Snow White and Rose Red Read online

  The two girls were not long in making their appearance. They came into the kitchen garden from the forest, just as the Widow finished inspecting the straw shelter by the chimney that was to house the bees for the winter. Rosamund ran ahead, as was her custom; she held her willow basket carefully to keep from spilling its contents. “Mother!” she called. “Look! We found elderberries and wild onion.”

  “Well done,” the Widow said. “Yet thou shouldst not shout thy news from half a mile away, nor run so heedlessly about. Thy harum-scarum ways will bring thee rue, my Rose.”

  Rosamund blinked at her mother in surprise. Then she set her basket on the ground and sank into an exaggerated court curtsy, her eyes demurely lowered. “I pray you, pardon, Mother,” she said in dulcet tones.

  “Wretched child!” the Widow said, laughing. “Cease thy foolishness and tell me where thy wandering feet have taken thee today, that thou hast returned with such uncommon treasures.”

  “We went into the forest, Mother,” Blanche said, coming up beside her sister. “Westward and south a little, along the brook where the rushes grow.”

  “You did not cross the Border?”

  “At this season?” Rosamund said indignantly. “We’re not so foolish.”

  Blanche studied her mother, and a small line appeared between her eyebrows. “Mother, why so many questions? Is something amiss?”

  “I fear it,” the Widow replied, “though I am not sure. It may be but the knowledge of my own folly which makes me so uneasy.”

  “What folly’s that?” Rosamund asked in a skeptical tone as she picked up her basket.

  “Mistress Townsend called today.”

  The girls looked at each other. “That one!” Rosamund said disapprovingly. “Thou shouldst not listen to her gloom.”

  “She meaneth good,” Blanche said with a reproving glance at her sister, “but thou shouldst not let her overset thee, Mother.”

  “‘Tis not Mistress Townsend’s tongue that’s broken my peace, but my own,” the Widow replied.

  “Hast sent her off at last?” Rosamund said, looking up with a hopeful expression.

  “I have, and with such words as must ill please her. And so I think that for some little while you must do your berrying in the meadow and not the wood.”

  “But Mother!” Blanche said in shocked surprise. “The coriander jar is barely a quarter full; it will not last the winter! And thy supply of more uncommon herbs is lower still.”

  “What matters that, an thee and thy sister are taken up for witchcraft?” the Widow retorted. “You’ve work enough outside the wood to occupy your fingers. ‘Tis not forever,” she added, seeing her daughters’ downcast expressions. “I only wish it seen that you are busy with other things than herbery. There’ll be time for gathering ere winter comes.”

  “A pox on Mistress Townsend and her tongue,” Rosamund muttered.

  The Widow frowned. “Rose! Thou‘lt spend an extra hour with thy prayer book tonight for thy ill-wishing. And in the future, set a better guard upon thy tongue.”

  “But, Mother—”

  “Do as I bid thee! Take thy basket inside and sort it carefully, and in the future stay away from the forest until I give thee leave.”

  Rosamund’s lips set into a stubborn line. Blanche touched her elbow and motioned toward the cottage. Rosamund looked at her sister for a moment, then sighed and picked up her basket. Together, they disappeared into the cottage.

  The Widow watched until the door closed behind them, a tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows and her eyes dark with trouble. She had good reason for her concern. Women had been taken to the ducking stool or worse for words as casually spoken as Rosamund’s had been. The Widow Arden had set on her daughters the most powerful protections she knew, but her skill had no power over the wagging tongues of mortal women. However vague or idle Mistress Townsend’s words had been, the Widow Arden could not afford to take them lightly; the line she and her family walked was already all too narrow.

  For in the forest that backed the Widow’s cottage lay one of the shifting borders of Faerie, and it was in that strange and shadowed land that Rosamund and Blanche gathered the rarest of the herbs their mother needed. Because the girls were maidens and still young, they could cross the border into Faerie with relative safety, but the Widow had charged them not to wander too far on the other side.

