The truth was, she was nervous. Not just that Puffball and Greatspot might scare someone into a rash response, but for how to approach the villagers at all.
Until the peddler had come along, she had very little experience with strangers. She had known almost everyone at the castle her entire life, and when newcomers came through — friends of her father, itinerant priests or jugglers, the brewer’s daughter come to live with her mother — they would either introduce themselves or they would ignore her.
I can make any number of herbal decoctions, she thought wryly, and weed a vegetable bed and climb an apple tree and cook potatoes for a pig, but no one has ever taught me how to go up to someone I don’t know and start a conversation.
Such a stupid thing to leave out.
Some of the men who sold forest herbs to the midwife had done it. She’d watched one, hadn’t she? Years ago? He came up to the kitchen door, a man in patched and raggedy leathers, and said, “Pardon, mistress, but I’ve some herbs to sell and I was wondering if you might point me at someone who’d be interested.”
I can do that. I can say that. He sold all his herbs, too. He came back regularly. I can say what he said.
Everyone wants truffles. I can do this. They won’t care how I sound, or that I’ve got two pigs with me. It will work out.
“I smell green corn,” said Puffball a few hours later. “Someone’s planted a field up ahead.”
“Oh, and wouldn’t I love to go digging through that?” asked Greatspot. She cast an amused eye up at Snow. “But I suppose they wouldn’t appreciate it much.”
“It’d put a damper on the trading, I think,” said Snow.
“Can’t have that.”
“This must be Mousebury,” said Snow. She fidgeted with Greatspot’s panniers again. “All right. Yes. Remember, you two, don’t talk unless you’re sure no one can hear.” She rubbed her sweaty palms on her skirts. “I’m hoping — well, maybe we can find someone who won’t be alarmed, but most people aren’t used to talking pigs.”
Greatspot touched Snow’s leg with her snout. “I knew my share of humans, you know, back in the day. Before I was given the gift of speech.”
“I know,” said Snow. “I shouldn’t talk like you don’t.”
“Courage, child. I think you’re more nervous than we are. We’ll protect you, though — even if your mad queen is out and about.” She raised her snout in a smile.
They reached the edges of the woods and looked down on Mousebury.
To Snow’s eyes it was an enormous rambling town, twice the size of the one around the castle. There might be over a hundred souls in a town that large! And there was a little stone church and a large stone inn with a sign outside.
There was a grinning pig on the sign, over a tankard of ale. Perhaps that was a good sign.
The edge of the forest stretched away in a broad semi-circle around the town, sheltering three sides. There were cleared fields dotted with rows of green and a broad road that ran from the middle of the town, away from the forest. When she shaded her eyes, Snow could see the road gliding into the distance and vanishing over the hills.
I could follow that road. I could start walking and no one would know where I had gone. No one would miss me — well, except for Arrin, I suppose, though he keeps telling me I should be going —
Greatspot shifted under her hand. Snow took a steadying breath. And the pigs. I can’t leave them. Not without making sure that they can trade their truffles for what they need.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”
At the end of her life, if Snow had looked back, she would have said that the greatest act of courage she ever showed was walking up to a farmer in a field — an old, weathered man, who was staring at her in absolute astonishment — and saying “Pardon, sir, but I’ve some truffles to sell and I was wondering if you might point me at someone who’d be interested.”
She had rehearsed it so many times in her head that it came out as one long run of syllables — pardon me sir but Ive some truffles to-sell — and he was staring at the pigs with their panniers anyway.
“Eh?” said the farmer.
Snow took a deep breath and repeated herself, more slowly.
“Truffles,” said the farmer. “Oh. Aye. I suppose these are truffle pigs, then?”
“Yes,” said Snow. “Very — very fine truffle pigs. Yes.”
Greatspot lifted her snout and smiled at the farmer. Puffball kept his head down and tried not to look like a gigantic wild boar that could tear a field apart with his tusks. This was a losing proposition.
“Clever makin’ ’em carry like that. Wouldn’t have thought you could stop a pig rolling. You want to go down to the middle of town,” said the farmer, pointing. “Cook at the inn’ll give you sommat for a truffle, and if you’ve any more, go over to Elias the merchant. He’ll buy ’em to sell later, out on the road.”
“Thank you,” said Snow gratefully.
“Mind,” said the farmer, holding up a hand. “Go to Cook first, if you’ll hear a word of advice. Cook’ll give you a fair price. Elias won’t cheat you, but he’d milk blood from a turnip if he could. If he knows what Cook’s paying, he’ll have to match it, you hear?”
“Yes.” Snow took a deep breath. She had haggled with the peddler — although she’d been angry, so it hardly counted. The notion of haggling with someone else, someone who could say “no” easily, that was harder.
Still, she had come to the end of what being quiet and biddable could do for her.
“Thank you,” she said. “That is good to know.”
“Good luck,” said the farmer. “Keep those pigs out of
