Read Snow Glass Apples: A Play For Voices Online

Authors: Neil Gaiman

Tags: #neil gaiman

Snow Glass Apples: A Play For Voices (5 page)

That winter the snows were high and deep,
and were late melting.

We were all hungry come the spring.

SFX: MARKET SOUNDS ONCE MORE …

QUEEN—INTIMATE

The Spring Fair was slightly improved that
year. The forest folk were few, but they were there, and there were
travellers from the lands beyond the forest.

QUEEN

Well?

LORD OF THE FAIR

Better, your majesty. Better.

SFX: WE HEAR THE SOUNDS OF HAGGLING, AD-LIB
DWARFS AND MARKET FOLK …

QUEEN

Over there. The forest folk. Those
dwarf-things. What are they doing?

LORD OF THE FAIR

What they’ve been doing this whole market.
Buying glass. All the glass they can get. Paying good money for it,
too.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

I saw the little hairy men of the
forest-cave buying and bargaining for pieces of glass, and lumps of
crystal and of clear quartz. They paid for the glass with silver
coins—the spoils of my stepdaughter’s depredations, I had no doubt.
When it got about what they were buying, townsfolk rushed back to
their homes, came back with their lucky crystals, and, in a few
cases, with whole sheets of glass.

I thought, briefly, about having the dwarfs
killed, but I did not. As long as the heart hung, silent and
immobile and cold, from the beam of my chamber, I was safe, and so
were the folk of the forest, and, thus, eventually, the folk of the
town.

SFX: PASSAGE OF TIME MUSIC … LUTE,
PERHAPS?

SFX: EXT—HORSES DRAW UP AND ARE STAMPING AND
WHINNYING …

QUEEN—INTIMATE

My stepdaughter had eaten the poisoned fruit
two winters back, when the Prince came to my Palace.

SFX: INT NOW, THE HORSES ARE DISTANT AND
BELOW US …

MAIDSERVANT

Do you know who he is, majesty?

QUEEN

From his arms, he’s Prince of the land beyond
the mountains.

MAIDSERVANT

He is very handsome.

QUEEN

Yes. He is.

SFX: …CROSSFADE INTO THE NOISE OF A
BANQUET.

PRINCE

…of choosing a retinue is that it need be
large enough to defend oneself in case of , well, bandits, let us
say, but small enough that another monarch—well, yourself, for
example— would not see it as any kind of a threat.

QUEEN

No threat at all?

They are flirting here, very seriously…

PRINCE

Certainly not to you, majesty.

QUEEN

How very charming. And what would you say,
your highness, would be the purpose of all your…
peregrinations?

PRINCE

I travel to make alliances. I am looking for
allies. With other monarchs, and other kingdoms.

QUEEN

Alliances.

SFX: FADEOUT THE BANQUET.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

I was practical: I thought of the alliance
of our lands, thought of the

Kingdom running from the forests all the way
south to the sea; I thought of my golden-haired bearded love, dead
these eight years; and, in the night, I went to the Prince’s
room.

SFX: FOOTSTEPS ECHOING ON A STONE FLOOR.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

I am no innocent, although my late husband,
who was once my king, was truly my first lover, no matter what they
say.

SFX: WE ARE IN THE PRINCES’S CHAMBER.

A FIRE CRACKLES IN THE GRATE.

A KNOCK ON THE DOOR.

PRINCE

Yes?

SFX: A DOOR OPENS.

PRINCE (CONT’D)

My. A visitor. And such a damn pretty
one.

QUEEN

Thank you.

PRINCE

No. Don’t come any closer.

QUEEN

I thought you wanted me.

PRINCE

I do. I just… I want you to do what I tell
you. Do you understand?

QUEEN

As you wish.

PRINCE (CONT’D)

Take off your robe. Let it fall. Good. You
are. You are very beautiful. Now, walk over to the open window.

SFX. THE WIND BLOWS …

QUEEN

It’s cold.

PRINCE

And do not say another word. Stand there
until your skin is chilled and cold.

QUEEN

I am chilled, your highness.

PRINCE

Come here. Lie on your back. Good. Now, fold
your hands across your breast. Like this. No, keep your eyes open,
but do not look at me. Look up at the beams.

(he is getting very excited)

Now. You must not move. Breathe as—as little
as possible. No.

Don’t move. Let me open your legs… Oh yes.
Don’t say anything.

Do not make a sound.

SFX: His body starts to move on hers… And
then a MOAN of passion from the queen. And, immediately, the noise
of bodies moving together stops.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

I could not help moaning. It had been so
long.

PRINCE

No… Damn you…

QUEEN—INTIMATE

His manhood slid out of me. I reached out
and touched it, a tiny, slippery thing.

QUEEN

What’s wrong?

PRINCE

I told you. You must neither move, nor
speak.

