White As Snow (Fairy Tale)

by Tanith Lee

  When the inn woman knocked on another shivering night, some days after the priests had gone, and perhaps a month after Arpazia’s advent at the inn, Arpazia allowed her to come in and add more wood to the brazier.

  “Tonight, it’s the Great Orb. I shall make a little offering to the Full Moon and the winter god. For spring. You’ll know. Some of the girls will go with me. Shall you come with us?”

  From uneasiness, Arpazia agreed that she would.

  So, after midnight, when the moon was in the west, and covered with white from the look of it, like the earth, they went through a small side door in the wall, into the forest. Not far. There were doubtless wolves, and they were prudent.

  But no wolves called. Perhaps the winter had driven even them away.

  The inn-wife and her kitchen maids killed a hen and sprinkled some of the blood on the snow. Next they tasted some, and Arpazia was given some to taste. They spoke words to King Winter and King Death.

  Then one girl stepped forward.

  She was lank and lean and had a fox’s face, but she sang in a sweet voice—a song of the goddess and her daughter that Death snatched away.

  “Coira, come back to your mother!” all the inn women sang then, in the chorus. “Coira, tread up on the world with silver feet, and bring back with you the snow-drops and the asphodel and the young green corn.”

  Coira, come silver-white from the black earth,

  Coira, come blushing red as a rose.

  This had always been the name of the goddess’s daughter—Coira.

  Arpazia had lifted her head. She had a predatory look, like a bird listening after its prey.

  She knew the name. Whose had it been?

  When the song was over they shared wine from the innkeeper’s cupboard. Arpazia too.

  The foxy singer said, “That girl that passed through the inn, just after the Midwinter-Mass, that was her name.”

  “Which girl?” asked the inn-wife, sternly.

  “The girl with such long hair. She came with that man and those dwarves, seven of them—they were to do a play for us, but then they went off in a hurry.”

  All of them recalled the dwarves. They began to recall the girl.

  “Her hair was black as chimney soot.”

  “She wasn’t his slave, though he treated her as if she was.”

  “How do you know her name? Wait, I heard him call her Blackhair.”

  “I went to his room in the night, to see to the fire.” The fox glanced under her lids. “I thought he might fancy a turn with me, and give me a coin, they sometimes do.” (The inn-wife tutted disapprovingly, resignedly.) “But only she was there, and she spoke in her sleep. She said over and over, I’m Coira, and then she said some other name I forget, and then she said, Which am I?”

  “Well, which?”

  “She was Coira. The Maiden. What else? She was beautiful.”

  “I wonder where they went?” mused the inn-wife as they trailed back to the inn.

  “To the mines outside Korchlava,” said the fox girl definitely. “I know those mines. Where else, with those dwarves?”

  Another girl said softly, “She was Coira. They took her underground.”

  Arpazia walked with her eyes closed. And how she found her way it was impossible to tell. Then she stopped, and the inn-wife sent the others on ahead, and waited for Mistress Lilca, nervously, there in the wolfy forest.

  Finally, the woman went and took Arpazia’s arm.

  “What’s up, madam? Come on now. We’ll be frozen to our bones.”

  Back inside, Arpazia drew away at once. She climbed up to her bed. There she lay on her back, and slept, slept exactly where Coira had slept and said, “I am Coira.”

  Arpazia had remembered that this had been a name of her daughter’s. Arpazia had given Coira to that man who owned the dwarves.

  Once, she had conceived Coira.

  “My child, his and mine. Klymeno—his—his—”

  Klymeno said, “I loved my child in you. That child in you was also me, you and I, both.” (Coira—was Klymeno’s child?)

  “But I didn’t kill her,” declared Arpazia to Klymeno. “She escaped me. He kept her and took her away.”

  In the corner, the half-blind bronze mirror watched the witch-queen as she slept, motionless and noiseless, on her back.

  In her dream, the bronze mirror spoke to her.

  “She is alive, the snowdrop, under the ground.”

