The Rose Bride, page 7
“I found it,” Desirée said. “It’s not worth anything, Mother. It will merely keep out the cold.”
“Then give it to me. Everything here is mine, to do with as I wish. Is that not so, Stepdaughter?”
Rose couldn’t stop staring at the cloak. Everything about that night rushed in ... and everything about this one. The world had shifted on its axis again and something even more wicked was on its way.
SIX
The winds blew and the world turned, and before she knew it, Rose was sixteen. She continued to work like a slave and disaster dogged the Marchands at every turn. One night the chtâeau caught fire and nearly burned to the ground. Ombrine announced that every coin she had saved went to patch the roof and a couple of walls, barely adequate to keep out wild animals and weather. She threatened all the servants with a beating—Rose included—if they so much as whispered about the condition of the château with anyone.
And so, Laurent Marchand’s beautiful home was gone. His lands were in a shambles. The topiary garden and hedge maze died. If anyone in the Forested Land ever spoke of him, it was to say that his life had been a waste.
Despite the fact that no one tended the beautiful garden Celestine had created, it continued to flourish. The purple rosebush blazed bright as a sunrise below the protective gaze of the goddess Artemis. The magic of undying love sustained it. In the few moments Rose could manage to steal away, the garden sustained her. But there were no more letters and no more coins. Though she herself was not sent to market, she asked the servant who regularly went to look for Elise. He said no one had heard of her, which made Rose suspect he hadn’t asked at all.
Of a night, she heard Ombrine and Desirée walking past her room, down the stairs and out of the château. She would listen for their return hours later. They would murmur together about “the circle,” and about “him.” The strange plants in the herb garden were joined by more, and occasionally she smelled an odd, sulfurous odor emanating from Ombrine’s rooms.
She feared witchcraft and she became more cautious, more alert. She prayed to Artemis for protection—and she began to carry a knife in her apron. She made certain she cooked every meal in the château, taking nothing from Ombrines hand. She thought of running away, weaving fantasies of fleeing to the village, locating Elise, and joining Monsieur Valmont in the colonies. Life there would certainly be preferable to life here. But she didn’t act; she was certain Ombrine would find them and punish them all severely.
Life had become a matter of survival and it took all Ombrine’s resources to keep her people from dying of starvation. She no longer worried about mending and clean sheets. A turnip was as precious as an embroidered cloak.
Although Rose was in more danger of dying then than she had ever been, the disastrous change in circumstances yielded a benefit: freedom. Ombrine didn’t care where her stepdaughter roamed—as long as she returned with something for the family to eat. If Rose failed, Ombrine would fly into a rage and hit her.
Thin, bruised, and nut-brown from the sun, Rose would stretch on her back in the rose garden after her days of hard labor, pray to her goddess, and listen to the roses.
“You are loved.
“You are loved.
“You are loved.”
She remembered a night long ago when her mother had promised her birthday magic and how that night had been Celestine’s last. She remembered how urgently her mother had wanted her to know that she was loved. Starving, destitute, and alone, she wondered why it was so important. Could love feed her? Could love protect her? If she was loved, why was she so close to death herself?
She gazed up at the statue of Artemis and whispered, “Why is all this happening?”
“You are loved,” the roses whispered and that was the only reply.
One dry spring afternoon in her sixteenth year, Rose was searching the deep wildwood for mushrooms. The limbs of the trees interlaced, creating canopies that shielded the loamy earth from the sun. Some places in the forest were so dark that she had to search by candlelight. She kept her candle, her flints, and her precious shoes in the bottom of her gathering basket. She had one pair of shoes left, made of splotched and tattered leather. Her rows and rows of lovely velvet slippers had disintegrated long ago.
Her stomach growled with hunger. Her hands trembled. She usually found a treasure of little brown caps, but today, there was nothing and her hands shook harder at the thought of coming back empty-handed. Hunger made for anger and everyone was always hungry, especially Ombrine. It hadn’t rained all month, and crops were withering in the fields. The Marchands were lucky; they still had their silvery stream.
