Beauty (45 page)

More argument. They weren't sure they believed me. I wasn't sure it was true. Esky waved his hands and shouted. Eventually they agreed. Two or three of them were crying. One thing they did agree upon. Daytime was the time to move. Nights were dangerous.

So we started out. Galantha's coffin was bound about with ropes and slung between the two packhorses. Our supplies went on Esky's horse. All seven of the little men came along, to be sure we got out safely, Esky said, but I think they simply were unwilling to let her go. She had become something more to them than a sleeping little girl. They decided the safest thing to do was to go down the south side of the mountains into Spain, since we were nearest the southern border of Marvella. Also, we had to avoid the toll bridge the baron had told me about. If the Princess wanted to stop our leaving, that bridge would be watched.

The idea was good, but the trails were simply not wide enough for the two horses with the coffin between. This became obvious very quickly, and a shouting match broke out among the little men. Two of them kept pointing to the ropes and screaming at two others. I could read their faces if not their words. "You didn't tie it right. It's all your fault." And the others: "You don't know a damned thing about knots. What do you mean it wasn't tied right?" It went on far too long, and Giles stopped it by bellowing at them, dismounting, untying the coffin, opening it, wrapping the girl in the satin coverlet, and taking her up in his arms. She was as stiff as an image carved from wood. In a way that was a relief. I had worried myself over what the little men might have been doing with her in that mine, all those years. They had done nothing, obviously, that they could not have done as well with an image carved from stone.

The little men muttered at Giles's picking her up, but decided to allow it. Still, they insisted on bringing the coffin along, the bottom and top tied separately onto the backs of two of the horses. It had been made with love, care, and endless hours of labor. The gems and gold alone were worth a fortune, not to speak of the workmanship. It was their gift to their Snowdrop, and they weren't going to abandon it. I shook my head at Giles, and he subsided with a growl.

After a time, we worked out a processional order that worked fairly well. Esky went first with one of his brothers, leading one packhorse, then Giles, then me, then the horses with the coffin led by two brothers, then the other little men coming along single file. We went up for a time, then abruptly down. Giles asked Esky where we were going.

The little man was breathing hard. "There's a place we can get across the gorge and onto the road to Santiago," he said.

Giles looked at me and shrugged. It looked like we were going to St. James's shrine whether we wanted to or not. I wondered if we would run into Margery Kempe. After that, I tried not to wonder anything or think anything except about hanging on. Riding a horse uphill is difficult. Riding a horse downhill is exhausting.

Night came. The little men went off in all directions, looking for a camp site, finding one at last under an overhanging ledge of stone where we could not be seen from the sky. I thought perhaps they were being overcareful. We must have come far from Marvella by this time. Then, late in the darkness, I was awakened by the same cry we had heard the night before. Around me I could hear indrawn breaths, silence. The horses stopped munching outside among the trees. After a time the cry came again, far away to the north, echoed by the howling of wolves. The little men began to breathe once more.

"What was it?" I asked Eskavaria.

"Night lammergeier," he said, not meeting my eyes. The lammergeier are huge vultures of the Pyranees, sometimes called "bone-breakers" because of their habit of dropping large bones from great heights to shatter them and get at the marrow. Ordinarily, I believe, they do not fly at night. I thought it wisest not to pursue the matter.

Midmorning, this morning, we came to the road to Santiago. The road is wide enough that the coffin can be slung between two horses once more. My granddaughter is in it. Eskavaria is leading the packhorse. His brothers have faded back amongst the trees, tears running down their faces. A traveler we met coming up from Spain tells us today is the fifteenth of August. We have time yet to get to Compostela before fall.

ST. HELENA'S DAY, AUGUST, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1417

We have traveled for several days on the downward road, very slowly because of the coffin, seeing no living things except an occasional herd of ibex, a few skulking foxes, or the ubiquitous marmots. Then, this morning, shortly after we began our journey for the day, we came upon a large party of noble men and women together with their servants, all camped among their wagons beside the road. It appeared they might have spare mounts, and Giles went to see if he could purchase a packhorse to carry the supplies carried by Esky's mount. Esky had been walking, and it had slowed our progress somewhat.

