Once upon a time life had overflowed with promise. Though times had been difficult, his wife and child had made the burdens well worth the bearing and he’d slumbered untroubled, rising to meet each day with joy setting the pace of his heart and eagerness directing every step. But that had been long ago. Before Her coming had shrouded the sun...leeching the light and warmth.

Since that dark time, Sleep, passing judgment, had renounced him, denying a merciful moment’s respite. [How he longed for that brief illusion upon first waking when the mind forgets the here and now and all appears well and right.] So, the long, tedious nights were now spent in fruitless self-recrimination for what might have been had he only declined the Queen's offering.

But flattery, elation and prideful arrogance had blinded him on that snowy morning when Queen Christine and her hunting party had passed through the village, when she had signaled him out from the awestruck crowd…beckoned him forward…presented the gleaming silver crossbow.

Beguiled by her attention and generosity, he'd innocently taken the enchanted weapon and in so doing had unwittingly become the instrument by which her predecessor, the Evil Queen would exact revenge upon his father for an ancient act of disloyalty and betrayal. There'd been no inkling, no forewarning, when at her urging he'd set the bolt upon the track, aimed the nose toward the forest and pulled the trigger that a terrible price was about to be paid for a young Princess' heart left untaken long ago.

All that made his life worth living had been stripped from him by that single…simple deed. Even pleasure in the hunt had been denied, for it took no skill, no prowess to weld the bow. Its bolts would find their mark regardless of whose hand directed its aim.

Though he feigned fealty to the queen [even amorous desire when called upon to appease Her vanity] it was hate that sustained him. In his heart every drop of blood drawn by his bolts' lethal tips, every life taken, was in essence Hers. Yet, chains forged by unpardonable sin and insufferable horror bound him to Her. And, to his anguish and everlasting shame, he would not, could not, part with the bow. Not even if the relinquishing would bring Him back.

As though summoned by this appalling admission the early morning mist, thick and luminous, swept toward the Huntsman’s sanctuary, encircling the ancient oak as though in a ghostly embrace. A disembodied voice rode in upon its back. A child's voice, a young boy’s, called out, lost, bewildered, plaintive…"Papaaa?"

A shudder racked the Huntsman’s frame. His shoulders slumped. His chin fell upon his chest. A tear slid. But the sanctity of its spilling was profaned by the unconscious caressing…covetous stroking of his calloused hand upon the crossbow’s cold tiller.