The Tears of the Rose (3 page)

One of the other ladies set coddled eggs, pickled fish, and some of my favorite jasmine tea on a lap tray. The scent curled into my gut, wrenching it in its sickly-sweet fragrance, and I gagged into the basin, coughing up bitter bile.

“Take that away,” Ursula ordered from the doorway. “Isn't there a midwife around here?”

They gaped at her. No flower, she. Instead she wore her fighting leathers, a tall and lean woman, a hawk among doves. She looked haggard and I wondered if she'd slept at all.

“But Princess Amelia isn't—” one of the younger ladies ventured.

“This is nonsense,” she snapped at them, making scooting motions with her hands. “The lot of you are useless. Go find a midwife or at least a castle woman who's had the morning sicks. Someone who knows how to deal with this. Surely
someone
knows. Danu knows I don't.”

“Get Dafne—the librarian.” I rolled my head on the pillow, damp with cold sweat.

Ursula raised an eyebrow. “You think she'll know?”

“Really, Princess Ursula,” Dulcinor fluttered at her, “Lady Mailloux has no real royal status. She's not fit for Princess Amelia's—”

“Go get her.” Ursula jerked her head at the doorway. “And take that stinky tea with you.”

They darted out, songbirds scattering before the talons could strike them also. Ursula went to the water pitcher and poured some into a goblet, handed it to me, and took the basin away. She rinsed it out into the chamber pot and set it on my lap again.

“Drink the water,” she ordered.

“I'll just puke it up.”

She shrugged. “Gives your stomach something to do. And some of it might soak in. Drink it—you look like hell.”

I nearly choked on the water. “I don't think anybody has said that to me in my entire life.”

She grinned, tucking her thumbs in the waistband of her leather pants. “That's what older sisters are for.”

Sipping the flat, metallic-tasting stuff, I stared into the dull gleam of the washbasin. It helped not to have the smell. Surprising that Ursula would know that.

“You don't have to take care of me. If you hadn't run my ladies out, they'd be doing this.”

“I don't mind. I take care of myself most of the time. It's not as if I can take handmaids to battle with me.”

I'd never thought about that. Ursula had always been . . . Ursula.

“I want you to come to Ordnung with me.” She tried to make it sound casual, but the steel in her gaze told me this wasn't a suggestion.

“Why? Because you're afraid I'll do myself harm if you're not here to watch me?”

“There are other reasons, but in a word, yes.”

At least she was honest.

“Is it me you're worried about or this babe I'm carrying?”

“Right now you're a package deal,” she returned evenly, not responding to the petulance I heard in my own voice. “At least you're acknowledging that you're with child.”

“I'm not, necessarily.” There. Stubborn felt better.

“How long since you've had your monthlies?”

“You know I've never been regular. I can't ever keep track.” But a while, I thought. Months maybe? I'd been so afraid for Andi; then there was the kidnapping and Hugh leaving. Then the news. I'd hardly been thinking about my monthlies.

“Knock-knock?” Dafne stood in the doorway, burdened with a tray. “Am I interrupting?”

“No.” Ursula eyed her. “What did you bring?”

Dafne set the tray down and busied herself with a teapot. “I've sent for the village midwife. In the meantime, quick research says this gingerroot eases the morning sicks. I've also got some dry toast for you to nibble, Princess. Small bites, until your stomach settles.”

Dubious, I tried a bite. It was bland, but at least my gut didn't rebel. The tea smelled a bit of the spiced cakes we always ate during Moranu's Feast at midwinter, a thought that made me cringe, but the cramping sick didn't rise to it. Feeling braver, I drank some, sighing as the comforting warmth relaxed my belly.

“Well done, librarian,” Ursula said. “She actually looks as if she might live.”

“I told you. Dafne knows
everything
.”

“No wonder Andi likes you.” Ursula gave her an approving nod.

“Because Andi never studied a day in her life? Yes.” I smiled, remembering, and Ursula grinned at me. Then I realized I'd forgotten, for a moment, to hate Andi. We all should hate her. “Thank you, Dafne. That will be all.”

Dafne curtsied and backed out with perfect manners, but she didn't look properly humble. Just for show, then.

“There was no call to order her out like that.” Ursula folded her arms and frowned at me.

“She's little better than a servant. You ordered my ladies out with less kindness.”