  The girls, well aware of the perils of extemporaneous exploration, had always obeyed this stricture implicitly, and it was as well that they had done so. Less than a league from the border they so often crossed, in a stand of ancient oaks, stood the palace of the Faerie Queen herself, and there were those among her court who were not pleased with its proximity to the mortal world.

  “I swear the forest stinks of humans all about,” said a narrow-faced man in a short white ruff and a grey velvet doublet. From his sleeve he pulled a handkerchief, edged with pointed lace and smelling of crushed moss and new ferns, and waved it through the air in front of his face for emphasis.

  “You must be newly come to court,” the woman beside him said, smiling slightly. Her gown was the same rusty color as maple leaves in autumn, and she rested one hand against a pillar of ice-blue marble to better display the gold lining of her sleeves.

  “I am,” the first speaker admitted. “But if you mean that I’ll become accustomed to the reek, I doubt ‘tis possible. Can the Queen do nothing?”

  A tall woman standing close by, black-haired and beautiful, looked at him with interest, and the green-gold silk of her gown whispered against the marble-inlay floor of the Queen’s Great Hall as she turned.

  “Say, rather, that she will not, and if you would be wise you’ll say it softly,” the man’s companion replied in a low voice. “The Queen’s sons are one-half mortal, and the younger’s much at court. ”

  “I take your point, and likewise will take care to watch my tongue,” the man in grey said thoughtfully. “If ‘tis the Queen’s will, there’s no more to be said.”

  Nearby, the black-haired woman curled her lip and turned away, her curiosity at an apparent end. She had taken barely two steps when an overly ingenuous voice said, “What is’t that ails thee, lady? Belike an inflammation of the liver, or else a colic, or a rheum? For surely ‘tis not temper that doth make thee look so black.”

  The woman stiffened and turned to face the wiry youth who had spoken. Her expression became still more disdainful. “Be wary, Robin, lest ‘tis thyself thy tongue dost cut.”

  The youth lowered his chin and peered at her through a fringe of unruly black hair. “Did I say aught amiss?”

  “Go to,” the woman said contemptuously. “Thou‘rt near as worthless as a mortal man. Find someone else on whom to whet thy wits; an thou dost provoke me again, thou’lt rue it.” She turned and swept away.

  The youth stood motionless, looking after her with narrowed eyes, and the corners of his mouth turned very slightly upward. “Will I so?” he murmured. “Will I, indeed?”

  On the opposite side of the Widow’s cottage, in the village of Mortlak, lived Master John Dee, commonly called Doctor Dee. He and his family occupied a three-story, half-timbered house on the river Thames. Though Dee was welcomed in the homes of the educated and well-to-do (he was, after all, Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer), ordinary folk disliked and feared him. Fishmongers, joiners, and even the men who pulled the dustcarts wore hawthorn twigs in their caps whenever they had to pass Dee’s house, or carried crosses tucked inside their jerkins. For John Dee was widely known to be a sorcerer, and all his connections at the court could not make him acceptable to his neighbors.

  Dee was well aware of the town’s hostility. He had faced accusations of witchcraft and sorcery at least twice, though the charges had come to nothing. For a long time thereafter he had kept quiet about his interest in things magical, but in recent years he had begun to experiment once more. He was aided in these activities by a like-minded friend, one Edward Kelly. For over a year, the two men had worked in the high-ceil
inged study on the second floor of Dee’s house, and now Kelly had proposed a new and ambitious enterprise. He was taken aback, and somewhat disgruntled, to discover that Dee was less than enthusiastic.

  “There is great profit in‘t, can we but discover a means to secure the power to our requirements,” Kelly said persuasively. He was a short, bearded man in his late twenties. A fringe of brown hair showed around the edges of the close-fitting black skullcap he always wore. His smooth voice had the accent of a well-educated man, and he wore the black robes of a scholar.

  “I cannot like it, Ned,” Dee replied, frowning. He was nearly twice his companion’s age and his long beard was quite grey, but his face was handsome and well bred. He, too, wore a scholar’s robes, but they seemed more appropriate to his dignity than to the younger man’s restless energy.

  “Why say you so?” Master Kelly demanded. “We may have within our grasp the secret of the philosopher’s stone or the Elixir itself, and yet you hesitate!”

