Snow, page 13
I sat heavily in a chair opposite him. ‘What of it?’
‘There’s no written record of your father’s will. It’s your word against hers he left you the mountain and your position weaker now we know you’re not his true-born heir. Doubtless your stepmother knows that already and is holding it back til she needs it. Considering her position I’d say that’s an end to the matter. You have to leave the city,’ he finished.
None of his speech were to my liking.
‘And live where, Hunter? In a cave? Slitten the throats of goats to live on and freezing to death one frostbite at a time? No. It’s not the life I want.’
I’d made him angry. His eyes hardened and the scar on his cheek turned white.
‘What do you want, Little Queen? To be waited on like your stepmother? To issue orders no matter the consequence and make others feel less than they are?’
‘I’m nothing like her!’ I said, standing up all the better to raise my voice. ‘You said you’d help me and instead you sneak around doing deals with miners in the shadows. Are you selling me now? Back to those trolls?’
‘What have I done to offend you?’ the hunter said, his voice quiet again. ‘I saved you more’n once in your short life, why would I now be setting out to sell you?’
‘You’ve killed me as many times as you’ve saved me, Hunter. And I don’t need you to do either anymore,’ I said, taking myself by surprise. ‘You’re the one who should go back to the mountain.’
With this our eyes met, something like pain flickering across his face before it quickly turned to resignation.
‘As you wish, Little Queen,’ he said, bending his head toward me and mocking me with the name.
Cook put out her hand and caught his wrist but the hunter rose from his seat nevertheless. Picking up his firearm and pack, he slung both over his shoulder and let himself out the kitchen door quietly and with not a single backward glance.
‘Why is he being like that?’ I said in disbelief, sinking down to sit and pressing my hands into the scratched table top. ‘Why is he giving up so easy and bidding me back to the wild? I can’t live forever on my own, Cook. I want a life, not just surviving. What am I going to do?’
‘I don’t know, Snow. But now it be down to you.’
Rain
I needed my bear. I left Cook’s house under cover of the late afternoon dullness and walked to Noelly’s farmhouse. When I came in her kitchen door Little Bear bowled me over and, with front paws on my shoulders, pinned me to the floor to lick my face all over.
‘Good almighty!’ Noelly said in alarm, for she thought the bear were biting my face off. Then she said it again in astonishment.
When, after some time, I managed to push Little Bear off and sit up, I thanked Noelly for looking after her and asked for a bed for the rest of the night. I hardly slept then for thinking and, my nerves getting the better of me, we were up again before the light to make full use of the short day.
Saying our goodbyes to Noelly and the cats, we walked down the road, the cows not even looking up from their grazing, they were so used to the presence of a bear among them now. Just outside the city we left the road and went into the forest a ways. Here I changed out of Noelly’s old dress and back into my mountain clothes, lacing my leathers and pulling on my boots. My hair were long enough now to plait into a short braid, and the day were cold enough that when I swung my she-bear fur around my shoulders it dint seem likely I’d overheat.
‘Stay close by,’ I told my bear. ‘You’re not going to like the smells too much, but you get used to them.’
And this is the way my bear and I entered the city once again. This time wide out in the open.
‘Let them see us,’ I told my bear. ‘This time I’m Snow and no hiding it.’
I held my head high and kept a firm grip on Little Bear’s scruff. I could tell she were feeling flighty among all the people, more’n she’d ever seen together in her short life. Her heart might have been racing, just like mine, but she kept her nose down and stayed close to my side. As we approached the market lanes, people were startled and cried out at seeing a wild bear walking by. I tightened my grip on her fur and murmured softly til she calmed down.
‘There int nothing to fear,’ I told her. And, Hold your nerve, girl, I told myself.
I heard whispering coming to me on the breeze.
It can’t be! That’s the Little Queen, I swear.
In my life, I never thought I’d see such a thing.
A wild bear! Walking tame as can be!