The shadow that had fallen over the Marchands was spreading everywhere. The Pretender was massing his troops against the king. War was coming and the estates were hoarding what food they could manage to coax from the ground. Peasants and villagers had to fend for themselves and the pickings were getting slimmer.
She decided to give up the search for the day. She was tired and hungry, and night was beginning to fall. She would stop at the rose garden for some solace and to prepare herself to face Ombrine with an empty basket.
She was back on the grounds sooner than she would have liked. The ruined château rose in the gloom like a watchful wolf, eager to run some food to ground.
Shivering, she walked past the statues of the two does, eager to rest for a few moments among the roses and hear that she was loved.
She took one step. Then two. Then Rose threw back her head and let loose a shriek of terrible grief.
Desolation. Utter ruin. Her one sanctuary, demolished.
In the center of the garden, the fountain was still. The statue of Artemis lay smashed into chunks. Her head lay on its right cheek; her marble eyes stared at the carnage. All the rosebushes had been pulled up. They lay in heaps like kindling, their roots exposed, their blossoms curled up and withered. Pinks, crimson, scarlet, orange ... and purple.
Along with the others, the purple rosebush was dead.
Wailing, Rose shambled forward. Her feet were numb. She couldn’t feel her body as she fell to the ground beside the purple bush. She gathered up the papery blossoms and buried her face in them, listening.
Their voices were dead.
She fell into despair, a well of shadows; she plummeted, having no idea that she was digging ruts with her knife as she screamed and wept. She raged until there was nothing left, not a sound, and her fingers sank into the gouges in the dirt. She lay whimpering until a voice clattered over her shattered heart like horse hooves on cobblestones.
“For the love of the gods, Rose, calm down.”
Moonlight shone down on Ombrine. Silhouetted by dead rosebushes, she stood at the entrance to the garden in Celestine’s wide-brimmed gardening hat tied beneath her chin with a bow. She wore Celestine’s leather gardening gloves. Desiree stood beside her in Laurent’s cloak.
“We need more space to grow more food,” Ombrine said as if Rose had asked why she’d done it. “The other estates are paying high prices for produce and we must take advantage. We have a stream and they don’t. We’ll sell the excess in the market. It’s the only way we can survive.”
What is the point? What is the point of surviving? Rose thought. She had left her heart in the dark well, and she gripped the knife. She realized that she thought to use it, whether on herself or Ombrine, she wasn’t sure. But she did know that she had reached the end, the bitter end.
Ombrine cleared her throat. Maybe she knew that she had gone too far. Maybe somewhere inside her, a shred of decency railed at her for the wound she had inflicted on another living soul.
If that was the case, Ombrine concealed it. She said impatiently, “Now come along. In the morning, well go the village to hire some day laborers. We’ll haul everything out and prepare the earth for planting.”
Maybe in that moment, a weaker soul would have stabbed her through the heart. Or a more foolish soul would have ignored the fact that the odds stood at two to one and the keeper of the knife was famished and exhausted.
Whatever the case, Rose knew she wasn’t going to murder Ombrine. But she hadn’t ruled out ending her own life. Part of her thrilled at the very thought that she held the power of life and death in her hand, that she could do something, anything, to alter her future.
“Artemis,” Rose gasped, calling on her patroness.
“Gravel,” Ombrine said. “To save the wagon wheels. There are so many holes in our road. We don’t need statues. We need money.”
“Come on, Rose,” Desirée cut in. Her voice was gleeful and triumphant. “You can’t lie there all night.”
“Artemis,” Rose whispered in a strangled voice, as she pressed her thumb against the edge of the knife. It was very sharp. It would be quick.
“Rose,” Desirée mimicked her. “You haven’t made dinner and were hungry.”
“Oh, leave her,” Ombrine said to her daughter. “More for us.”
“More what?” Desirée demanded. “Nothing’s made!”
“Then you’ll make it.” Ombrine’s voice trailed away.
