Chapter Text
So many people want to live in the most beautiful city in the world that the houses are built close together, and there isn't room for everybody to have even a small garden. Those who live there must be satisfied with a few flowers in a pot, or perhaps a scrap of vine in a window box.
In this city there lived an orphan boy who was very lonely, even though he was surrounded by people. He'd had a family once, but it was so long ago that he could barely remember them, and what memories he had were not happy ones, but full of fear, and grief, and shame, and best left alone. Now he lived in a tiny garret at the top of one of the tall, narrow houses along the river, with only his books for company, living on what scraps he could find or earn by his wits. The one source of joy in his life came from the beautiful rose bushes he carefully nurtured in boxes on the crumbling balcony outside his garret window.
In time, the rose bushes shot forth long branches heavy with their huge, white blooms, which he trained around the window and into a beautiful, drooping spill over the rusted railing. At times when he felt most alone, he would tend his garden for hours, and then sit reading and watching the roses nod lazily in the breeze, imagining that the flowers were happy, and that they didn't feel the harshness or loneliness of the world, but only how much he loved them. And so, in this fashion, the orphan boy grew into a young man, and the young man's name was Methos.
One day, Methos came home from a day of prowling the city's bookshops. His arms were empty, for he had little money, but a day spent with books always raised his spirits, and so it was that he went out onto the balcony with a light heart to greet his rose bushes and to see if any new blooms had opened that day.
He was surprised to find that across the water-pipe, on the tiny balcony that faced his own, someone had placed a flower box, and in the flower box, a small rose bush was growing, already bearing several of the most beautiful red blooms he'd ever seen. Now, the garret across the water-pipe had been empty as long as he'd lived there. This was most curious, he thought. Most curious indeed. And he was seized by a fierce desire to know who had moved into that flat and planted those beautiful red roses.
The window was closed, however, and Methos was a rather shy sort, so he did not go over at once and knock on the glass. Instead, he decided that he would wait for the garret's owner to come out, for surely he or she must tend the rose bush some time, and Methos would then be able to introduce himself.
A day passed, then two, which then stretched into a week, and though Methos could sometimes see a figure moving behind the thick glass, or the flicker of a fire in the grate, the garret's owner seemed determined to remain a mystery. At last Methos was forced to go out and seek an afternoon's work so that he might have something to eat.
When he returned and opened the window onto the balcony, he found that another red rose bush had been planted beside the first and was blooming contentedly alongside it. Perplexed, and being a most curious sort and capable of great stubbornness, Methos determined that he would not leave his garret again until he had discovered who lived across the water-pipe.
For two days he stayed at the open window, pruning and talking to his roses until they seemed to beam and nod happily with all the attention. But on the third day, just as he was about to give in to his fierce curiosity and knock on the glass after all, he heard the latch click at the window across the way, and it swung open. There in the window stood a handsome young man, perhaps a little younger than himself, with a kind face and sad eyes that made Methos's heart squeeze unexpectedly.
The young man seemed surprised to see him sitting there, and a little taken aback, but after a moment he smiled tentatively, and Methos saw then that although his eyes were sad, when he smiled, fine lines appeared at their corners as if he had once laughed a great deal. Maybe it was in that moment that Methos began to fall a little in love with the young man, or maybe it was when he heard the dark, velvet voice say, "Hi," and then, "I'm Duncan," and finally, because Methos's heart was pounding so hard that he couldn't seem to find anything intelligent to say, "Your roses are beautiful."
"Thank you," Methos said at last. "Yours are very nice, too." And then, when he remembered that he hadn't introduced himself yet, "My name is Methos." And he found himself wondering why those dark eyes were so sad when Duncan had plainly known laughter once, and why he'd never noticed before how beautiful red roses could be, and whether he might have found a man who would prove to be a true friend.
For his own part, Duncan was thinking that he'd never before noticed how beautiful and pure white roses could be, and that perhaps he only noticed it now because Methos's skin was fair and palely beautiful like his roses. Methos, his heart repeated, turning the name over like a shining stone found at the bottom of a stream, and for the first time since he'd had everything he held dear taken from him, he began to think he might learn to laugh again.
All through the long summer, the two would spend their days making their way in the city, but each afternoon they would hurry home, climbing the steps to their tiny apartments and opening the windows between them, stepping out onto the balconies between and meeting there. They shared the late afternoon sunshine and often stayed late into the evening, eating their supper together under the stars. Sometimes they tended their roses, encouraging them to twine together into a beautiful arched bower of red and white blooms, talking of books and philosophy and music; sometimes they would just sit quietly together and read, or play chess by moonlight under the lush span of roses. Methos seemed to remember everything he read, and was always full of stories to share, so often Duncan would merely sit and listen, content just to hear him talk.