  “The angel of the stone hath not confirmed our purpose,” John Dee replied, waving at a square table in the center of the room. The top of the table was covered with symbols, and in the center rested a sphere of polished quartz.

  “Nor hath the angel condemned it,” Kelly shot back. “And how should he? Think, John! The hosts of Heaven have naught to do with those of Faerie.”

  “That is my point precisely,” said the older man dryly.

  “You are unreasonable!” Kelly said, schooling his face into a wounded expression. “You twist my words all out of sense. I meant but this: if Heaven hath no communion with Faerie, then the angel who speaks through yonder stone shall ne‘er make protest of our intended enterprise.”

  “Faerie is an un-Godly power, Ned,” the other man said soberly.

  “An our ends be Godly, what need we fear?” Kelly retorted. “Why was it that you came to Mortlak, if not for Faerie’s nearness?”

  “The lure of Faerie drew me here, so much is true,” Dee answered, but his expression was troubled. “Yet I’d thought but to study it, not snatch at Faerie power for my own.”

  “What, will you ask politely for some sprite to join you here, that you may make inquiries of it?” Kelly said sarcastically. “Or in your own person brave the gates of Faerie, or how?”

  “Nay, Ned, you need not mock at me,” Dee said with dignity. “Your talents may be more than mine, but your knowledge is not greater. ”

  “Not in all things, certainly,” Kelly said. “But in this I think I must claim precedence, since Faerie and all other occult matters have been my especial study.”

  “I did not mean to call your knowledge into question,” Dee said, his troubled frown returning. “You’ve proved its worth and twelve times over, this past year. Yet to directly outface Faerie is a chancy thing, at best.”

  Kelly chuckled. “You fright yourself with ill-chosen words, to speak of ‘directly’ when we’ll not so much as step o’er the border twixt our land and that other. But if you’ve no stomach for‘t, I’ll to the woods at All Hallows’ Eve, and make the attempt alone.”

  “Nay, I’ll not let you risk all while I stay safe,” Dee said quickly. “An you’re determined on‘t, we’ll brave the gates of Faerie together, or not at all.”

  “‘Tis decided, then,” Ned Kelly said with a barely audible sigh of relief. “You’ll not regret it, John.”

  Dee made an ambiguous gesture that might have been indicative of either assent or doubt. “Can you and I, unaided, carry all that will be needed? ‘Twould be unwise indeed to bring another into this affair.”

  “We can manage. But is it certain that we must?”

  “In this I’ll not be moved, Ned,” Dee interrupted. “No one save you and I must know of this.”

  “You fear a witch-hunt?” Kelly said, a barely audible note of disdain in his voice.

  “Aye,” Dee said sharply. “And so would you, an you’d faced the Star Chamber’s questioning or been twice imprisoned on a charge of sorcery.” He closed his eyes briefly, and so did not see the cold expression that stiffened Kelly’s face, nor notice Kelly’s hand rise to touch the edge of his black skullcap where it covered his right ear. “There’s rumor enough i‘the town,” Dee said more gently. “Let us not add to it.”

  “As you wish,” Kelly said, forcing a smile. “I’ll begin creation of the spell; do you do likewise, and we’ll use the better of the two.”

  “An you insist, I’ll do’t.” Dee returned Kelly’s false smile with a genuine one. “But I’ve no doubt you’ll best me. You’ve a rare talent for such things, Ned.”

  Kelly stroked his beard, not at all displeased by Dee’s remark, but all he said was, “Nonetheless, let’s both prepare. To capture Faerie power will be no easy task; ‘tis best that both our minds be set to’t.”

  “Very well,” Dee said. “Until the morrow, then.”

  In the twilight garden beside Master John Dee’s house, a silver-grey shadow slid down from the window that gave onto the study where Dee and his friend had been conversing so earnestly. Moonlight glinted briefly from pointed teeth, bared in a fierce parody of a smile; then the shadow drifted across the garden to the water gate and down the stairs to the Thames. A swan, swimming late on the river, was startled into flight when the shadow-creature entered the water, and the ripples of the bird’s hasty leave-taking hid whatever traces there might have been of the shadow’s passing.

