The Tears of the Rose (8 page)

Neither said anything, and I looked up to find them exchanging a speaking look. “What? It's true.”

“Are you speaking as Glorianna's avatar?” Ursula's lips twitched.

“Do you mock me?” I set down the teacup. How I could feel the sting of such a thing, while the great, unanswered, and unshed weight of my grief crushed everything else, I didn't know.

“Well, let's see. She appeared to you in a vision when you were five, saying that you should have a new pony. And was it when you were eight that she said you should eat only pastries and sweets?” She ran a thumb over the cabochon jewel. “Don't you think you're a bit old for this—and the circumstances particularly dire for your little games?”

Games? So like her, to forever treat me like a child. I was a woman grown, a queen, and I would assume my rightful place as Glorianna's avatar. “Yes. I am speaking as the avatar of the goddess, as everyone but you acknowledges me to be! High Priest Kir himself said that—”

She barked out a laugh and scrubbed her hands through her hair, clearly having forgotten the pins, which fell to the floor. “I should have known better than to give him access to you. You need to learn not to listen to every bit of flattery lobbed in your direction.”

“I'm not an idiot.”

“No, you just behave like one.”

I stood, automatically smoothing my skirts. “As these are my rooms, I think you both should leave.”

“Sit yourself down and hear your sister out,” Zevondeth snapped, shocking me. “You always were a willful thing, and the way Uorsin spoiled you made it worse. Tell me what else Andi said.”

Tears pricked my eyes and I thought I might weep at last. But no. Unable to do anything else, I sat, feeling small and miserable and unloved.

“She also said to find the dolls our mother made for us,” Ursula continued in an even tone.

“Clearly forgetting that our mother died birthing me, so there was never one for me, no matter what Ursula thinks.”

A small stillness settled into the room. Ursula stared hard at Zevondeth, who actually looked uncomfortable. And much older. “She also said that you knew the truth and would tell us.”

“And did she tell you the price of such information?” Zevondeth's opaque gaze rested on the gnarled hands folded on her cane.

“She did not mention, no.”

“However,” I inserted, “she did mention that she thought I should, in addition to this wild-goose chase after a mythical doll, send my infant daughter to her.” I laughed, and the hysterical edge to it scratched my throat. Neither of them seemed to find it funny—just watched me with that pitying concerned look everyone seemed to have for me these days. Be nice to the poor, delusional, and grieving princess, whose life is already over before it fully began. “What kind of a fool does she think I am?” I spat out. “Maybe I should go to paradisiacal ‘Annfwn' and let her plunge her dagger into
my
breast. At least she'd have to look me in the eye instead of sneaking around to kill everyone I love behind my back!”

“Did Zevondeth call you overwrought?” Ursula demanded.

“Because you're behaving like a crazy woman.”

“You're protecting her,” I hissed, my fingers curving into claws and digging into my gown. “Giving me nice stories about how my dead mother left me some toy when we all know perfectly well she left me nothing!” I'd forgotten which of them I was talking about, but it didn't matter. They'd all left me, even my beloved Hugh.

Had he loved me at all?

“Call the midwife for her.” Zevondeth creaked to her feet, leaning heavily on the cane. “Tell her the Princess needs something to calm her nerves, lest she do the baby ill.”

I wanted to protest, even as Ursula moved to do her bidding, as if she were one of the servants. But I felt overwhelmingly tired—and there the nausea rose again. If only I could shed tears as easily as I brought up the contents of my stomach.

“Come, Amelia.” Ursula was at my elbow, urging me to rise. I hadn't noticed her return. “Come lie down and rest. We can talk more later. Isn't that right, Lady Zevondeth?” I heard the command in Ursula's voice and knew she wouldn't stop until we'd gone over and over our mother's death. I, for one, didn't want to know. Had never wanted to.

“I don't feel good,” I protested, sounding whiny and weak, even to myself. How I detested this new me. Ugly and ill and . . . maybe crazy.

