The Fairest of Them All

  “That’s him?” I asked.

  “Yes, the great Bernard Morel. And these are his helpers and apprentices. I’ve set up a studio for them here.”

  I walked farther in and focused more closely on the ceiling. The flank of the unicorn was already a glowing white, and slowly the scene came to life before me—the hunters lying in wait, the unicorn’s horn stretched out in front of it. The scent of paint fell away and instead I felt as if I’d been transported back into the woods, tracking the magical beast glowing above us. I’d never imagined such wonders that could be made at the hand of a man. This was its own kind of magic, I realized.

  “It’s fantastic,” I said.

  Josef called to the artist and asked him to step down and meet me. I trembled with the import of that moment, seeing that someone as talented and blessed as the small, weathered man would bow down before me and call me his queen.

  “It is an honor,” I said, “to meet you and see you work.”

  “The honor is mine, Your Grace,” the artist said. “I feel I’m in the presence of a creature even more rare than the mythical unicorn.”

  Josef smiled, looking from Bernard to me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Perhaps you will paint her portrait when you have finished this room,” Josef said.

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  I was thrilled, but at the same time hated to think of myself as one of the faces on those walls, to think of future men and women standing in front of the canvas and staring at my face, imagining what I’d been like once.

  “I have many plans,” Josef said, as we walked back into the hallway. “This is why an heir is so important, to secure the kingdom and the Chauvin line, and to continue to make us great after I’m gone.”

  “I do not think that will be a problem, my king,” I said, smiling up at him.

  We continued walking down the hallway, and I discovered that the unicorn ceiling was not the only masterwork in progress. In another room, a man was sculpting a large statue from a block of marble, the figure of a centaur emerging from it. In another, a group of painters was at work on a large altarpiece for the chapel, with winged angels dropping from the heavens.

  “It will do Snow White good,” he said, “to have a brother.”

  I thought it was doubtful that she would want a brother surpassing her to the throne, but I kept quiet. “I am sure it will,” I said. “But in the meantime, I will try to be a good mother to her.”

  My voice caught, as I said those words. It surprised me, how much I liked the idea.

  A few days later, I arranged a meeting between myself and Snow White in the gardens. It was a glorious afternoon as I waited for her, after a morning of heavy rain. The gardens were in full bloom. Tall hedges created a labyrinth structure, and paths stretched from every side, lined by herbs and flowers and wonderful trees that looked like hats, draped in bell-shaped white and purple blossoms. My hair was loose and falling on the ground around me, collecting wet grass and petals, the thrum of life vibrating along the strands. In the distance, mountains rose into the sky. The air smelled of honeysuckle and wet earth.

  Snow White appeared at the castle door and I studied her as she approached. She was dressed in a red cloak the same color as her lips. She seemed oddly formal, as usual, a worried look on her face.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Your Highness,” she replied, curtsying shyly.

  I nodded to her nurse, who stepped back. Two guards appeared behind her.

  “Shall we walk together?” I asked.

  She nodded, and we set out side by side. Her back was perfectly straight, her hair braided about her head.

  “How old are you?”

  “I am seven,” she said.

  “And you study a great many things?” I asked.

  She looked at me, seeming to find the question confusing. “Yes.”

  “What’s your favorite subject?”

  There was a long pause before she answered. “I like to study poetry,” she said.

  “Oh, like your father.”

  “My mother loved poetry,” she said, and she turned her head to look straight at me.

  I felt awkward, trying to talk with her. Behind us, her nurse and two guards followed. In front of us, the world opened into a series of manicured gardens.

  “Did she?” I asked. “And you? You are a lover of poetry?”

  “Yes. And I sing, and can dance. I would like to write poetry, like my mother.”

  “Your mother was a very talented woman.”

  “I know. Is it true you are a witch?”

  I stopped, and was unable to hide my surprise. “What did you say?”

  She stared right up at me, unafraid, her eyes so blue they were nearly lavender. “Is it true you are a witch?”

  “Who told you that?”

  She shrugged. “I have heard people speak of it. They say my father has gone mad.”

  “Do you think he’s gone mad?”

  She seemed to seriously consider the question. “He was very upset when my mother died.”

  “Of course he was. I’m sure everyone was. It must have been very devastating for you.”

  She nodded, and suddenly looked as if she were about to cry. Her sadness already weighed on me too heavily, so strong it was already latching itself onto my hair, moving into me. I desperately did not want her to cry.

  “Look, some elderberries,” I said quickly, pointing to bunches of the dark berries. “Do you know what these can be used for?”

  “No.” She stepped closer to me, looked down at them intently. She plucked a berry from the plant and rolled it between her fingers. “I think the cooks make jam with them.”

  “They can also help cure someone sick from influenza, when they’re mashed and used in a tea. That’s what people mean, when they say witch. I know how plants can help us.”

  She stared up at me with a wondering expression. “What about this?” she asked, pointing to a thick plant with yellow blossoms nearby.