  CHAPTER · TWO

  “Snow White was the quieter of the two girls; she liked to sit at home with her mother and read. Rose Red preferred to run through the fields and forests, looking for flowers. ”

  ROSAMUND AND BLANCHE DID NOT GO NEAR THE forest for a week. This curtailment of their rambles affected Blanche very little. She had always enjoyed her walks with her sister, but it must be confessed that at times she found Rosamund’s more adventurous spirit rather trying. Though she would not for the world have hurt her sister by saying so, Blanche was relieved to be spared, for a time, the necessity of curbing Rosamund’s whims. She was happy to he at home, polishing the treasured copper kettle and measuring out herbs for her mother’s simples.

  The Widow’s ban was far harder for Rosamund to accept. She loved the forest, and she missed it deeply. But more than the forest, she missed the sharp clarity of the air of Faerie and the sudden strangeness of its trees and flowers, the scents of a mingled spring and summer that never faded, the piercing calls of birds unseen and unafraid. She missed the care and caution that were necessary within that other land, and the feeling of triumph that came with a safe return. She even missed the long, sometimes fruitless search for the constantly shifting border of Faerie.

  Rosamund tried not to be foolish. She and Blanche had never traveled regularly in Faerie; they seldom visited more than once or twice a month in summer, and not at all during winter. Rosamund had often gone for long periods without so much as coming near the border of Faerie, for certain seasons were particularly hazardous for mortal dealings there. The weeks immediately prior to All Hallows’ Eve were among these dangerous times, and Rosamund and Blanche had always been careful to avoid the fringes of Faerie then. Deprivation had not bothered her before; indeed, she had thought nothing of it. But all Rosamund’s reasoning made no impression on the stubborn longing of her heart, and she continued to pine for the forbidden walks.

  The Widow Arden was not blind to her younger daughter’s difficulty, and she tried to help as best she could. She assigned Rosamund the more active tasks, especially those which would take her out of the cottage and away from the forest that brooded behind it. When there were errands to run in the village, she sent Rosamund; when a tincture or potion was finished, Rosamund delivered it. If all else failed, the Widow sent the girl to gather rushes for Blanche to plait into winter coverings for the floor.

  None of these measures did much to ease Rosamund’s mind. She could see what her mother was trying to do, and she was grateful for it, but struggling down the muddy path to Mortlak was not an adequate s
ubstitute for walking across the spongy moss that covered the forest floor. Nor was watching the swans floating on the river Thames a satisfying alternative to catching the merest glimpse of a strange, bright-plumed bird sailing through the forests of Faerie.

  Rosamund did not voice any of this. She gritted her teeth and went about her work with fierce determination, hoping all the while that her mother would relent before winter closed in and adventuring in the woods became impossible. She took to spending as much of her time as she could away from home; if her mother had no errands for her, she would wander through the meadow, gathering herbs and sometimes chatting with the laborers working in the fields. When the sun began to sink toward the west, she would find a footpath and make her way home, swinging her basket and humming with stubborn cheerfulness.

  Late one afternoon, Rosamund was heading homeward when she saw a flash of red among the branches of a hawthorn bush beside the path. She stopped and looked more closely, then smiled. Some berries still clung determinedly to the spiny branches near the center of the bush. Rosamund set her basket on the ground, then knelt and insinuated her arm carefully into the spaces between the thorns. So intent was she that she did not notice a man approaching from the direction of Mortlak.

  The man slowed as he came up behind her, and commented in a mellow voice, “A curious task for such a pretty maid.”

  Rosamund started, then exclaimed as the hawthorn scratched her hand. She turned, frowning. “The task is common enough, and better done had you not interrupted.”

  “Why, here’s a lively tongue!” the man said, his eyes dancing. His face was shadowed by a soft, broad-brimmed hat; a large canvas sack was slung over one of his shoulders, and he had to lean to the other side to balance its weight. His clothes were patched and worn, and dusty with much traveling. He was the very picture of a wandering peddler.