“They deserved it. Dafne helped you when she didn't have to. And she is decidedly not a servant.”

“She's probably Andi's spy,” I grumbled, knowing I was being unreasonable but unable to help myself. I felt sick and miserable and alone. If Hugh were here, he'd gather me into his lap and hold me, stroking my hair and telling me over and over how much he loved me. Now nobody loved me. The knowledge knotted low in my throat, where all those unshed tears had lodged.

Ursula sighed, clearly out of patience. “I'll send your ladies in to tend you. If the midwife says you can travel, I want to leave tomorrow. Day after, at the latest.”

She turned to go and I wanted to call her back. To apologize, of all things. But what for? She said she wanted to help me in my grief, but all she did was kick at me. Same as always.

“I'm not going!” I yelled that at her back instead.

“Yes, you are. As I outrank you, I'm commanding it.”

“That's not fair. This is
my
castle!”

She ran a hand through her uneven auburn shag. “Danu—you sound like you're five, not eighteen.”

I gasped, outrage filling me, and threw the teacup at her head with an incoherent scream. She plucked it neatly out of the air and I found myself gaping at her. She'd always been fast, but I hadn't seen her hand move. Giving me that
look
, she poured more tea into the cup and set it on my tray.

“This is the second time I'm cutting you slack, Ami. This is a horrible thing for you to go through, and I know it's our fault for always spoiling and petting you. Still, you're going to have to find it in yourself to come through this. I can only do so much.”

She turned and closed the door behind her with a soft and significant click.

Furious, I hurled the teacup at the door, enjoying the satisfying smash of the delicate ceramic. For good measure I followed it with the plate of stupid toast. Then I flung myself on my pillows, willing myself to cry.

But the tears refused me.

I was as dry as stone.

3

T
hree days later—at least I managed to delay an extra day—we left for Ordnung.

Ursula always gets her way. I might as well have tried to stop a stampeding bull. None of my protests swayed her. She insisted she had reasons for me to make the journey. But by the way her sharp eyes rested on me, I knew she mainly wanted to keep me off the cliffs.

And in the dark of night, when the wind howled, I could admit to myself that she might be right to worry. The irrational thoughts plagued me. Hugh couldn't be alone among those stones, with the weather so cruel.
It's only his body,
I told myself, staring up at the flickering shadows that turned the cheerful rosettes into death's heads.
He doesn't feel it. He's gone.

Still, I saw the desolation in his summer-blue eyes, wondering why I didn't come for him.

I tried praying to Glorianna, but She was as silent as She'd always been.

Like crumbling mortar, my rational mind gave way, bit by bit, until by dawn, I felt wrung out and exhausted with the effort not to go to him. Then the sickness rose and I never wanted more to die. It made getting through the nights that much harder. That's why I delayed only one extra day, to prove I could.

Ursula was right to make me leave. Not that I'd ever tell her that.

The morning we left, I paid a farewell visit to Hugh's tomb. High Priest Kir accompanied me, to bestow a last blessing, as he and Old Erich planned to accompany us to Ordnung. His strange assistant followed behind. Thankfully he wore that deep cowl as before, keeping his head bowed to spare us the sight of that disfigured face.

Ironically, the sun had chosen that day to shine in the cold winter sky, and the wind, though never gone, blew with teasing pulls of my hair—almost gentle, hinting that spring might indeed arrive someday. We went early, the rising sun at our backs, then lost behind the bulk of Windroven.

The tombs felt none of the warmth. Already Hugh's matched the others—the stones in the arch of his crypt as worn, equally limned with frost. For a panicked moment I wasn't even sure which was his. The morning sick—as if it felt my fear—swirled up, and I fumbled for one of the mint candies that seemed to help. I might not have Ursula's dignity or responsibility, but I'd be mortified to barf on the High Priest's pink slippers.

Kir's assistant, however, went unerringly to one farther down than I'd thought. Clutching the wreath of Glorianna roses they'd given me, I trailed behind, ready to tell him that he was wrong. But then I saw the mortar marks, the bits and crumbs leading to the sealed door.

My legs wouldn't hold me, so I knelt, pretending to a reverence that eluded me while Kir chanted Glorianna's blessing for the dead. Instead, I counted the archways, so I could find Hugh's again when we returned. It's not Avonlidgh's way, to etch the names or sigils of the dead on their graves. The dead are gone, once more faceless and returned to Glorianna's arms.

