen to stand there by her winter tree.

  How is she alive? I had her killed.

  The Hunter King was bearded, good-looking enough, but nothing like her lover. This did not matter, then?

  Yes, but it did.

  Arpazia dragged herself after the others, to watch from the edge of the grove.

  So she saw them seated on the boulders which were thrones. She saw her daughter’s face had regained its gravity. If she did not mind any of this, she did not thrill to it. (Candacis had swiftly seen this king was not the one she recalled.)

  Would this girl let him have her, after? As Arpazia had. As Klymeno had done. Would this one lead that girl into the depths of the trees? Tonight there would be a sacrifice. Already they were bringing the creature to their altar, this year not a boar, but a calf, black for Hadz. Drugged, it was gentle and not distressed.

  When the king efficiently killed it, and made the vows and offering to the god of the dead, Arpazia saw that Candacis did not flinch or look away, though she grew incredibly pale. A true queen. A dutiful-queen.

  Presently the king brought her the revolting bowl of lights and blood, and the girl tasted of it—gravely, still.

  Arpazia decided he would have the girl in the wood. Yes. It did not occur to her Candacis might say no.

  A wolf was howling miles off, but close as Arpazia’s heart. The moon pushed up out of the blood and offal, stained.

  But she, the human moon, was beautiful, and the blood had not splashed her at all.

  Gold glowed at her unlined throat. The necklace was familiar to Arpazia. Once it had been hers. Draco had taken it, given it back. Then she gave it to a carter … in the town. But here it was again, on her daughter’s neck.

  Why was she so beautiful? Why was she so young?

  She is me. I am there, not here.

  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.

  Seven Sins

  I

  PRINCE 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.

  II.

  STORMY 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 lea
rned 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.