And then, louder as I came closer to the square, It’s the Little Queen. It’s the Little Queen and her bear!
But no one dared to come close and grab me for my stepmother’s reward. Just as I thought, having Little Bear at my side put a stop to that.
The path before us cleared, people dropping their tasks and looking up to gaze at us with naked wonder. Some pulled their children closer on sight of my bear. And some left their business and followed us at a safe distance. By the time we reached the square there was a solid crowd of people behind us, forgetting their astonishment and beginning to chatter among themselves.
My heart leapt. What were I thinking? How would my plan ever work? I were nothing but a mountain girl. What did I know of city laws and legislations? How were I to know how to claim what’s mine? But I couldn’t rest easy until I’d put my side of the story. There’d been enough lies and falsifications spread about by my stepmother and I were blasting sick with it.
I reached the steps of the council building in the middle of the square.
Hawkers and beggars, usually sitting there for scant pickings, cleared the way until I had no choice but to mount the steps, pulling Little Bear beside me. I looked up at the bright brass doors of the council chamber, gleaming in the morning light. They were shut fast, seemingly against me and my bear alone. My will failed at the thought of pushing them open. What if they were locked during the day? I were so naive I never thought it through. Of course it were folly to imagine I could just walk into council and have my case heard, just as I felt like.
I halted before the doors, my thoughts all in a tumble.
‘Little Queen! Little Queen!’
‘First Lady Mayoress Rain is desperate to see you again.’
‘There’s a reward for your safe return, did you know?’
‘Little Queen, where have you been all these years?’
The calls came from the crowd behind me. I could hear the jostling and murmurings of speculation.
Children called out to my bear, ‘Little Bear, Little Bear, show us your teeth!’ before collapsing in piles of giggles and being shushed.
I came to a decision and, lifting my chin, I turned to face the people of the city.
‘I will answer your questions,’ I called out, hoping my voice would carry across the square. ‘I will make my case in the hope that fairness and commonsense wins over greed and self-interest.’ But then I was at a loss. Where to start?
‘My name is Snow. My mother died soon after my birth and my father some years after that. Before he died, he told me the mountain would be mine when I came of age, held in trust by my stepmother until that time arrived. She is the woman you call First Lady Mayoress Rain. When he was gone she turned my home into hers, making the people who had always lived there work for her. When I dint behave as she liked, she shut me in a room for three seasons until she grew fearful of my growing up and claiming back what was rightfully mine, and bade her hunter take me into the forest and bring back only my warm bloody heart.
‘This the hunter could not do, and instead he set me free to make my own way if I could. The next years were hard and cold and full of thankless labour in a miners’ camp. Still I was not free. When my stepmother offered a reward for my capture I had to run again and almost died being chased by the men out to claim her money. By going the long ways round, I made it to the city. And here I stand now. I am coming of age and I claim back my mountain, in front of you all. My stepmother does not care for it or love it as I do. It’s where my people are buried and it’s my home.’
I paused and there was silence from the crowd. I waited. Would they believe my story and support my claim, whatever good that would do? Or would they turn on me and believe Rain’s story over mine?
Behind me I felt rather than heard the gleaming brass doors open with a soft gush of cool air from the chamber beyond. Turning slowly, with my hand to Little Bear’s scruff, I saw my stepmother in the grand doorway. It were the first time I’d seen her since I pushed her down the stairs that day long ago when I were hot with temper, but there was no mistaking her. She were more regal now, dressed in dripping gold finery, her hair lighter, but still shining and piled on her head in an elaborate style. On her arm was a man made to look smaller by his wife’s grandeur but nevertheless unmistakable as the mayor of the city, dressed as he was in the robes of the office. A long cloak of deep scarlet trimmed with feathers I recognised from high country birds were draped around his shoulders and he wore a chain of heavy brass around his chest.
But it weren’t the mayor who addressed the gathered crowd, it were my stepmother, leaving the arm of her husband and coming to me with open arms in a cold embrace that barely touched me. I drew back in alarm and Little Bear raised her lips in a snarl. Rain turned to the crowd.
‘As you all know I have searched long and with a broken heart to find my stepdaughter who went missing long ago in the forest near my mountain home. A small child, confused and mourning her father as we all were, she ran away to escape nothing worse than a loving stepmother and a comfortable home. After that there was never a trace of her found, until recently, when she was discovered to be alive and living in a miners’ camp, now a grown girl. When I reached out to welcome her back to civilisation, she fled, taking to the wilderness once again. We can only wonder why she was hiding. What wickedness has she committed that she didn’t want anyone to learn of? How did she earn her keep there? Her run from me then involved damage to council property and the considerable expense of a high country search.
‘Good people, I know you have followed this story closely and I’m sorry my stepdaughter has not turned out to be the girl you had hoped she would be. She is just a runaway who has avoided doing her duty to her family. She must answer the charges of damage and wasted resources, regardless of how I feel. It would be wrong of me to use my position as first lady in a demonstration of favouritism toward her.’
Rain looked at me, showing the crowd her expression of sorrow mixed with concern, neither of which I believed to be genuine.
With this speech, which sounded like it had already been written in the pamphlets that found their way into kitchens across the city, she turned and disappeared into the gloom of the chamber, never giving me, supposedly her long-lost stepdaughter, another glance.
Council guards appeared and took a firm hold of my arms. Two more approached my bear from behind and shot her with a dart before throwing a weighted net over her. Before she had time to react, the sedative took effect and Little Bear fell to the ground. They gathered the net and dragged her into a large cart that had been driven into the square.
It all happened quickly, and I’m not proud to admit that when my bear was shot, I lost my senses and started screaming and kicking at my captors.
‘No!’ I cried, trying to go to my bear, though I was held fast. ‘None of this has to do with her. Let her go!’
In some dim corner of my mind I knew I was giving Rain exactly what she wanted. I could sense, as I lost my temper, the crowd backing away from me. If I behaved like a wild animal they would believe her version of events. She’d planted the seed of doubt in their minds and, seeing me kicking and screaming, they began to wonder whether they could believe my story after all.
So I stopped my struggling. I placed my feet on the ground and lifted my head. The guards wouldn’t set me free, but they loosened their grip and, as I was led away, I called out in a clear voice, ‘I need to see Fox. Tell him to come.’
Gaol
I were shut away again. This time in a gaol cell with a low bed and a high window. My pack and furs were taken away, along with my knife. I was left with just my coat and a thin blanket. I shivered through the night with no visitors except those that scuttled across the floor or rustled in the ceiling. Even sleeping in the outdoors were warmer than being enclosed by those four damp stone walls.
Through that long night I worried over what I’d done and longed for my bear. And not just her huge furry warmth. Yet again I were the cause of her confusion and pain. I cursed myself and vowed over and over that if I escaped this, I would never again put her freedom at risk. Mine I did not worry about. At that moment, I felt I deserved to be shut away.
What put it into my head that I could walk into my stepmother’s town and have my case heard in fairness? I were nothing but a stupid mountain girl. If only I’d stayed up there in my camp, keeping out of the ways of city folk, my bear safe and free.
But even as I wished it different, I knew all I’d done were in an effort to make myself a life that weren’t just about hunting down my next meal and finding a place to sleep where I wouldn’t freeze to death before morning. I dint know how to have a life worth living, but I knew that hand to mouth weren’t the way. I had to try something different. And the beginning of that something different would be getting my mountain and my father’s house back.
The seasons were long and hard, I knew that already, but from when I were a child I’d known every part of that chateau and how it worked. If I could get back there I’d get some animals and make the turbines run again. I’d repair the roofs any way I could, even if it meant doing it myself. There were still good mountain people, clinging onto a life up there, and if we worked together I were sure we could repair what my stepmother’s neglect had ruined.
