Never After

The Tangleroot Palace



MARJORIE M. LIU



1



Weeks later, when she had a chance to put up her feet and savor a good hot cup of tea, Sally remembered something the gardener said, right before the old king told her that she had been sold in marriage.



"Only the right kind of fool is ever going to want you."



Sally, who was elbow-deep in horse manure, blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes. "And?"



"Well," began the elderly woman, frowning. And then she seemed to think better of what she was going to say, and crouched down beside her in the grass. "Here. Better let me."



They were both wearing leather gloves that were stiff as rawhide, sewn in tight patches to reach up past their elbows. Simple to clean if you let them sit in the sun until manure turned to dry flakes, easy to beat off with a stick. Sally, who did not particularly enjoy rooting through muck, was nonetheless pleased that the tannery had provided her with yet another new tool for her work in the garden.



"You know," Sally said, "when I told the stableboy to take care of my new roses, this is not what I meant."



The gardener made a noncommittal sound. "There were ravens in my dreams last night."



Sally finally felt something hard and stubbly beneath her fingers, and began clawing manure carefully away. "I thought we were talking about how only a fool would ever want me."



"All men are fools," replied the old woman absently, and then her frown deepened. "They were guarding a queen who wore a crown of horns."



It took Sally a moment to realize that she was speaking of the ravens in her dream again. "How odd."



"Not so odd if you know the right stories." The gardener shivered, and glanced over her shoulder - but not before her gaze lingered on Sally's hair. "Sabius is coming. Your father must want you."



Sally craned around, but the sun was in her eyes. All she could see was the blurry outline of a bowlegged man, stomping across the grass with his meaty fists swinging. She glanced down at herself, and then with a rueful little smile continued clearing debris away from her roses.



"Princess," said Sabius, well before his shadow fell over her. "Your father requests your... Oh, dear God."



The gardener bit her bottom lip and kept her head down, long silver braids swinging from beneath her straw hat. Sally, gazing with regret at the one little leaf she'd managed to expose, leaned backward and tugged until her arms slid free of the rawhide gloves - left sticking from the manure like two hollow branches. Her skin was pink and sweaty, her work apron brown with stains.



"Oh, dear God," said her father's manservant again; and turned his head, covering his mouth with a hairy, bare-knuckled hand better suited to brawling than to the delicately scripted letters he often sat composing for the king. He made a gagging sound, and squeezed shut his eyes.



"Er," said Sally, quite certain she didn't smell that bad. "What does my father want?"



Sabius, still indisposed, pointed toward the south tower. Sally considered arguing, but it was hardly worth the effort.



She shrugged off her apron and dropped it on the ground. Smoothing out her skirts - also rather stained, and patched with a quilt work of silk scrap from the seamstress's bin - she raised her brow at the gardener, who shook her head and returned to digging free the roses.



The king's study was on the southern side of the castle, directly below his bedchamber, which was accessible only through a hidden wall behind his desk that concealed a narrow stone staircase. Not that it was a secret. Everyone knew of its existence, what with the maids scurrying up and down in the mornings and evenings: cleaning, folding, dressing, doing all manner of maid, and maidenly, things that Sally did not want to know about.



Her father was just coming down the stairs when she entered his study even more slowly than she had intended, having been stopped outside the kitchen by two of the cook's young apprentices from the village, who, in different ways, could not help but try to clean her up. First with scalding-hot water and crushed lavender scrubbed into her face, then her loose hair tugged into a respectable braid. The other girl fetched a fresh apron from the kitchen, which was not fine, and certainly not royal, but was clean and starched, and certainly in line with Sally's usual apparel. No use wasting fine gowns on long walks, or earth work, or even just reading in the library.



Her one concession to vanity was the amethyst pendant she wore against her skin; a teardrop as long as her thumb, and held in a golden claw upon which half of a small wooden heart hung, broken jaggedly down the middle. Her mother's jewelry, and precious only for that reason.



"Salinda," said her father, and stopped, sniffing the air. "You smell as though you've been sleeping beneath a horse's ass."



