Snow Glass Apples: A Play For Voices Read Free Page A

FOREST NOISES BEGIN: OVER THIS NARRATION
WE HEAR THE PRINCESS BEING KILLED. A STAB AND A SCREAM, WHICH
STOPS.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    They took her to the heart of the forest,
and there they opened her blouse, and they cut out her heart, and
they left her dead, in a gully, for the forest to swallow.
     
    SFX: FOREST NOISES/FOREST THEME BEGINS.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    The forest is a dark place, the border to
many kingdoms; no-one would be foolish enough to claim jurisdiction
over it. Outlaws live in the forest. Robbers live in the forest,
and so do wolves. You can ride through the forest for a dozen days
and never see a soul; but there are eyes upon you the entire
time.
     
    SFX: FOREST NOISES FADE.
     
    SFX: PALACE ROOM. THE HUNTSMAN ENTERS:
     
    QUEEN
    Is it done?
     
    HUNTSMAN
    Yes, majesty.
     
    QUEEN
    You have it with you?
     

     
    HUNTSMAN
    She was only a child, your majesty.
     
    QUEEN
    I don’t know what she was. But she wasn’t a
child. Give it to me.
     
    SFX: THE HEART BEATS GENTLY IN THE BACKGROUND
…
     
    QUEEN (CONT’D)
    Well done. That will be all.
     
    HUNTSMAN
    Majesty.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    They brought me her heart. I know it was
hers—no sow’s heart or doe’s would have continued to beat and pulse
after it had been cut out, as that one did.
     
    SFX: THE HEARTBEATS GET LOUDER.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    I took it to my chamber.
    I did not eat it: I hung it from the beams
above my bed, placed it on a length of twine that I strung with
rowan-berries, orange-red as a robin’s breast, and with bulbs of
garlic.
    (beat)
    Outside, the snow fell, covering the
footprints of my huntsmen, covering her tiny body in the forest
where it lay.
     
    SFX: GENTLE LUTE THEME. SNOW FALLING.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    I had the smith remove the iron bars from my
windows, and I would spend some time in my room each afternoon
through the short winter days, gazing out over the forest, until
darkness fell.
     
    SFX: THE HEARTBEATS FADED AWAY …
     
    SFX: PASSAGE OF TIME MUSIC …
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    As I said, there were people in the forest.
They would come out, some of them, for the Spring Fair: a greedy,
feral, dangerous people; some were stunted—dwarfs and midgets and
hunchbacks; others had the huge teeth and vacant gazes of idiots;
some had fingers like flippers or crab-claws. They would creep out
of the forest each year for the Spring Fair, held when the snows
had melted.
     
    SFX: SLOWLY RAISING UP, THE NOISE OF THE
SPRING FAIR. PEOPLE CRYING THEIR WARES. SOME MINSTRELS PLAYING.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    As a young lass I had worked at the Fair,
and they had scared me then, the forest folk. I told fortunes for
the Fairgoers, scrying futures in a pool of still water; and,
later, when I was older, in a disc of polished glass, its back all
silvered—a gift from a merchant whose straying horse I had seen in
a pool of ink.
    (beat)

     
    The stallholders at the fair were afraid of
the forest folk; they would nail their wares to the bare boards of
their stalls—slabs of gingerbread or leather belts were nailed with
great iron nails to the wood. If their wares were not nailed, they
said, the forest folk would take them, and run away, chewing on the
stolen gingerbread, flailing about them with the belts.
     
    SFX: CRIES OF “HOY! COME BACK!” AND
SCUFFLING, OVER THE MARKET NOISES.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    The forest folk had money, though: a coin
here, another there, sometimes stained green by time or the earth,
the face on the coin unknown to even the oldest of us. Also they
had things to trade, and thus the fair continued, serving the
outcasts and the dwarfs, serving the robbers (if they were
circumspect) who preyed on the rare travellers from lands beyond
the forest, or on gypsies, or on the deer.
    (This was robbery in the eyes of the law.
The deer were the queen’s.)
     
    (pause)
     
    SFX: THE FAIR NOISES ARE GONE. NOW ALL WE CAN
HEAR IS THE GENTLE BEAT OF THE PRINCESS’S HEART.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    The years passed by