And as the summer drew to a close and autumn began to nip at the air, sometimes they found that it was enough just to lean their heads together across the water-pipe and talk quietly. So it was the night Methos confessed to Duncan how lonely he had been, and how glad he was that Duncan had happened to take the garret across the way. So it was the night Duncan told Methos the story of the family that had been taken from him, the brother killed in a duel in a tunnel beneath the city, the lover lost to him across the ocean, the kind priest who had adopted him killed brutally in his own church. And though Methos knew nothing of lovers or brothers or fathers, he held his friend while Duncan cried, glad to know at last what name to give the sorrow that had always dwelt in his friend's eyes.
At last, these pleasures came to an end, for winter came to the city and at times the windows were quite frozen over. But on days when this happened, the two friends would warm copper pennies on the stove and press them against the frozen panes until a round hole would appear in the frost through which they could signal to one another. Then they would each go down the long staircase and meet in the street, where they would walk together in the falling snow and talk, for they never seemed to run out of subjects that interested them. If it got too cold, a steaming cup of coffee from a street vendor would be enough to warm them, and off they would go, on some new tangent of conversation.
"Those are really white bees swarming, you know," said Methos one day when the snow was falling thickly.
"Have they a queen bee?" asked Duncan, playing along.
"To be sure they have," said Methos seriously. "See, there she flies, where the swarm is thickest. She's the largest of them all, and can fly as high as the clouds. Often at midnight she flies through the streets and looks in at the windows. This makes the ice freeze on the panes into wonderful shapes that look like flowers and castles."
"Yes, I've seen them," said Duncan, laughing at the fanciful turns Methos's imagination sometimes took.
"Don't laugh," Methos warned, though his mouth twitched. "She is not a bee you want to mess with."
"Only let her dare try to harm us," said Duncan staunchly, for he had a bad habit of thinking that courage and honor would protect him from any threat. "I'll set her on the stove, and then she'll melt."
Methos smiled, but he changed the subject, and for the rest of the day he felt uneasy, though he couldn't have said why.
One evening, when Duncan was at home, half-undressed because the stove had warmed his garret until it felt like high summer, he missed Methos and went to the window, pressing a penny against the glass and peering out through the little hole. A few flakes of snow were falling, and one of them, rather larger than the rest, alighted on the edge of one of the flower boxes. This snowflake grew larger and larger, till at last it became the figure of a woman, dressed in garments of white gauze, which looked like millions of starry snowflakes woven together. She was fair and beautiful, with thick chestnut hair and beautiful green eyes, but made of ice—shining and glittering ice. Her eyes sparkled like bright stars, but there was neither peace nor rest in their glance. Still, she was alive, and more beautiful than anything Duncan had ever seen. He wondered if perhaps she was an angel.
She nodded toward the window and waved her hand. Duncan was somewhat alarmed, but curious, and it seemed that he heard her speak his name in a Voice that lit a spark deep inside him, making him want to obey her wishes. Before he knew what he was doing he found himself trying to open the window. Frozen over as it was, the hinge would not budge even under the pressure of his full strength.
When he looked again, the woman was gone, but it seemed as though he saw the shape of a wolf disappearing over the railing, the white plume of its tail brushing against the window.
On the following day there was a clear frost, and very soon came the spring. The sun shone, the young green leaves burst forth, the swallows built their nests. Windows were opened, and Duncan and Methos spent long afternoons once more in their makeshift garden, high above all the other rooms of the city.
How beautifully the roses bloomed that summer. Methos woke one day and realized that for the first time, he knew what it was to be happy, and what it was to belong, and for long days afterward he held this new awareness close and thought about the day when he would at last find the courage to tell Duncan the secrets that he kept in his heart, the dark memories that he scarcely admitted even to himself, and the fragile, inescapable certainty he felt every time Duncan looked at him. And on good days, he thought maybe he could see an answering certainty in those dark eyes, just waiting for him to speak.
Those were splendid summer days. How beautiful and fresh it was out among the rose bushes, which seemed as if they would never leave off blooming; they only wrapped their fragrance around the two friends and grew heavier on the vine by the day, as if with expectation. And so it happened on a day when the first bite of autumn chilled the air, and Duncan and Methos sat reading passages from their books to one another, that just as the clock in the church tower struck twelve, Duncan stopped in the middle of reading from a tale of knights and damsels—his favorite sort of book—and got a funny look on his face.
"Duncan?" Methos asked, suddenly afraid.
