“Bring me the huntsman,” she said.
Word travelled fast in the castle. The steward knew within minutes and the men-at-arms learned from the steward and the gardener heard it from the oldest man-at-arms and took it to the midwife.
The gardener might have run but he did not. He walked very carefully, holding the knowledge in his cupped hands, as if it were a cup filled too full to spill. He went to the herb garden where the midwife sat and he put his lips against her ear and whispered “Snow is alive.”
The midwife had grown old in the last season, and the bones of her hands were as fine as a bird’s. For a moment the gardener thought that the news had come too late, and then he felt the midwife’s arms go around and hold him hard. A few tears trickled out from under her eyelids and she whispered something into his shoulder that he did not hear.
The next day, she moved into his house, as he had long requested, and he never asked her what she had said and she never told him and they were very happy together. But that is neither here nor there and the future is a different country.
All through the castle went the word — Snow is alive. The queen seeks the huntsman. The huntsman’s life is forfeit.
And with this word came questions — What was in the box? She was told it was Snow’s heart! Who’s heart was it?
This question spawned many answers as the word spread. It was the heart of a bandit in the woods. It was the heart of a stag or a horse or a hound. It was the heart of the king who had died on Crusade. It was the queen’s own heart, placed there by some confusing magic. It was not a true heart at all but one made of clay (The maids who spread sweet rushes to cover the smell of rotting meat quickly discounted this one.).
Arrin himself was out hunting. He came back late that night, with a pheasant in his saddlebags, and saw the steward standing at the gate, with two men-at-arms on either side of him.
He halted his mare a dozen yards from the gate and narrowed his eyes.
“Arrin Huntsman,” said the steward. “The queen demands your immediate presence.”
Arrin met his eyes, and the steward mouthed the word Run.
He wheeled his horse and spurred her back down the road.
The men-at-arms gave chase, more or less. A few ran after him on foot, shouting, and one or two of the younger, keener ones went for horses — but somehow the stablehands were a little slow bringing them out and the swiftest horse in the stable was in need of shoeing and by the time anyone was mounted and in pursuit, Arrin had vanished.
The steward brought this news to the queen.
“You lost him,” said the queen.
The steward inclined his head. “We have sent out search parties. They may yet find him. But none know the woods as well as Arrin and I have no man who is his equal.”
Her hand shot out and her nails slashed down his face, curving under his jaw. The steward felt a hot itch across his neck, but he did not flinch.
“I want him found,” said the queen. “Bring him to me. Alive or dead, it matters not.”
“Yes, my queen,” said the steward. He bowed to her and left the room, and only once he was well away did he stagger back against the wall and blot the blood from his face.
But Arrin was not found. The men-at-arms went out every day — the queen could see them from her window — and the steward made a speech that the queen could hear, about bringing traitors to justice. But they rode out slowly and rode back quickly and they were always careful to make a great deal of noise. They combed the same ground, armlength by armlength, and left vast stretches of the woods untouched.
And Arrin was not found.
(And I must tell you now, readers, that if you, like Arrin, are worrying for his elderly aunt, you need not. The queen would undoubtedly have punished her if it had occurred to her to do so, but knowing that Arrin had an aunt would have required her to take an interest in the lives of those around her. She did not know, and no one was inclined to volunteer this information. For her part, Arrin’s aunt fretted for her nephew, but she knew that he was much too canny to be caught by such lackluster efforts.)
Arrin went first to his house, as fast as his mare could gallop, and emptied out everything he could carry. He slung it on the mare’s back and led her away, first in one direction then another, up a streambed and down. He led her through dry leaves that would take no tracks and over hard-packed stones.
He did not think that they would follow too closely or try too hard to find him, but it was not only his own life at stake.
He spent three days this way. Twice he heard the distant belling of hounds, but far off. On the third day he heard nothing, and made his way at last to Snow and the boars.
He saw Hoofblack first, rooting in the leaves for mushrooms. The boar snorted a greeting and trotted along beside the mare. Arrin looked down and remembered Snow saying “I couldn’t invent a chimney.”
This is an architect in the body of a boar.
The thought was so strange that he had to set it aside for a moment.
“Come to see Snow, hunter-man?” said Hoofblack. “She’ll be glad of it. So will we.”
“You will?” asked Arrin.
“Sure. Humans need humans. Pigs need pigs.” Hoofblack lifted his snout. “We go a bit mad ourselves if we don’t see anyone. Happened to Ashes before she could talk, and now she’s
