Free Snow by Wheeler Scott Page A

stopping to carefully pet it. It looked at him placidly, tail twitching a little when he scratched its ears.

    "What's his name?" he asked when he walked back to the fire.

    "What?" Alec said. He was staring into the flames, a distracted look on his face.

    "The horse. What's his name?"

    "Her," Alec said with a small smile. "And she doesn't have one. I'll be selling her once I'm off the road."

    "Oh," David sat down next to Alec and passed him the pot. "What does that matter?"

    Alec took it, tossed it into the cart. The horse snorted, then quieted. "It doesn't. That's the point.
    It's a horse. It doesn't need a name."

    "Sure she does. She has a white mark on her ear that looks like a star. You could call her--"

    "What was your nurse's name?"

    "What?"

    "Her name," Alec said slowly. "What was it?"

    "I don't--I don't know."

    "Then maybe you should shut up about the damn horse."

    David put his hands on his knees, miserable. He stared into the fire and thought about his nurse.
    He didn't even know her name. He'd never even thought about it. But she'd had one. He wondered what it was. Next to him Alec sat tapping the fingers of one hand against his leg over and over again, a rapid drumming.

    "I called her Star for a while," he said abruptly, and his voice was so soft David could barely hear it. "Back when I first bought her. But when I realized I was going to have to sell her I didn't--I didn't want her to have a name anymore."

    "You'll miss her less that way?"

    Alec shrugged.

    "I still miss my nurse," David said. "I always will. And I-I never even knew her name."

    "It'll get easier," Alec said, and his voice was mild now, so carefully even David knew the tone was forced. "You can forget anything or anyone if enough time passes."

    "I don't believe that."

    Alec laughed a little, a harsh bite of sound. "Yeah, well, I have to."

    David was almost asleep when the singing started. It took him a moment to recognize the song but when he did he smiled. It was an old song, one about three birds and a little bear and his nurse had sung it to him. The voice singing was nicer than his nurse's, not shaky at all but high and rounded and strong. Alec's voice. It was beautiful. David hummed along at first, softly, until his favorite part, where the bear asked each of the birds a question, and then he started to sing along.

    Alec stopped singing.

    "Why did you stop?" David asked.

    "I don't--I don't sing anymore," Alec said. "I forgot--I forgot you were here."

    "Oh," David said. "But I'm right next to you."

    "I didn't really forget," Alec said sharply. "I just--I thought you were asleep and I was trying not to think about the damn horse. Thanks for that, by the way."

    "You're welcome," David said and Alec rolled his eyes, shook his head. "You have a nice voice."

    "Yeah," Alec said. "I do. But not nice enough for people to forget--"he gestured at himself.

    "Forget what?"

    "Me. I look like--" he looked at David. "A miner. People don't want to see that. They want to see--well, someone like you."

    "Me?"

    Alec sighed. "The next town, you go into the square and sing and you--you'll do fine."

    "Have you done that?"

    "Done what?" Alec said, and then smiled a smile that wasn't one at all. "I tried. But...it didn't work. Not like I thought it would. You though--you'd make a fortune."

    "I don't know if I could do anything like that." David paused. "If I should." He held his breath for a second before saying, softly, "I'm not like other people."

    "No shit," Alec said, and the smile on his face was real now. A moment later he said, carefully looking at the fire, "You're running from something. Someone."

    David hesitated. Alec's eyes in the firelight were dark, impossible to read.

    "Yes," he said quietly, hesitantly.

    "I've been told stories, stories about a King and his first Queen--"

    "I--"

    "Haven't heard them, right," Alec said. "But you know, they say there was a child."

    David bit his lip, waited for Alec to speak again.