And his friend drew a sharp breath as if he had been struck, and his book fell from his hand. "Something's the matter with my heart," he said faintly. And then soon after, "There's something in my eye."
Methos tilted Duncan's head back, and looked into his eye, but could see nothing. "Does it hurt?" he asked.
Duncan blinked. "I think it's gone," he said.
But it was not gone. It was one of those bits of the looking-glass—that magic mirror, of which we have spoken—the ugly glass that made everything fine and beautiful shrink up to nothing when it was reflected in it, but all those things that were frightening and unpleasant were magnified tenfold. Worse, Duncan had also gotten a small shard in his heart, which very quickly froze into a lump of ice. He felt no more pain, but the glass was there still. "Why do you look so worried?" he said to Methos at last, a trace of scorn in his voice. "It makes you look ugly. I'm all right now." He frowned, noticing something. "Well, look at that," he said suddenly, "that red rose is worm-eaten, and this white one is quite crooked. How ugly they are, after all—just like the boxes in which they stand," and then he reached out and pinched off the two roses with a vicious twist of his hand and threw them off the balcony.
"Duncan, what are you doing?" Methos asked, feeling a dangerous fury stirring in him, the feeling of betrayal as intense as if his friend had struck him.
Hearing it in his voice, Duncan sneered at him, an expression that twisted his handsome face into something Methos barely recognized. Duncan stood up and tore off another rose out of pure spite; before Methos could react, he had turned and disappeared through his own window, shutting it behind him with a savage snap.
Sick at heart, stomach churning with hurt and uneasiness, Methos turned and went inside his own garret. For long hours he couldn't read or even think straight, so surprised and hurt was he, and he only sat in the shadows of his room as night came on, lost in a haze of confusion and fear, and troubled by dark, disturbing memories that he'd thought banished forever. Even the sight of the roses in the moonlight, which had so often made him warm with happiness, was painful to him now. That night sleep didn't come for a long time, and when at last he sank into an exhausted, fitful doze, old nightmares he'd forgotten woke him in a cold sweat of fear and despair.
The next day, he was surprised to see Duncan out on his balcony, and hoping that whatever darkness had come over his friend had passed, he opened his own window and called to him across the way. Duncan looked up, but Methos saw then that he was holding a pair of scissors and methodically snipping the blooms off his roses. Methos's heart sank.
"What do you want?" Duncan asked. "Can't you see I'm busy?"
"I thought..." Methos cleared his throat. "I thought you might like to read some more of Gawain's adventures to me." He knew that was Duncan's favorite book, and thought that maybe reading it would bring his friend back to himself.
But Duncan snorted derisively and went back to his snipping, the red petals falling like tears at his feet. "That book is only fit for children. Adventuring and chivalry and such—pure drivel, isn't it?"
Privately, Methos had entertained similar thoughts on occasion, but to hear Duncan say it made him feel sick to his stomach. "You're not going to cut them all back, are you?" he asked at last, trying to keep his tone light, as if he didn't care.
"Why not?" Duncan said, still snipping. "It's for the best, diseased as they are. I can't believe I didn't notice it before."
A part of Methos wanted to go inside and shut the window and curl up with his pain when Duncan said that, but he remembered the gallant promise Duncan had made to defend him from the imaginary Queen of the Bees, and he couldn't just give up. And so all that morning he tried everything he could think of to bring Duncan back to himself. He told fanciful stories that had made Duncan laugh in the past, but Duncan would just interrupt him with "but," or make fun of him, mimicking his accent and poking fun at his foolishness. He asked Duncan to go out with him, thinking that if they walked along some of their favorite paths, maybe it would help. Duncan agreed to go with him, but instead of taking pleasure in the crisp blue sky and the sweet scent of leaves turning, he began to mimic the speech and gait of persons in the street. All that was peculiar or disagreeable in a person he would imitate directly, and people commented on his cleverness. But it was the piece of glass in his eye and the coldness in his heart that made him act like this.
In the absence of anyone else to make fun of, he grew bored and left Methos standing at one of their favorite coffee-stands, having caught sight of a pretty blonde in a red coat and gone chasing off after her. Methos followed long enough to see Duncan smile that smile at her, the one that always made Methos's heart skip a beat; only Methos knew him well enough to see that the smile did not reach his eyes. It didn't seem to matter; the blonde was quite charmed and let Duncan lead her away with her hand tucked in his arm.
Methos went home and did not open his garret window for many days after that. He didn't cover his roses against the cold, either, and when the first snow came, they withered and died, and Methos tried not to notice, and told himself he didn't care. Sometimes he saw Duncan in the street with one woman or another, never the same one, and he told himself he didn't care about that, either.