“I know, honey.” Ursula wrapped an arm around my waist and led me into the bedroom. “I'm sorry I was cruel to you. Rest now.”

“You only care about the babe,” I complained, but I settled onto the bed where she showed me, my body crying out with relief to offer up its exhaustion.

“That's never true. Look at me, Amelia.” Ursula clasped my hand in hers and stared fiercely at me. Her eyes looked almost silver, ringed by a darker gray border. “Never believe that. You and I are together in this. Andi is beyond our reach for the time being, but you and I are sisters. First and foremost. Now and forever. I love you, Amelia, with all the power of my heart.”

“Andi loved me once.” Sleep was surging up to drag me under. I couldn't hold my eyes open.

“She loves you still. All will be well.”

“Do you believe that, too?”

“Yes.” Ursula's conviction cut through my fog. “It has to be.”

7

W
hen I awoke, the winter night had fallen hard and the lanterns were lit. Marin sat in a chair nearby, knitting needles flashing as always, catching the red-gold glints from the fireplace.

As had become my recent habit upon awakening, I took a mental assessment of my body, waiting to see if I needed to reach for the nearby basin.

Surprisingly, I didn't. I felt energized and more clearheaded than earlier. I hadn't handled that well, but Ursula and Lady Zevondeth shouldn't have ambushed me that way. If I was to be taken seriously as Glorianna's avatar, I needed to have a better strategy.

“I'm thinking you'll be hungry, Princess,” Marin said in a quiet tone, the click of her needles soothing and unceasing in their rhythm.

“Yes.” I was. Of course.

“Good. I took the liberty of asking that dinner be sent up to your rooms, so that you could lie abed quietly tonight. I sent word that you require this time to rest and recover from your journey. Of course, if you prefer to join the court in the feasting hall, I can call your ladies. There's still time.”

Once I would have insisted on going. What, and miss all the fun? Now I seized upon the excuse gratefully. Growing another human being apparently took more work than it appeared.

“I think I'll do that. Stay in. And I am starving. What's for dinner?”

“I asked for a number of things for you to try. You're getting to the stage where the child will tell you what it needs. The best way to discover that is to smell and taste. What you crave will be the right thing.”

She set her knitting aside and helped me mound the pillows so I could sit up comfortably. It felt like being mothered might have, and her concern touched me. Marin, at least, cared for how I felt.

“Thank you for being so good to me.”

She clucked at me, a mother hen calling her chicks. “I have a stake in the child you carry, too, Princess. I'm not above making it clear that you should be treated with the utmost care. I'd like to see him or her born strong and well—and at Windroven, as is meant.”

“You don't believe the babe will be a boy?”

“It matters not to me. All children are equal in Glorianna's eyes.”

“Too bad Glorianna has no teachings for pregnant women—I have no idea what I'm doing.”

“Ah, but She does, Princess.”

“I've never heard any.” Shouldn't I know everything about Glorianna?

“That's because Her priests are less interested in the goddess as a mother. But in the old tales and the small chapels, where Glorianna's children worship Her in the quiet places, they pass along other stories.”

“Will you tell me one?”

“Yes, Princess. While we wait for your supper to arrive, I'll tell you the tale of Glorianna and the birth of Her first daughter.” She sat back in her chair, taking up her knitting and setting the rhythm of it before she began.

“Long ago, when all the gods and goddesses walked the earth, and lived in Annfwn together, none lacked for anything. The sun shone warm each day. The rains fell and soaked the earth. The fruits and vegetables grew jewel bright and the fish swam in the warm waters of the Onyx Ocean.

“Glorianna took a new lover. He was a beautiful human man, with all the strength and radiance of the rising sun. She loved him for his red-gold hair, like the light of dawn, for the bronzed noonday strength of his body, for the twilight blue of his eyes and the midnight smokiness of his lust for Her.

