Snow Glass Apples: A Play For Voices by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online Page B

is.
None of us do. She killed her mother in the birthing, but that’s
never enough to account for it.
    (beat)
    They call me wise, but I am far from wise,
for all that I foresaw fragments of it, frozen moments caught in
pools of water or in the cold glass of my mirror. If I were wise I
would not have tried to change what I saw. If I were wise I would
have killed myself before ever I encountered her, before ever I
caught him.
    (beat)
    Wise, and a witch, or so they said, and I’d
seen his face in my dreams and in reflections for all my life:
eighteen years of dreaming of him before he reined his horse by the
bridge that day, and asked my name.
     

     
    SFX: A HORSE IS AMBLING. BIRDS SING. A RIVER
RUNS.
     
    KING
    And do you know who I am?
     
    QUEEN
    Yes, your majesty.
     
    KING
    So you recognised me, eh? Do you live far
from here?
     
    QUEEN
    No. Not far, your majesty. Just past those
trees.
     
    KING
    Have you food there?
     
    QUEEN
    Yes. Just plain food.
     
    KING
    Plain food is good food, girl. Any wine?
     
    QUEEN
    A little.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    He helped me onto his high horse and we rode
together to my little cottage, my face buried in the gold of his
hair. He asked for the best of what I had; a king’s right, it was.
And he did not leave my cottage that night.
    (beat)
    His beard was red-bronze in the morning
light, and I knew him, not as a king, for I knew nothing of kings
then, but as my love. He took all he wanted from me, the right of
kings, but he returned to me on the following day, and on the night
after that: his beard so red, his hair so gold, his eyes the blue
of a summer sky, his skin tanned the gentle brown of ripe
wheat.
     
    KING
    These days have passed like hours, my
sweet.
     
    QUEEN
    Yes.
     
    KING
    I am afraid it is time for me to return to
the palace.
     
    QUEEN
    Oh?
     
    KING
    Darling … will you come with me?
     
    QUEEN
    As your slut?
     
    KING
    As my queen.
     
     
    SFX: EXT. WE HEAR A HORSE’S HOOVES AS THEY
APPROACH THE PALACE … BIRDSONG…
     
    QUEEN
    I’m scared.
     
    KING
    Of the castle? You have nothing to worry
about there. They’ll all love you. Or they’ll have me to answer
to.
     
    QUEEN
    No…
    (pause)
    Odd. I thought I saw a face in that tower
window.
     
    KING
    That would be my daughter.
     
    QUEEN
    The face was so white. I thought she was a
ghost.
     
    KING
    You’d not be the first.
     
    SFX: INT. THE CASTLE, ECHOES AND FOOTSTEPS
GOING UP STONE STAIRS
    .
     
    QUEEN
    That painting at the top of the stairs. It’s
beautiful. She was your first wife?
     
    KING
    The first queen. My daughter’s mother.
Yes.
     
    QUEEN
    She was very lovely.
     
    SFX: NOW THEY ARE WALKING DOWN A
CORRIDOR.
     
    KING
    Your rooms will be in here. Mine are at the
far end of the hall.
     
    QUEEN
    And where does that staircase go?
     
    KING
    Those are the little princess’s quarters.
     
    QUEEN
    Look! There she is, peeping round the corner.
Hello. Hello little one. I’m your new mother. Are you going to come
and say hello?
     
    SFX/ FOOTSTEPS SCURRY UPSTAIRS.
     
    QUEEN
    I think I scared her.
     
    KING
    Nothing scares her. It’ll just take her a
while to get to know you.
     

    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    His daughter was only a child: no more than
five years of age when I came to the palace. Another portrait of
her dead mother hung in the princess’s tower room; a tall woman,
hair the colour of dark wood, eyes nut-brown. She was of a
different blood to her pale daughter.
    (beat)
    The girl would not eat with us. I do not
know where in the palace she ate.
    (beat)
    So, I had my own chambers. My husband the
king, he had his own rooms also. When he wanted me he would send
for me, and I would go to him, and pleasure him, and take my
pleasure with him.
    (beat)
    One night, several months after I was
brought to the palace, she came to my rooms. She was six. I was
embroidering by lamplight, squinting my eyes against the lamp’s
smoke and fitful illumination. When I looked up, she was