  And in the dream Arpazia clenched her fists, driving her sharp nails into her aching hands. She had confused everything now.

  “How often have I tried to be rid of her … . It is myself, I am Coira. A maiden, beautiful—as I was. Let me find her and kill her and be sure, then I am myself. Let me find her, she is my daughter. She and I, in the firelight. Cold white. Golden. We touched hands. She held me in her arms—let me find my only child—”

  But Arpazia lay straight as a marble woman on a tomb. Only her eyelids now and then quivering like two papers disturbed by some draught.

  V.

  AS THE THAW BEGAN TO FILL the forest with a cracking of boughs and coinlike tinkling of streams, the innkeeper started to throw unwanted guests from the inn like garbage.

  “He drinks too much and doesn’t pay. Gave me a painted button for his ale last night, as if that’s any use. And this one is a sotten pig. This isn’t his midden. Out with them.”

  The wife nodded, folding the inn’s sheets with her girls.

  “Your old crone, too, mad as a goat.”

  Then the inn-wife turned. “Not Mistress Lilca.”

  “Mistress—some rich slut’s servant, making out she’s better than she is. She’s eaten up all the profit of that little ring she brought—and which she doubtless stole.”

  “She eats nothing—”

  “Stitch your tongue. Out she goes.”

  The inn-wife went to Arpazia’s room with the supper.

  “Try these cakes. I made them with brown sugar for you.”

  Suspicious, Arpazia nibbled a cake.

  The wife said this room was needed, suddenly, for a relative of her husband’s.

  “And we’re that full. It can’t be helped.”

  Arpazia said, “Where shall I go?” She said it drearily, in ennui not alarm.

  But the wife sprang forward with her plan, Another guest had offered to take Mistress Lilca on to the city. “He’ll see you safe to your kindred. There is someone, did you say, a daughter? At Korchlava?”

  Had Arpazia said this? Or had she merely given off the notion, like a scent?

  The inn-wife had bribed the guest, who did not actually want to carry Arpazia in his wagon. But he had also been intrigued at the thought of a fallen lady. When he saw her, this appetite withered. He had believed her younger, having glimpsed her once from the top of the yard, but now he saw she was gray and ravaged, with ghastly weird, wild eyes.

  They did not talk as the wagon moved day after day through the trees, rested night by night among them. But her demeanor irked him. She was not grateful, not even polite. And she did not offer herself. Probably he would have accepted. Though elderly, she was all that was available out here.

  By the time they reached a village among the trees, in a long streaming rain, he was ready to bid Arpazia-Lilca farewell, and did so. She stood on the track, watching his vehicle rumble away, soaked with the rain, a scarecrow.

  In the end, she walked to Korchlava, as she had once walked to Belgra Demitu, among a crowd of unfriendly others. But that was when the full flush of spring had opened up the land. Meanwhile she was “taken on” by the village. That is, she became one of their slaves.

  “Granny,” they called her—her face and hands seared by a feathering of frostbite, lined by the knife of her chipped mind. Hair grisaille and white, with slender threads of raven black.

  “Here, gran. Take this basket. The women’ll show you.”

  She was taught to gather fruit from the storage sheds, honeyed pears and apples, saffron or brown as
nuts, and soft thick figs and ruddy apricots, tight now in coats of sugar. Autumn fruit preserved for spring, before the summer fruit began again. Raisins dried by a dead sun soon to be reborn, peaches that swam in red vinegar, quinces made jam with Eastern spice.

  The village was not alone in serving Korchlava. It worked hard to keep its trade. The city was eighteen or twenty days off, on foot.

  There were other old women. Jolly hags, sorting things, piles of fruit and earthernware jars. Below, hills crowded by bare orchards sparkled with rain, opened to the blanched sunlight, embryo of spring.

  “Don’t sit idle, Blackhair,” the old women mocked old Arpazia. The nickname amused them. They were older than she, and some had guessed it, but few had lost so much color from their locks. “Blackhair’s idle. Here, let her tie the necks of these sacks.”

