Rose Daughter (31 page)

Mrs Words-Without-End’s voice had steadied and grown stronger
as she went on with her tale, but she still stared at the rain. “Well! The
sorcerer wasn’t having any of that from some young upstart, especially a young
upstart who was far too admired by people who should be admiring the
sorcerer—the sorcerer who gloried in his sorcery—and so the sorcerer began to
plague the young man’s days, in little ways to begin. But the young philosopher
was such a scholar that he barely noticed, and this made the sorcerer mad with
rage, because he hated above all things to be overlooked, and he hated the idea
that he would have to exert himself over this dreadful young man, instead of
throwing off a few tricks carelessly, as one might set a few mouse-traps. This
was worse than being told that magic was a false discipline.

“Now, the philosopher’s servants were quite aware that the
sorcerer was to blame for a variety of the little things that had gone persistently
wrong in their household of late and began to talk among themselves as to what
they might do about it, because an angry sorcerer would shortly make all their
lives a misery, if indeed he left them their lives, which he might not, because
angry, vain sorcerers are capable of almost anything.

“They decided to ask a greenwitch for advice. A green-witch
of course hasn’t nearly the power of a sorcerer, but a good one is often very
wise or at least very clever, and this one was a good one, and she liked the
young philosopher herself, because he loved roses, just as she did.

“The greenwitch might have done what she did out of friendship’s
sake only, but there were other things about the sorcerer which disturbed her.
The first one was merely—what was he doing here at all? Sorcerers—even sorcerers—have
a place—something like a place—in a city or at a mayor’s or general’s elbow,
but there is nothing for them in a small town in the middle of nowhere, unless
the sorcerer has a fancy to enslave the inhabitants without any interference
from someone who might be able to stop him. And the second one had to do with
her friend the philosopher. She had an idea that he was pursuing some course of
study that an ordinary sorcerer might find very valuable, did he find out about
it, and she was very much afraid that this sorcerer would find out about it and
that her friend would be able to do nothing to stop him exploiting it, any more
than a country scholar could stop an army from using his notes on the forging
of steel for hoes and rakes on the forging of swords and cannon.

“And so, when her friend’s servants came to her with their
story, she was almost ready for them.

“I have told you the sorcerer was very vain. One of the ways
he was vain was that he thought himself very handsome—which he was—and that he
was irresistible to women, which he was not, because women surprisingly often
have minds of their own, and besides, sorcerers are a bit scary for lovers,
aren’t they? You never know when one might tire of you and turn you into a
fish-pond, or a toasting-fork, or something. So the sorcerer often found
himself short of mistresses since, like many vain men, he grew bored with
everyone but himself rather quickly.

“The green witch outdid herself. She made a woman—a simulacrum,
of course, not a real woman—she made her out of”—and here, for the first time,
Mrs Words-Without-End hesitated—“rose-petals. She was of course very beautiful—the
simulacrum, I mean. She had to be, because the sorcerer would only look at her
if she were beautiful, but she was beautiful in a way that was .. . not human,
because she was not human, of course, but that made her beauty unique. The
sorcerer enjoyed possessing unique things.. . .” Mrs Words-Without-End’s voice
sank. “It is only an old tale, and I’m a foolish old woman to be repealing it.”

“No go on,” came several voices, and after a pause Mrs
Words-Without-End continued: “Well, at first all was well. The sorcerer fell
passionately in love with the simulacrum, and the simulacrum declared she was
bored in the country and wished to live in the city, and such was the binding
that the greenwitch . .. somehow ... laid on her that he agreed to the change,
and indeed, he did very well in the city, which was full of people eager to be
impressed by him, even if he did sometimes have to share them with other sorcerers.

“But the simulacrum, the poor simulacrum ... The greenwitch
had put no end to the spell; she could not, for she was doing something she
could not do, and it had done itself. She was not human, the simulacrum, so she
could not love and hate and wonder and worry as humans can, but she had lived
for a long time with the sorcerer and had come to see that as human beings
went, he was not a good one; and she grew lonely without understanding what
loneliness was. The sorcerer had had many mistresses since they came to the
city, of course, because that was the sort of man he was, but he retained a
sort of fondness for the simulacrum and never turned her into a fish-pond or a
toasting-fork, but gave her fine rooms, and clothing, and jewels, and
maidservants, and everything he felt a woman should want, and left her alone.

