Poison (6 page)

‘The comb was poisoned,’ she said, eventually, once she’d got her breathing under control. ‘It killed Tillie, but it was meant for me.
You
gave it to me. She only tried it on because she wanted to look pretty. Like a princess!’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Lilith said. Her haughtiness had left her and her stomach was a watery pit of fear. The stays being too tight had been one thing. But this, this to all and sundry, looked like attempted murder. What would the whispers be saying now? How far would they travel? ‘I didn’t know.’

‘You didn’t know?’ Snow White almost laughed. Her nose was running and she wiped it with the back of her hand. ‘You know everything!’

‘I thought it was simply enchanted.’ Tears pricked at her and she did her best to swallow them down, but one broke free, cutting a sparkling track down the angles of her face.

‘That’s all. Why would I poison you? And if I wanted to poison you why would I do it so
obviously
?’ Her fear was turning to aggression, just as it always had, even when she was a little girl. ‘I was
trying
to say sorry.’

‘Enchanted?’ Snow White stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Around them, the unused library had settled into silence as if listening to their story so as to bind it and add it to their shelves later. ‘It was supposed to bring you happiness. I almost used it myself.’

‘I don’t trust your magic,’ Snow White said. Her voice was calmer and her eyes, although still hurt, were now confused. It was a gift and a blessing, this trait she had of wanting to believe the best in everyone.

‘I didn’t know it was poisoned,’ Lilith repeated. The dark beauty stared at her for a long time, and the queen knew that if there was ever a moment for all the secrets she hid, this was the time to share them. They choked in her throat, though. She couldn’t bring herself to set them free.

‘I believe you,’ the princess said eventually. ‘But stay away from me.’ She turned and walked away and didn’t look back. The queen didn’t blame her, but she also knew that things had changed. How could this be kept a secret? A girl had been killed by her gift and Snow White no longer trusted her. The king would hear about it. Her tears threatened her again and she cursed the day she’d ever laid eyes on the beautiful princess.

By nightfall her fear had hardened. She would take control of the city. It was the only option she had. The people needed to fear their queen as much as they loved and respected their absent king. She’d already sent her most loyal soldiers – some of whom were no doubt more than a little in love with her – to track down any messages that might have been sent from the castle. The king would not hear about this yet. He would not at all, if she could help it. She hadn’t been through all of this to stumble now.

She went to her small room at the back of the library and locked the door. She placed several pieces of her gold jewellery into a small cast iron pot; trinkets and gifts from visiting ambassadors. From one of the cabinets she took a small vial and tipped some of the dust on top. Within seconds the gold began to melt and bubble. She smiled. She sipped her wine, enjoying the moment, and then carefully took the battered lamp from its place. She had a score to settle.

‘Good try, Aladdin,’ she whispered, leaning so close her face almost touched the surface and she could smell the tang of a thousand sweaty palms. ‘Good try.’

She picked up a paintbrush and carefully painted the liquid gold across the surface of the lamp, covering every centimetre. No one would ever rub the magic bronze again. When she was finished she took what was left of the melted gold and poured it over the spout. Just in case. It cooled instantly, sealing the dangerous little boy in forever.

The queen was sure she could hear the tiniest echo of his frustrated scream.

It made her feel better.

‘I want her heart’

I
t was a warm day in the forest and even though it made the hair on his chest tickle with sweat as he moved through the trees, that pleased the huntsman. Heat slowed animals as much as men and although his skills were such he’d had no doubt meat would roast over the fire tonight, the task was going to be easier than he’d expected. He could counter the laziness that came with the sun and force himself to be alert. It was unlikely to be the same for the animals in this dense woodland. So far, apart from an old crone scurrying between the trees just before he’d spied the stag, he’d seen little sign of human habitation and he’d heard no horn blowing for a royal hunt. It was wild here. He liked that.

These woods were new to him, but he tracked the white beast easily enough, moving silently perhaps twenty feet or so behind it, his eyes scanning for the simplest of landmarks and storing them to memory. Following the animal would not be the problem. In his homeland the men born to the hunt could track even the lightest footed doe by the time they were ten. It was a matter of pride. Finding the kill was easy. Finding your way home afterwards could be harder. He’d spent one night lost in the forest when he was six and although that was now twenty years ago it was an experience that would stay with him until his dying day. He shook away the memory of those long hours of darkness and the unnatural wolf – a beast that still haunted his dreams – and moved steadily forward, sunlight cutting jagged hot paths through the heavy laden branches. The air was sweet with the fresh scent of unfamiliar greenery; citrus and leathery and sweet. He had no idea which of the kingdoms he was now in, whether they were friend or foe, but he was far from home, that was for certain.

His bag sat awkwardly on his back alongside his bow and arrows, and perhaps he should have left it at the campsite, but he’d learned a long time ago to keep the rewards of your hunts close. Man was the wiliest of creatures and very few could be trusted. Huntsmen grew up fast and he’d earned what he carried. The shoes he’d taken as a prize would stay with him.

The ground flattened for a while as the beast led him near a rough edged track, beaten out by years of pounding hooves finding their way through the forest until it had become a lane of its own, but it didn’t linger there long and turned back to its relative safety amidst the greenery.

The huntsman didn’t hurry, instead allowing the creature to take in the beauty of this day in ignorance that there would be no more. Finally the trees thinned and opened out into a natural clearing with a narrow stream running through it.