"Do I?" she replied airily. "I hadn't noticed."



The old king frowned, looking over her clothing with a great deal more scrutiny than was usual. He was a barrel-chested man, tall and lean in most places, except for his gut and the wattle beneath his chin, which he tried vainly to hide with a coarse beard that was fading quickly from black to silver. He moved with a limp, due to an arrow shot recently into his hip.



Sally had been frightened for him - for as long as it had taken the old king to wake from the draught the doctor had poured down his throat in order to remove the bolt. His temper had been foul ever since. Everyone was avoiding him.



"Don't you have anything nicer to wear?" he asked, a peculiar tenseness in the way he studied her that made Sally instantly uneasy. "I pay for seamstresses."



"And I have fine clothing," she replied cautiously, as her father had never commented on her appearance, not once in seventeen years. "These are for everyday."



The old king made a small, dissatisfied sound, and limped past her to his desk. "I suppose you heard about the skirmish at old Bog Hill? Men died. More good men every day. Little weasel bastard Fartin throwing gold at mercenaries to test our borders. But" - and he smiled grimly - "I have a solution."



"Really," Sally said, suffering the most curious urge to run.



"Your darling mother, before we married, had a very dear friend who was given to one of those southern tribal types as part of a lucrative alliance. She bore a son, who just so happens to be a very powerful man in need of a wife."



"Oh," Sally said.



Her father gave her a stern look. "And I suppose he's found one."



"Oh," Sally said again. "Oh, no."



"Fine man," replied the old king, but with a glittering unease in his eyes. "That Warlord fellow. You know. Him."



Sally stared, quite certain that bumblebees had just committed suicide in her ears. "Him. The Warlord. Who commands all the land south of the mountains to the sea; who leads a barbarian horde of nomadic horsemen so fierce, so vicious, so perverse in their torments, that grown men piddle themselves at the thought of even breathing the same air? That Warlord?"



"He does sound rather intimidating," said her father.



"Indeed," Sally replied sharply. "Have you lost your mind?"



"Amazingly, no." The old king rubbed his hip, and winced. "I haven't felt this proud of myself in years."



Sally closed her eyes, grabbing fistfuls of her skirt and squeezing. "I think I'm losing my mind." She had heard about the man for as long as she could remember. Warlord of this and that: colorfully descriptive names that were usually associated with pain, death, and destruction. Sally had vague memories of her mother speaking of him, as well, but only in association with his mother. He would have been a small child at the time, she thought. Nice and innocent; probably skinning dogs and plucking the wings off butterflies while suckling milk from his mother's teat.



"What in the world," she said slowly, fighting to control her temper, and rising horror, "could a man like that possibly want from a woman like me? He could have anyone. He probably has had everyone, given his reputation." Sally leaned forward, poking her father in the chest. "I will not do it. Absolutely not. You are sending me to a short, hard, miserable life. I'm ashamed of you."



Her father folded his arms over his chest. "Your mother's best friend was sent to that short, hard, miserable life - and she thrived. Your dear, late, lovely mother would not have lied about that." He turned and fumbled through the papers on his desk. "Now, here. The Warlord sent a likeness of himself."



Sally frowned, but leaned in for a good long stare. "He looks like a dirty fingerprint."



"Of course he doesn't," replied her father, squinting at the portrait. "You can see his eyes, right there."



"I thought those were his nostrils."



"Well, you're not going to be picky, are you? At least he has a face."



"Yes," Sally replied dryly. "What a miracle."



The king scowled. "Spoiled. I let you run wild, allow you teachers, books, a lifestyle unsuitable for any princess, and this is how you repay me. With sarcasm."



"You taught me how to think for myself. Which never seemed to bother you until now."



He slammed his fists onto the desk. "We are being overrun!"



His roar made her eardrums thrum. Sally shut her mouth, and fell backward into the soft cushions of a velvet armchair. Her knees were too weak to keep her upright. Terrible loneliness filled her heart, and sorrow - which she bottled up tight, refusing to let her father see.



