The Rose Bride, page 12
Her hearing was as magnified as her sense of smell: One man was muttering about how unfair it was that he should have to dredge the river Vue while other servants feasted. A second fretted that his wife’s handsome cousin had taken her to the feast in his place.
Overwhelmed, Rose pranced in place, her tiny, sharp hooves stamping the ground. She heard herself bleating whew-whew-whew, the distress call to other deer.
And other deer broke through the underbrush—first a magnificent buck with a huge rack of antlers, then another, lesser buck, then three does. They raced to her and nosed her with their velvet muzzles. They surrounded her and made comforting ticking sounds.
On the ground, the little rose whispered, “You are loved.”
Artemis, I thank you, she thought. She still thought in French. She was still Rose. Was it so with all the other deer? She tried to speak, but her words came out in deer sounds that meant I am afraid. I need the herd.
So she thought the words, Are you human as well?
The deer stared back at her without responding.
“Here’s something!” one of the men bellowed. “Heavy enough for a body!”
The deer turned and watched as he nodded to his partner and together they pulled in their net. The rower bent backward to see what they had found.
A thick tree stump strained the dripping, diamond-patterned net. The oarsman laughed while the other men uttered curses in low-class, guttural French and threw the trunk back into the river with a splash.
They are searching for me, she realized. Did the others make it to the castle?
The deer gazed at her. Then they turned and began to walk into the forest. Carefully scooping the rosebud back into her mouth, she followed. Forest smells assailed her nostrils—mud and earth and dozens of tiny animals. Wolves had been through there and wild boar. And men. Hunters.
The forest darkened as the herd cantered into an old-growth stand of beeches and oaks. She raced through shadows so thick with animal smells they slid across her fur like hands. The others bleated at her and she ran with them until they blazed through a copse of trees back into golden sunlight. Her nostrils filled with the beloved scent of roses. The smell was as thick as a carpet. It drew her forward and she poked her head through a lacy patchwork of ferns.
About twenty feet in front of her, a lovely stone château perched on a hillock. It was covered with trailing roses. Daffodils sprouted along a walkway. The air was layered with perfume.
Charmed, she walked closer. The other deer accompanied her. The gate was open and she nosed her way through it. On the other side, the wall of the chateau revealed a rectangular leaded window. She walked toward it, trying to see inside.
Her own human face gazed back at her. For an instant, she thought it was her reflection, revealing to her that she had been changed back into a woman. But when she tilted her head, the likeness did not.
Then she saw the rest of the portrait—for obviously, that was what it was. She was wearing her black dress. A dozen purple roses filled her arms.
Then she smelled the scent of approaching humans. There were two whose scents she knew well—they stank of sulfur and hatred.
The herd bleated for her to run away into the forest with them. She stood her ground. The lead buck grunted at her in disapproval, a doe nudged her urgently, and then the animals raced off, melting into the darkness.
Figures moved into the room, and Rose’s blood ran cold as she watched through the window.
The first was her stepsister, Desirée. She was dressed in a white gown decorated with purple roses and a golden cloak. And Desirée was some kind of demon or perhaps a sorceress: For atop her own features, Rose’s face seemed to float like a mask. It was spectral, uncanny: There was her own face, worn by the young woman who hated her above all other things. Her starry midnight eyes blinked and beneath them, Desirée’s brown eyes blinked as well. She smiled with Rose’s lips, yet beneath ... were those little fangs?
Rose bleated softly and forced herself to silence. She was terrified. She understood at once that the men in the boats had been dredging the river for her. And that Desirée and her mother had woven magic, or sought a god to do it, so that Desirée could masquerade as her. It must be that they thought to replace her, that they had found a means to a third fortune: to install Desirée as the subject of the portrait, for the pleasure of the king.
The second to enter the room was the golden-haired man, who embraced her tenderly, and she laid her head on his chest. What was this? Had he fallen in love with her as well?
