The Fairest of Them All

And as soon as I could, I’d hurry up the tower stairs and stand looking out over the trees to the distant palace, imagining my son there in a golden crib, surrounded by adoring courtiers, swathed in expensive silks. They were dangerous thoughts but when they came, less and less often through the next years, I found them comforting. Imagining that somewhere, he lived still.

And so the years passed. Our garden flourished and died and then flourished again. Women came to see us complaining of broken hearts and unfaithful husbands and lovers, and later their daughters came to us with the same troubles. We heard news, eventually, that the queen mother died, and reports that the princess Snow White was growing into an uncommonly intelligent child. Crimson flowers bloomed on my child’s grave every spring, vanished again every autumn. The seasons passed and the world did not stop the way, sometimes, I was sure my own heart had.

The king never came to see me, though I often thought of him, and sometimes tried to call him to me the way I had once. By all accounts, my beauty only grew greater with each passing day, but it did me little good. I would avoid the tower for weeks on end and then find myself gripped by passion, nostalgia, running up those stone stairs to the room where our child had been made. There, sometimes, in the mirror, I found him. I’d look at my own reflection and see the prince—now king—sitting behind me on the bed, holding our child on his lap.

“You’re really here,” I’d say, the way I had before. “Aren’t you?”

But he never answered, though every year he grew more distinguished, and every year my child grew bigger, with bright blond hair like his mother’s. I’d see them in flashes, behind my face in the glass, but whenever I’d turn to them, my heart swelling, my eyes burning with tears and hope, the vision would vanish and the real world, with its constant needs and ever-present hunger—of the earth, the body, and the heart—asserted itself once again.

5

Seven winters had come and buried us in snow when one afternoon an unusual woman came to see us.

It was nearly dark outside, despite the time of day. Mathena and I were indoors by a massive growling fire, mixing batches of herbs into poultices. It was easy, soothing work that allowed each of us to only be half there— until a knock on the door yanked us into the present.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

Outside, a figure stood hunched over, the wind whipping around her, furs pulled tightly against her body. Behind her, the trees swayed, shaking snow into the air.

“Come in,” I said, stepping back to give her room.

She looked up at me and I was struck by how lovely her eyes were, wide and gray. “My horse,” she said weakly.

“I’ll take him to the stable and make sure he is tended,” Mathena said, grabbing her own skins and moving outside.

I looked at the girl more closely, and was surprised to see that her face was marked with tears, which had frozen on her skin in tiny crystals. What a beautiful effect, I thought—it was as if her skin were covered in jewels. She stepped inside, shivering.

Underneath her furs, which I helped her take off and then hung by the fire to dry, she was dressed richly, in silk and velvet.

“Come and sit,” I said. I led her to the far side of the couch, next to the fire, where she could warm herself, and put the kettle to heat with herbs for a nice tea. I watched, transfixed, as her tears melted and ran down her face.

Mathena returned a few minutes later, her face red from the cold.

“How far did you travel?” I asked.

“I came from the palace,” the girl said, her voice cracking, and I looked at her in surprise.

Aside from the prince, no one from the court itself had ever come to us, in all this time.

The fire crackled, kicking up shadows over her face. She had a small red heart-shaped mouth, auburn hair twisted in braids around her face. And on her face, a faint black marking, next to her right eye.

“My name is Clareta,” she said.

I handed her the cup and her hands trembled as she took it. As I did, a few loose strands of my hair must have brushed her skin, because I could feel, suddenly, her guilt and longing, as if they’d smacked me. A moment later, I knew what she’d done. I could see it.

“Do you serve the queen?” Mathena asked, sitting next to her on the couch.

“Yes,” she said. “No one must know I have come here.”

“Of course.” Mathena glanced up at me, watched me as I sat in a chair across from them.

“I am her favorite lady-in-waiting,” she whispered. “I have heard that you can be trusted, and that you know how to heal . . . how to do things. That you know magic.”

“Where do you hear this?”

“The queen mother,” she whispered, “before she died last year.”

Mathena nodded. “She was a good friend to me once. Do not worry. You can trust us. I know it’s a crime for you to come here.”

“Thank you,” Clareta said. “I love my lady truly, but of late I have been . . . ” Her eyes welled up, and she was having difficulty speaking.

“Been what?” I asked, impatient. The fire roared, thunderous. Above it, Brune stretched her wings.

“I have done wrong by her.”

“You have lain with the king,” I heard myself saying.

The girl gasped, looking at me. Tears streamed down her face. “How do you know that?”

“I can see it,” I said. And I could: see his arms encircling her, that hair of hers unbraided, dropping down her back, into his palms.

Half of me wanted to soothe her, the other half wanted to smack her wet face. How could she think he would ever love her, if he wasn’t able to love me? I knew, suddenly, that he had been with many women. He was a king, after all. I must have been one of countless lovers. The knowledge leaked through me like a poison.

“What happened?” Mathena asked, making her voice soothing and low. She shot me a warning look and I leaned back, but did not take my focus off Clareta.

“I lay with him,” she said. “I knew I was doing wrong, and yet he called me to him and I . . . I went with him. I don’t know why I did it, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice, when it happened.”

“And now?”

“And now he does not look at me.”

Mathena held the girl’s hand. “I know how painful that must be.”

“Yes,” she said. “And the way she looks at me, I’m afraid that she knows. My heart is broken already, but I do not want to break hers, too.”

“Why not?” I asked, leaning in. “Why do you love her so much?”

“She is kind,” she said, “and beautiful. She is a good woman, too, and is always saying her devotions. My family was starving and she took me in, made me one of her ladies. I don’t know if you know how hard it is now, in the kingdom, for those not favored by the court. My family has nothing. If she finds out, if I lose my position, they will starve. And she and the king, together—it is what we all long for. The way the king looks at her! For one day he looked at me like that and I couldn’t resist it. I know it was not my place, I’m not a princess or a queen, I’m not his, and yet . . . ”

Mathena put her hand on my shoulder, and I brushed it off.

“For a moment,” she said, “I felt like I was her. Someone like her.”

“You liked lying with the king?” I asked softly, letting my voice wash over her, like a soothing hand.

“I liked the person I became when I was with him. I am someone who is never happy.”