Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold

by Paula Guran

  “It was my husband who had it made,” the queen answered her. “He wanted me to have at least that much control over my life when he should be . . . when he must take up his new way.” She had long been too old to weep, but her eyes still ached where the tears would have been.

  “And you lost your legs on your wedding day?” The beggar woman cackled, rudely and raucously. “That must have been a bridal night indeed.”

  “Indeed,” the queen said quietly, and the beggar woman laughed again.

  One morning the queen woke to sunlight, and saw that the cowshed doors stood open and small birds were flying in and out. The beggar woman was busily arranging their food supplies for travel, doing it with astonishing inventiveness. Sacks of varying sizes were slung around a rod at the back of the wheelchair; other pouches and packages were bundled in wherever there was any secure space for them; and somehow there was still room for the queen, when the beggar woman lifted her in strong, skinny arms and deposited her on the cushioned seat with an exasperated grunt of “Sitting on it half your life didn’t make it any smaller, I’ll tell you that.” But she took firm hold of the chair’s handles and guided them out of the cowshed, where they both paused to take a long last look toward the storm-washed palace glinting in the sun. The beggars were returning, their wheedling voices audible from the cowshed as they crowded close, quarrelling savagely over the handful of alms distributed every morning. The beggar woman’s voice was oddly gentle for a moment as she said, “I was born there. Just behind that horse trough, in a mud puddle.” Her usual hoarse chuckle displaced any wistfulness. “At least my mam told me it was mud.”

  The queen said, “I was born on the steps of the palace. The pains overtook my mother there.”

  She did not mention that her mother, a wealthy merchant’s wife, had come out with her attendants and nurses to enjoy a last breath of free air before her confinement. The beggar woman looked at her with something like a new respect. “Aye, well, you know then. That would be where you get that hoity-toity style, no doubt of it. Didn’t make you much good at it, though, did it? I watched you out there, you know—watched you for some little while—and you’d have thought you’d never begged in your life.” She laughed again, rooting in one ear with a broken-nailed forefinger. “Well, time we started. It’s a long way to the hills, and it’ll be longer pushing my lady’s bloody carriage and pair.” She gripped the chair handles and thrust her weight forward. “Sit still, now!”

  As the wheelchair jolted over ruts and naked tree roots, the queen asked the beggar woman, “Why did you save me, there, in the rain? I am nothing to you—why now are you making yourself responsible for my life?”

  The beggar woman seemed to ponder the question quite seriously, scratching her frowsy head and wrinkling her invariably smudged nose. She said finally, “Just never saw anyone drown sitting up before. So stupid, I took it for a sign.” And the queen laughed for the first time in a very long while.

  They covered very little distance that first day, despite the fact that the roads were fairly level, with few deep holes, and no obstacles that the wheelchair could not be guided around. The hills, glistening cool invitation on the horizon, yet drew no closer, and the beggar woman was only able to cozen a few morsels of bread and honey out of a wary farmer eating his lunch beside the road. But the night was warm, and the queen slept well in a bed of soft grasses arranged for her by the beggar woman, who grumbled constantly as she did so. “You needn’t think we’ll be going on like this, my lady, just because you’re too lazy to walk. Come a time, there will, when I’ll be the one lounging in this idiot contraption, while you wheeze your guts out pushing me uphill. Tomorrow, next day, I’ll be sitting there before you’re even awake, just waiting my turn. Fair’s fair, and it’s a long way yet to the hills.”

