by Jane Yolen
In the seven years he’d been at the Unseelie Court as a princely hostage, guaranteeing peace between their two nations—just like the Unseelie prince languishing in his father’s court—Aspen had been called too many names to remember. The only ones he truly regretted were the ones given to him by Princesses Sun and Moon, twins he’d loved from the moment he’d met them, though they were as far out of his reach as if they were truly the sun and the moon. They’d called him Little Bit, and Weeper, and Sniveler, and Fidget, all things he’d regrettably done in their presence, though mostly as a child. But amongst the fey, first impressions last a long, long time.
A lifetime.
Centuries.
“Slow and steady, your majesty,” he called out to the king. “And wearing a very hard shell. Repels all splatters and shatters.” Not to mention names, but he didn’t say that out loud.
“Will you excuse her then?” asked the king, his voice thundering but his face clear of anger.
The Border Lords started banging the bone handles of their great knives on the table, causing all of the goblets to wobble. “NO EXCUSES! NO EXCUSES!” Several of them were drooling wine into their beards or spitting out the crumbs of something recently eaten. The usual.
With a wave of his huge right hand, King Obs silenced them. “Speak, Tortoise,” he said. On either side of the king, the Unseelie princes leaned forward to hear Aspen’s response. The Heir on the right—hefty, pockmarked and gap-toothed. On the left, the Spare—lean and listless. Their pasty faces wore smiles like a chimera’s, all teeth and hunger, but their father’s rough intelligence was missing.
“Excuse and accuse are two sides of the same coin,” Aspen said, quoting one of the old Unseelie philosophers he’d recently been studying.
He nodded at Jaunty, his tutor, sitting way down at the far end of the room, and the old hob smiled at him, a green, toothy smile. “I excuse both the girls. They are hardly worth accusing.”
King Obs applauded at that, his smaller left hand beating against the larger right, and the rest of the court took it up till the room shook with the noise. The two princes clapped greedily, as if they had been the ones to coin the witticism.
“In honor of the upcoming birth of my child, I accept your excuse. They are both spared. But do not be so quick next time to let such misbehavior go or the underfolk will take advantage of it. And what do you say to that?”
Aspen thought, and then he had it. A warrior’s response. The king would like that. “They cannot take advantage, sire, because we princes have the high ground!”
“Hah!” The king’s head went back with laughter, like a flower on a stalk finding the sun. He laughed so hard, his striped beard waggled, like a black-and-white flag.
The court began applauding with a steady beat, the kind that showed both appreciation and approval. All except for the twins, who only moved their long, beautiful pointer fingers in time to the beat.
But for Aspen, it was praise enough. He smiled. He didn’t know it, but the smile changed his entire aspect. Made him look younger, nicer, more common. Had he known, he would have hated it. Would never smile again.
“Come, boy, sit,” the king said.
Aspen bowed his head and sat.
“Bring on the food,” the king commanded. And the room sprang to life as servers once again appeared as if by magic, carrying in haunches of beeves, ducks and pheasants stuffed with grains, eels soaked in vinegar. They brought in cheeses rolled in oats, and loaves of crusty braided bread, as well as roasted potatoes and seven kinds of salad leaves soaked in oil and dashed with herbs. And without even waiting for any courses to be finished—as if you could call any of this chaos a course, Aspen thought—they brought in plate after plate of gigantic sugary puddings.
The Unseelie did love their sweets.
As the servers bustled around them, Aspen drew in a deep breath. He thought it barely audible with all the noise from the food being brought in. But up the table from him, Sun and Moon snickered, and Aspen knew it was about him. The sound was not beautiful coming from two such beautiful young women, but he didn’t care. It made him love them the more. And that was what he regretted most of all.
“You’d do just as well to worship the actual celestial bodies as those two,” said Old Jack Daw, appearing next to Aspen’s seat in a swirl of black robes and giving Aspen a shallow bow. “A hundred years and they have learned little.”