  There was always plenty to do. “Keep busy, like the bees,” exhorted the stern men. They sent Arpazia too among the hives. The female bees which foraged and gathered far and wide were less likely, they said, to sting a human female. Their closed-in combs had odd, musky smells from unknown grasses and flowers. Sometimes Arpazia would pick some alien leaf, a habit of her witch-queen past. Forgotten. She always let it fall.

  She did it all indifferently. It was like being a small child again, ordered about, patronized and jeered at, employed in meaningless adult tasks.

  I must go on. I must go down the hills.

  The voice in her head had grown less harsh, as if the other voices, of the inn, the village, had blunted its point.

  But Arpazia did not get up to run away. As once before, she remained where she was, among her enemies.

  Besides, they had told her they would all be going on to Korchlava.

  She understood (as once before) if she did not keep up, they would leave her in the forests for the savage beasts.

  One morning the weather changed entirely. The sun was a different one, a new bright coin. First blossoms glittered in the orchards, almond-colored, or almost green, almost lilac. Birds crossed the washed skies, and in the woods foxes barked where the wolves had fallen dumb in despair.

  The contingent from the village which would go to Korchlava set out two days after. There was one wagon, drawn by a bullock, and some donkeys laden with paniers. The men and women who walked also carried bags on their backs. Arpazia was chosen to be one of these. Despite her looks, she was a useful pack animal.

  A spring market soon began in the city, but there were other makeshift markets along the hills above Korchlava. Everyone came and went there, traders, entertainers, mages—a world of wonder was to be met with, and many were excited at the prospect.

  The days were quite warm, but as they came up from the trees into the hills, the nights stayed icy still. Campfires burned. The men drank and shouted. The old women crowded together, telling tales. “The king comes in white as sacrifice, green for the land. And in yellow when he’s cut down, like the autumn oak. The red king is the master of the year.”

  “Draco’s a red king,” said the old women.

  Arpazia listened. One of the old men shoved her. “Have you ever seen the king?”

  Arpazia murmured, “I was his wife.”

  But they took no notice, mishearing, uncaring what she said. And the voice in her head sharpened, urging, Be careful what you say. You are no one’s wife. You’re a crone selling fruit.

  Even so, she knew that when they reached the city, she must get away from them. She had a purpose, a goal. She would find her child in the city as she had almost found her once before, years back, at Belgra Demitu, after that other long walk. Then, everything might be settled. I must find her. Why? To be rid of—to hold—

  How will you know her? interrupted the voice, less hectoring than restless.

  I remember her. She and I are the same. Like looking in the mirror.

  “She’s cracked as a jar,” pronounced the hags at the fire, passing a leather bottle of stale beer. “Doesn’t know where she is. Fewer wits than a snail.”

  But another said, “Draco’s a yellow king by now, well past his prime. But there’s one in the Hell mines, Draco’s bastard, a prince in scarlet.”

  Arpazia did not hear this. Her back ached now like her wrists. She turned one of the doctored fruits in her hand. It too was lined and yellow, yet rich with the syrup it had been preserved in, firm in its brittle sticky glaze.

  “Look at her, you’d think it was bad, that apple, the way she plays with it. Eat that, granny, or give it here. There’s none to waste.”

  Wisely obedient, the crone-child bit into the false succulence of the yellow apple, and ate it up.

  In the warmth of a spring afternoon, the land rose, and between the rounded shapes, there was a glimpse of Korchlava City below, sun-ripened.

  But the first market was that which served Elusion, the quarries and mines of the marble hills.

  It was a sprawling place, set up with shacks and huts, booths and tents—even banners, to show in pictures what was for sale.

  Jugglers threw flaming torches, or stood twelve high on each others’ shoulders and necks. A girl danced with a bear. Cattle, pigs, silks, holy relics—and a man who produced a dagger from between his lips.

