Page 18 of Blood and Roses

"I see. Then let me suggest that you avoid the second-floor dining room on your...adventures." The doors shut as she started to thank him. She stared at the metal doors blankly for a few moments before giving herself a shake.Balthasar equals off limits,she prompted herself before focusing back on the task at hand.

Rosa hurried up the main staircase and headed for the far end of the second floor. She could hear Eli talking on the phone in his office as she silently padded down the rich Persian carpet runners to a set of double doors. They opened easily, and after looking about to make sure nobody was watching, she ducked inside.

She had loved the library when she was a child. The entire western wall, as well as a good part of the roof, was made of tall glass panels to let in natural light. The library had rows of tall bookshelves made of carved walnut and oak wood, wrought iron staircases and ladders on rails to reach the higher shelves. Rosa had foolishly thought that all libraries in the world looked like the one at Gwaed Lyn, so it had been an awful shock to find the cold steel, florescent-lit atrocities with their hard plastic chairs and laminated desks in the boarding schools she had been forced to attend.

Being back in the library with its deep leather antique chairs and warm lamps made her feel more at home than the cottage did. The cottage had changed. The warmth that her parents had put into it to make it a home was gone. The library was exactly the way her child mind remembered it. Rosa walked up the twisted metal staircase to the higher levels and let herself get reacquainted.

Portraits of writers and philosophers hung on the walls between the shelves. She had forgotten about the paintings depicting scenes from ancient myths and legends. Theseus andthe Minotaur, Odin fighting Fenrir, and King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone.

Her favorite portrait when she was a girl had been of the fierce Celtic Queen Boudicca who had fought against the Romans. She was painted in heavy oils on a black canvas, looking more ferocious than any general with her blue woad-stained arms, wild red hair, and triumphant grin. She held a spear in one hand, a pile of heads at her feet. Being an impressionable only child, Rosa had wanted to grow up being Boudicca more than anything in the world. On her walks with Harold, she had swiped at reeds and fat toadstools with her stick sword, smiting her invisible enemies.

"Lookin' good, B," Rosa said out loud, feeling more connected to that little girl than she had in years.

Rosa kept roaming, small remembrances flooding back to her. She walked through a small iron gate to where the old leather books were kept. Keen, bright memories of beautiful pictures on old pages flickered through her mind. Rosa studied the shelves, looking for the intricate crisscrossing leather binding. It had been a book that she had loved, filled with brightly gilded illustrations.

"There you are!" she exclaimed happily and took the thick book down. She didn't remember it being so old. The cover was made of green, blue, and brown leather, stamped with interlocking Celtic knot designs. Sitting on the polished wooden floor, she placed the heavy book down in front of her. She opened the cover gently and started flicking through it, running her fingers over the thick paper pages.

What she hadn't remembered was that it was a book of Celtic fairy tales. The illustrations had been crafted in the same style as the illuminated manuscripts of medieval Bibles. When she was eight, she had found the pictures beautiful with the characters' long, expressive faces. As an adult, they were still gorgeous, butthe illustrations themselves were disturbing. One picture was of a woman, a queen, on a bed of red and purple coverings. Even in the style of the time, the figure was openly suggestive, sensual, and alluring.

There were scenes of violence, of three characters tied up and being beaten and another of a dead king. The script of the book was written in a late Middle English, the romantic language of Chaucer. Rosa had loved studying medieval languages and tales of chivalry at university. She fumbled over the first few passages, her mind trying to rearrange itself to the complex rhythms.

"The three brothers, Bleddyn, Trahaearn and Gwaen...were not grown. Their kingdom fell to the...Seelie armies," she read aloud slowly. "Cool!"

A small voice in her mind prompted her that she should go and check in with Cecily. She'd forgotten all about family Bibles and finding Jane; instead, her mind was filling up with violent, epic sagas she had never read about in the Mabinogion or anywhere else.

I'm sure Eli won't mind you borrowing one book, she convinced herself as she carefully tucked the book under her arm. Eli was the one that wanted her to come back and to see Gwaed Lyn as a home.Well, in a home you were supposed to share.

Rosa was walking down the steps when Balthasar entered the library. She tried desperately not to think of him in his dressing gown and the easy conversation that she had spent most of the night wondering about. Or the sex dream. Especially the sex dream.

"Here she is again," Balthasar said, watching her make her way down the iron steps. "You sneaked through the back door so you could come and hide in the library?"

"I wouldn't say I was sneaking or hiding as such," Rosa replied as she joined him.

He looked at the book in her hand, "Are you stealing a book?"

"I'm borrowing a book. You can hardly miss one in all of this," Rosa defended. "Besides, I was going to ask Eli first."Liar, liar.

"Ask me what, Rosa?" Eli inquired as he entered the room, his green eyes shining.

"Only if I could borrow a book. I didn't think it would be a big deal, but Balthasar seems to think I'm some master thief."

"I wouldn't say a master," came his dry reply.

"Balthasar, for pity's sake, Rosa can take whatever book she likes, providing she returns it," Eli said, smiling fondly at her. "What are you choosing?"

Rosa showed him, "Just some old fairy tales."

"Very old ones. Let me know how you like them."

"It's an interesting choice. Can you even read Middle English?" Balthasar asked.

"Can't you?" she replied sweetly. "I will give you a full review once I'm done, Eli."

"I would like that, Rosa." Eli was still smiling, but she knew she was being dismissed. She returned his smile before turning to his son. "Balthasar." He frowned at her as she turned on her heel and strode confidently from the room.

"Are you sure that was wise?"Balthasar asked once Rosa was gone. She was the most unpredictable girl he had met in a long time. He liked her despite the lectures he had given himself the night before.

"What harm can it do? Relax, Bal," Eli said before adding, "She always loved the pictures, even the violent ones that shedidn't understand. She reminds me a lot of another Wylt I knew long ago. He had the same mischievous look in his eyes."

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