Jack was a drow, a creature as much carrion bird as man, and the king’s senior counselor. Despite his advanced age, he was the closest thing Aspen had to a friend in the Dark Court. Even more than Jaunty, he had taught Aspen how to survive his Unseelie exile. And he’d done it out of friendship, not because the king had assigned him to the job.
“Your Serenity,” Jack added, then looked at the king. Long, dark ears nearly pointing at the ground, Jack bowed much more deeply to the king than he had to Aspen. Then, pulling up a rickety stool next to Aspen, he snatched a slice of meat off a passing tray.
Aspen caught a whiff of decay as the old drow popped the meat into his mouth. Must have been a slice destined for the ogres’ table. They like their meat uncooked and half rotten. “I know the twins are far above my shallow skies,” he said petulantly. He looked down at his still-empty plate. “I am not a fool.”
Jack chewed rapidly. “By your display with the serving girl—”
Without thinking, Aspen corrected the old drow. “Midwife’s apprentice.”
Jack gave him a look that would have curdled milk on a baby’s tongue. “As I said, by your display with the . . . girl . . . I might argue the point. Mercy—”
“Is not highly prized here,” Aspen finished for him, again without thought. “I know. You have been telling me that ever since I arrived.”
“And yet you still haven’t taken the lesson.” With a sharp black fingernail, Jack dug a piece of gristle from between two of his few remaining teeth. “You have been listening to that silly old fool Jaunty when you should have been listening to me.” He peered at the gristle as if interested in its history. “Perhaps it’s true that you can take a Seelie lord out of his court but you can’t make him Unseelie. You are soft, boy. Too soft.” He licked his lips swiftly, once, with a thin forked tongue the same drab grey as his skin. “And you need to learn when to keep silent. Oh, not for the way you speak to me. That is as it should be. You are a lord, and I . . .” He hesitated. Maybe even changed his mind about what he was about to say. Then said, “I am not.”
Aspen thought it showed wisdom on the drow’s part. Or craft. He wasn’t sure which.
“But enough of lessons you refuse to heed. Lord Bloody-Knives-and-Kneecaps has brought me news from the borders.” He flicked the gristle to the floor and motioned Aspen in closer. “News not fit for all ears.”
Aspen leaned in despite the ghastly odor of Jack’s breath. “What news?”
“Nothing good,” Jack whispered. “Your father’s armies mass there. War may almost be upon us.”
“He wouldn’t!” Aspen cried.
“Quiet, boy!” Jack hissed. “He may be pushed to it. The Border Lords are raiding nightly. And they do not stop at mere cattle thieving. There’s the occasional dead lord and violated lady and children roasted on a spit. The truce is hanging by a spider’s thread.”
Aspen shuddered at the news. “And if the truce is broken . . .” He felt a line of perspiration start to meander between his shoulder blades.
Jack drew a spindly finger across his neck. “The hostages will be the first casualties.”
Aspen pushed his still-empty plate away. One of the problems with sitting this far from the king’s table was that a person might never get served. “You mean I will be the first casualty.” He was not only their most important hostage, he was—as far as he knew—their only hostage. Though he supposed there could always be one secreted away in the dungeon or in a pigsty. He wouldn
’t put that past the king.
Or the queen.
“Yes, my boy,” Jack said solemnly. “You will be the first casualty of the Seelie Wars. As will the Unseelie prince hostage in your father’s hall.”
“Yes, Your Serenity,” Aspen reminded the old drow, though his heart was not in it. He was wondering instead why Jack had said wars in the plural.
Jack leaned in again to whisper, his carrion breath hot on Aspen’s ear. “But do not despair yet! Lord Bloody is not the most reliable of my sources. More news will probably come tomorrow and may set all to ease.” He reached across and pulled Aspen’s plate back.
Now the plate was filled with food, a glop of gravy and pieces of nearly raw meat plus something grey that was once green. Aspen felt his stomach turn over.
“But if not,” Jack added, “you had best eat. You will need your strength.”
Aspen looked at food which had somehow made an appearance on his plate, and sighed. It might as well have been made of paste and mud. He was definitely not hungry now.