My father, not being of the mountain himself, had not really known how to run the place. He’d relied on the wisdom of others and those had died off or left one by one. The chateau crumbled and the outhouses rotted in the damp. My fingers itched to nail and patch and grease and sweep away the cobwebs and dust of the years I’d been away. So the more I thought about it, the more I saw that my only regret was involving my bear in my troubles. I should have left her on the dairy with the cows and the cats.
My eyes were gritty and stinging when wisps of dawn showed through the window above my head. I sat up and tidied myself, smoothing my hair and braiding it. I straightened my crumpled clothes as best I could and waited. Whatever the day brought, I would face it. I would find a way through this for my bear, no matter what it cost me.
It weren’t too long before there came a rattle of keys at my door and the bolt slid back. Just as I’d requested, it were Fox who appeared in the frame. He looked every part the city councillor now. The road clothes he’d worn when we met were replaced by those crisp and clean sort owned by those who could afford them. He approached where I stood and took both my hands in his, stepping close to me, familiar, like we were when we danced together. I dint take a step back, instead holding my ground as his face came close to mine.
‘Little Queen,’ he began, his lips showing white teeth underneath his neat moustache. ‘What were you thinking? Why didn’t you come to me for advice before announcing yourself on the steps of council?’
‘My bear,’ I said. ‘Where is she?’
Fox frowned. ‘Taken to a sanctuary. She is quite well. Don’t worry yourself on her part.’
‘Is she shut behind bars?’ I persisted. ‘Because if she is then she can’t be well.’
‘There are fences, yes, but she has wide grounds to roam. She is safe and well cared for, don’t worry.’
As long as there was wire between Little Bear and open territory, I knew she weren’t happy and neither were I.
‘You need to put aside concern for your bear, now,’ Fox went on. ‘We need to prepare for your trial. You won’t be able to help your bear from the confines of the city gaol and that is where you’re headed if your stepmother has her way.’
I pressed my lips together and tried to gather my thoughts. The sleepless night had scattered my wits to the winds. I was at a loss as to how to collect them back. Fox pressed my hands with his smooth soft fingers. It felt reassuring.
‘Let’s get you a warm bath and breakfast for a start,’ he said.
‘I’m allowed to leave?’
‘I’ve paid your bail. A considerable sum, but I am a man of means and luckily for us your stepmother is not aware of our acquaintance.’
Fox led me from my cold night’s accommodation, through the complex of cells, and out a door to a laneway and two waiting men. They walked one in front and one behind us along the quiet city streets, eyes alert and hands close to their weapons. Lifting his hood and saying I should do likewise, Fox kept his eyes to the ground.
I were grateful for the fresh air, though it were bitingly cold, and also glad to see Fox had retrieved my pack and furs from the bailiff and one of his men carried them now. In this way we moved swiftly. I refused the arm Fox offered. Having travelled over mountains on my own two feet, I weren’t in need of assistance with walking a city street. Putting one foot in front of the other came as naturally to me as breathing in and out. No matter how cold I were, or how weary, or how worried, placing my boots on the ground had always brought comfort, and I took that comfort now as ahead of me lay uncertainty and disquiet.
After a time we came to a high iron gate that were opened for us swiftly on greased hinges. Entering the hall of a grand house, there were people to meet us. My boots were pulled off and my coat removed and soon we were warming our toes and fingers by a fire in one of the front rooms. It was the fanciest room I’d ever seen. Brocaded furniture sat on plush rugs and heavy textured drapes hung from the windows. All about me were jewel colours, deep blues and teals and the darkest crimsons and sea greens. A fixture hung with clear crystals was suspended from the ceiling and Fox caught me puzzling over how the spirit lamps were lit at such a height. He chuckled at my wonder and I snapped shut my mouth and vowed to stop embarrassing myself by being impressed. All the furniture and finery were nothing compared to drops of morning dew caught in a spider web, or the delicate suspension of icicles from the branch of a tree. I weren’t going to be moved by the kind of beauty money could buy.