Several of the young men came over to us where we waited, looking us over in an insolent manner, until they saw the coffin itself. Then they became quiet. One of them, a boy scarcely fourteen or fifteen years old, pressed his face to one of the transparent bits of crystal and peered within. I thought it best, since he was surrounded by his fellows, not to antagonize him or cause any notice by using enchantment. I had seen similar gangs of young men, though not noble young men, in Bayonne, where they were said to roam the streets at night, seeking unprotected young women they might rape and ruin. It was a kind of game with them, and the insolence of these young nobles seemed also a game: cockiness pushed to its limits.

The coffin-peering youngster stood up, very arrogantly, and asked me who she was.

"My granddaughter, child," I said, unthinking.

One of the other young men started toward me, angrily, but another courtier, a very handsome, slightly older young man, put out his hand and said softly, "The young man who addressed you is Prince Edward. Fourth son of King Zot of Nadenada."

I bowed, as best I could from atop my little horse. "Your Highness," I said to the arrogant lad. The soft-spoken courtier regarded the prince with a worried expression.

"And you are, sir?" I asked the pleasant-voiced courtier.

"Vincent," he told me with a smile, taking his eyes from his master for only a moment. "Vincent d'Escriban."

Giles returned from the encampment shaking his head. No horse for sale. Well, it had been worth the trial.

I bowed again. "We must depart," I said. "It is a long journey to Compostela."

"Is she dead?" the prince asked, taking hold of my horse's bridle to prevent my moving.

"We think not," I said. "She may be under an enchantment."

The young man looked at Vincent and said, "I want her."

Vincent and I exchanged uncertain glances.

"I want her," the boy repeated. "Buy her for me."

"She is a person," I explained softly. "Not a toy. Not a mannequin. She is not something one can buy."

"Buy her for me," screamed the prince, growing very red in the face.

Vincent shrugged an apology toward me and moved to take the young prince in hand by distracting him from his madness. Esky took the right-hand coffin horse by the reins and led him purposefully onto the road. Giles and I followed, on our horses. The prince broke away from his keeper, dashed into the road and threw himself in front of the coffin horses. One horse stumbled. The rope came loose. The other horse bolted. The coffin fell into the road. The lid bounced off. My granddaughter's body rolled out of it into the road and lay there, coughing.

Beside her in the dust lay a piece of apple.

The mad young prince sat up, looked at my granddaughter with great satisfaction, then smiled. "Buy her for me," he said again. "I want to marry her."

I had slipped off my horse and then had been knocked down in all the confusion. Giles was busy picking me up and seeing that nothing was broken. Eskavaria was cuddling Snowdrop and crying. Vincent was remonstrating with the mad young prince. Persons of great self-importance arrived from across the road to see what all the fuss was about and succeeded in making an even larger one. Questions were shouted at me, which I was too confused to answer.

We are now camped at the edge of the forest, being waited upon by the servants of King Zot of Nadenada while the mad young prince and my granddaughter play at shuttlecocks in the road.

"Who is she?" King Zot himself asked me, having been introduced through Giles and Vincent.

His tone was peremptory. I didn't like it.

"She is the daughter of the hereditary Prince of Marvella and his former wife, Elladine, who was the daughter of Lord Edward of Wellingford and granddaughter of the Duke of Monfort and Westfaire," I said with chill hauteur.

"Oh well, that's all right then," he said, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. "Related to you?"

"My granddaughter."

"Ah," he said, scratching his nose. His manner changed to one of respect. "How old would you say she is?"

"I would say she is ... " And I paused, wondering for a moment how old she really is. She had been born quite some time ago. "I would say she is twelve or thirteen," I said. "She spent some time under an enchantment, but she did not age during that time."

"Virgin, is she?"

I snorted. "Of course." Though I wouldn't have put it past Esky or one of his brothers to have tried.

"Ah," he said again, and then sat down, leaned forward, and began to tell me about his kingdom.

Nadenada, it seems, is a pocket realm just over the mountains toward France. It is larger than Marvella, but not by much.