“I?” Desirée’s voice grew fainter as well. “Cook?”
Rose lay motionless, staring without seeing. She wasn’t certain she was still breathing. She saw herself blending with the earth, joining her parents.
The moon glowed on the ruined garden and the wounded girl. The absence of the water splashing in the fountain was a sound in itself: She was not loved and Rose believed she never would be again. She would die and no one would miss her, except at mealtimes.
She held the knife like the hand of a friend. Perhaps peace was all that she could wish for and that peace would come with the end of her life. Could it be that Ombrine had done this terrible thing to push her to do it Was she truly that evil?
She didn’t have the spirit to cry or even to blink. As she gripped the knife, the breeze kissed her cheek like the memory of one who had loved her. Her eyelids grew heavy and she fell into a deep sleep.
While she slept, the memory of her mother’s wish wafted on the night breeze. The moonlight gathered up Celestine’s hopes, planted so long ago in the garden of her daughter’s heart.
“Let her know that she is loved with a love that is true and will never fade as the rose petal fades. If she knows that, it will be all that she needs in this life. A woman who is loved is the richest woman on earth. Knowing you are loved is the safest of harbors. True love never dies. It lives beyond the grave, in the heart of the beloved. If she knows she is loved, she’ll be rich and safe for all her days.”
The head of the statue of Artemis lay on the earth. Tears welled and spilled because the goddess was bound to answer the prayers of those who belonged to her. And Celestine Marchand had been her Best Beloved. Thus, she had no choice but to fulfill her dying wish.
Although the journey Artemis had sent Rose on was not the journey she might have chosen for her had she the power, she knew it was a good one—if Rose had the heart to complete it. She didn’t know if Celestine’s Best Beloved would walk through the valley of the shadow into the light or if she would falter and remain there. It was not up to the gods. It was up to Rose. And so, for Rose’s sake—and because it was in Artemis’s nature to protect women—she wept for the girl and did what she could to send her some strength.
From the wildwood just past the silvery stream, a perfect little doe crept toward the sleeping girl. As she drew nearer, her fur turned white, and her eyes, dark blue. When she touched Rose’s limp hand, she turned into a luminous being ...
... holding out a purple rose.
“You took it from me once, and started your journey. You may stop here. You may rest. You may die if you wish. Or you may go on. If you stop, you stop in shadow. The light awaits you, daughter of Celestine, but to reach it, you will be transformed. You will be changed. You will not be as you are now. Know that before you make your choice.
“Know too, it is your choice to make.”
And then the being became a brown doe again, with a purple rose in her mouth. She dropped it to the earth like a votive offering.
“You are loved,” it whispered to Rose.
In the Land Beyond...
“Mon amour,” Jean-Marc murmured, his whisper an echo in the mausoleum beneath the temple to Zeus.
His heavy gold crown clanked against the stones as he set it down and knelt beside the sarcophagus of his wife. Her effigy lay in repose and he traced her profile with his lonely gaze. Though her marble features were unpainted, he could still see the exact color of her eyes—starry midnight blue—and her hair, lustrous as newly minted gold coins.
If he closed his eyes, he could smell her dainty attar of roses, and hear her voice whispering his name. Whispering, “I am so sorry, I am sorry,” as she died, taking their young son with them. “I promised you I wouldn’t leave, but the gods have willed it otherwise.”
He felt tricked and betrayed. His son—Espere—had been born but he had not lived.
And the king’s heart was broken beyond mending.
At Jean-Marc’s command, his infant son’s effigy had not been included on the sarcophagus, although Espere’s bones lay with his mother’s. The symbol of his short life was the stone rose between Lucienne’s hands, sheltered gently there with a mother’s love.
“Gods, ease my pain,” he moaned, bending his fingers into a double fist and resting his forehead on them. “For the sake of my kingdom, kill all feeling in me. Let me forget what love is like. Then I will do what must be done.”
