The Fairest of Them All

  He pressed his palm to my cheek, and I leaned into it.

  “Josef,” I whispered, loving the sound of his name in my mouth.

  It was not at all like the frenzied coupling of all those years before. The fire crackled, throwing shadows on the walls. The feel of his skin on my skin seemed more sumptuous than any velvet.

  “My queen,” he said, smiling down at me. I could not help but smile back. Naked, with his arms wrapped around me, he looked so boyish and sweet, happy. It was hard to imagine that he was a king, that he could lead our kingdom into war and battle.

  His palms moved up and down my body, caressed my face and hair. He removed the clips from my hair, one by one, and smiled as my hair fell down around us. His joy and desire vibrated up into me, through the strands.

  I was grateful to Mathena then. She had known that I needed to be his wife, his queen, not the girl in the forest whose hair he climbed while his true queen prepared for their wedding day.

  He wrapped himself in my hair, luxuriated against it.

  All those years she had waited, knowing this day would come.

  I woke slowly. Sunlight was filtering through the room. Josef slept next to me, his palm resting on my belly. I moved my hand over his.

  I stretched like a cat, twisting on the soft sheets. “Queen Rapunzel,” I whispered. Right now in the forest, Mathena would be bent over the garden or out hunting with Brune. Lying here next to the king, his hands still imprinted on my skin, seemed so wanton and decadent.

  I stood and slowly made my way off the high bed, to explore. Here was where he’d been, all this time. All the days I stared at the palace from the tower, he’d been right here.

  Outside the window, the castle grounds lay before me, the gardens and several small buildings in the distance. Beyond them, houses with thatched roofs and the wall surrounding all of it.

  I ran my fingers across the large bureau, the desk on which several manuscripts lay. I picked one up, marveling at the exquisitely penned letters. I began reading, carrying the manuscript back to bed with me.

  It was a long poem, in a complicated rhyme. I read lines here and there, about a dark wood, a poet who’d lost his way. There were beautiful illustrations beside the text, brightened by gold leaf.

  “Are you partaking in some morning study?” he asked, causing me to start.

  I smiled. “You have interesting taste in literature,” I said.

  “This comes from far away at great cost.” He sat up and took the manuscript from me. “It’s about a sinner who journeys through hell and sees the punishments of the damned.”

  “How delightful.”

  He laughed. “It’s fascinating. And the words the poet uses are so precise and beautiful. It’s like he’s captured the sound of a rainstorm.”

  “I’ve not had much opportunity to admire the beauty of words,” I said.

  “You will now. There’s a magnificent library here, and you’ll find much to amuse you in it. I’m having books brought in from distant lands, dozens every week, the rarest manuscripts.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. I reached up to kiss him, full of admiration for him. He was so learned, so filled with passion. I could feel it pulsing from him, in a heartbeat.

  “Today you might spend time with your ladies,” he said, “or exploring the castle. I have much business to attend to.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. Of course, he was a king and had important things to do.

  “You will be all right, will you not? This is your home now. You are well loved here.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  We dressed, and I called for Clareta to put up my hair. We went to Mass, as was the custom, past the handsome young men in sharp uniforms and into the hallway. We walked down the curving stairway and across the courtyard to the chapel. It was a wonderful room; walking into it was like entering a gemstone. Light shone in through multicolored glass windows. When I looked more closely, there were whole scenes inside them, showing saints pierced through with arrows or hanging over flames. Snow White was sitting with her nurse in a raised seat to the side of the priest, staring intently at a small book in her hand, her brow furrowed.

  The priest, whom I would come to know as Father Martin, stood at the front of the room. He was startlingly handsome, and had a charisma about him that explained why all the ladies in the chapel were dressed as if they were attending a palace ball. When he began speaking of sin and punishment and hellfire with a vividness that shocked me, I felt compelled by it, despite myself. It was all so different from anything I’d heard before.

  He spoke of God’s wrath. The sinfulness of worshipping false gods, consulting medicine doctors and witches. I stiffened but made sure to look at him without wincing, though I could feel the eyes of the court on me.

  Throughout the service, the court stood and sang, and then sat down again. Their voices melded together, expressing every kind of emotion all at once. Tenderness, love, and yet the most dramatic fear, anger, wrath. Even though I loved to sing, I knew I could not sing these songs the way they did here. It was completely alien to me, all of it as extravagant and strange as the jewels they all wore, wrapped around their fingers and wrists and necks.

  I felt embarrassed that the courtly manners were all so foreign to me. I felt tricked by Mathena, who’d talked to me of Artemis and Apollo, Hera and Zeus, and taught me about herbs and stars rather than God. It was infuriating, even. Why hadn’t she taught me how to behave properly? Why hadn’t she taught me about God?

  After, Josef leaned in to kiss me. “I will see you this evening,” he said, and almost before I could answer, he was surrounded by his advisors and being led away.

  My heart sank as I watched him leave. Snow White and her nurse left after them. My own ladies surrounded me.

  “Where are they taking the princess?” I asked Yolande, who had positioned herself to lead me back to my chambers.

  “To her lessons.”