The old king, as she stared at him, slumped with his arms braced against his desk. Staring at maps, and embroidered family crests that had been torn off the clothing of the fallen soldiers; and that now were scattered before him, some crusty with dried blood.



"We are being overrun," he said again, more softly. "I know how it starts. First with border incursions, and petty theft of livestock. Then villages ransacked, roads blocked. Blamed on vandals and simple thieves. Until one day you hear the thunder of footfall beyond the walls of your keep, and all that you were born to matters not at all."



He fixed her with a steely look. "I will not have that happen. Not for me, not for you. Not for any of the people who depend on us."



Sally swallowed hard. Perhaps she had been spoiled. Duty could not be denied. But when she looked at the small portrait of the man her father wanted her to marry, terrible, unbending disgust filled her - disgust and terror, and a gut wrenching grief that made her want to howl with misery.



Married to that. Sent away from all she knew. Forced to give up her freedom. No matter how fondly her mother had spoken of her friend, that woman's son had a reputation that no sweet talk could alter. He was a monster.



The old king saw her looking at the Warlord's likeness, and held it out to her with grim determination. She did not take it, but continued to stare, feeling as though she were going to jump out of her skin.



"I can't tell anything from that," she said faintly.



"His artist did a terrible job."



"Probably because he never sits still," replied her father sarcastically. "Or so I was told. I assume it's because he prefers to be out killing things."



Sally grimaced. "You're not seriously considering this?"



"Darling, sweet child; you golden lamb of my heart; my little chocolate knucklehead: I did consider, I have considered, and the deed is done. His envoy should be arriving within the week to inspect you for marriage and sign the contracts."



"Oh, dear." Sally stared at her father, feeling as though she hardly knew him - quite certain that she did not.



And, since he was suddenly a stranger to her, she had no qualms in grabbing a nearby candle, and jamming it flame first into the tiny portrait he held in his hand. Hot wax sprayed. She nearly set his sleeve on fire. He howled in shock, dancing backward, and slammed his injured hip into the desk. He yelled even louder.



"And that," Sally said, shaken, "is how I feel about the matter."



* * *



She was sent to her room without supper, which was hardly a punishment, as the idea of food made her want to lean outside her window and add bile to the already bilious moat; which, briefly, she considered jumping into. Unfortunately, she had a healthy respect for her own life, and if the fall did not kill her, swallowing even a mouthful of that stinking cesspool probably would.



So she paced. Ran circles around her chamber, faster and faster, until she had to sit down in the middle of the floor and hold her head. No tears, though her eyes burned. Just a lump in her throat that grew larger and harder, and more sour - until she did bend over and gag, covering her mouth, trying to be quiet so that no one would hear her.



Her father, she thought, was not a bad man. But he was desperate, and had no son, and while that had not bothered him when she was young, now that he was getting on in years - hounded by insipid little squirts invading his borders - he had clearly lost his mind, and his heart, and if she did not control her temper, perhaps some other vital body parts.



Clearly, something had to be done.



Selfish, she thought. You know he needs this alliance. He would not have gone to such extremes otherwise.



Of course not. But that did not mean that she had to put up with it. Being married to a warlord? And not just any warlord, but the Warlord of the South, with his endless army of barbarians, witches, and wolves? Even the horses were said to eat meat (an exaggeration, she knew that for a fact), and the Warlord himself lived in a tent so that he could up and move at the change of the wind, or if a good pillage was scented; and to evade all the assassins sent to take his head. That much was not an embellishment.



She wouldn't last a week. It was a death sentence.



So go, she thought. Leave your father to his own devices.



Leave the father whom she loved. Betray him to his enemies. Allow him to stand before the envoy of the most hated, villainous man to haunt the South, and say that his daughter had up and run - with apologies for having made the envoy make the trip for nothing. Yes, that would work perfectly.



Sally sighed, pounding her fists against her legs in frustration. She could not do that to her father. But she could not marry the Warlord, either. There had to be another way.



Except there was nothing.



Nothing, unless you turn to magic.