  I made sure no one was looking, and pulled off a leaf.

  “Close your eyes,” I said.

  She did, her eyelashes like brushes against her pale cheeks.

  “When I rub this leaf against your eyelid, you’ll see the face of the man you’re meant to marry.”

  I swept the leaf over her eyelids, and she gasped, blinked her eyes open.

  “And who did you see?” I asked.

  “My cousin!” she said.

  “Oh?”

  She furrowed her brow. “I do not think I would like to marry him.”

  I laughed. “Perhaps not,” I said. “Where does he live?”

  “In the East.” A shadow moved over her face, and I was determined to remove it.

  “It’s not always accurate,” I said. “Sometimes the plant likes to play tricks on people, especially young girls.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes!” I said. I put a finger over my lips. “But don’t tell anyone.”

  “I want to do it again,” she said, excited, and for the first time a genuine smile lit up her face, and I was astonished at how wonderful it felt to make her happy.

  I plucked off another leaf. She closed her eyes, and I swept the leaf over them.

  She frowned and looked up at me. “I still see my cousin!” she said, stamping her feet. “Those plants are mean.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Maybe your cousin will grow up to be a very dashing man.”

  “He is already grown!” she said. “He is the age of my father.”

  I burst out laughing, despite myself. “I’m sure the plants are having fun with you, then. You will marry a very handsome man.”

  “Maybe I’ll never marry. Maybe I’ll write poetry in my room.”

  “Forever?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling at me.

  I smiled back, delighted at the change in her, and pointed again. “There’s poison in this plant.”

  “There is? Is it dangerous?”


  “Only if you eat it, but the most poisonous part is in the ground. They say that slaves used to eat very tiny bits of it so that they’d be too sick to work.”

  “But is it magic?”

  “I don’t know. Is that magic?”

  She furrowed up her face again. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, either,” I said. “It’s just how things work.”

  “And that?” she asked, pointing to another plant.

  “That will cure eye aches, if you boil it and put it over your lids.”

  “I will not see my cousin again if I do that, will I?”

  I laughed. “I hope not! If you do, I might begin to wonder if you do not love him, despite all your protestations!”

  She made a horrified face. “You tease me!” she said, like a child not at all used to being teased. She rushed ahead, full of energy now, practically jumping up and down. “And that one?” She pointed.

  “This one is very special,” I said. I plucked off a blossom and handed it to her. “This one will make you have very special dreams, when you put it under your pillow.”

  “What kind of dreams?” Her eyes were large as she stared at me, her face wide open.

  “Happy ones, of the most beautiful places.”

  “I would like that,” she said. “Do you think I might dream of my mother in heaven?”

  “I . . . I think so,” I stammered, taken aback. Her longing was so intense, and it was no different from what I’d felt almost every day in the forest from the women who came to see us. “Put the blossom under your pillow and see.”

  “All right,” she said. My heart nearly broke as she carefully folded the blossom into her palm. “You can also change people into animals, can’t you?”

  “Is that what people say?”

  She nodded. “They say it happened before.”

  “Well, people like to tell stories, you know. There are many, many wonders in this world.”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Everyone at court likes to talk.”

  “You do not?”

  She squinted up at the sky. “I think it’s silly sometimes, the things people talk about. I like to read and play music and dance.”

  “What about now? Do you like talking with me?”

  “Yes. You aren’t like other people.”

  “Neither are you.”

  For a moment we looked at each other. Had things been different, she might have been my own daughter. I wished, more than anything, at that instant, that she was, that none of the rest of it had ever happened and it had only been me, and her, and him, this whole time. And then, as if it were the most natural thing, she reached up and took my hand. I held on to it carefully, as if it were made of glass.

  “It’s pretty here,” she said. I followed her gaze. Around us stretched the gardens’ never-ending pathways. “I like knowing that these plants can do so many things.”

  “It’s important to know what they can do,” I said. “You could walk right through this garden and have no idea. And all the while, the plants are scheming and plotting.”

  “Now I know their secrets,” she said.

  In the near distance a large structure appeared, like some kind of house. “What’s there?” I pointed.

  “The falconer is there,” she said.

  I nodded. “You know, I lost my mother, too,” I said.

  “Isn’t the witch your mother?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “My mother lived in the kingdom, but she was not a good mother. It was the . . . It was Mathena who saved me, and took care of me.”

  “She does not sound like a bad witch.”

  “She’s not.”

  “Someone said that you were the daughter of the witch and a stag.”

  I stopped short. “Where do you hear such things?”

  “Everyone is always talking,” she said. “People forget sometimes that I can understand them. I understand everything, you know.”

  “I know,” I said, bending down until we were face-to-face. “People are wrong to forget it. I assure you, I’m not the daughter of a stag. Look at these hands! Look at my face. Don’t you think I’d have fur, like a stag, if I were the daughter of one?”