Keeping to the shadows, Rose pranced as close as she dared.
“... Reginer, my dear brother,” Desirée said.
Rose blinked rapidly. She had heard that name. She knew her father had a son who had quarreled with him and left. This was he Was that what Monsieur Sabot had been about to tell her?
That is my half brother. I have family. I am not alone in this world. Artemis, I beg of you, change me back! Let him see Desirée for who she is!
Overcome, she began to pant and paw the earth. She caught herself and forced herself to stop. She was not a real deer. She was a human being.
She bleated in distress, heard herself, clamped her mouth shut. Her tail twitched. Her ears flattened.
“I wished that I had returned years ago,” Reginer said sorrowfully. “I would have spared you and your stepfamily from your terrible ordeal.”
“But we’re here now, together. And the ordeal was not too terrible, Reginer. My stepfamily has loved me so. Oh, if only we can find Desirée safe and sound ...”
“There, there,” he soothed her.
Then Ombrine glided into the room. She was dressed in a magnificent black gown chased with gold. A black veil covered her hair, accentuating her high-boned pallor; she looked more like a mourner than the mother of a bride. Her eyes were puffy with weeping, and she carried a black handkerchief embroidered with red letters: L M.
“We will find her, madame,” the man said.
“Merci,” Ombrine murmured. “Oh, children. I would give anything for Laurent to see us all together. I ... I loved him so. If only Desirée can be found,” She fell to weeping.
“There, there, Mother,” Desirée sobbed, throwing her arms around Ombrine.
As they embraced, Ombrine turned to face the window. She opened her eyes and Rose saw that they were completely black.
They seemed to stare straight at Rose.
Terrified, Rose bleated softly. She smelled the herd close by. They were waiting for her in the dark forest.
When Ombrine turned her back, Rose darted away and joined them.
The king waited for seven days and seven nights before he began to woo his bride. He understood her grief at the loss of her stepsister. He hadn’t called off the search. He would not give up until she was found.
On the eighth day, his lady had sent him a love note and bid him come to her tonight. He had answered that he would.
The kings attendants sprinkled rosewater and apple blossoms on the marriage bed and a virgin placed a corn doll beneath the pillow. Candles were lit and wine was set out.
His bride was in their private apartments with her new ladies-in-waiting, sharing a glass of wine as they brushed her long, golden hair and massaged her shoulders and feet.
Jean-Marc glided through the pleasure garden outside the royal suite. He carried his lute over his shoulder like a young, lovesick swain. The balcony glowed with dozens of candles set in purple paper lanterns. Pomegranate trees sagged with swollen, red fruit. Hummingbirds thronged around the feeder dripping with honey water.
He strummed his lute very softly. Let her think she was hearing things. Let one of her ladies cock her head and listen carefully. One by one, they would realize that the king was in the garden, wooing she who was already won. So it had been with Lucienne. Her ladies had swooned, declaring him the most handsome, romantic prince who have ever lived or loved. They’d teased him and flirted with him, while two of them went to fetch Lucienne, pulling her out to the balcony by her hands, then fluttering away like a covey of doves.
He strummed just a little more loudly. His eyes shone. He was moved beyond himself. His heart was full of sighs and memories. He had come to anticipate the pain and welcome it. For so long, he had felt nothing. Now, sometimes, it was too much. But he welcomed the challenge of deep, strong emotion.
He sang. Of the moon and her eyes; of roses and her lips. He sang of paradise. He missed one note as his mind traveled to the mausoleum and he thought of Lucienne and their babe, lying alone on this night. His joy ebbed un petit peu—just a little—and pain rushed in to fill the void.
He panicked un petit peu, and missed another note.
Then Desirée walked onto the balcony alone. She didn’t bring her ladies to giggle and admire him. She came by herself, graceful as a queen. She wore a long white gown cut low in front, and tucked into her bodice was a dark red rose, very much like the ones he had placed in the hands of Lucienne’s effigy, of a dark, heavy night.