Simple, stupid, magic. Probably her imagination. Magic was something folks whispered about only when they were frightened; and then, if it was dark, only as ghouls and flesh suckers, or men who transformed into wolves. Which wasn't even magic, in Sally's opinion. Just other kinds of people. Who probably didn't exist.



Magic was something else. Magic was power, and thought, and miracle. Magic could spin the threads of the world and make something new. Magic could circumvent the future.



Sally's mother had dabbled in magic; or that was how Sally remembered it, anyway: small things that her father called eccentricities. Like singing prayers to roses, or speaking to the frogs in the pond as though they were human. Sketching signs over her chest when passing certain trees, or laying her hands upon others, with a murmur and a smile. Cats had enjoyed her company, as did fawns from the wood (although, as the deer on her father's land were practically tame anyway, that was hardly evidence of the arcane); and sometimes, in a storm, with the lightning flickering around her, she would stand on the balcony in the rain and wind, staring into the darkness as though searching, waiting for something she thought would come.



Which was why she had died, some said. Being in the wind, chilled until a cough had found her; and then fever.



Many little things. Many memories. Her mother had been a witch, according to a very few; born in the heart of the Tangleroot Forest. But Sally knew that was a lie. Her mother had merely lived and died with farsee ing eyes, able to perceive what others could not. Sally wished she had those eyes. Her mother had said that she did, but that was cold comfort now.



If there was such a thing as magic, it was not going to save her. She'd have better luck asking bluebirds or goldfish for salvation.



So Sally went for a walk.



Night had spun around, with stars glittering and the moon tipping the edge of the horizon, glimpsed behind the trees. Sally strode down to the garden, led by habit and soothing scents: lavender and jasmine, roses full in bloom. She passed the kitchen plot, and plucked basil to rub against her fingers and nose; and a carrot to chew on; and listened to pots banging, cooks arguing; and to the wind that hissed, caressing her hair, while frogs sang from the lilies in the pond. Sally followed their croaks, lonely for them; and envious. She felt very small in the world - but not small enough.



Several ancient oaks grew near the water. Some said they had been transplanted as seedlings from what was now the Tangleroot Forest, though after three hundred years, Sally could hardly imagine how anyone could be so certain that was the truth. She had a favorite, though, a sleeping giant with fat coiled roots that were too large for the earth to contain. She imagined, one day, that her gentleman tree would wake, believing he was an old man, and try hobbling away.



Her mother had often laid her hands upon this tree. Sally perched on the thick tangle of his once-and-future legs, bark worn smooth from years of her keeping company with his shadow, and leaned back against the trunk with a sigh.



"Well," she said. "This is a mess."



The oak's leaves hissed in the wind, and then, quite surprisingly, she heard a soft female voice say, "Poor lass."



Sally flinched, turning - but it was only the gardener who peered around the other side of the massive oak. The old woman held a tankard in her wrinkled hands, her silver eyes glittering in the faint firelight cast by the sconces that had been pounded into the earth around the castle, lit each night and burning on pitch.



"I heard," said the gardener. "Thought you would come here."



Sally remembered the first time she had seen the old woman, who looked the same now as she had fifteen years ago when Sally had first tottered into her domain, sticky with pear juice and holding the tail of a spotted hunting dog, her mother's finest companion besides her daughter and husband. The garden had been a place of wonderment; and the gardener had become one of Sally's most trusted confidants.



"You've always been a friend to me," she said. "What do you think I should do?"



The old woman pushed back her braids, and took a brief sip from the tankard before passing it on to Sally, who drank deeply and found cider, spicy and sweet on her tongue. "I think you should be useful to yourself."



"Useful to my father, you mean?"



"Don't be dense," she replied. "You know what you want."



Sally did. What she wanted was simple, and yet very complicated: freedom, simply to be herself. Not a princess. Just Sally.



Except that there was a cost to being free, and in the world beyond this castle and its land, she was useful for very little. She could garden, yes, and cook; or ride a bucking horse as well as a man. But that was hardly enough to survive on. She was Sally, but also a princess - and that had never been clearer to her than now, when she thought of what she might be good for, out in the world.