  One of the village men cuffed her. It brought her to her senses, helped her; she saw better after that, and thought more coherently. She had two woven baskets of fruit. She was to go about and sell them, and put the coins—look, here—in the pouch at her waist. Then she must come back, where the wagon was. “Don’t go wandering off, or there’ll be me to see, after.” He was a man. God’s superior creation. She lowered her eyes and went off to do as she was told.

  “Sweet pears with cinnamon,” Arpazia heard herself softly calling through the lanes of the hill market, “spicy apples in honey. And berries in wine.”

  She was pulled at uncouthly, things grabbed from the baskets, coins or bits of metal dashed at her. She caught or picked up the payment, put it into the pouch tied to her waist.

  Many of these persons were unusual. Some were black with the dark of the mines, or powder-white. They had red blinking eyes. Some had bound their eyes over with light protective gauzes, and wore wide-brimmed hats against the sun. Like bats, they spent much time underground.

  “Hey, grandma—are these peaches?”

  “Peaches in Heaven-spice.”

  “Too soft. Have you bitten them? Oh, if you have, they’ll be poisonous.” Laughter. How droll.

  She did not tell them she was no one’s grandma but rather a young girl of fourteen in a hag’s old, stiff, sore body, her long hair straggling down and down under the rag on her head, her straight back slightly bowed at last from carrying the heavy bag through the forests.

  Arpazia lifted her head. She looked about.

  There had sometimes been fairs at her father’s castle and they had been something like this, if not so vast. But the nurse had always held on to her. Shackled, held back, always.

  But now, there was no one to stop her.

  She glanced and saw one of her baskets was empty, so she put it down on the track. Carrying the other basket, which was still partly full, she moved off again.

  As she did so, she looked up across the stalls at a sweep of hill and the faint blue sky.

  Arpazia saw herself.

  There she was, walking on the hill’s ridge in a plain dress, her hair coiled in a shining black braid round and round her head. Such white skin, white as the snow had been, and lips red as if bitten. But eyes silver-gray as clear water.

  Of courses, she had an attendant. A black-haired dwarf man swaggered at her side.

  Arpazia was aware it was reasonable that a dwarf, even seven of them, should be with her now. She could not recall why. But it enabled her to be utterly certain.

  Her name though, was not Arpazia any more. Nor Lilca. What was her name, up there, walking along the hillside?

  Coira. That was it.

  The goddess three-in-one, who might be Coira the Maiden, or Demetra-Arpazia the Wom
an, or Persapheh (or Granny) the crone.

  Coira the Maiden was saying something. She spoke words to the dwarf and he nodded.

  Arpazia-Persapheh also spoke, mouthing the words she had not heard or grasped.

  Then the couple went behind a tent and were gone.

  Arpazia felt great fear.

  She drew herself. in, all the parts of her that were constantly drifting away—mind, heart, body, concentration, soul—and hurried up the hill.

  When she came to the top, for a moment she could not see them. To her own astonishment, tears ran out of her eyes. But next instant she saw herself again, wending down among the cattle-pens, and then up on to a higher path, the dwarf gallantly taking her elbow as she stepped over two large stones.

  “Where are you going, bag-of-bones?”

  Arpazia checked, amazed, for the burly man in studs and leathers was speaking to her.

  “Sweet fruit,” wheedled Arpazia, craftily.

  “I don’t want your rotten fruit. Get off down. This is the entry into the quarries. Wretched old booby. Get down the hill.”

  He blocked her path, her very life, his stinking cloak billowing across the sky.

  White dust rose in a fog behind him, where a gate of sorts marked the quarries. But the girl (herself) had appeared again, above and beyond, the dwarf just visible at her side.

  “That way,” said Arpazia.

  But the man gripped her arm and thrust her back down the track toward the market. “Be off, you bloody old fool.”

  Again, her eyes were wet. She had remembered how to weep. She hid it, and stumbled down.

  Among the booths she waited, watching the hill path and the white mist. She had found herself. Naturally herself would return, to be found again.

  Once or twice people came to her and wanted the fruit. Arpazia let them take it, not reaching for their coins, so they scoffed and did not pay, or else tossed the payment in among the apples.