The Tears of the Rose (12 page)

She consulted a sort of map and I peered over her shoulder, trying to make sense of the notations. To my irritation, she didn't explain, just nodded to herself and set off down a corridor at a brisk pace. Really, she lacked all sense of decorum and deference for my position. I opened my mouth to reprimand her but realized she might refuse to help me look if I did. So instead I trailed behind, skipping a little to catch up, nearly crashing into her when she popped out of rooms I'd been about to follow her into.

“Did your little map not tell you the correct location?” I demanded after the third mistake. Nice to know that the perfect librarian wasn't above misreading notes.

Dafne grimaced and shook a sticky cobweb off her hand. “These trunks were saved despite the High King's command. They couldn't exactly be listed as what they were on the official inventory.”

“What? You disobeyed the High King?” My heart fluttered—with shock or the illicit thrill, I wasn't sure.

“Not me, precisely, but those entrusted with preserving the history and relics of the Twelve Kingdoms, yes.” She studied me. “Have I made a mistake in trusting you, Princess Amelia? I thought your desire for this object your mother left you outweighed the danger of looking for it.”

I hadn't realized this quest would be dangerous, but she'd assumed I'd known. Because, of course, anyone who'd thought it through would have. Ursula would have known that searching out Salena's things would be considered a traitorous act by Uorsin.

“This is why you wanted me to come along. So I couldn't claim you acted without my knowledge.”

She smiled, thin lipped and without humor. “It pays to cover one's back in such things, yes.”

“You don't trust me.”

“Did you expect I would?”

“You trust Andi.”

She tilted her head. Inclined it. The gesture spoke worlds, reminding me that she'd refused to tell me Andi's secrets.

“Fine.” I used my frostiest tone, but she only raised her brows.

“In or out, Amelia?” She used my name in a serious tone, speaking to me as a person, not a princess or a queen. Before, I might not have recognized it. The White Monk called me by my name, too, in a similar tone—as if they somehow sought to catch my attention in a different way. Not the pretty petted princess, but
me
.

“I need to do this.”

She nodded, crisply accepting my word, then gestured into the dark room. “Wait a moment and I'll get a lantern. There are none in here.”

I stepped into the dark cellar alcove, which held several wooden trunks. Through the musty damp, the scent of spicy forests warmed the air. And—I fancied I smelled my mother. Absurd, since our lives had not overlapped outside the womb. I had no idea how she smelled. My abdomen burned, the small star of life there flickering, and I laid a hand over my unborn child. We would know each other, I promised in my heart.

Dafne returned with a glass lantern that sliced through the dimness and hung it on an overhead hook. I turned to the nearest trunk.

“Not that one,” she corrected. “This one.”

It was small. Not even the size of the least of my clothing trunks. “And the others?”

“There is only the one for Salena's things. She was not given to collecting material possessions.”

My fingers itched to open it, but I stalled, a vague fear of the unknown holding me back.

“Did you know her?”

“A little, yes. She was kind to me.”

I waited for the anger, the hot sting of jealousy. Oddly, I didn't feel those things. I didn't even feel the hard, spiny lump that locked all my tears inside. For the first time in ages, calmness settled through me, as with one of Marin's teas. I closed my eyes and imagined I felt my mother's hand on my cheek, the scent of her skin and the drape of her hair, backlit by the fire. It felt like memory but had to be a lie, since she'd never lived to hold me.

“I was always told she died birthing me.” I sank to the floor in front of the trunk. A fat black spider skittered into the shadows. Dafne hadn't lied about that. What other knowledge might she have?

“That's what we all were told.”

“But you don't believe it.” While Dafne considered how to respond, I studied the lid of the chest. Carved with a scene and inlaid with a shimmering white bone material, it showed a cliff overlooking a pristine shore. Even this had been hers. I knew it in my gut. It should have been ours. But for Dafne and her ilk, this would have been destroyed. Not out of grief, as I'd first thought. No—Uorsin had acted out of spite. The certainty filled me, as if Salena herself whispered in my ear.

“She had been secluded for her lying-in. The pregnancy had been hard on her, so we were told. Even Ursula and little Andi visited rarely. I was but a girl myself—with no status—so I hadn't seen her for several full moons. When the word came that she'd died in childbirth, but that you'd survived, they showed you to the court. I remember it well.”

Her voice took on a reverent hush. “You were so beautiful, even as a newborn, not wrinkled and squalling, but luminous, like a perfect pearl, your eyes the same blue as now, and you even had your red-gold hair. It seemed a miracle to us all, that out of such dark news such a perfect child emerged.”

“Some whispered that you were no newborn because you seemed to be, instead, weeks old.” She took a breath to say more. Stopped herself.

She didn't need to. Even I could decipher the implications. “Traitorous words to go with a traitorous activity.”

“Just so. I won't say more.”

Weeks. I may have been alive for weeks with my mother, who'd held me and nursed me and then died mysteriously. And my father had ordered her things destroyed.

How many other things didn't I know? Taking a deep breath, I fitted my fingers under the old wooden lip and opened the chest.

11

I
t was barely half-full. A few gowns. Some scrolls. Several smaller boxes.

But it smelled of
her
.

Abruptly I wished I'd thought to ask Ursula to come along, so she, too, could breathe in the essence of our long-gone mother. But another part of me—the selfish part still stinging from her outmaneuvering me—loved it. She had the cabochon topaz. This would be mine and mine alone.

“Do you smell that?” My voice sounded reverent. I added a mental prayer to Glorianna, for leading me here. The gratitude made up for the bit of spitefulness.