Heavyhearted, he pulled a deep, bloodred rose from his tunic and lay it atop the stone one. Sweets for the sweet. Weeping, he bent over her and kissed the marble lips.
“I must marry,” he said brokenly. “But I will never love again. This I swear to you, queen of my heart.” He touched the stone rose. “Espere, my son, my child, watch over your lady mother. Keep her well until we are reunited again.”
How could a heart so shattered with grief break again, and yet again? But it happened, as Jean-Marc sobbed for his family and all that had been taken from him, again and again.
At last, King Jean-Marc straightened, took up his torch, and walked up the stairs as the deep gong signaling the dawn rattled his spine. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. He walked out into the courtyard where his guards waited. They straightened at his approach.
In time, it will not hurt so much, he promised himself, and I won’t care who shares my throne. But men lied, the same as gods did.
When he emerged from the temple, dawn was blossoming across the cloak of night. He heard the drumming of the threshers and the blare of a hunting horn, and groaned. He had promised his nobles a hunt this morning. He had no desire to mix with them or to mix with anybody. But he knew he had to keep them close—or to at least give the illusion of doing so.
He said to the bodyguards, “We’ll go to the stables.”
An hour later, Jean-Marc’s fiery steed La Magnifique cantered to the rhythm of the beaters as they marched ahead on foot through the stands of parched chestnut trees. They pounded the large drums tied to their waists, flushing out the game with their frightening thunder. The birders bore hooded kestrels on their leather gauntlets, and the bells on the birds’ leather caps jingled in unison with La Magnifique’s pounding hoofbeats. Dressed in a black leather jerkin, Jean-Marc wore a quiver of arrows and his longbow was tied by a thong to his saddle.
The hounds bayed and bounded ahead, on the scent. Jean-Marc’s courtiers surrounded him on horseback, the gentlemen in jewel-toned velvets and leather, the ladies riding sidesaddle, coquettishly showing the lace of their petticoats. The hunting party was in high spirits—after all, they were riding with the king—and Jean-Marc found himself feeling like an outsider, as he had in all his days before he had married Lucienne. What joy could they find? Did they notice the desperate straits of the forest and her creatures? The trees were tinderboxes waiting to burn. The animals were so thirsty they might very well wish they were dead.
He put his spurs to La Magnifique and galloped ahead of the others. He was suddenly seized with the mad thought that he would ride away, flying past the borders of his kingdom and into some new, unmarked territory where no one else could follow. Before he had married Lucienne, that place had been his heart.
The horse ran so hard that his hoofs hardly touched the dusty earth. He whinnied with joy, and Jean-Marc loosened the reins, giving him his head. They were a blur, man and horse, and he supposed his guards were about to throw themselves on their swords because they couldn’t keep up with him.
La Magnifique cleared a dry streambed, then they approached a sharp incline that the steed swooped over like an eagle. Ahead, the suffering woods were dark and deep, and Jean-Marc supposed they should slow down, or preferably turn back. But the thought was as bitter as poison.
Still, his conscience got the better of him. He had a duty not to break his neck. Reluctantly, he gathered up the reins and prepared to slow La Magnifique down. The horse would be just as disappointed as his owner but his next chance to run flat out would come much sooner than Jean-Marc’s.
Jean-Marc clicked his tongue against his teeth, a signal to the beautifully trained mount that the wild run was over. La Magnifique chuffed as if to protest but he pulled himself in and slowed as they reached a small clearing.
And then he saw her.
Across the crackled meadow, a velvet-brown doe raised her delicate head and stared straight at him. She was perfectly formed. He’d never seen such an exquisite deer. What a trophy she would make. Swiftly he unhooked his bow from his saddle and slid an arrow from the quiver. He notched it and took aim.
The doe’s gaze didn’t waiver. Intelligence blazed in her eyes and there was a serenity in her bearing. She was aware of him and yet unafraid.
Moved, he lowered his bow. Far be it for him to end the life of such a creature. He unnotched the arrow and replaced it in the quiver.