  “I suppose we can relax this afternoon, can’t we?” I said, smiling, with more enthusiasm than I felt.

  We retreated to my chambers, and it occurred to me for the first time that they might become a new tower for me, in a way. I sat on the couch while my ladies arranged themselves around me. Clareta and the youngest girl, Cicely, started playing cards together. Yolande offered me my choice of fabric from a basket, and I selected a piece of pale silk as well as some gold thread, thinking I might embroider something sweet for the young princess. Yolande placed herself on the floor next to the couch, and began embroidering a kerchief with a wonderful smattering of tiny flowers, while next to her Lilace worked on a silk pillow, using colored thread to create a scene of lords and ladies in revelry. Stella, the redhead, crocheted a bit of lace for her sister’s upcoming wedding.

  I watched and studied them. They still seemed more like a mass of painted faces, dangling ribbons, and twirling skirts, and less like distinct people to me, but they were there to attend me, entertain me, comfort me.

  I found myself thinking of the princess more than anything else.

  “Why do they call her Snow White?” I asked. “Is that not an odd name?”

  “Oh,” Yolande said, smiling. “She was such a beautiful infant. None of us had ever seen a baby with skin that pale and lips that red, and that black hair already covering her head. She was an astonishing child. One of the ladies even thought she might be a changeling.”

  “A changeling?”

  “Yes, a faerie exchanged for a human child. She was that unnatural-seeming.”

  “I know what a changeling is,” I said. “I just did not think people spoke of such things here.”

  “It’s true; the priest was not happy about the rumor, Your Highness,” she said. “There was quite a controversy.”

  The other ladies were nodding now. “People started giving her tests meant to detect a faerie imposter,” Stella said.

  “What did Queen Teresa do?” I asked.

  “She was furious. She was very
devout, you know.”

  “The priest even gave a sermon about it,” Clareta said. “Telling us that faeries were false gods. It didn’t stop all the talk, though.”

  “She was just too perfect,” Yolande said. “We couldn’t believe she was real.”

  I laughed. “That’s so silly. Changelings have withered, dry skin and deformed limbs. They’re not beautiful at all.”

  They all seemed to gasp at once, and then burst into giggles, at my words.

  “You must not let Father Martin hear you speak of such things,” Yolande said.

  “The king does not care what Father Martin says,” Clareta said, turning to Yolande.

  “It’s true. He ignored Father Martin’s advice about his marriage,” Lilace added.

  “His marriage?” I asked, turning to the girl sharply.

  She shrank back, her face going red. “I didn’t mean—”

  “The king’s marriage to me, you mean?”

  Yolande rushed in to answer for her. “Lilace does not mean to offend, my queen. But it is true that the palace priest urged the king to marry a devout woman. And to do so less . . . quickly. But Father Martin disapproves of many things the king does.”

  “Ah, I see,” I said, nodding gravely. “And what about you, Yolande?”

  “Your Grace?”

  “Do you . . . believe in faeries?” I smiled at the surprise on her face. She had expected me to reprimand her.

  A blush drifted over her pale cheeks. “Of course, my queen. But I would not talk about it openly at supper.”

  As the hours passed, we sewed and embroidered, and the ladies spoke softly among themselves. I started noticing how precious their handiwork was, these women who’d spent so much time at court. My own design was simple, a trellis of plump fruits and gourds lining the silk.

  My fingers longed for the earth. Outside, the garden would be overflowing with spinach and cabbage, radishes and beets. I let the pang pass by me, and after a while excused myself alone to my room.

  I arranged the herbs I’d brought from the forest into baskets. I moved a small table from my bedside into the closet, and placed a cloth over it. I cast a protection spell around this little workroom, to prevent unfriendly eyes from seeing it, and sent up a quick prayer to Artemis.

  I walked back into the bedroom and stared into the mirror Mathena had given me, at this new self draped in fine fabrics and jewels.

  I laughed, leaned in and whispered, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?”

  “Rapunzel is the fairest,” it whispered.

  It calmed me, that voice.

  “What is Mathena doing now?”

  The glass rippled and swirled, and an image appeared before me, of Mathena stalking through the forest with Brune on her wrist. My heart clenched. I closed my eyes, imagining the rattling of leaves around me, the scent of dirt and leaves.

  I opened my eyes and asked one more question: “Will I survive here?”

  I stared into the mirror, waiting, a sense of unease creeping over me as it refused to answer.

  “Will I survive here?” I repeated, tapping the glass, but the mirror remained silent.

  Later in the day, the king called for me. I was happy to set down my thread and little kerchief. My ladies seemed to share my excitement, immediately surrounding me and freshening the powder and paint on my face. Clareta combed violet-scented oil through my hair and then helped me put it up again. I was already getting used to the guilt and anxiety that marked her, that moved from her into me through the strands. It was much better than the barrage of judgment I felt from the others.

  He was waiting for me in the great hall, surrounded by his advisors, who were drinking ale and relaxing after the long afternoon session.

  “My queen,” he said, standing and rushing out to me.

  Immediately I felt at ease, despite the gazes of the council. Father Martin was present, too, alongside Lord Aubert. I nodded to them, and then turned to my husband, who took me in his arms.