One winter's day, he came home at nightfall from a day at the bookseller's, no more cheered than he had been that morning, and by chance Duncan was coming home at the same time. When he saw Methos, he waved casually as if it had been only a day since they'd seen each other, and not almost two months. Hating himself for being so weak, Methos waved back and stood waiting for him, and when Duncan reached him, Methos couldn't help noticing the way his nose and ears were pink from the cold, his dark eyes bright against the flush of his cheeks. Methos was almost able to fool himself that it was the old Duncan, until his friend brought out a burning-glass, then held out the arm of his black coat and let the snowflakes fall upon it.
"Look in this glass, Methos," he said, and Methos saw how every flake of snow was magnified and looked like a beautiful flower or a glittering star. "Is it not clever?" said Duncan, "and much more interesting than looking at real flowers. There is not a single fault in any of them, and the snowflakes are quite perfect till they begin to melt." He smiled brightly at Methos, not waiting for an answer, and said, "I'm going up to the gardens, to skate on the lake. You should come," he said, as if he didn't know perfectly well that Methos hated the cold. And he hurried inside, reappearing in a moment wearing thick gloves and carrying a pair of skates over one shoulder. Without another word to Methos, he was off down the street.
On the wide lake in the center of the city, the boldest among the young men would often tie up to people's sledges and go with them a good way on their skates. This was capital. But while they were all amusing themselves, and Duncan with them, a great sledge came by; it was painted white, and in it sat someone wrapped in a white fur and wearing a white cap. The sledge drove twice round the lake, and Duncan lashed himself fast to it by the wrist, so that when it went away, he followed with it. It went faster and faster right through the park and into the street, and then the person who drove turned around and nodded pleasantly to Duncan, just as if they were acquainted with each other, but whenever Duncan wished to loosen the cord he had used to bind himself to the sledge, the driver nodded again, so Duncan stopped trying to free himself, and they drove out through the town gate.
Now the snow began to fall, so heavily that the young man could not see a hand's breadth before him, but still they drove on. His skates broke on the uneven ground, and he was forced now to run after the sledge until his legs and lungs threatened to give out; he fought to unbind his wrist so that the large sled might go on without him, but it was of no use, the cord held fast, and away they went like the wind. When his gloves were torn off and the rope had rubbed his wrist raw, he cried at last for help, but nobody heard him; still the snow beat upon him, and the sledge flew onwards. Every now and then it gave a jump as if it were going over hedges and ditches. Duncan was afraid, and tried to cry Methos's name, but it slipped away from him, and all he could remember was the beautiful symmetry of the snowflakes under his burning-glass.
Then, all around him, the snowflakes became larger and larger until he saw that they were not snowflakes at all, but an army of white wolves whose fur glistened with ice crystals, running beside the sledge. All at once they sprang to one side, wicked teeth flashing, and the great sledge slid to a halt. The person who had driven it rose to her feet. The fur and the cap, which were made entirely of snow, fell off, and he saw the woman who had stood at his window that night in the snow, tall and regal with her chestnut hair and white skin, and her pale green eyes like chips of ice.
It was the Snow Queen.
"Don't be afraid, Duncan," said she. "You are the one I have sought for so long. Don't you know that you're safe with me?"
"How do you know my name?" he asked, surprised that he had the courage to speak at all.
At that, she smiled kindly. "Who else was born on the winter solstice? Come, sit with me under the furs. You'll soon be warm enough." As before, he felt strangely compelled to do as she said, and he went and sat beside her in the sledge. As she wrapped the fur around his shoulders, he felt as though he were sinking into a snowdrift.
"Are you still cold?" she asked, as she kissed him on the forehead, then on the cheek. Her kiss was colder than ice. Those caresses went quite through to his heart, which was already almost a lump of ice; he felt as if he were going to die, but only for a moment. He soon felt quite well again and no longer noticed the cold around him.
"You look beautiful," he said wonderingly, for now he could hardly look at anything else but her beauty. The Snow Queen kissed him again, and by this time he had forgotten Methos, and home, and all those he had ever loved.
"Now you must have no more kisses," she said lightly, "or I should kiss you to death."
Duncan gazed at her, and saw that she was so beautiful, he could not imagine a more lovely and intelligent face; she did not now seem to be made of ice, as she had when he had seen her through his window and she had beckoned to him. In his eyes she was perfect, and he did not even notice as the sledge began once more to cut through the frozen night, though around them a deadly storm blew and wolves with teeth like daggers kept pace. He was well and truly lost under the witch's spell, and he knew no fear.