He strummed again; she leaned over the balcony and her smile was as luminous as the magical messenger sent to him by the goddess.
“Je t’aime,” Desirée said over the sweet sounds of his lute. I love you.
“How can you?” he asked in a soft voice as he played. “You don’t know me.”
She leaned her hand on the balcony. “But I do. I feel as if I’ve known you my entire life. I dreamed of you for years. I think the gods were whispering in my ear about the life I was going to have,”
Her voice was Lucienne’s; her smile, Lucienne’s.
“Some say that’s what dreams are,” he said. “The gods whispering their secrets. Do you worship Artemis?” He held his breath, hoping that her answer would add weight to his belief that she was in some way, his old love.
“Of course,” she replied, “but my heart has room for Zeus as well.” She smiled sweetly. “And for you.”
Joy and grief swirled, deep purple and deep pink. Purple and rose.
His fingers trembled against the strings and he plucked another discordant note. It was like a teardrop in the midst of his happiness.
She held out a hand to him and said, “Mon amour, it is late and you must be very tired.”
He smiled up at her. The light behind her head made her glow like the favored of Artemis. He strummed his lute gazing at her, reminding himself that this was another woman, a different one; but when he gazed at her, he saw the princess of the Silver Hills. He saw the future he had imagined with her. Her children.
The nightingales sang as he finished his serenade and went back inside the palace to join his bride.
Across the moon large blackbirds flew and cawed, and the candles on the balcony guttered out.
Accompanied by her herd, Rose stepped from the shadows and stared up at the darkened balcony. She had been drawn by the music of the lute and the man’s deep, wonderful voice.
She knew he was the king. She understood that he had married Desirée because he thought that she was Rose, and that even now they were together in a private garden of love.
What she didn’t understand was why she cared. Why it mattered to her that his black hair curled around his ears, his eyes dark and deep-set, his profile strong and familiar. She reasoned that his appearance drew her because she had seen it on the gold coins her own half brother, Reginer, had given her for her roses.
But the coin did him no justice. She had no idea King Jean-Marc of the Land Beyond was so handsome and bore himself so nobly and she was riveted.
Was this love at first sight?
That cannot be, she thought. Love is a rose that grows over time. It is not a burst of lightning.
Yet she could not deny that she was thunderstruck.
And that the purple roses had been created in an instant and burst into full boom overnight, many times.
Then she saw a large blackbird fly across the moon and she started. Was magic afoot? The voice had told her that Desirée and Ombrine had their own god and they were not defenseless. Desirée wore a mask—a glamour—and they had convinced the king that she was Rose. Was what she felt for the king—this strong, deep desire—another thread in the spell they had woven?
I want him.
The herd called to her to come away, come away and she turned away from the balcony.
She nickered to the others and followed as they led her to the sleeping place the does had arranged for her. She realized that they knew she was different and they were taking care of her. She was grateful to her soul and she vowed that if one day she had the power, she would forbid all deer to be hunted.
Her tiny purple rosebud had been laid on a bed of rushes, and Rose lay down beside it. The bucks and does gathered around her, one facing her, one facing out, making it clear that they would guard her through the night.
“You are loved,” the rosebud whispered.
And as she curled up and drifted off, she thought to herself, Not by him.
ELEVEN
In the morning, Rose gazed sleepily down at her hooves, they didn’t seem as foreign as they had the day before.
She stirred and lifted her head. Then she blinked her long lashes at the purple rosebush that had grown overnight, from the bud to a fist of three blossoms.
“You are loved,” they whispered.
The other deer gathered around her and showed her how to forage for blackberries and mushrooms, and to drink crystal-clear water from a stream.
Refreshed, she bowed her head in thanks to Artemis.
Jean-Marc, she thought. Jean-Marc of the Land Beyond. That it is his name. He’s a man. Men kill deer.
Those were deer thoughts.
They kill each other.
That was the thought of a young woman who had seen war.