  She said that often—it’s a long way yet to the hills—even when they were deep among them, with the winding roads becoming steeper and rougher every day, and every other breath she panted was a curse as she toiled to keep the wheelchair from slipping back down a stony trail at her, or from running away with the helpless queen when the path suddenly dropped off. But for all her oaths and weary threats, she pushed the cumbersome chair and its usually terrified passenger further on and further up into country where cows grazed precariously on slanting rooftops, and gardens grew on carved terraces designed to take advantage of every single foot of ground. The hill people, as the beggar woman had foretold, indeed showed more generosity to strange travelers than city folk had done; but all the same, they proved just as anxious to see them on their way, rarely allowing them to rest so much as a night in their barns or cellars. Only during a storm—and not always then—were they likely to be granted shelter; and the queen, who already knew how to be grateful for the dumb kindness of a cow, came to appreciate dry firewood and a daughter’s outworn clothes. Once a blacksmith repaired a broken wheel of the chair, and asked nothing for his labor; once a fisherman went out of his way to point out a safer road than the bandit-plagued one they were traveling. The queen learned to accept whatever strange gifts came their way with the courtesy she would have shown an ambassador from a greater kingdom, and to give back what she could—a smile—with her whole full heart.

  It became more difficult every day for her to remember palace beds and palace meals, servants—except for the one, out of so many—and grand festivals in honor of neighboring rulers; even such tiny joys as reading poetry aloud to her husband the king, or being carried by him through the palace grounds on a cool blue evening. Whenever she realized that she had forever lost one or another such cherished moment, then she would mourn bitterly, while the beggar woman mocked her. “And what are you grizzling for this time? A man, was it?—some sturdy rogue, liked the notion of a woman who could never run away from him? Sit up and stop mewling—it’s a long way yet to the hills.”

  She herself appeared stringy-muscled and tireless, which the queen knew was not so. Almost every night, she could hear the deep whine in her companion’s splintering breath as they lay by each other on cold ground or a stable’s gritty floor, after another day of stubbornly wrestling the battered wheelchair still further on toward . . . toward what hills, what goal?

  For that the beggar woman had some definite objective beyond seeking more generous almsgivers, the queen had long ceased doubting. They were bound somewhere, if it cost the beggar woman the last strength in her body, which the queen could see happening in the frighteningly wide eyes that seemed to sink deeper into the thinning face day by day; feel in the raw hands that forced the chair onward. If guilt and sympathy could have brought her up out of her chair, the beggar woman would indeed have been riding in her place; as it was, the best she could do was to urge her to lie up for a day, two days, in some cave or—better—an abandoned barn, which she angrily refused to do. “Maybe you’ve some martyr’s notion of dying in the filthy rain, as you began, but I surely don’t. Winter’s coming round again, and we’ll go to earth when we reach our earth. Hold your peace, therefore—and stop squirming so when I pick you up.” And the skinny, trembling arms raised her, and the chapped and bleeding hands eased her once more into the chair with the old surprising dexterity, determined gentleness, and the equally familiar snarling “O bloody woman, didn’t anyone at least teach you to hold your head up? Sit straight, blast you!” The blanket tucked so precisely around her was, at the last, the only one they had.

  There came a morning, as the queen had known it must come, when it was nearly noon before the beggar woman—she who usually demanded that they be on the road by sunrise—was able to struggle to her feet, snatch up whatever scraps were left over from last night’s dinner of scraps, and then at last grip the wheelchair handles. There had been soft rain in the night; the midday air was no warmer than dawn had been, and the queen clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. But the beggar woman stepped out bravely for all of that, grumbling inaudibly as she lunged the chair along muddy paths and through heaps of dankly clinging le
aves. It was not until she was endeavoring to guide it over the mild rise of a tree root that she went down slowly, cluttering and half-turning like a leaf herself. She attempted to rise, and could not, and did not try again.

  The queen had never been able to afford to take any action without considering the consequences; so she never knew where she discovered the courage to twist and hurl herself out of her chair in complete thoughtlessness, falling hard enough beside the beggar woman that for a moment she could not breathe. For long minutes the two of them lay very still together, then the queen scrabbled herself into a sitting position, and pulled the poor bruised head onto her thigh.

