“Thank you,” said Snow, when the rushes were ankle deep, and she thought that she might sleep far more comfortably tonight. “You’re very kind.”
Ashes said nothing, but she met Snow’s eyes for a moment before she fled.
The days passed and piled up into weeks. The apple bin emptied. There were still plenty of potatoes, and the boars filled up on acorns in the wood. Snow roasted potatoes on the great iron pans and learned to lift them, although it took both arms and she had to lean far back to brace them.
She also learned what the great lumpy things in the bin were — truffles.
When she realized that the entire bin was full of them, Snow’s jaw dropped. Every now and again someone would bring Cook one. “Rarer than gold,” Cook had said. She would shave them as fine as sawdust over dishes and they went to no one but the king and queen. Sometimes she would soak a slice of truffle in oil and use the oil to flavor dishes for months to come.
But even the largest truffle Cook had ever gotten was the size of Snow’s fist, and here were truffles as large as her head, dozens of them, piled up so that the bin was overflowing. It was a treasure beyond imagining.
“We trade them,” Juniper explained. “There’s a peddler. He brings us potatoes and we give him truffles.” She sighed. “There was a tinker, years ago, who made our frying pans and baskets, and took truffles in trade as well. He stopped coming. We think he died. We miss him.”
“I’m sorry,” said Snow.
The sow tilted her snout upwards, and Snow, who was learning to read their expressions, smiled back. “We were hoping that perhaps, in spring, you could talk to the peddler for us. Humans are better at talking to humans.”
The thought of talking to another human filled Snow with excitement and dread. She had fallen in love with the boars quite easily. They were easy creatures to love. They were cheerful, exuberant beasts, and they had wicked senses of humor. They had taken her in, and she was very glad to find that she was useful to them. They never failed to thank her for the little services that she could provide with her more nimble fingers, and she suspected that they had stopped eating the apples so that there were more for her. Even Ashes, who would go a full season without speaking a sentence, had stopped flinching when Snow made sudden movements.
And yet they were not human.
Long before the peddler came, however, Snow saw another human face again.
“I’ve looked all over for you,” said Arrin, swinging down from his mare. “I’ve been over this patch of ground a dozen times, and you’d never know there were a half-dozen boars living here.”
Snow shrank back a little. Part of her responded to Arrin with wild enthusiasm — One of my people! Someone from home! — and another part said, He was told to kill you! What if he’s come to finish the job?
One does not become a hunter without learning the ways of shy creatures. Arrin saw Snow step back, and saw one of the boars moving purposefully in their direction. He very wisely stopped in his tracks.
Arrin held up both hands, empty. “I don’t mean any harm.” His eyes moved from Snow’s white face to the boar’s black bristly one. “If I did, I expect I’d be out of luck.”
The boar was Puffball, who had an enormous sense of humor even for a pig. Puffball grinned, and said, “Ah, but you might taste good with potatoes, hunter-man. We could find out.”
“I’d rather not,” said Arrin. He could see the other boars drifting closer through the trees. “I haven’t come to take her back.”
Snow let her breath out in a long sigh. She had hoped. She knew that the queen would never let her back, that the queen, if she was very lucky, would never even know that she was still alive — and yet she was human, and had hoped.
“The queen believes you are dead. The heart satisfied her.” Arrin sketched a little bow in Puffball’s direction and the boar grinned.
“My father hasn’t sent word,” said Snow. It was not — quite — a question.
Arrin shook his head.
She took a deep breath, feeling the cold air go all the way to the bottom of her lungs. It hurt a little. Maybe it was supposed to. “Then I’ll stay here.”
The huntsman took a step closer. “Are you sure? Snow — my lady — ”
“Snow,” said Snow firmly. “Just Snow.”
“Snow, then. I could take you away. To the crossroads, where I took the kitchen boy and the underfootman and the others. There’s a town not far. I have a little money saved, and the midwife gave me a little more. You could get quite far from here — ”
Snow was already shaking her head.
“They need me,” she said. “There is a peddler — they dig up truffles to trade, you see, enormous truffles, like you’ve never seen — and trade them for potatoes, and he can’t be paying them enough. They’d be eating off gold-plated dishes if he paid them enough. And they aren’t good at chopping potatoes. And — ” she could see him shaking his head, “and I have to stay close by, for when my father comes back. He’ll want to see me, you know.”
(He has never wanted to see you, whispered the traitorous little voice.)
Perhaps Arrin heard the voice as well, because his face was sad. “How long will you wait?” he asked. “He might have settled elsewhere, or died on Crusade. The queen might live forever. Witches do, sometimes. How long will you stay in the woods?”
“At least until I talk to the peddler,” said Snow firmly.
She did not send him away empty-handed. She made him a list
