Page 5 of Thief of Roses
III.
Because she had broughtso few things with her, packing did not take long.She left the platter, goblet, and brush in the solar.She left the beeswax candles behind too.She left the chaise near the hearth, thinking if the Magic wanted it returned to its original location, it could do that itself.She wrapped up the remainder of the morning meal to take with her.She kept her makeshift glass knife in her skirt pocket.She retrieved a large strip of tattered fabric from the great hall entry and fashioned a makeshift sling bag from it that she looped over a shoulder.
With her few belongings on her person, her new bag at her side, and a regretful but grateful look over her shoulder, she left the fortress out through the back kitchen door to hunt through the herb garden.She gathered everything she could find, not stripping the plants bare, but taking enough to make all the oils and perfumes and balms and salves to sustain her through the next few seasons.
The boarberry and bristlebane grew more plentiful than she had ever seen.The willetvine thrust out blossoms the like of which she had never imagined.Even the prickly peasebuds did not sting her hands when she harvested several stalks for her collection.
The scent of other flowers drew her away from the overgrown herbs, leading out onto a wide deer path where wild berries caused their branches to droop like a willow with the heaviness of their fruit and the variety of blooms overshadowed the leaves in their bid to bask in the sun.She took cuttings and blossoms from every new plant she could find, reveling in the beauty of the day and a personal sense of jubilance.Such abundance made her feel like singing, if she could sing.The light breeze blew up a clutch of seedlings and sent them whirling in the air like will-o-the-wisps, catching the sun in their flight and twinkling like day stars.To witness such magic, such bounty, such beauty could humble anyone.Had those who once lived here ever seen it this way?Appreciated it?Considered that a Rivani would come through and think herself the most fortunate and most blessed creature on earth for experiencing this one ephemeral moment in time?She had lost much less than a sennight before and would be faced with trials unknown in the days ahead, but for this one perfect moment, peace and euphoria filled her to the point she might burst.
“Thank you,” she whispered to no one, to nothing, to everything.
Her joyous gratitude led her farther down the path, carrying her on a wave of delight.She could blame the Magic for this all-encompassing moment of peace.She may never have manifested the magic in her bloodline, but she perceived her kinship with it here and now, connecting on a level far greater than anything her senses could determine.She brushed her fingers over the flowers she passed, murmuring her appreciation for them as she went.She only paused when she spied a door ahead, ajar in the moss-covered wall she had mistaken for a line of trees.The deer path led through it.Her heart picked up its pace, not in fear, but anticipation.Perhaps she should have been wary, but her curiosity urged her forward, secure in her relative safety after her brief stay.
The door opened inward, looking as if it had been frozen in position for many years.She could barely catch her breath as she beheld the private courtyard that spread out before her, too orderly and pristine given the wild untamed path she had taken to find this place.
Unlike the utilitarian form and function of the curtain walls, the bailey, and the interior of the keep, a stone-hewn horseshoe staircase with spindle balustrades sprawled out to connect the courtyard with the balcony, the loggia whose shadow was black even in daylight, and the apartments beyond that presided over this quiet, manicured oasis.Moss and vines covered the walls that surrounded the area with overhanging branches of nearby trees, the branches and leaves so dense on the far side of the courtyard that their shadow obscured one side of the staircase and all along the far wall.A pathway trimmed with short flowering plants she could not identify cut through the patch of lawn leading to the brightest area of the courtyard.The centerpiece of this oasis, a bush so big, so full, and so abundant with blooms, stood in full sunshine resplendence.
She had heard of these flowers, of course.She had seen depictions of them in books, in carvings, in ornamental pieces designed for the wealthy.She had been told of them in campfire stories, of their beauty and of their extinction, upheld as metaphors for the Rivan people whose genocide in Varnasia had been recorded in oral tradition with stories of their persecutors and their prophecies, their histories, and their horrors.The Rivani had been like these flowers, she had been told.Prized, envied, magical, and destroyed for being so.But the Rivani had survived while these flowers had not.They had been extinct for centuries before she had been born and now served as something mythic, an entity of the gods, signifying beauty unattainable, grace unknowable, spirit untamable.
She never thought she would see real, living roses.
The surreal feeling of the inner bailey drifted over her again.This beautiful plant drew her in — the thorns not quite as vicious as she’d been told, the razored leaves not quite as sharp as they appeared, but the flowers!The lush flowers looked every bit as vibrant as if they had bathed in the blood of a fresh wound.She wandered over to them, entranced, fingers outstretched.She smoothed a petal between her thumb and forefinger, marveling at the velvet sensation.She cupped another and put her nose to it, overcome by the delicacy of the scent.Like one drunk, she danced from bloom to bloom, trying to appreciate each one, show no favoritism, make them all understand how she valued this great gift.
No one would ever believe her.Not that she had anyone to tell.Not that she would be fool enough to tell anyone of this place lest they disturb it and hurt it or ruin it.But how would she ever be able to contain her joy and her awe at being honored in such a way if there was no way to speak of this?
“You are Beauty itself,” she told the bush.“How does a mere mortal speak of an Ideal?The gods surely must protect you that you are here at all.”
A wild idea possessed her.She was no gardener, no lover of living plants, no devotee who viewed them like children, but this plant, this triumph of flora, stirred something in her.For this plant, she could see herself tending it like a beloved child.Perhaps she could even raise it, raise them, and bring the roses back.
“Would you like that?”She asked.“Would you like to rejoin me out among the world?”
The breeze blew and rattled the rose bush branches.The rustling of the leaves hissed an affirmative.
That was all the consent she required.
With her glass makeshift knife, she took a stem cutting and one flower.Tucking her knife away, she cradled the rose in her hands.She could weep over it, it was that beautiful.So absorbed in her prize, she did not recognize the tortured wailing growl that emanated from the apartments above the courtyard.It pulled her from her dreamlike state into a disorienting reality.Something was wrong; terribly, horribly wrong.Her cheeks grew heated and her heart tried to abandon her ribcage.She rushed to the courtyard door, but it slammed shut as she reached it.She clawed at the door, tearing at the vines that should have kept it open, yanking on the ring without effect.She found no other exit beyond the place where the hideous noise originated.The sound changed as it grew closer, no longer a sound of pain and distress, but a snarling of rage and fury.She covered her ears, trying to block that agonizing sound out.Whatever creature made such a noise could not be of this world.