Ahead the white stag, a rare beast, fine and noble, paused to drink. The huntsman dropped silently to the ground, stretching his body long against the earth. He pulled his bow free. His brown eyes narrowed as they studied the creature, small lines wrinkling his forehead and joining those that had sprung there early, the result of a life spent outdoors that was leaving him tanned and rugged before thirty. His heart beat fast against the ground and for a moment, as was always the case in these seconds before the kill, he felt everything in nature connect as one; him, the forest, the earth, and the stag itself. He watched as its thick neck lowered, its antlers dipping into the cool water, before it raised its head and shook the drops all over its glorious hide.

Without taking his eyes from the creature he shifted position, one arm tugging back the arrow until it was fighting him to spring free. White stags were rare and magical and notoriously difficult to track. They were protected from hunting, and belonged – if they could belong at all to anyone – to the royal houses of the kingdoms. It was treason to take something which belonged to your king. Even with this thought, the huntsman’s hand didn’t waver. He was a stranger in this land. He had his own prince to honour. But more than that, he did not believe that anyone life was more precious than another. Each creature that breathed was unique, so each death was equal. He respected them all.

He silently wished the animal safe passage. He wished it happiness in its moment of death. He closed his eyes and let the arrow fly true.

The stag fell without a sound. Its legs twitched momentarily and then it was still. The huntsman got to his feet, pleased with his work. It had been a clean kill and the animal had been unaware that death was coming. They should all have such a death.

He was so intent on skinning the stag, with the hunt now over and his senses no longer alert, that by the time he heard the soldiers crashing through the forest it was too late. He was surrounded.

‘Put your knife down!’

The huntsman weighed up his options and it was clear he only had the one. He put the knife, thick with the animal’s hot blood, on the ground next to the carcass. The black stallions, whose colour matched the black tabards and helmets of the men who rode them, pawed at the earth, excited by the proximity of death. It was an unnatural reaction, the huntsman thought. Horses, noble and beautiful as they might be, were natural prey, just like the stag. The blood should make them nervous.

‘To kill a white stag is treason, you thieving bastard,’ the captain said. ‘The queen will want to deal with you herself!’

‘The queen?’ the huntsman asked. The tabards they wore were marked in blood red with a lion and serpent bound together. Was the queen the serpent? And in what land did a queen ever wield power?

‘Not from round here, then?’ a second soldier, one with a rougher accent, growled. ‘That won’t save you. The queen takes her magic very seriously. White stags are guardians of magic. You killed yourself when you killed it, boy.’ The circle of men drew closer.

‘An animal is just an animal,’ the huntsman said, standing tall, his shoulders wide and with his dark eyes burning. ‘I don’t hold with superstition.’

The blow to the side of his head came hard and he fell to his knees, reeling and dazed, black spots filling the corners of his eyes. The men around him laughed, and he forced himself back to his feet.

‘Shall we finish him off?’ one voice said.

‘No, tie him up,’ the captain’s eyes were cold through the gaps in his heavy helmet. ‘We’ll drag him back and let the queen deal with him. We’re the Queen’s Guard, after all.’

Two men leapt down from their horses and the huntsman’s jaw clenched as rough rope burned his skin as they tugged it tight around his arms.

‘And bring his things.’

‘What about the stag?’

‘You two. Take it up to Ender’s Pit and throw it in. Even the dwarves won’t be able to get it out of there.’

As the soldiers dragged him out of the clearing, tugging the rope this way and that to shake him off balance, the huntsman tried not to think of the beast that he had now killed for nothing. To take any life was a serious business, that was the first lesson of the hunters. A death before its time must have value, whether it be to provide food or safety or shelter. The stag’s now pointless death left a stain on the huntsman’s soul. He would have his revenge for that, one way or another. He kept his feet solidly on the ground despite the men’s attempts to topple him, but when they reached the track and the horses picked up their pace no man could have stayed upright. He did not scream though, even as the ground tore at his clothes and skin. He would not give them that.

The world spun by in a kaleidoscope of trees and light and sandy stones until they reached the edge of the forest where finally the track widened and levelled into a well used thoroughfare. It was no kinder to his battered body and the huntsman fought to keep his face twisted away from the ground. As blue sky replaced the wooded canopy, the shape of the kingdom laid itself out around him, strangely vast and oppressive when seen from the ground. He bit down on the inside of his mouth and tried to focus on anything but the searing pain through his shoulders as they threatened to pop free of their sockets. The land was the hunter’s friend and knowing its layout could help him. A huntsman never gave up and at least the agony of his body was proof that, for now at least, he was still very much alive.

In the distance to the right was the Far Mountain which sat on the skyline of all the kingdoms, but here it was fringed with a range of jagged hills punctuated with dark patches from which black smoke rose in clouds. Mines, they had to be. And mines meant a dwarf land. He had never seen a dwarf although the tales of their small stature, long lives and hardy spirits had reached his own kingdom. To be so small forever was a strange concept to the hunter. How different the world must look.

A small rock was kicked up by a horse’s hoof and caught his cheek, slicing it open slightly. He gasped and fought the urge to cry out. He would not give them the satisfaction of showing his weakness. Pain, like all things, his father had told him, passes. The few people who had come to the road from the patchy villages they passed, took a cursory glance at him and then scurried away. He caught a flash of pity on a few faces he was dragged by, but their glances all remained downcast and none came too close.

The Queen’s Guard finally came to a halt outside the castle walls, and as the huntsman rolled carefully onto his back and panted out his exhaustion he saw that different soldiers guarded the gates. These were dressed in a rich blue decorated with a gold lion on their chests. He recognised this uniform – and it wasn’t of his own kingdom’s alliance. They wore silver helmets that, unlike the Queen’s Guard, did not cover their faces. Why were the Queen’s Guard hiding their identities, he wondered. Were they unpopular or did the anonymity guarantee them more fear from the populace? Both were likely, judging by the bristling of both sets of soldiers’ horses, reflecting the tension between the men who rode them.