“Though it was frowned upon to dally with human beings—for they are fragile in their short lives and their hearts are easily broken—Glorianna could not resist this young man. Her sisters, Moranu and Danu, understood and helped in Their ways. Night after night, She returned to his bed and Moranu's moon smiled upon them, lighting their lovemaking. When they played on the beach and swam in the Onyx Ocean, Danu's sun warmed them, never burning.

“In time, as such things happen, Glorianna's womb quickened. The other gods and goddesses mocked Her, for the babe could never be immortal. It would be forever a half-breed, belonging to neither race, forever doomed to be neither fully one thing nor the other.

“But Glorianna didn't care. She loved her unborn child—perhaps even more so because it carried the human blood that made Her lover all She so admired in him. So She went to Her sisters.

“Danu cautioned Her that the others would seek to kill the child, out of spite and jealousy, to show they could. Danu offered Her spotless integrity and Her bright blade to guard the child. Glorianna accepted with gratitude.

“Moranu said that the child would need special gifts, in order to survive the trials ahead, so She offered the tricks of the night, the magic of the shadows. Glorianna accepted that gift, also.

“Glorianna, however, had no gift to give Her child, save the nourishment of Her own body. She knew that, once the child was separated from Her, that She would no longer be able to protect the infant from the world, as mortal babes require.

“So She went to the human women and asked them for their advice. They were awed by Her unearthly beauty, but they soon grew accustomed to Her. They showed Her their ways, how to nurse the child, how to introduce the soft foods, to chew the meats. As She learned from them, Glorianna wondered how to repay them. She wanted to offer the women a gift, such as Her sisters offered Her. Something that would guard and protect their human babes.

“She saw how they spun coarse thread from the animals they kept—the goats and horses—and how they labored at their looms, to make clothing to protect their mortal bodies from the elements. But weaving required the bright light of day. Glorianna's radiance comes from the between times. She is in the soft, rising dawn and in the falling dusk of brilliant sunset. Her gift, She thought, should be for those times. For when men and women sat together quietly with their children, to tell stories.

“So Glorianna took a rib from either side and shaped them into long needles. She touched the goats and gave them soft underdown and coaxed the rabbits from the hills with sweet clover. She spun the first yarn, soft and sweet as sunrise, then gave it the bright colors of sunset. Giving these things to the women, She showed them how to knit the yarn together, to make soft blankets for their babes while they sat together, sharing stories.

“And that is how we came to knit. Also why the luckiest needles are made of the bone of someone who loves you.”

“Surely that last isn't true,” I burst out.

Marin winked at me, her needles flying in their steady dance. I peered at them, trying to discern what they were made of.

“What happened to them?”

“To who, Princess?”

“Well, I know other stories of Glorianna, but what about Her lover? What was his name? And what became of the daughter? Did She have other daughters? You said the birth of Her first daughter.”

Marin considered, and it occurred to me that we were doing as Glorianna had wanted us to do, sitting in the evening and sharing stories and time together.

“Can I learn to knit?” I asked impulsively. I knew how to embroider and other such elegant needlework, but now I wanted nothing more than to knit a blanket for my babe—son or daughter. Something soft and bright to wrap my child in.

“The stories never give the man's name,” Marin said. “There's another tale, of how Glorianna's lover died, as mortals must, and how She grieved for him. In the madness of Her grief, She nearly destroyed the world. I always wondered if it was the same man.”

Everyone knew that story. It was often held up as the example of Glorianna's ascendant power and how Moranu and Danu followed Her bidding, lashing the tides and scorching the earth as She demanded.

I understood that story better than I ever had. I'd always kind of puzzled over it, the tales of Glorianna's grief. How could She have treated the world and Her people so badly, when She was the goddess of love? It never made sense, and, especially as a girl, I'd wanted Her to get over it and go back to being benevolent.

