White As Snow (Fairy Tale) by Tanith Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

bed, a girl of the hills, unroyal and besotted by him—and barren.
    Arpazia, for her part, had discovered she had again picked up a small knife from her cosmetics table. It was currently used to grind kohl she did not need to darken brows and lashes.
    Draco had not seen. Arpazia dropped the knife in dismay. She had no notion of how to kill him, and besides incoherently knew that to kill him might only harm her worse. And she might have cut herself.
    (She was of course still asleep at this time, entering the fifth month of her pregnancy, tranced. If she had not been so, probably she would have stuck the knife in him at once.)
    Some supper was served them, and Draco sat graciously talking to her, telling her about the fresh fighting he would have to have, trying to pretend it irked him although in fact he had grown restless at his palace.
    While they—he—ate, some gifts were brought in for her. There was a necklace, bracelets, and other such things. Then they brought her own mirror..In her trance, Arpazia had forgotten the mirror. Very likely she would have forgotten it anyway. She stared at it, thinking, What is it?
    “You must have this frippery back,” he announced. “It’s no use to me. Mirrors—women’s nonsense. And they’re afraid of it. A witch’s glass.”
    Arpazia got up and drifted over to the mirror, as if she must—men always gave orders, even inadvertently. She undid the clasp of the lid, and opened it out, and when she looked into the glass, did not see herself, gazed straight past herself, at the room beyond, its painted walls and long narrow windows, her bed, the carved chair with King Draco in it.
    She saw Draco, the dragon-bull, as if for the first time, in the mirror. He was almost faceless, a suit of flesh with hot appetites.
    But behind Draco, one door stood open, and Arpazia and the mirror saw into a part of the old palace, an ancient colonnade of pillars which ran through under a high-walled terrace, like the defile of a mountain. Antique oil-lamps hung and lit the walk, and here and there a bay tree stood in a pot. The view was an orderly compendium of dark and light, but suddenly something seemed to shift and separate.
    Arpazia started—and her trance, like a pane of glass—like the glass pane of the mirror itself—seemed also for one second to tilt.
    A child darted along the colonnade, on which the paint was firm and new. Her corn-colored hair streamed back—if it was able to …
Her eyes—if they had been real—were like new-minted coins—
    Arpazia was aware the almost-child, rushing through the mirror, must not reach her. So she clapped the lid shut.
    “Gently,” reproved ungentle Draco. “That’s a costly possession. You should be careful of it.”
    Then he sent the servants out and led Arpazia to the bed.
    She did not struggle now, or even tremble, she was too heavy and weary, too lost, adrift, tranced. Draco had her quickly. The wall candles burned down behind his head, consumed by the minute of his panting fire. He hurt her, but not as much as before. “There,” he said.
    Then he got up and shook himself free of what he had spent. She was nothing to him, this sulky doll. Was she unhinged? She looked asleep. It occurred to him that one day he might wish to be rid of her, and if she was mad, that would be much easier.
     
     
    Asleep … Of course, she did not slumber, physically, throughout all those next five or more months. Yet she did sleep a great deal, both day and night, whenever she could. It seemed she had only to let go of her body, to float miles out, to be gone. There were few dreams that she remembered, and those she recalled were mild, pleasing: childish.
    Otherwise, she got up, and let herself be tended. Clothes were put on her, and her hair combed with essences and twined with ornaments. She would sometimes eat and drink, move about, along the colonnade, for example, the pillars of which were faded and pocked, to a walled garden, from where it was possible