  She studied my face and then made a great show of looking over my hands. “That is true,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m wondering about my grandmother, though.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  A devilish look came over her face as she answered. “She had a mustache!”

  At dinner, she sat stiffly at the side of her nurse, occasionally stealing glances at me. I made funny faces at her to make her laugh, and when she did, I felt as if I’d accomplished a significant feat. Josef caught us at one point, and reached under the table to stroke my leg, my hair that was resting on it. His happiness streamed up into me.

  That night, as would become his habit, he came to my room but left in the early hours of the morning, leaving me to wake alone.

  “Your daughter is lovely,” I said, as he slipped into bed beside me. Across the room, the mirror rippled.

  He nodded. “I know. I’m glad you’ve taken to her. She needs someone like you, with your great heart.”

  I was surprised by his words, flattered that he saw me that way. I did not have a great heart, I knew this. And yet the child had moved me.

  “She has changed much, since her mother died, yes?”

  “Yes, but she’s always been a serious sort,” he said. “Even when her mother was alive. Always reading, keeping to herself. As an infant, even, she barely cried, just stared up at you with those blue, knowing eyes. It was a bit unnerving. She seemed like she could understand everything.”

  “Doesn’t she have other children to play with?”

  “Some. There are other children at the castle, but I’m told she has not taken to them. I’ve watched them in the garden at times, and she stands apart while the others play ball.”

  I watched him, smiling. “You’re a good father,” I said. “Even with all your kingly duties and your great artistic commissions in every room of this palace.”

  He laughed, and I could not help but feel a stab of pain as I thought about the boy buried in the forest. Our son. What a good father Josef would have been to him. I thought, for a moment, of telling Josef what had happened. What a comfort it would be, to share that burden with him.

  But I could feel him through my hair, his great relief, his certainty that his daughter would be happier now that I was here, and instead I pulled him to me, unlatched his robe, and pushed it off of him.

  “I want to give you a son,” I said.

  He moved his hands across my belly. They might have been made of fire.

  The days passed, and with each hour I grew to love Josef and Snow White more, and I became more and more accustomed to life in the palace. Josef’s joy became my joy, and I learned from him to immerse myself in extravagant pleasures. I learned to love spice-filled sauces, fine wines, and elaborate desserts full of fruit and cream and nuts. I learned to love damask and silk, the feel of diamonds and emeralds and rubies weighing down my ears and wrists. I learned about art, and music, and poetry.

  I had dresses made by the palace seamstresses, and began bedecking myself in the most overstated, ridiculous manner. Beauty, at court, was paramount, with Josef as king. The Troubadour King, they called him, for his love of poetry, art, the kingdom’s glorious past, and, above everything else, beauty. And no one was more beautiful than I. Every day I asked my mirror the same question—who’s the fairest of them all?—and every day I took comfort in the answer, as if my luck and happiness, my whole future, were bound up in it. Every day, my ladies worked to enhance that beauty. Even when I indulged too much in sweetmeats, they were able to lace me into corsets that shrank my waist to a startling diameter, and apply paint to my cheeks, eyelids, and lips that worked more intensely than any spell Mathena had taught me.

  In the time I was without him, I took walks outside through the large cast
le gardens, which I began to learn in all their variety. Sometimes I walked with Snow White, and told her new stories of what each plant could do, as she told me details of her own studies. Other times, I walked with my ladies, or, on rare occasions, alone, with a guard or two trailing behind me.

  One afternoon I was out wandering when I came across a building that reminded me, just slightly, of the cottage where Mathena and I’d lived. A twinge of nostalgia rushed over me. It was the same building I’d noticed before, I remembered, where Snow White said the falconer lived.

  I walked up to the door, and realized with surprise that it was made of gold. It was an odd mix of riches and rawness, like our cottage with the cut-up formal gowns hanging as curtains.

  I pushed open the door and walked in. The light streamed down through the slats on the sides of the building, illuminating a number of strange shapes positioned throughout the room. The room was wooden, empty except for the posts on which the shapes were sitting. My hair was half in the grass, half in this strange room, and suddenly I was assaulted with images of flight, branches, bodies being broken open.

  They were hawks and falcons with chains around their legs. As my eyes adjusted to the light they came into relief. They were the finest birds I had ever seen: magnificent, massive, their claws hooked over the platforms they stood on. Elegant hoods covered their heads, sprouting up from the top, like helmets of great knights. I thought of Brune and her perch on the cottage mantel. These birds were so much more regal. The king’s falcons.

  It was distressing, too, to see them this way, as if they were in some kind of dungeon. I thought of the bandits in the forest, and shivered.

  “Who are you?” a voice said then, making me jump in surprise.

  For a moment I thought a hawk had spoken, and as I turned I faced a man standing in the doorway.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice was deep and ragged.

  I stared at him. How could he be asking me who I was?

  The man was tall and broad, and had a pained look to his face. Like the building itself, something about him was vaguely familiar. He had a hooded bird on his wrist, its wings spread out, and was watching me intently.