But . . . now I comprehended on a visceral level how She'd felt. There was no choice about it, no getting over anything. Grieving is like being ill. Just as my body had taken control, flinging me to my knees with the wretched sicks, it seemed this terrible mourning had all my thoughts and feelings in a death grip around my throat, choking the life from my body.

The way the cliffs had beckoned to me, I still felt that siren call to end this pain and fling myself into numbing death. If I'd had Glorianna's power, I, too, would have wanted to take the world with me.

“Knitting might be good for you,” Marin broke into my dark thoughts, nodding at me placidly when I started at her voice. “It will occupy your hands and give you a sense of peace.”

She didn't have to say that I sorely needed some kind of peace.

“I should mention, though, that the reason you never learned before is because the fine ladies have long frowned on the art. Fit only for coarser hands and thicker yarns.”

“But you'll teach me anyway—can I make something for the baby?”

“We'll start you with something simple and you can work up to a more complicated piece.” The midwife chuckled to herself. “Though if Her Highness Queen Amelia takes up the art, she may yet start a new fashion.”

“I'm not queen yet.”

“Give it time, ducks. Give it time.”

The next day, I made my way to Glorianna's Temple. It stood right outside Castle Ordnung itself, but still well within the walls of the keep, so I could leave my ladies behind. Though most of them had taken advantage of our visit home to be with their families and other friends. I didn't blame them—being in my circle these days sorely lacked the social whirl they'd always enjoyed. Of course, they, too, had abandoned me.

For the moment, however, I didn't mind. I needed to speak further with High Priest Kir about Glorianna's mission to recover Annfwn, so I could be prepared to put it to the High King in a clear way, without an opportunity for Ursula to poke holes in me with her verbal sword.

When I found the High Priest, his countenance brightened at my arrival and he strode away from a group of underpriests he'd been apparently lecturing. They all bowed deeply to me, scraping the pink tiles with their shaven brows, as if I were Glorianna Herself. They murmured a chant I hadn't heard before, something lovely and musical.

“Your Highness.” Kir beamed at me. “You are as lovely as the dawn. It is easy to see how Glorianna's hand rests upon you.”

You need to learn not to listen to every bit of flattery lobbed in your direction.
I banished Ursula's nasty voice from my mind.

The White Monk lurked behind him, as he always seemed to do. He did not chant along with the others, it seemed.

“What is that prayer?” I asked.

“Why, it's yours, Your Highness.” Kir smoothed his immaculate robe. “I composed it myself, to honor you and your son, who shall sit upon the High Throne and lead us all into Annfwn. Under his leadership, we shall reclaim paradise and, along with it, your birthright.”

“What if the babe is a girl? And why not reclaim it under my leadership?”

Kir laughed. Then stopped himself as he realized I hadn't spoken in jest. “The child will be a boy. All the portents confirm that truth. As Glorianna lays Her trust in Her priests, She has determined that your son will lead.”

“But Glorianna's first child was a daughter and the goddess loved her.”

“Your Highness, I assure you, there was no such daughter.”

“But I heard the tale of how she gave us knitting.”

Kir looked aghast and, with extreme unctuous courtesy, silently urged me away from the still chanting priests. “Princess Amelia, I beg you to have a care which tales you listen to. There are many that purport to be of Glorianna but are not. They are heresies that can only lead to sorrow and misinformation.”

The White Monk trailed behind us, silent as always. But I had the feeling that he listened to us intently. Kir seemed to make the mistake, as many did, of thinking the silent also don't listen. In Andi's case, that was often true. Not so for everyone.

“You must tell me where you heard such blasphemy,” Kir went on, an impassioned flush high on his cheeks, “and I shall see to it that the poor, misguided soul receives proper instruction.”

“Blasphemy?” I echoed, aghast. Surely had Glorianna not wanted me to hear that story, She would have warned me somehow. A sense of wrongness should have alerted me. But it had felt so good, so right, tucked under the covers, listening to Marin's story. Knitting couldn't be blasphemous, could it?