Breakfast was potatoes and onions fried on the fire, with rough salt tossed over it. (Juniper dug the salt out of a bag as big as Snow’s torso, using a rough wooden scoop held in her teeth, and flung it over the pan with a jerk of her head.)
By the castle cook’s standards, the meal was rough and awkwardly seasoned. By Snow’s standards, it was the greatest thing she had ever eaten. She had only had a single apple since leaving the castle the day before.
The pigs ate astonishingly neatly. They did not use silverware, but they each had a deep bowl. They grunted and snuffled, true, each to their own, but did not slop them around, and when they had seconds and thirds, they did not squabble over who got which share.
In fact, it was a great deal more civilized than watching the guardsmen eat in the guardhouse.
There were seven. The boars were named Stomper and Hoofblack, Puffball, and Truffleshadow. (Stomper was the one that Snow had ridden the night before.) The sows were Greatspot and Juniper, and the littlest one, who rarely spoke, was named Ashes.
The boars were brothers, the sons of the old sow. Greatspot, Juniper, and Ashes had come from somewhere else, and speech had been given to them in some fashion that Snow did not quite understand.
“A gift,” said Greatspot. “Not an easy gift, but a great one.”
Ashes nodded.
After breakfast, the pigs went outside. Snow trailed after them, gasping in the cold bright air.
For the most part, the pigs seemed to be occupied in snuffling about for acorns, but Juniper and Puffball were doing something else, putting some kind of contraption on Puffball’s back.
“Here,” said Juniper. “Can you help? This bit’s…stuck under…”
Snow jumped to help.
The contraption was a pair of baskets, like panniers, that went over the boar’s back. These had clearly been made by human hands, the workmanship neat, if worn. A strap had gotten twisted, which was easy enough for Snow to correct. She settled the baskets more evenly on Puffball’s back.
“There we are,” said Juniper, pleased. “Now we’re going to gather firewood. Would you like to help?”
“Yes,” said Snow, grateful for the task, “I’d like that.”
That night, when Snow settled into the nook beside the fire, Ashes appeared with a mouthful of rushes. She dropped them at Snow’s feet, then returned a moment later with more.
“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.