  Only when the beggar woman opened her eyes did the queen fully realize how old she was. It was not a matter of lines never observed before, or of another missing tooth or two, or hair that seemed suddenly to have become grayer and thinner than when they had stopped the night before; but layers of ancient grief and rage and weariness, all laid down one atop another, like geological strata. The beggar woman’s words sounded like stones in her throat, but they came clearly to the queen’s ears. She said, “A long way to the hills. At last it is all to end in the hills.”

  “Nonsense,” the queen said with a firmness she wished with all her heart to feel. “There is a village within a mile—you told me so yourself yesterday. We can reach it easily, and we will rest there until you are better. Rest now, and I will wait as long as you need, until we are ready to go on.” She took the beggar woman’s hands in her own and held them to her breast. “Only rest now, dear friend.”

  But the beggar woman shook her head, smiling, and for the first time her smile was neither mocking nor mean, but oddly rueful. “I go no further. It was too long a way . . . longer than you think.” She coughed and spat, and the queen wiped her mouth with her own ragged sleeve. The beggar woman said, “You are the queen.” She had never spoken the word before.

  The queen tried to laugh. “You must have known that the day we met, because I was such a bad beggar.” Her own throat was hurting more and more.

  “Long before.” The beggar woman managed to raise herself slightly in the queen’s lap, her eyes like coals in her ashen face. She said, “Your husband was the king.”

  “Yes,” the queen whispered in answer. “Until he was not. Until he had to go away. Into the wilderness, like me.” She could not hear the last words herself.

  “He was a hunter. A great hunter.” The beggar woman’s voice had grown stronger and harsher. “He killed a deer, do you remember?”

  The queen frowned. “He loved to hunt.” She made another attempt at laughter. “I used to tell him that he loved the hunt more than he loved me. And he would kiss me and say ‘Not quite, heart of mine . . . never quite.’ But he killed so many deer—I am sorry . . .”

  The beggar woman said, “You would remember this deer. It was a great red buck, and its antlers rose up like a forest, like a garden. It was killed on the day before your wedding.”

  “The offering . . .” The queen dropped the hands she had been gripping so warmly and put her own fingers to her lips. “My husband fed a whole village with that magnificent animal. He told me it was an offering to the gods, so that we would be happy together, always. And so we were—so we were, even when . . .”

  “That deer was my husband.” The words came very quietly, almost without expression. The beggar woman said, “He was a shapeshifter—a master—but he never used his gift to harm anyone. He just liked being an animal from time to time—a fox, an otter, an owl, a salmon. But the deer . . .”

  Now it was she who gripped the queen’s wrists, so strongly that the queen opened her mouth in pain. “The deer was his favorite, his best making. He always wanted me to change myself into a doe, so that we could run away into the deepest woods together, and perhaps . . . perhaps not come back. But I never could, though I tried. I was never witch enough, not for that.”

  The queen recoiled from her words, but then realized that to pull away as her whole body desired would spill the beggar woman’s head and shoulders back onto the damp ground, so she forced herself to remain still. She said, “I am sorry. My husband would never, never . . . if he had known. If he had only known . . .”

  “Yes,” the beggar woman said, but she hardly seemed to be listening. She said, “My heart left me on that day. It crawled away and died, and there was nothing left but revenge to fill the empty place. Your husband had taken my man—I would have taken yours on that same day, if I could . . . not witch enough for that, either . . .” Her voice fell away to a forlornly bitter mumble. “Took you from him, anyway . . . next best . . .”

  A strange quietness had settled over the queen: a calm as far beyond anger or fear as it was beyond the loss that had lived with her for half her life. She said softly, “My legs. You cursed me, you poor thing.” She brushed the beggar woman’s dirty, tangled hair back from her face.

  “Always a price,” the beggar woman whispered. “For all we take, we pay . . .” Her eyes and voice were far away, but the words were clear. “When I spoke my curse on you, I lost my power . . . all of it, all my nice little gift . . . gone forever.” Her sudden raking laughter had the sound of blood in it. “Curses come high. Beggar ever since, just like you . . . and no vengeance to show for it, not a day, not a day . . .”

  She began to weep then, raggedly and tearlessly, as though she had forgotten how. This the queen could not bear; and almost against her will she found herself holding the beggar woman in her arms, crooning, “Hush—oh, hush, do, please hush! You never harmed me—you could not . . . I lost nothing, nothing that mattered—you lost everything, and I am so sorry! Please—please forgive my husband! He did not know . . .”

  But still the terrible dry weeping continued, shaking the queen’s body as much as it convulsed the exhausted body that she rocked like the child she had never had. At last in desperation, she cried out, “I forgive you! If you will only forgive my husband, then fully and freely do I forgive you!”

  And with these words she screamed, because feeling had begun to return to her legs, and with it pain such as she had never known in all her life. The agony crept steadily upward from her feet, long since bare, and she screamed “Make it stop! O, gods, make it stop!” while the beggar woman wept and coughed and cried out, calling a name the queen did not know; and so they rocked and moaned together, scattering the dank leaves.

  But finally the queen’s new legs hurt her less and less, and the pain seemed to low into the wobbly strength of a fawn. She stood up for the first time since her wedding day—promptly fell down—then stood again, swaying, feeling herself thin as rain. She said, “It is your turn to ride,” and stooped to lift the beggar woman into the wheelchair. But the other shook her head weakly, and the queen stepped back, still cautious on her feet. Staring down, she saw the beggar woman’s face seemingly growing younger, as happens sometimes when death is close, the rumples of a life smoothed away like a bedsheet. The queen said again, “Please. You must ride now.”

  “I have done all things that I must do,” replied the beggar woman. “All but one.”

  Then the queen dropped on her knees beside her, as she could not have done only minutes before, and she pleaded, “I would have died but for you. Not merely in the rain, that first day, but in every way, from the inside out. Wherever we have journeyed, you have sheltered me, you have gone without that I might have, gone cold that I might sleep warm. What you did to me you have atoned for again and again, and I have gladly forgiven you . . . no, we have forgiven each other, we two old women.” She stroked the beggar woman’s dirty cheek and kissed her forehead, saying, “Come—the village is close enough that I can carry you. Never mind the poor old chair, we’ll not need it any more. I would be proud to carry you.”

  “No,” whispered the beggar woman as the queen began to lift her where she lay. “No—too long a way . . . I thought if I brought you . . . if you forgave, my power . . . but curses come high, and it is too long, too long to the hills . . .” B
ut there was no resistance in her; nor breath, either, when the queen stood up with the body in her arms that was almost weightless, even when she freed one hand to close the beggar woman’s eyes. She said no farewell, neither made any prayer, but she stood so for a long time.

  If there had not been rain, the queen would never have been able to claw out a grave with her bare hands. Even so, it took her most of the day before she felt it deep enough to protect the beggar woman’s body from weather and animals. She marked the grave with the wheelchair, promising silently to return with a stone once the ground had settled. Then she wiped her hands on the cleanest of her rags, and started on alone, still on trembling fawn’s legs.

  On the outskirts of the village she met an old man gathering firewood. She knew him, but he did not know her; and she realized from his wondrously sweet faraway smile that he never would. But he clucked pityingly at her bleeding hands, and she helped him arrange the broken branches more comfortably in the three slings he bore on his back, and she carried all she could herself, and so they walked on together. He took her hand trustingly, and smiled again when she called him by a name that he did not recognize. And the queen rested her head gently against his white head, and they went on.

  Thanks to classic works such as The Last Unicorn, Tamsin, and The Innkeeper’s Song, Peter S. Beagle is acknowledged as a fantasy icon. He was honored with the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011. The recipient of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, Beagle has written numerous teleplays and screenplays including the animated versions of The Lord of the Rings and The Last Unicorn, plus the fan-favorite “Sarek” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. His most recent novel is Sweet Lightning, a baseball fantasy.