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“No one knew how much he hated me, how cruel and utterly inhuman his soul was. A soul—ha! I wonder if he ever had one. He must have at some point. His love for my mother was so great. Perhaps his soul died with her the night she left this world.
“Still, whatever was left of him was pure evil. I had sat by his deathbed, caring for him, trying to keep him alive because, in my heart of hearts, I knew that it was right—to treat the blood of your blood that way. Still, he had nothing but hatred and bitter words for me, ‘He will never come for you, you know. You’ve always been an ugly child. What would a king want with the likes of you?’ I was there as he left this world. Right by his side. Holding on to his hand so that he would not need to journey into that great unknown alone. And the moment before he died, his near-lifeless eyes looked up at me. I was full of folly, ready to believe that he was going to thank me. Instead he said ‘I have never loved you, daughter.’ And then he closed his eyes and left this world.”
The King sat silently. He rested his chin on his folded hands as he rocked back and forth, contemplating all he had just learned. Then he knelt down next to the Queen and took her into his arms.
“I wish he were alive today,” the King said, “so I could slay him with my own hands for all he has done.”
The Queen looked up at her husband, who she had known only to be filled with love. To love even his enemies. Did he truly care for her so much that he would even betray his own beliefs?
This was the man she loved above all others. She touched his hand, callous with battle scars and the weight of artillery and wielding of swords. She locked her hands in his, crawled into his arms, then kissed him lightly on the lips. His once-soft mouth was now chapped and chafed from exposure to the elements. He tasted like sweat and, the Queen thought, blood.
Why, she wondered, must things change? Why could she not have frozen time the day she was married, lived happily ever after with Snow and the King? Why could she not create peace on earth so that her husband would not ever need to leave her again?
She wondered this very thing for the next month, while she still had the King with her. But on the twenty-third day of January, the King left again.
“Papa, I’m going to miss you,” said Snow.
“I promise to come home to you soon, my Snow. I always do, don’t I?”
The little girl nodded.
“I love you, and I will miss you, dear,” the King said with a deep sigh.
“I love you too, Papa!”
The King kissed his daughter and spun her around, which made her giggle. “I will miss you both with all my heart. You’ll both be with me.”
The Queen and Snow stood in the courtyard and watched as the King and his men ventured over snow-covered mountains on horseback. Their torches glowed in the dark winter afternoon, and the air was the kind of cold that glassed your eyes over—a type of cold you can practically see. The King’s army grew smaller and smaller, like ants climbing piles of sugar.
Then they dipped below the horizon and the King was gone.
To the Queen the days felt like months and the weeks like years while the King was away. The castle was so quiet. She missed the days when it was filled with Snow’s joyful laughter as she was chased by her growling father, who was pretending to be a dragon or a warlock.
Soon, she told herself, soon he will return and with him life will once again fill the stone walls of the castle.
But for now, the castle might as well have been lifeless. The Queen sat in a comfortable throne alongside the fireplace in her chamber, lost in one of her favorite manuscripts, The Song of Roland. But everything about it reminded her of the King, and so she set it aside and called upon her servants to draw a bath for her.
Far more quickly than she had anticipated, a rap was upon her door.
“Your Highness, Your Majesty…” said the timid, quivering young girl in the doorway. The Queen had not seen her before and realized she must have been a new servant.
“Calm down, dear, I am a Queen, not a witch,” the Queen said, smiling.
“Yes, well, this here”—the girl held out a large, wrapped package that was nearly as tall as she was—“this arrived for you here today. The guards have examined it, and it appears to pose no…no danger….”
The girl put the package down and stared at the Queen, who looked at the package skeptically.
“From whence does it come?” the Queen asked.
“It arrived with this note,” the girl said, holding out a rolled parchment, which twitched like a windblown leaf in the girl’s shaking hand. “I am not…not privy to what it says herein, and so I am not aware of its…its origins.”
The Queen quickly grabbed the parchment and unro
lled it.
The parchment was much larger than necessary, and contained the note:
FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY
