The Rose Bride (10 page)

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.

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.

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.

The doe walked toward him. As Jean-Marc looked on, the doe blazed with light; she became pure white, shimmering like a fallen star. Her eyes turned midnight blue. Then she transformed into a human shape.

Jean-Marc immediately dismounted and knelt on the ground, his head lowered. He knew that he was in the presence of a god.

“Not a god,”
a breeze whispered against his ear.
“A messenger. You have spared the servant of the Goddess of the Hunt and of the Moon.”

“Artemis,” Jean-Marc murmured. His heart skipped beats. Anger mixed with his awe. Artemis had been the patroness of Lucienne but the goddess had not protected her handmaiden.

“Know this: You must have hope. You will love again.”

Never
, Jean-Marc thought, keeping his head bowed so that the being wouldn’t see the fury and despair in his face.

At that precise moment, something slammed
down on top of him with a rib-breaking crack and ground him face-first into the ground. Fingers clutched his hair and jerked his head backward.

A voice shouted, “Death to the usurper!” and Jean-Marc felt the keen press of a blade beneath his chin.

Then his attacker jerked, groaned, and crumpled sideways on the ground. Immediately Jean-Marc rolled out from beneath him and prepared to spring.