"Useful," Sally said, after a moment's thought. "Useful to myself and others. That's a powerful thing."



"More than people realize," said the gardener.



"Everyone has got something different to offer. Just a matter of finding out what that is."



She sipped her drink. "I was the youngest of seven children. A good, hardy farming family, but there wasn't enough for all of us to eat. So I left. Took to the road one day and had my adventures. Until I came to this place. They needed a person with a talent for growing things, and that I had aplenty. I was useful. So I stayed.



"I'm a princess. I have duties."



"That you do," said the old woman. "But following the duty to yourself, and the duty to others, doesn't have to be separate."



Sally narrowed her eyes. "You know something."



The gardener smiled to herself, but it was sad, and vaguely uneasy. "I dreamed of the queen and her crown of horns, sleeping in the forest by the silver lake. Guarded by ravens, who keep her dreams at bay."



She spoke the words almost as though she were singing them, and Sally found herself light-headed, leaning hard against the oak, which seemed to vibrate beneath her back. "But that's just a dream."



"No," whispered the gardener, fixing her with a look. "Those of us who ever lived in the shadow of the Tangleroot know of odd truths, and odder dreams that are truth, echoes of a past that slumbers; and of things that walk amongst us, fully awake. Stories that others have forgotten, because they are too strange."



Sally rubbed her arms, chilled. "The Tangleroot is only a forest."



"Is that why no one enters it?" The old woman's smile deepened, but with a particular glint in her eyes. "Or why no one cuts its trees, or stands long in its shadow? You know that much is true."



Sally did know. The Tangleroot was an ancient forest, rumored to have once been the site of a powerful kingdom. But a curse had fallen, and great battles had raged, and what was mighty had decayed; until the forest took root, with trees rising from the bodies of the dead. To cut a tree from the Tangleroot, some said, was to cut a soul - and bring down a curse upon your head.



Whether mere fancy or not, Sally had never met a man or woman who did not take heed of the old warnings. And it was true, too, that strange things seemed to happen around that forest. Lights, dancing in the shadows, and unearthly voices singing. Wolves who were said to walk as men, and men small as thimbles. Those who entered did not often come out; and the lucky few who walked free were always changed: insane or wild, or aged in unnatural ways.



Sally began to suddenly suffer the same uneasiness that had filled her just before the old king had announced his plan to marry her off. "Why are you telling me this?"



"Because there are answers in the Tangleroot, for those who have the courage to find them. Answers and questions, and possibilities."



"And dreams?" Sally asked.



"Dreams that walk," whispered the old woman, staring down into her tankard. "Your mother would have understood. She had been inside the forest. I could see it in her eyes."



Sally went still at the mention of her mother, and then placed her hand over her chest, feeling through her dress the pendant, warm against her skin; the wooden heart, especially. "If I go there, will I find something that can help me? And my father?"



"You'll find something," she replied ominously, and pointed at Sally. "The Tangleroot calls to some, and to others it merely answers the desire that it senses. You want that forest, and it'll bring you in, one way or another. It is a dangerous place, created by a dangerous woman who lived long ago. But there's danger in staying here, too. You can't stop a plant that wants to grow. You'll only crush it if you try."



Sally had felt crushed from the moment her father had mentioned marriage, but now a terrible restlessness rose within her, crazy anticipation feeding a burst of wildness. Her entire body twitched, as though it wanted to start walking, and for a moment she felt a strange energy between herself and the oak. Like something was waking.



Fool's errand, she told herself. Magic, if it exists, won't save you.



But she found herself saying, "And all I would do is enter the Tangleroot? There must be more than that. I wouldn't know what to look for, or how to start."



"Start by not making excuses. Go or stay." The gardener stood on unsteady legs, and handed Sally her tankard. "Princess or not, duty or no, you were born with a heart and head. Which, in my experience, is enough to make your own choices about how to live your life."



The old woman touched Sally's brow, and her fingertips were light and cool. "You have a week before the envoy arrives."



"That's not much," Sally said.



"It's a lifetime," she replied. "Depending on how you use it."