Or to Moranu or Danu, if you belonged to Them. But High King Uorsin had declared Glorianna ascendant, a practice Avonlidgh had long embraced—if only to pacify their conqueror. Hugh hadn't much cared either way, except that he always said that I could be Glorianna incarnate, in all Her delicate radiance. When I scolded him for the blasphemy, he'd kiss and tickle me until I couldn't draw breath.

He wasn't the first to call me Glorianna's avatar, but I loved it from him best.

“You may lay the wreath, Princess.” Kir's reminder, followed by a cough, yanked me back to the frozen present, making me realize this wasn't the first time he'd said it. The assistant shifted restlessly and I caught that eerie flash of green-apple eyes, glimmering with hatred.

Hastily I looked away, down at the lushly pink roses. Surely I had imagined that, too.

“I need some time alone.” My voice sounded frail. Not the High King's daughter, future Queen of Avonlidgh. I laid my finger against a rose thorn, pressing so it pained me. Tried again. “Leave me.”

“Princess, the caravan—”

I stood, fixing High Priest Kir with my best imitation of Ursula's stern expression. “The caravan can wait. I highly doubt Her Highness will leave without me.”
I should be so lucky.

They both bowed with perfect manners and backed their way out—far better than Dafne had done. The assistant seemed so quiet and respectful that I wondered if I'd imagined that look in his eye.

Then I was alone with Hugh, alone for the first time since he'd left our bed that last morning, kissing me sweetly and promising to rescue my sister. Had it been that night that I'd conceived? He'd been so passionate and tender. We'd made love three times—a first—because he'd wanted to make sure I wouldn't miss him too much.

Oh, how I missed him.

I set the wreath before the crypt, as I was meant to, then—tentatively—touched the stones walling him in. My fingertips found the mortar, as I'd imagined them doing so many nights, digging in so it bit into me, a sick ache where I'd pricked myself with the thorn.

“Hugh?” My whisper echoed like the voices of ghosts. “I'm saying good-bye for a little while. I must travel, but I'll be back. Your child—do you know about our babe? I'll make sure to have my lie-in here, at Windroven, as you would have wanted. I promise you that.”

My voice hitched, choked with the tears that couldn't escape. For the first time, the babe seemed real to me. Would this child also be entombed here someday? It seemed so much easier to envision that eventuality, rather than a living child. I put a hand over my belly, more settled now, and kept the other on the stones, clinging to them. I imagined Hugh on the other side, perhaps also leaning his cheek against the wall, pressing his palm to mine. Death didn't separate us—only this barrier. That was all.

“I think of you every minute.” The ice on the stones melted beneath my cheek, almost like the feel of the tears I longed for. “This shouldn't have happened. I don't understand how it did. I don't know what to do.”

I closed my eyes, seeing his handsome face again. “You said you'd love me forever, and now”—my voice cracked—“I'm nothing. How could you leave me?”

“Princess Amelia?”

I knew that voice. Dafne, likely playing Ursula's messenger girl. How much had she eavesdropped? I refused to open my eyes.

“Go away.”

“I can't, but I'll wait back here.”

I pried open an eyelid to see she stood as far away as possible. The strange echoes of the tombs had made her sound so much closer. She held her hands folded in front of her, encased in traveling gloves, her expression somber. Nothing about her indicated that she found what I was doing strange. Not a messenger, but yet another babysitter.

“I'll leave when I'm ready.” Already the stones dried under my cheek. I could no longer see Hugh, just on the other side of the wall.

“Of course, Your Highness. It's only that Princess Ursula grows . . . impatient.”

“She can't grow impatient. She's always full-fledged impatient.”

Dafne made a wry twist of her mouth. “True, Princess.”

With a long breath, I let go of the wall and bent to pluck a rose from the wreath, to take with me. The blossoms seemed far too pretty to leave here. But death doesn't respect beauty any more than anything else. Plucked from Glorianna's gardens, they'd begun to die at that moment. Nothing could stop it.

“What do you think happens, after death?”

Dafne paused. I'd surprised her. “I am no priest of Glorianna. Surely you should ask High Priest Kir.”

“I know what his answer would be. I want to hear yours.”

