The crowds cheered as their prince returned. Many had presumed him dead and his sudden arrival brought cheer to the kingdom and the streets were filled with music and laughter and banners flying high. The prince had waited at the city walls while a message was sent to the castle in order to give the king’s men time to organise his parade. He had no intention of coming back barely noticed. Not after all he’d been through. He was a returning hero. He had the scar to prove it.
He waved at the people as he came through the streets, sitting high and proud on his new steed. Behind him, a few feet back and safely away from prying eyes, a servant followed with the old mule and cart and strict instructions not to look under the blanket. The prince would know if he had. He would see it in his eyes. He’d take care of him as he needed if that was the case. His travels had made him less squeamish. He thought of the dwarves and the reward he’d promised them. He had trusted them too easily. He swallowed the sudden anger that surged through him and leaned down to kiss a milkmaid who’d pushed her way to the front of the crowd. She nearly swooned as he pressed his lips into hers and then pulled away, and her face glowed with excitement. He looked up at the larger houses which lined the streets closer to the castle. On the balconies, finely-dressed young women waved handkerchiefs that matched their dresses at him, their eyes flirtatious above the fans that half-covered their faces.
It was good to be home. He would send something back to the dwarves. They had earned it. But it wouldn’t be money or jewellery; it would be an assassin’s blade. They had deceived him. They had given him faulty goods. All may have turned out well in the end but that was not down to any action on their part. He did not like to be made a fool of.
Up ahead the crowd roared louder, and he saw that his mother and father had come out onto the castle balcony to greet him. He raised one hand in a salute and his father returned it. The people were almost ecstatic. The prince turned and nodded at the soldier behind him to bring forward the black stallion. The beast wasn’t as fully broken as its new owner had been, but that no longer mattered.
The stallion would make an excellent present for the king.
Epilogue
The mouse had lost the band of travellers in the forest. He hadn’t been able to keep up no matter how fast his little legs carried him. He stood up on his hind legs and sniffed at the air, his whiskers twitching this way and that. Too many scents assailed him, and he couldn’t yet tell them apart.
He scurried from bush to bush, keeping close to the ground hoping to avoid the attention of the hungry birds that filled the night skies, hooting and calling to each other as they hunted. Since claws had torn flesh from his back his first night of being cursed, he’d learned to make himself smaller, almost invisible. It was the safest way to be. Now, though, he was close to panic. He knew the edge of the forest must be close, but he was sure he was somehow going in circles. There had been too much change, too much for him to cope with, and when he’d woken under a pile of leaves near the campfire to find the dwarves and Snow White had gone, he’d almost broken. She was his salvation, he was sure of it. Only she might see past his cursed exterior. Only she could perhaps persuade the queen to reverse it.
He was tired and wanted to sleep until daylight but he pushed himself onwards. To pause would be to admit defeat and he couldn’t do that. Something white glimmered suddenly on the path ahead. He trembled and moved closer, his small nose quivering. Bread. It was bread. He nibbled a corner and it was thick and fresh. His tiny dark eyes shone as he looked further ahead. He could see another piece perhaps ten feet ahead. He ran towards it, his feet silent on the forest floor. Up ahead, another. His heart lifted. A breadcrumb trail. He ran back into the safety of the falling leaves but followed the path someone had left for him which finally took him to the forest’s edge. A new adventure was just beginning.
Finally back at home, the old lady soaked her feet, a mass of corns and bunions, in a bucket of warm water as she sat by the fire. It had been a long few days, but she smiled contentedly. It had been good to get out. She’d enjoyed messing in the business of the world a little. It made her feel alive again. It had been too many long years since she’d ventured beyond the forest, and it had been invigorating. And always good to see little Lilith. Lilith with the lisp as she’d been so many years ago.
She let her old bones settle and creak back into the chair and watched the flames dance. The house had been cold when she’d got back but it would soon warm up. The large oven was back on and soon her cottage would be toasty warm again. Yes, it had been good to get out, but it was always lovely to be home.
She thought of the breadcrumbs she’d left for the mouse. He’d find them. She was sure of that. She’d also dropped breadcrumbs all the way home too. She wasn’t even sure why, she just had nothing else to do with the bread she supposed. Bread had never really agreed with her, she just liked the smell of it baking. Gave her wind whenever she ate it.
She dozed a little and then, just as the fire began to die down, she roused herself and got up to close the curtains.
And there they were.
Two children.
‘Look! Look! This is where the bread leads!’
‘Is that fence made of chocolate?’
Giggles. Whispers.
She bent her back over, made herself look frail and prepared herself for visitors. She was happy. She peered out between the gap in the curtains. A boy and a girl. Not too young but not too old. And the little boy was decidedly chubby. She smiled and her mouth watered. She’d earned a good dinner.
THE END
Acknowledgements
Firstly a big thanks to Gillian Redfearn, my editor, and also thanks to Simon Spanton, Jon Weir and the rest of the Gollancz posse for all their hard work, and invariably, their drinking companionship.
This book would not be quite as magical without the illustrations and I am so proud to have the talented Les Edwards drawings gracing the page.
Thanks also, as ever, to my agent Veronique Baxter.
Also By Sarah Pinborough from Gollancz:
Poison
Charm
Beauty
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2013
Interior illustrations copyright © Val and Les Edwards 2013
All rights reserved.
The right of Sarah Pinborough to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2013 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 09300 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.sarahpinborough.com
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Sarah Pinborough, Poison
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