Toad Words(32)

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 of things she needed, and the boars gave her the smallest truffle—not much larger than a walnut—to pay for it.

“A rope,” she said. “A blanket. A ball of twine. Needle and thread. My clothes, if you can get them without any questions.” She smiled, a little sadly. “And any apples that Cook can spare.”

“I will do my best,” said Arrin. He reached out and touched her arm, and it had been so long since a human had touched her that Snow felt her breath catch.

She watched him ride away on his tall brown mare, and when she turned away she shook herself, as if something deep inside had shivered.





It was a hard time at the castle. The midwife spoke to no one. She would have thrown herself on the queen and throttled her with her bare hands, but she knew that her gardener might suffer for it, killed as a co-conspirator perhaps, so she grew quieter and quieter until she did not speak at all, and the gardener had to beg her to eat.

The steward met Arrin’s eyes and knew that Snow was not dead, but Arrin dared not speak and the steward dared not speak, and everyone knew that the huntsman had brought the queen a heart.

The queen’s chambers stank of rotting meat. The maids put sweet rushes on the floor and burned candles and hung bundles of dried herbs over the doors, but the sow’s heart was rotting in its box. They took to wearing cloths dipped in rose oil over their faces, and the first flies of spring scrabbled at the panes.