“But one day he came into her rooms without warning, after
he had not visited her for years, and he found her weeping for loneliness. He
had never seen her weep. But she was not weeping tears: she was weeping
rose-petals.

“He was a sorcerer; if he had not been blinded by her beauty
and his vanity, he might have seen what she was long ago. As it was, he
suddenly understood everything, and then his rage was . .. beyond anything.

“Her he blasted where she sat, and there was no woman-shape
there anymore, but only a pile of rose-petals. It was enough that he destroy
her; he knew the trick played was none of hers. He struck her, and he left. He
left the city and went north, where he had a vengeance to pay.”

Mrs Words-Without-End paused again, and again eager voices
urged her on: “This is a tremendous story! Why have we never heard it before?
You have been holding out on us! Go on, go on!” But when Mrs Words-Without-End
took up her story again, she spoke very quickly, as if she wished to be done
with it.

“The simulacrum was not dead, for she had never been alive,
except as petals on a rose-bush. And the petals she became were just as fresh
as the petals the greenwitch had gathered many years ago to work her spell.
Rose-petals do not necessarily die when they fall from their flower; they may
lie dreaming in the sunlight for days and days. These particular petals had
been a woman—or something like a woman—for very many years, and the dreams they
had, lying in beautiful rooms in a grand house in a city, were quite different
from the dreams they might have had, had they fallen off their rose-bush in the
greenwitch’s garden and lain there in the summer sun, and wind, and rain.

“Perhaps it is easiest to say that they were no longer
rose-petals. Somehow they warned the greenwitch what had happened. Perhaps they
spoke to her in a dream. But the result was she had warning—not enough, not
much, but a little. The greenwitch had known—had to have known—what she risked
by deceiving a sorcerer. And she had to have known that if—when—he discovered
the truth about the simulacrum, his rage would be very terrible, and more
terrible still if he understood that a mere greenwitch was responsible. But his
rage was even greater than that which is to say that in the moment of
revelation, when he saw what he had carelessly believed to be a woman weeping
rose-petals, he guessed as well that the philosopher he had despised—had hated—had
indeed been pursuing some course of study that the sorcerer would have found
very useful, that he would yet find very useful, just as soon as he had his
revenge.

“Quickly the greenwitch threw up what defenses she could,
and they were little enough; but she was still clever, if perhaps not as wise
as she had thought she was on the day she had gathered rose-petals to make a
simulacrum. She had not time to send word to the young philosopher, who was now
nearly a middle-aged philosopher, but she had time to throw some kind of spell
over him and his house....” Mrs Words-Without-End faltered to a halt and looked
round at her audience.

“You see the story docs not have a proper ending. The
sorcerer meant to blast both the greenwitch and the philosopher off the face of
the earth, which he would certainly have been able to do had he come down on
them without warning. But blasting people leaves traces. There were no traces.
The philosopher disappeared. His servants woke up one morning and found
themselves lying in a field. Their master and his fine house were gone. It took
a little longer to discover that the greenwitch had disappeared too—and not
merely gone off on one of her collecting expeditions, to return when she chose.
But the sorcerer had also disappeared. My grandmother said he’s the reason no
magic will settle here—but there are many tales told about that; why should
this one be the right one?—that it was what he did that has left this place so
troubled that no good magic can rest here. She said that it’s only the
rose-bushes the green-witch planted at Rose Cottage that have held Longchance
safe from worse—even though they’ll only bloom when a greenwitch lives there.”

Mrs Words-Without-End went to Jeweltongue, who was standing,
looking stricken, and seized her hands. Her father gripped Jeweltongue’s
shoulder; Mr Whitehand stood close at her side. Mrs Words-Without-End said: “It
is only a silly tale, the silliest of tales. I forgot myself in the pleasure of
your father’s reading of his most romantic poem. It is all nonsense, of course,
as silly tales are—”

Jeweltongue said, stiffly, as if she were very cold: “And
the ghost? You never told us who the ghost is.”