“Why me?” She asked it bluntly, failing to call me Princess, as if to call me out for the extraordinary nature of my question. I'd called her little better than a servant and felt a flush of shame over it, though she couldn't know that.

“You're Andi's librarian. If she thought you knew . . . things, then I want to know what they are.”

“That's a curious way to ask for my thoughts on death.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “Don't tell me. I know I'm not my sister. You owe me nothing. You probably hate me as much as she does.”

I pushed past her and she laid a hand on my arm, then snatched it back at my outrage.

“Forgive me, Your Highness.” She ducked her head. “But I can tell you, when Andi was here and we . . . discussed how things might go, were she to . . . have to marry King Rayfe—her greatest concern was you. She loves you and never wanted to cause you any pain. That hasn't changed.”

I watched her lips move and smelled that burnt scent in the air that lately seemed to mean lies. Why was she lying to me? Not in the words necessarily, but running beneath, like an underground river.

“That's a lie. She murdered my husband in cold blood. That's hardly failing to cause me pain.”

“I wasn't there, but she wouldn't have done such a thing in cold blood. She agonized over whether you'd be hurt.”

“What aren't you telling me?” I asked, watching the flinch of response. To her credit, she held my gaze, steady, unapologetic.

“Secrets that aren't mine to tell.”

Andi. My sister had secrets. It made me burn with rage to think it. Never had I kept a secret from her.

“Keep them, then. I want nothing of hers, ever again.”

I stepped out onto the path, looking out over the endless ocean. I'd miss it, the constant roar of the surf, the way the light changed on it. The tips of the waves sparkled, catching the rising sun. I'd felt safe here, high up on the cliffs, protected and cherished.

“I suppose I don't believe that anything really dies.” Dafne said, standing beside me, gazing at the vista. “I think life cycles into life again. It just . . . changes form.”

Putting my hand on my still-flat belly, I mulled her words. Where did this new life come from? Not from nothing.

“Thank you,” I finally replied. “I realize I'm an empty-headed twit and not always as kind as I should be. Your words help.”

“You must understand you have my deepest sympathy, Princess. We all feel a bit of your loss. Prince Hugh was . . . larger than life.”

I nodded, the salt sting in my eyes only from the breeze off the water.

“I can press that for you.”

For a moment, I had no idea what she was talking about, then realized she'd indicated the rose from the wreath.

“It's a way of preserving it, so it dries with the petals intact. Something you can keep.”

“But it will never be what it was.”

“No.” Her voice seemed full of sincere regret. “It can't be. But it will be a way to remember what it was.”

“Thank you.” I handed it to her and she cupped it in her gloved hands, as if it were something precious. “That's two kindnesses you've done me.”

She curtsied. This time there was no lie behind it.

The ocean stretched on, endless and deep. So much more than the surface. I'd called myself empty-headed. Nothing without Hugh. Maybe it was true. Glorianna knew I'd seen it in the faces of everyone around me. Perhaps, like the ocean, I could be more than the surface, what they saw every day.

I could be Glorianna's avatar, not just in appearance, but in other ways.

Andi had changed, had she?
More than she was.
I could be more, too. I would show them all.

I rode in the chariot, letting Dulcinor's chatter wash over me. High Priest Kir rode with Erich, and Ursula stayed on horseback, though I couldn't understand how she didn't freeze. The early sun had disappeared behind a solid bank of clouds, gray as my gown. Bits of snow fell, only to skitter over the hard ground in small drifts of ice.

The midwife, Marin, rode with us. It seemed that I was to be monitored at all times. I told Ursula I felt sure the babe would grow on its own and didn't need to be watched, but Ursula pulled rank, yet again, and dismissed my complaints.

Dafne made up our fourth, though I couldn't imagine why she'd return to Castle Ordnung. It seemed to me the librarian had been all too ready to flee with Andi when she left home and had taken shameless advantage of Hugh's generosity in starting a new library at Windroven. Hugh had laughed, saying Mohraya's loss was Avonlidgh's gain, then stroked my cheek in that way he had, reminding me that the principle applied with me, also.

He'd been incorrigible that way.

I pressed my lips against the nausea—the rocking of the carriage did not help—and stared fixedly out the window, the carriage curtains open because the cold air helped me. Winter held the land in a firm grip, the fields barren, no livestock in sight. It seemed so wrong, even with the season. When we passed a burned-out farmstead, I frowned at it.