“To do what? I do not think any amount of strength will keep my head from being separated from my shoulders once war actually breaks out.” He tried for a kind of wry resignation, the way the older princes spoke, with a casual shrug. It came out instead in a childish whine. He hated that.
Jack smiled kindly, an odd expression on such a wizened, grey face, but Aspen knew it was genuine. “You are dear to me, boy. I will not let you come to harm so easily.”
“Thank you, Jack. I . . .” Aspen stopped short, suddenly afraid he would burst into tears if he tried to say anything more. Princely honor—both Seelie and Unseelie—demanded that he face everything with aplomb and grace, whether it was murder, war, or simply tea that had gone a bit cold.
Though not, he thought suddenly, if something was done by an underling that undermined authority or honor.
Aspen squared his shoulders and looked directly at Jack. He’d done his best for every day of the seven years he’d been at the Unseelie Court, alone amongst his enemies, to do just that, to be careful and honorable. But the thought of being executed made him remember how young and scared he really was. And no amount of royal dignity could change that.
“Your Serenity,” Old Jack Daw said, his eyes sparkling with emotion. “I am a simple servant, and you are a Lord of the Realm. Save your thanks for someone more deserving.”
It was the kind of overdone courtesy one used with a higher-ranking courtier, not with a friend. Aspen needed the friend more. He forced a smile. It felt like it might even stick. “And my mercy?”
Jack grinned, courtesy forgotten. “Do not waste any more of it on serving girls or midwives’ apprentices! Let King Obs know how valuable you really are.”
“Done!” Aspen said. And to prove he belonged in the company of those around him, he grabbed the nearest serving girl roughly and shoved her toward the kitchen. “More meat for Old Jack Daw! And be quick about it, or we will pop you in the ovens next!”
The Border Lords roared their approval and flung their dishes at the poor girl’s heels to hurry her along, before turning back to bang upon the table with the butt ends of their knives once more and shouting a praise song to Aspen that tried to rhyme his name with grasping and failed.
Glancing up from his tankard at the noise, King Obs grinned at Aspen.
Even the twins looked down the table at him with something like approval on their beautiful, enigmatic faces.
Strangely, it didn’t make Aspen feel as good as he thought it would.
He picked a piece of fruit from a nearby bowl and took a big, juicy bite. Dust, he thought. It tastes like dust and decay. And death.
But he ate it with gusto anyway, because that was what Unseelie princes always do.
SNAIL IN THE TOWER ROOM
By the time Snail got back into the kitchen, she was shaking. At first she thought it was from fear, but she soon realized it was from anger. Even more anger than before. For now, heaped onto that earlier anger, was this new offense.
How that toff, that stupid prince had glared at her and made a face, as if seeing some piece of donkey dung stuck to the bottom of one of his silken shoes. And then he’d shouted at her to “get up and get out of here! Do not stop to ask why.” And dismissed her without even asking if she’d been injured in the fall.
And the way those toffs talk, she thought. “Do not,” instead of “don’t.” “Cannot” instead of “can’t.” As if plain talk wasn’t good enough for them.
Not that she expected a prince would concern himself with her feelings and her way of speaking. Their kind never did. Not princes. Not like real folk.
“A fall,” she said aloud, “that was no fault of my own.” She looked around to see if she could find who’d pushed her into the serving girl who then had dropped the platter with the teapot and cups. “If I find you, you’ll get an earful, I promise you that!” And maybe more.
Nettle came over and handed her a twist of second-day cheese bread and a cup of water. “Here. Now, better make yourself scarce. Old Bonetooth has already chewed up that hapless serving girl and spit out the pips, and he won’t make no distinction between you being a midwife’s apprentice or the girl who carried the dropped tray.”
“But someone pushed me . . .” she began.
“No blame, no shame,” he said.
“What do you mean . . .” she started to say and then stopped. Because suddenly she knew. The one to blame was Yarrow, of course, who must have told the new girl to give her a shove. They were probably both giggling over it upstairs. But no one would back Snail on this because of how besotted the potboys were with Yarrow.
