The King stared at him. "I have no son," he said softly, and motioned for his guards. Hugh's head rolled across the courtyard that afternoon. His wife entered a convent and found God to be a far more satisfactory husband.
After that day the King came back to life. He began to take an interest in his kingdom. He discovered what his ministers had done. He had their heads removed, a river of blood racing across the courtyard until the next day's snowfall erased it. He promised that things would be better and they were. Food became affordable again and the feral starved eyes that gleamed out of everyone's face gradually disappeared.
It continued to snow. There was talk of curses still, but mostly late at night as slurred whispers over cups of ale. Occasionally a prophet would proclaim that there was a way to end the snow. A few of them spoke so convincingly that people believed and gave away everything they had or traveled to faraway lands where all they found were slave traders waiting to make a profit from them.
The snow never stopped falling. The prophets all either lost their heads or were shunned, wandering wrecked through the kingdom cursed by everyone they met.
***
The day the King announced he would marry again the snow stopped for seven hours and when it started again it fell as a light mist so fine most people scarcely noticed it.
That was the day David's nurse told him he was going to be getting a brother and sister. The nurse noticed that it stopped snowing after she'd given David the news but thought nothing of it.
She was just happy to see him smile. She hadn't been sure he could until that day.
Before she put him to bed he asked where his brother and sister were coming from. The nurse laughed and patted his pillow, almost touching his hair. "Why, your new mother," she said, and pulled blankets up around him. "They are her children from her marriage to the King of‑‑oh, a faraway place."
"Mother?" he asked anxiously, and she watched him mouth the word, rolling it around like it was a sweet he'd never had before. He was a strange boy. "What will happen when I see her?"
"Don't worry, love," she said and smiled fondly down at him. "You won't hurt her. You didn't mean to kill your mother. All that nonsense the washwoman spouts‑‑such piffle! Don't listen to a word she says. Now go to sleep and dream of sweet things."
David nodded and closed his eyes. He'd never talked to the washwoman. No one ever talked to him except his nurse. After she left he opened his eyes and stared at the dark corners of his room.
He didn't sleep.
The day of the wedding came, finally, and the great cathedral blazed with candles, so many that the ice covering the stained glass windows melted, sending streams of water across the floor that ruined many a lady’s fine gown but also tinted the streaming sunlight’s glorious colored hues.
David was there. He sat in the very back, his nurse by his side. He couldn't see very well‑‑the cathedral was large and his father and new mother were golden dots gleaming almost out of sight. He wished he could see them. He could see the great windows though and stared at the light passing through them, watched it make patterns on the floor.
He saw a few people looking at him, covert backward glances covered by prayer books or fans but the moment he looked back they always looked away, strange looks crossing their faces as if they saw something other than him when they looked at him.
"People are looking at me," he whispered to his nurse, tugging on her sleeve. "Why are they looking at me?"
"Because you're so beautiful," she whispered back and tapped his knee. He moved his hand away. She shivered and drew her shawl more tightly around herself. "Why don't you read the prayer book for a little while?"
He thought about the word “read”. It sounded like what baskets were made of but he didn't think that was what his nurse meant. He looked at the pictures in the prayer book instead. They were pretty. The ice that covered the pew he was sitting on started to thaw. His nurse stopped shivering. David didn't notice. He was wondering when he'd meet his brother and sister. He was looking at the pictures of saints and martyrs and watching the way the light broke them into bright colored fragments.
He met his brother and sister three years later, long after he'd given up hope of ever seeing them.
It had been a bad year for the kingdom, endless heavy snows for six months, a white icy blanket covering everything. In spite of all the King did, many starved. His new wife was from a place warm and sunny and she was not thriving in this land. She'd barred the King from her bed two months ago, screamed that he'd never told her about his dead wife and cursed child so loudly even the scullery maids heard. When the King said, "But I have no son," in a gentle voice she slammed her bedchamber door in his face and screamed that she wished she was dead, that the King was crazy and cursed and that now she was too.
The sixth day of the sixth month of those endless heavy snows David's nurse taught him how to make gingerbread. It was the only recipe she'd ever been able to remember and they made it together after dinner, both of them burning their hands as they scooped pieces from it out of the baking tin they'd put on a tray above the fire.
"I'm sorry your new mother hasn't been to see you," she said as he was eating his third piece of gingerbread. "I have half a mind to march up to those fancy rooms of hers and tell her how daft she's being."
"Maybe she doesn't want to see me," David said. Ice pelted against the window, a sharp cutting rain.
"Nonsense," his nurse said stoutly, tucking her shawl more firmly around herself. "You're a love, and you know it. And very clever too. You made that gingerbread all by yourself."
"You told me how to," David said, but there was an almost smile on his face.
His nurse kissed the top of his head. "But you did all the work. Finish up and then I'll tuck you into bed."
David ate the rest of his gingerbread. His nurse leaned forward and let the heat of the fire melt the ice that coated her lips. Outside the furious falling snow slowed, and the clouds cleared enough to allow a glimpse of nighttime sky. Before David fell asleep his nurse told him stories of brave heroes and beautiful maidens and happily ever after, her voice quavering a bit every time the hero said "I love you" and the beautiful maiden said "I love you too." Then she pointed out the stars to him, smiled at his eager questions. She couldn't answer most of them, but she did name all the constellations for him. She made the names up, of course, but David didn't know that.
He met his brother and sister as he was crossing the courtyard to sit with his nurse while she smoked a pipe and talked to the second chamberlain's wife. David liked going because the second chamberlain's wife made his nurse smile and always gave him almonds to eat. He was thinking about almonds when his nurse stopped so suddenly that he walked right into her back.
"Your Highnesses," his nurse said, and her voice had gone high and terrified the way it did whenever anyone important was nearby. David leaned into the wall behind her.
"Who are you?" a voice asked, low and sweet, and David looked around his nurse to see who was speaking.
He knew they were his brother and sister right away. They were golden and lovely and dressed like his father, in jewels and glittering fabric, matching wreaths of flowers and diamonds on their heads. The one who spoke, the boy, raised his eyebrows when he saw David.
"You must be‑‑" he said and launched into a long list of names that David didn't know.
"I'm David," he said in some confusion when the boy was done. "I'm your brother. And you're my brother. And sister."
"Of course you are," his sister said. Her voice was low and sweet too. "And I suppose we are."