  He was wearing a rich robe with a gleaming gem latching it together at his neck. It made him even more imposing, hanging down from his shoulders as if he were some magnificent beast.

  “My king,” I said.

  “You are a vision,” he said, stepping back to admire me. He ran his fingers along the neckline of my dress. “This finery suits you. I will send my jeweler and the head seamstress to you. It will give you much pleasure, I think, after all the time you’ve spent in less . . . civilized surroundings.” He laughed, and I saw he was not mocking me, that he took joy in my transformation.

  “I’m glad you still like me as a civilized lady,” I said.

  He took my hand. “Come, let’s walk a bit. I want to show you some things.”

  He led me from the great hall, as if we were going on an adventure. Everything with him was like that. It was infectious, and I followed him happily.

  “So how do you find my daughter?” he asked, as we stepped into one of the palace’s many hallways. His love for her was evident, even when he mentioned her casually as he did now.

  I glanced back. Behind us, several guards and servants were following.

  “She’s a charming child,” I said, turning back to him. “And so striking.”

  He sighed. “Yes. She looks just like her mother.”

  A flash of pain moved through me, and I tried to ignore it. Of course the child looked like her mother.

  He stopped before a large window that looked out over the courtyard and pulled me in next to him. The glass bathed his face in a red light. On either side of the window, portraits lined the walls; they seemed to be everywhere, those faces from the past. “Her mother’s death is still so recent, and she has become more and more solitary of late. They were very close. Now she seems to have forgotten how to laugh, how to be a child. It’s one reason I wanted to marry right away, rather than wait. Everyone thought I should wait.”

  “I’m glad you did not,” I said, and noticed an edge in my voice, a hint of desperation I did not like.

  “As am I,” he said, turning to kiss me. I raised myself up on my toes to reach his mouth. Already I could feel the heat in my body. Conscious of the guards behind us, I lowered myself and cleared my throat.

  We walked slowly down the hallway, with him occasionally pointing out one of the portraits and telling me who the subject was. “My father’s great-uncle Edvard,” he’d say, or something similar. It was spooky, being surrounded by the dead.

  “Perhaps you and Snow White could take a walk together,” he said. “I think she would like that.”

  “I would like that, too,” I said. “Very much.”

  “You will be a good mother to her,” he said. He turned to me and stroked my cheek with his long fingers. Unlike me, he took no notice of all the eyes around us.

  “I hope to be,” I said.

  “And you, are you happy?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, growing weak and wobbly on my feet. My hair pulsed with his touch, his passion was a physical thing moving through it. Below it, I could feel his love for his daughter, how much he wanted me to love her, make her better. It moved me, that he thought I had that power. “I love being here, being your wife. And I’ve never heard such music as there is here. Or seen such dances. It’s all so wonderful.” My eyes started to mist, as I tried to express how grateful I was, how full and happy. I didn’t care if anyone else in the court loved me, as long as he continued to love me as he did. I would love Snow White, I decided, as he did. For him.

  “I want this to be the most dazzling court in the world,” he said. “Which is why I have the most dazzling queen.”

  I smiled. “Is it not?”

  He took my hand again, and we kept walking. Above us, chandeliers swayed and glittered. “Well,” he said. “This was once the greatest court in the world and the most powerful kingdom. We had land that stretched from ocean to ocean, a ferocious army, loyal allies. This court once produced the most magnificent poetry
and art and theater. My family’s line, the Chauvins, we have fallen very far from what we once were.”

  His voice shook as we spoke, his passion evident. It was impossible not to be swept up in it, and suddenly I, too, longed for a lost past, one greater than my own, with its ravenous mothers and magical plants.

  “I think that’s what Mathena spoke about, when she said that many in the kingdom hope for that kind of greatness again.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Many of us hope for that. I was raised hearing stories of that time. My tutors taught me all the history, made me read the great epics recounting the most famous battles. Did you not study these things?”

  I shrugged. “Mathena told me many great stories and myths, but not often ones about the kingdom.”

  “That’s all right. You can leave the past to me. I want you to think only of right now. Forget everything that came before.”

  I studied him, wondering if he knew about the rapunzel, or anything else from my past, and then realized he was talking about a different one: the past in which he’d left me in the tower and married Teresa instead.

  “All right,” I said. “There is a plant for that, you know. One that will make you forget everything.”

  He laughed. “Well, then I will have to procure it for you.”

  “It’s all so exciting,” I said, after a moment. “You have such ambition!”

  “You will learn the truth of that statement,” he said. “This kingdom will be great again. Already I’m filling the palace with riches. By the time we die we’ll have surpassed anything that came before us.”

  “I hope that will not be for a long time yet,” I said.

  We stepped into a massive room filled with workers. The smell of plaster and pigment was overwhelming.

  “Look,” he said, pointing up.

  There was a scaffold, and on top of it, a man applying pigment to the ceiling. Sketched across it was a massive work, with full figures and animals and clouds and fields. Only part of it had been painted.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A unicorn hunt,” he said, “designed and painted by one of the world’s masters.”