Just lie there on the stones, so cold and so
fair.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

I did my best, but he had lost whatever
force it was that had made him virile; and, some short while later,
I left the Prince’s room, his tears and curses still resounding in
my ears.

PRINCE

You evil witch! Monstrous evil lustful
creature.

SFX: NEXT MORNING—WE CAN HEAR THE JINGLING OF
HARNESSES AND THE STAMPING OF HORSES, FAR, FAR, BELOW US.

MAIDSERVANT

So how was he, majesty?

QUEEN

Charming. But He. He does not like… live
women.

MAIDSERVANT

Do you think they will ever come back?

QUEEN

No, Jenna. He won’t be back.

SFX: HORSES RIDE THROUGH A FOREST, HARNESSES
JANGLING.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

And what happened next? I do not know. But I
can guess. I imagine his loins, now, as he rode, a knot of
frustration at the base of his manhood. I imagine his pale lips
pressed so tightly together. Then I imagine his little troupe
riding through the forest, finally coming upon the
glass-and-crystal cairn of my stepdaughter. So pale. So cold.
Naked, beneath the glass, and little more than a girl, and
dead.

PRINCE (to himself)

Oh yes.

SFX: HE DISMOUNTS.

PRINCE (cont’d)

Oh yes.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

In my fancy, I can almost feel the sudden
hardness of his manhood inside his britches, envision the lust that
took him then, the prayer she muttered beneath his breath in thanks
for his good fortune. Imagine him negotiating with the little hairy
men - offering them gold and spices for the lovely corpse under the
crystal mound.

PRINCE

I want her. I want her now.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

Did they take his gold willingly? Or did
they look up to see his men on their horses, with their sharp
swords and their spears, and realize they had no alternative?

I do not know. I was not there; I was not
scrying.

I can only imagine…

Hands, pulling off the lumps of glass and
quartz from her cold body.

Hands, gently caressing her cold cheek,
moving her cold arm, rejoicing to find the corpse still fresh and
pliable.

Did he take her there, in front of them all?
Or did he have her carried to a secluded nook before he mounted
her?

I cannot say.

Did he shake the apple from her throat? Or
did her eyes slowly open as he pounded into her cold body; did her
mouth open, those red lips part, those sharp yellow teeth close on
his swarthy neck, as the blood, which is the life, trickled down
her throat, washing down and away the lump of apple, my own, my
poison?

I imagine; I do not know.

SFX: THE HEARTBEAT HAS BEGUN AGAIN DURING
THIS SPEACH, REALLY, REALLY QUIETLY. NOW IT’S SLOWLY GETTING
LOUDER.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

This I do know: I was woken in the night by
her heart pulsing and beating once more. Salt blood dripped onto my
face from above. I sat up. My hand burned and pounded as if I had
hit the base of my thumb with a rock.

SFX: A BANGING ON A DOOR.

SOLDIER

Open up! Open up in there!

QUEEN—INTIMATE

There was a hammering on the door. I felt
afraid, but I am a queen, and I do not show fear. I opened the
door.

SFX: MANY FOOTSTEPS. SCUFFLING. THE HEARTBEAT
IS CONTINUING …

QUEEN—INTIMATE

First his men walked in to my chamber, and
stood around me, with their sharp swords, and their long
spears.

Then he came in; and he spat in my face.

SFX: WE HEAR A SPIT, AND THE PRINCE’S
CHUCKLE.

PRINCE

There. You old witch.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

Finally, she walked into my chamber, as she
had when I was first a queen, and she was a child of six.

PRINCESS

Hello, stepmother.

QUEEN

Hello, stepdaughter. You have not
changed.

PRINCESS

Thank you, stepmother. Neither have you.

SFX: THE HEARTBEAT IS THUDDING AND THUMPING
THROUGH THIS SPEECH.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

She pulled down the twine on which her heart
was hanging. She pulled off the dried rowan berries, one by one;
pulled off the garlic bulb—now a dried thing, after all these
years; then she took up her own, her pumping heart—a small thing,
no larger than that of a nanny-goat or a she-bear—as it brimmed and
pumped its blood into her hand.

Her fingernails must have been as sharp as
glass: she opened her breast with them, running them over the
purple scar. Her chest gaped, suddenly, open and bloodless. She
licked her heart, once, as the blood ran over her hands, and she
pushed the heart deep into her breast.

SFX: THE HEARTBEAT STOPS.

QUEEN—INTIMATE

I saw her do it. I saw her close the flesh
of her breast once more.

I saw the purple scar begin to fade.

PRINCE

My darling? Are you… ?

QUEEN—INTIMATE

He put his arm around her nonetheless, and
they stood, side by side, and they waited.

PRINCE (CONT’D)

(horny)

You’re… still… very cold.

PRINCESS