Snail looked around. Yarrow and the other girl were already gone from the room. The serving girl who’d dropped the tray was nowhere to be seen, probably cowering in a cupboard somewhere.
Suddenly she noticed that Master Chef Bonetooth was running a bloody cloth across his lips. “He ate her?”
Such a punishment wasn’t unheard of, of course. But those sort of things happened only in the Seelie Court.
Not here, Snail thought.
Suddenly all her anger left her and she began to tremble in a different way. Her legs felt as if they were wobbling, and she doubted her knees would hold her up much longer.
“Scarce!” Nettle repeated, pointing toward the door.
Grateful that she had such a friend in Nettle, she was through the door before he could say another word, collapsing on the other side. And there she lay on the floor, trying to catch not only her breath but her courage, which seemed to be running away from her faster than a will-o’-the-wisp on a summer’s eve.
Suddenly someone grabbed her shoulder from behind. Snail flinched and hunched her shoulders. I will not cry, I will not cry, she told herself. He may chew me up, but I will not cry!
In fact, she was too frightened to cry.
“There you are. Where’ve you been, you silly girl? You’ll have to go and wash up all over again. Floor’s not the place for a midwife’s apprentice that’s got to be cleaner than clean. Especially right now.”
Snail looked over her shoulder into Mistress Softhands’s red face. “I thought you were Chef Bonetooth,” she stuttered, “come to eat . . . eat . . . eat me.” She took a deep breath. “And chew me to bits.”
“Slovenly—and stupid as well, are you? He’s his mother’s son. Milk and cheese is all that one gobbles down, don’t you know.”
“Really?” She searched the old midwife’s face for some sense of a joke. But her face was as humorless as ever.
“The only ogre you have to worry about is one in a birthing chamber.”
“I thought there was a law against them eating midwives.”
“I always knew you were quick, the quickest of all the apprentices, so use that nog of yours. And stand up!” Mistress Softhands stood, arms folded, watching her.
“Ah, well, if you take the word of someone called Nettle,” her mistress said, holding Snail’s face in her hand and shaking her right finger, “then you deserve every rash and sting you get.” Then she turned away from Snail, but not before saying over her shoulder, “Now quick. The queen’s time is here, and none too soon by the looks of her. I’ve been telling Mistress Yoke for weeks, we should have been slipping her beth root to make the baby come sooner. Of the nine midwives, I’ve been the only one concerned. Now she’s well over her time and it will just make things harder. And you know what they say about cross queens.”
Snail thought, Sooner a hungry dragon than a cross queen.
“Has she really begun at last?” was all she dared to ask.
Luckily Mistress Softhands was distracted enough by the work ahead not to scold her about this, saying only, “Of course, of course. Why else would I be in such a pother! Now go wash and meet me at the birthing tower quicker than quick.” And off she went, as fast as if she’d a magic witch broom between her legs.
The thought of Mistress Softhands on such an instrument of travel almost made Snail laugh out loud, but she held it in. She’d already gotten into enough trouble for one day.
* * *
SNAIL WENT INTO the nearest washing chamber and cleaned up from her twin spills on the floor—the tumble and the crumple, as she called them to herself. After that, she went up to her bedchamber and put on a fresh, starched apron. The dress and the hose seemed surprisingly clean.
A quick inspection in the small mirror and she was off down the hall and then three stairways up to the Great Tower, where the queen was to give birth.
Of course, the queen was not there yet. She was in her great bed in the chamber next door, lying down. In between the birth pains she played cards with her ladies—Knaves High and Split the River, real ladies’ games, not the kind of cutthroat games the servants played below stairs like Pinch, Poke Her, and Hold Them Down. When not calling out her cards, the queen was shouting out orders. Snail was not allowed in the queen’s bedchamber—only a master midwife could go in to check on her—but Snail could hear her bellowing easily enough, even through the heavy wooden door. The queen might be delicate as a wren and as lovely as a hummingbird, as the minstrels sang, but no one ever said she had a soft voice.