forced to give prophecies for the king and queen, almost a thousand years ago. The stories of her in the old epics are wonderful. But for a woman like my mother to sit in the dark and try to make her appear, to have so much faith in those old stories . . . it was madness.”
“But maybe I saw her,” I said.
He smiled. “Maybe you’re half dreaming. Maybe it’s the hour when dreams are more real than rocks or rivers.”
“Perhaps,” I said, pressing up against him, trying to feel safe.
14
That year, the snow and ice came quickly. One day the ground was covered in dead leaves, and the next we were submerged in snow, which piled up in great, gleaming mounds under a silver sky. Inside, everyone massed together. The great hall was constantly full of courtiers, who came in from their estates all over the kingdom to gather around the king and eat from his table. There was little else to do at the estates, when at court there was endless entertainment and wonderful gossip to pass the time. I knew I myself was a favorite subject, but I made sure to focus on Josef and Snow White, both of whom I loved more than I could have ever imagined loving anyone. I would not let petty talk and petty jealousies distract me from those pleasures, and kept my hair tightly wrapped.
I did appreciate being surrounded by all that life. I spent less time in my chambers and more time in the great hall or one of the galleries, playing chess or cards with Snow White, or Clareta or Yolande. It was the best way to soothe myself in a palace full of ghosts and secrets, reminders of my past wrongs.
Outside, the wind howled. Snow piled up so high I could barely see outside. I often asked the mirror to show Mathena to me, and watched as she sat every day in front of that fire with only Loup and Brune for company, and the occasional desperate soul. I was sorry for her, that her ambition for me had left her so alone.
My main focus that winter was on giving the king an heir. I’d been at the palace since the previous spring, and many had expected me to be pregnant by the time the first snow fell. I continued to study my spell book and use every spell I could find to help me conceive. I used every trick I could to seduce my husband, keeping him enchanted, and we spent whole nights and the occasional afternoon blissfully tangled up in each other’s arms. But as my belly stayed flat and my cycle kept returning, I began to despair, wondering if my magic was leaving me.
The painter, Monsieur Morel, finally finished the unicorn ceiling and we all admired it, danced under it, and the master was free to paint my portrait, which he did in the same room, the unicorn and hunters rushing overhead. I spent many hours that winter frozen in place in front of the small man as he captured me on his canvas. I wore my most elaborate silk damask gown with the Chauvin family crest woven into it, along with my crown and the heaviest and largest of the royal jewels, which hung from my ears and neck and wrists.
When I took breaks from posing, Snow White came to visit me. She’d sit at my feet and I’d brush mashed- up horsetail and aloe pulp through her thick black hair. As black as can be. I liked to brush it up and let it fall, in waves, along her back. Once in a while she’d shiver, and look up at me.
“This will make your hair very strong,” I said once. “Impossible to break. And then it will grow and grow. Did you know that my hair is so strong your father was able to climb it?”
“What?”
“He climbed my hair,” I said.
“Why would he do that?”
“I was in a tower when he came to me,” I said, “to make me his wife.”
“So you let down your hair?” She whipped around to face me, her hair flicking to the side and hurling pulp across the room.
“Careful,” I said, gently turning her back around, “and yes. It fell right out the window, streamed down like a waterfall. He grabbed it with his hands and hoisted himself up.”
“That is so silly,” she said.
“You can’t imagine your father doing such a thing?”
I leaned down to see her scrunch up her face, the way she always did when she was considering something. “I suppose I can,” she said. “But that doesn’t make it any less silly.”
“Are you calling your father silly?” I asked, smiling.
“Well, he paid a lot of gold for this unicorn painting,” she said. “That seems pretty silly to me.”
“It’s very important to him,” I said, “to fill this palace with treasures. And it’s a stunning work of art, don’t you agree?”
She looked up and my hands slid to her forehead. I leaned down and kissed her there, making her laugh. “It is,” she said. “Even if unicorns aren’t real.” She leaned her head back even more so that she could see me. “They’re not real, right?”
“Not as far as I know,” I said. “But the world is strange. It’s impossible to predict what new miracle you’ll run into, from one moment to the next.”
“That’s true,” she said, nodding. “I did not know I would meet you.”
I winced. “I suppose it was unexpected for you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said. “But you make my father so happy. And me, too.”
It continued to snow every day, and soon it was the winter solstice. The palace was swept up in preparations for Christmas, as hundreds of geese and swans were cooked in butter and saffron. On Christmas I woke up sick and spent the morning bent over a chamber pot, while the rest of the court was at Mass. Immediately there was talk that I was with child. I took to my bed while the rest of the court feasted and rejoiced. When I was strong enough, I rubbed yarrow oil on my belly, willing a child into existence.
Later, I sent the maidservant away for a moment and shuffled over to the mirror. My own wan face stared back at me.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” I said, as the glass began to ripple. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”
For a moment it was silent. And then: “Rapunzel is the fairest,” it said.
I laughed. “That is very kind of you.”
The glass continued to ripple. I almost felt I could put my hand in it, that it’d feel like plunging into water.
I tilted my head, continued to watch myself.
“Am I carrying the king’s heir?” I whispered then.
For a moment the glass did not change. Then it stopped, became flat and still, and my face came into sharp relief. I waited a few seconds longer, and was turning back to my bed when I heard that one word, “No.”
I swung around. “What?”
My own panicked face stared back at me, and the mirror was silent once more.
I spent the next few days lying in bed, while Josef visited me every hour or so and Snow White spent afternoons reading in bed beside me. She spread out, stretching her legs, holding a manuscript to her face, sometimes reading stories out loud to me from the Bible or the old epics.
When my cycle came after the New Year celebration, the disappointment everyone felt was palpable. Josef took me in his arms and there was no way for me to avoid feeling his grief, as well as the beginning of his suspicion that there was something wrong with me. I felt his heart pulsing up to my hair and forced myself to smile, to kiss him, as anxiety twisted inside me.
“Don’t worry, my love,” he said, stroking my hair, my face. “It will happen in the spring.”
When the snow finally started to melt, Snow White and I rode out into the kingdom, our skirts and hair flying. And slowly, beautifully, the world turned green again. Because Gilles was out training a new peregrine, we brought guards with us instead—a host of them, at Josef’s insistence—and watched with delight as the people came out of their houses and bent over their gardens, which were lush and full, or came out into the wheat fields
