Toad Words(48)

“You should have gotten a human!” roared Puffball. “Humans need human medicine! If they could take boar medicine, they wouldn’t be so damnably fragile!”

“But—”

“Both of you, be silent!” snapped Greatspot, and slashed at them with her tusks. The boars fell quiet and backed away.

Juniper was lying alongside Snow, embracing the girl awkwardly. “She’s still warm,” said the sow. “And still breathing. I don’t like the look of her throat, but I can’t do anything about it.”

“What happened?” asked Arrin. He went to his knees beside Snow. Juniper rolled a mild eye up at him. There were no obvious wounds, she was not bleeding, but her throat was red and violet and hideously swollen.

The little white pig, the one whose name he couldn’t remember, was lying across her feet.

Hoofblack tossed his head. “That happened,” he said contemptuously. “That thing over there. It stinks of magic, what’s left of it.”

Arrin turned to the bundle of cloth. There was something sticking out of it that looked like the dried claws of a bird of prey. It took him a moment to realize that they were hands.

He flipped the cloth back to see the face, and looked immediately away.

“It’s the queen,” he said.

“You can tell that?” asked Hoofblack.

“It’s the gown. The embroidery. She was wearing it the day that she sent me…never mind.”

It came to him distantly that the king would be relieved, and also a trifle annoyed. “I’ll see that witch hanged,” he’d said, “or burned. She bewitched me once, but she’ll not do it again.”

Well. The queen had placed herself beyond his vengeance. Now it fell to Arrin to place Snow beyond his fears.

“I’m not saying you did the wrong thing, leaving her in the woods,” the king had said, so quietly that his voice was almost lost in the snap of banners overhead. “But perhaps it would have been better that way. I shall disinherit her, but distaff heirs have a way of turning up and making trouble.”

Arrin had said nothing. He had been too shocked. Even when the king slapped him on the shoulder, he had said nothing.

“Perhaps she died in the woods,” said the king. “Eh? We’ll keep an eye out. Hard to survive a winter out there—no, I’m not blaming you. Worked out for the best, I expect.”

Arrin, who had said nothing about the boars, or Snow’s current whereabouts, had found voice to say “As you say, my lord.”

He had slipped away after dinner. If it had occurred to the king that Arrin might carry word back to his first wife, he did not act on the thought. The pigs had been waiting in the woods.

And now here was Snow, perhaps dying.

Perhaps it’s her way of making it easier for him, Arrin thought.

He examined the thought for an instant, no more—and pushed it away.

“The convent,” he said. “They know her there, and they’ll protect her. If the queen is dead, it’s only the king to fear, and he’ll be glad enough to see her go into orders.”

The boars looked at him, then at each other.

“Human stuff,” said Greatspot. “Get her up. You’ll take her on your horse, hunter-man?”

Arrin nodded, picking Snow up in his arms. She was heavy and solid, not ethereal as princesses are said to be. He walked to his horse.

Greatspot nodded. “Puffball, stay here. You’ve gone far enough today. Juniper, with me.”

“You’ve gone just as far,” said Puffball mildly.

“Yes. One of us should see this through, and I don’t trust you to speak for us. You’ll crack a bad joke at the wrong moment and these nuns of Snow’s will chase you out with a broom.”

It was awkward mounting with his arms full, but Arrin managed it, using Puffball as a mounting block.

He turned his horse, glancing back toward the den. The little white pig stood in the door, held up between two larger fellows. She was limping, but she met his eyes.

“Take care of her,” she said, in a clear, high voice.

“I will,” said Arrin.





Snow woke.

Her throat ached in ways that defied description. She was surrounded by whiteness—white walls, white ceiling, unbleached linen sheets. There was a window with wooden shutters, and a vase of dried hydrangea blossoms on the sill.

“W-what?” The sound of her own voice was hoarse and ugly. “Where am I?”

“The convent of St. Mirriam,” someone replied. “You were attacked, but you’re safe now. All will be well.”

“Yes…” said Snow slowly. “I remember—”

A thought struck her suddenly, and she tried to sit up. The nun sitting beside her put a hand on her shoulder and held her down. “Ashes!”