“Yes!” said several voices at once. “Who is the ghost?”

Mrs Words-Without-End said to Jeweltongue: “The ghost is the
ghost of the simulacrum. Sometimes she is nothing but a breath of the scent of
a rose on the air, especially in winter. Sometimes you can just see her, but
often only as a kind of shadow, a silhouette, of a woman with long hair, holding
a rose to her breast, as if its stem grew from her heart. I saw her often when
I was a little girl—I had seen her several times before my grandmother told me
the story—and then it was as if she went away, oh, for twenty years or more.
But then she came back, about ten years ago now. .. .”

“But why does she come to you?” said a voice.

Mrs Words-Without-Had said to Jeweltongue: “My father was a
kind of cousin to the philosopher who disappeared. My father’s
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather inherited the philosopher’s
other properties, including this house. I’ve always lived in this house. 1 made
my poor husband come here when I married him. I might have made him change his
name, except that he is a cousin too, and already had it. I—I have been afraid that
if one of our family no longer lives here, perhaps the ghost will no longer
have a home; and if she needs a home, I wish her to have it. I—I don’t know
what possessed me to tell the story tonight. I do believe the storm has crept
into my head and disarranged all my thinking. I have never told it to anyone
but my husband and my daughters, once they were grown, when our ghost returned
after her long absence. Except that... it has seemed to me lately that she is
around much more than she ever used to be. Even my husband has seen her several
times, in the last several months, and he had never seen her before. And she
seems to be restless in some way; I have even felt that she has been asking me
to do something, and the only thing I can think of to do for her is to tell her
story.’’

Beauty heard the rain pounding against the windows and the
wind thundering as if it would have the house off its foundations, and she felt
as if the wind and the rain were dragging and drumming at her. and wished she
could hold on to her chair for comfort; but she could not move her hands. She
seemed only able to move her eyes, and she stared at Mrs Words-Without-End,
stared as the marmalade cat stared at herself, as if she could not look away. A
gust against the wall of the house made her quiver, and she had to blink, and
blink and blink again, as if rain were running into her eyes. I am dreaming,
she told herself again. There is nothing to be frightened of; it is only a
dream; I will wake in my bed. 1 will wake in my bed in ...

As Mrs Words-Without-End fell silent, the sound of the storm
seemed to swell; the lash of rain against the house struck like a blow from
something solid as a bludgeon, and it poured down the windows with a heavy
splash like a bucket overturned on a doorstep. Everyone in the room had moved
slowly towards the front, to be near Mrs Words-Without-End as she told her
story, as if attracted by some irresistible force, and now seemed fixed on the
sight of Mrs Words-Without-End with her hand holding Jeweltongue’s, staring
into her eyes, and the dumb, amazed look on Jeweltongue’s face; and with the
muffling of all other sound by the bellow of the storm, everyone started and
looked round in alarm when someone threw back the half-closed doors at the rear
of the room.

Beauty still could not stir. She turned her eyes, and her
neck consented to move slowly, slowly, slowly, but still not so far that she
could look over her shoulder and see who—or what—had arrived, Mrs
Words-Without-End seemed to shrink away from whoever it was; she put her arm
round Jeweltongue’s shoulders, but whether she wished to comfort Jeweltongue or
herself it was impossible to say.

Beauty felt a tap on her shin and looked down; there was the
marmalade cat, patting at her leg, as if asking to jump into her lap. Beauty’s
lips slowly shaped the words
Oh, yes, please,
though she had no voice to
utter them, nor could she have made herself heard now over the storm bar
shouting; but the cat understood, and leapt up, and trod her skirts into a
shape it liked, and lay down. Beauty gave up trying to look over her shoulder
and, automatically trying to bend her arm to cradle the cat, discovered that
she could, and with the first touch of warm fur on her skin a little life
seemed to come to her, as if she were in this room in truth instead of only in
dream. And as the intruder strode down the aisle towards Mrs Words-Without-End
and the little group on the hearth-rug, she was able to turn her head easily
and watch.