They kill the ones they love.
She didn’t know where that came from.
He is not like other men.
Nor that one, and the thought of seeking him out made her heart beat too fast. She felt woozy and leaned against a mighty oak tree until it slowed down. But it wasn’t fear that made her pulse race. It was something else entirely.
He is nothing to me.
And yet, as an image of him filled her mind, she raised her head and sniffed the air in search of his scent.
He is danger.
Her nose found him. The other deer stared at her as if say, Forget humankind, dear sister. Stay with us.
Straightening her ears, she trotted among lacy ferns and quivering aspens. The others followed for a time, and then they backed off, wheeling away. Rose gained speed until she was running, and leaped gracefully over a tree stump dotted with lavender and sunflowers. She leaped again, bounding as if her hooves were winged, racing out of the forest with no thought but that he was near.
Danger.
The part of her that had joined the forest—the part of her that thought like a doe—fought against her eagerness. But her human side overruled and she put on a burst of speed as if he was that harbor she sought.
Stop. Turn back! Stop!
As she broke through the last stand of trees and into the daylight, she realized what she was doing and came to a dead stop. She clopped the earth in confusion as she caught her breath. This was madness.
“Bonjour, little one,” said a voice. “What a surprise.” Jean-Marc stood perhaps twenty feet away, at the edge of a long pool. He was dressed in a white doublet embroidered with gold over a white tunic and dark blue leggings. In his right hand he held a purple rose. He was smiling like a lighthearted youth.
At her.
If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she would have run. But as it was, she could only pant as she caught sight of him. He took a step toward her; she danced backward, but only a couple of faltering steps. She smelled a bit of sulfur mingled with the perfume of the rose and she knew he had been with Desirée. She bobbed her head urgently.
Danger.
“Please, don’t be afraid,” he said. His voice was very deep and pleasing, like the lower strings of a harp. He held out the rose. “Here. I’m sure this is very tasty:”
There was no sulfur on the rose. It was on him. The rose smelled delicious.
She took another step back.
Mild disappointment creased his brow. “Eh, bien,” he said, tucking it into his doublet. “I meant it only as a token of thanks to your mistress, queen of the hunt. I assume she lays claim to all deer. Unless, of course, you are her magical emissary. Are you?”
I know not, she thought. I don’t know why I’m here. Why this has happened to me.
“I have her to thank,” he continued, “because she herself has brought my wife back to me:”
He looked over his shoulder. Rose chuffed, fearing that Desirée had accompanied him. But then she saw the spires and domes of the palace in the lavender distance and knew he meant that she was somewhere on the grounds.
“She sleeps,” he said, as if Rose had asked aloud. He cocked his head. “Can you understand me? Do you speak French?”
She blinked at him and pawed the ground.
“Does that mean yes?” He bent over his leg with a flourish like a courtier. “If you serve the goddess, please tell her that I am grateful. She told me not to give up hope. Et voila.”
She looked hard at him, urging him to continue. She wanted to know what he had been told.
He ran his fingertips over the rose petals. “We haven’t found her stepsister yet. That is the only blot on our joy. Still, the court needs to celebrate:” His smile was gentle. “I as well. I’ve been so long unmarried and now the Rose Bride has bewitched me completely:”
Rose bleated. It is witchery, she thought. Know me. See me.
Then she smelled the other deer nearby and fled the king’s presence.
Jean-Marc announced seven days and seven nights of celebrations and feasting to mark his marriage and his victory over the Pretender. While he met with Monsieur Sabot and the councillors, his bride busied herself with acquiring a proper wardrobe for her new station in life. Whenever he went to see her, she was draped in fabrics, turning this way on a stool as Reginer’s wife, Claire, and her seamstresses took her measurements and made the patterns. She was beaming with delight and he smiled faintly. He couldn’t remember Lucienne being as interested in clothes, but she was royal by blood as well as by marriage and was used to the life of nobility.