The mad young prince is a pocket prince, not the heir, but still a prince, and at fourteen it is time he was married. So said King Zot.

"Undoubtedly you will think of alliances when you consider a wife for him," I said stiffly.

He stared gloomily at the dust between his feet, drawing circles in it with an ornamental dagger. "Not much of that kind of thing in Nadenada," he said, summoning Vincent with one hand. He sent the young man for wine and settled himself more comfortably on the chair he had brought over from his camp. Then he drew more circles. "France wouldn't care, far too big and far away. England wouldn't care, they've enough to worry about warring with France. Navarre wouldn't care, nor Aragon; everything is religion with them, and we're not that observant in Nadenada. And the same applies to Castile, come to that."

"Then you're not concerned with alliances."

"Not really, no."

"Some affair of state, perhaps, which could be helped along by a judicious match?"

"Haven't any affairs of state, either. There was the matter of the wool tax, but that's been decided." He gloomed into his linked fingers. "Shepherds said they'd go over the mountains into Spain, so we relieved them of it. Can't have all one's shepherds absconding to Spain."

"It wouldn't look well," I agreed. "No other affairs of state?"

"None I can think of," he said.

"The prince ... " (I'd almost said "the mad prince," catching myself just in time). "The prince will want a large dowry, undoubtedly."

"Not ... not really
large, "
the King murmured, giving me a straight look. "It's not as though he were in the succession, you understand."

"An elder brother?"

"Three elder brothers."

"Things can happen," I murmured.

"Yes," he said in a plaintive voice. "They can. Put it, then, that he's not
likely
to be in line for the throne."

"So he wouldn't need a very large dowry."

"Not
very
large."

I considered this. "Did you happen to notice the ... ah ... case that my granddaughter was traveling in? Before your son dumped her out into the road."

"I had noticed that, yes. Brass, is it? And crystal?"

"Gold," I said. "And gems."

"Ah," he said again. "One wouldn't have known."

I nodded in agreement. One really wouldn't have known. If one hadn't met Esky's brothers, one wouldn't even have thought it likely. I said, "Of course, your ... fourth son is very young. Perhaps too young to think of marriage."

The King scratched his head again and sweated gently into his beard. "Let me be frank," he said. "Since the boy became a man, which happened just a year ago, he has been quite ... quite ... "

"Urgent?" I suggested.

"Urgent," he agreed. "We are having some trouble keeping maidservants at the castle. His mother and I are agreed it is time he was married."

We parted, each to think about that. Vincent came to summon the mad young prince to lunch. Snowdrop, thus deserted, came to sit by me in the shade.

"Have you been having fun?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," she said. "It's so nice."

"What about the young man?"

"He's so nice," she replied with a happy expression. I offered her some cakes which the King had brought with him, and she took one, eating it greedily. I was reminded of her mother.

"Tell me, Snow," I asked. "Why did you let the witch poison you with that apple when the little men had told you not to let her in?"

She gazed at me wonderingly, her little brow furrowing with the attempt at thought.

"Because I was hungry and it looked so nice."

Her father, Prince Charming, was never long in the brains department, either.

ST. FRANCIS'S DAY, OCTOBER, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1417

Giles and I are here in Nadenada for the wedding. We are honored guests. Since the Death ravaged all of Europe, no one wonders if fathers and mothers aren't present at weddings. A grandmother does quite well enough, even one so obviously old as I. The Queen even offered her dressmaker in order that I might be suitably clad for the occasion. Prince Charme and Princess Ilene have been invited to the nuptials. I mentioned to the Prime Minister of this place that Ilene was probably responsible for the spell which had been laid on Snowdrop. He talked with the archbishop, and formal charges of witchcraft are being considered. As a princess, she is not subject to the laws of a neighboring kingdom, but the archbishop believes the Church has authority to examine her even if civil authority cannot. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I don't like Ilene, but then I don't much like heresy trials, either, and I certainly don't like anything which might involve Ilene's patron in the mirror. The archbishop has sent someone posthaste both to Avignon and Rome to attempt to get a ruling from one or more of the popes on the matter. I can't remember whether there are three popes at the moment or only two.