“It's the wood of the chest. That kind preserves the contents from insects and other kinds of decay.”

I shook my head. “No. Not that. It smells like my mother.”

With careful touches, I lifted a cloak out of the chest. Simple black and very worn, lined with some sort of fur I didn't recognize. I wanted to bury my face in it, but the other things called to me, so I folded it into my lap.

Eagerly, I reached for a box, holding my breath, hoping to see the doll inside. Seashells. Dull grays and tans. One had a pretty polished pink interior, but the rest were boring and unlovely. Why had she kept them?

There were scrolls, too. I started to open one and Dafne made a little noise and laid her hand on mine. I'd forgotten she was there. She wore soft gloves.

“Carefully, Princess.” Her voice came hushed, as soft as her touch. She eased the scroll from my grip. “These are so old they could tear if not handled properly. Even the oils from your fingers could harm them.”

“Nonsense.” But I let her have them. They weren't what I wanted anyway. Dafne would be sure to tell me if they said anything important.

I pawed through the rest of it, checking each box, thinking at any moment my doll would be revealed. Far too soon my fingers scraped the bottom of the chest. Disappointment as bitter as the bile I'd puked up that morning lurked at the base of my tongue.

“It's not here.”

“It appears not,” Dafne replied, gentle. “I'm sorry.”

I shrugged, the taste balling up into that familiar knot. Back again, my old friend. “Likely it never existed. It was only a tale to put me off.” As with so many.

“Did you ask Lady Zevondeth?”

I stood up and watched as Dafne carefully repacked the trunk. Such an orderly person. I had never felt that desire, to put things away neatly. “We discussed it in front of her. She didn't say anything. Why?”

“She's a canny old woman. She might not say unless you ask directly—and offer something in return.”

“What kind of something?”

“It's difficult to say.” Dafne was hedging. The scent of Andi's secrets quivered under her words.

“Don't you think it's rude to have more loyalty to Andi than to me?” I'd wanted to sound imperious, but the words came out petulant. Exactly how I felt. “Worse! It's betrayal! She's a murderer, a traitor to the crown, and you're covering for her.”

She stripped off the gloves, having already wrapped the scrolls in a soft cloth. Her sharp movements conveyed the irritation she otherwise wouldn't dare express. When did everyone start hating me?

“I'm helping you out of loyalty to Andi, because she's my friend and because she asked me to. However, Your Highness, you do make the job exceedingly difficult.”

I cringed, opened my mouth to apologize, and found the words locked around that same knot. Nobody understood me. Only Hugh ever had and . . . I was tired of thinking about it.

Tired of myself.

“Thank you for your assistance, Lady Dafne. I want to take this trunk with me to Windroven. Do you think that could be arranged?”

She nodded, measuring it with her gaze. “Good idea. It would likely be safer there. I'll take care of it.”

I acknowledged her, feeling stiff, resisting the urge to thank her again. Not asking her why she liked Andi so much better than me.

“And, ah, you'll return with us to Windroven?”

“If you'll have me, Princess, I will. There is nothing for me at Ordnung and I like Windroven.”

“It has its own kind of old and wild beauty, don't you think?” The words came out in a rush, some of the frozen feeling thawing at her answering smile.

“Yes. I do. I would offer to come with you to see Lady Zevondeth, but I think she'll talk more freely without me there.”

She was likely right, but I felt a bit bereft anyway. Reaching into the trunk, I took one of the smaller seashells and put it in my pocket.

“For luck,” I said. “Or something like that.”

“I'd do the same thing, Princess, if I found something of my mother's to have as a talisman.”

“But everything from your home is gone?”

“Yes. Destroyed with Castle Columba and ground to dust before the High King built Ordnung on its foundations. I was lucky I survived.”

My father had done that. In the name of peace, of building the Twelve Kingdoms into the solid, strong whole we enjoyed today. But how awful.

Impulsively I took out another shell and gave it to her. “Then have this. You said she was kind to you. Perhaps this can be something of a substitute.”

Her pretty brown eyes filled with tears, and she took it, pressing it to her heart. “Thank you.”

“Will you still say it's difficult dealing with me?”

She laughed. “You do have your ways of making up for it.”

There. I wasn't completely awful.

Lady Zevondeth's chambers blazed hotter than one of Glorianna's greenhouses—and smelled far worse. Sweet, but also rotten. Her maidservant admitted me and led the way to a chaise piled with pillows where the old woman reclined as if she were the queen and I the supplicant.

Her milk-white eyes tracked me across the room, not seeming blind at all. It made the hairs on the nape of my neck stand up.

“Welcome, sweet Princess. I wondered when you'd come to me.”

I should have changed into my lighter gown, if only because it would have been cooler. Already sweat rolled down my back, tickling my skin until the gathered fabric around my hips soaked it up.

“You expected my visit?” Ursula would no doubt play this better, but I tried to be cagey.

Zevondeth chuckled, an unpleasant, croaking sound. “You want that doll, don't you?”

“Do you know where it is?”

“It may be that I do.”

“If that's so, then you should give it to me. It's meant to be mine. You have no right to keep it from me.”

“Don't I? You never missed it before. Could be I had my reasons.”

“Such as? And I didn't miss it, because you deliberately concealed its existence from me.”

“When you get to my age, child, you may also find that you have kept so many secrets that it's simply easier to lock them all away than reveal them piecemeal.”

“Somebody said I'd have to ask you the right questions.”

“Lady Dafne is a clever woman. You do well to listen to her.”

“I didn't say it was her.”

“You didn't need to.”

She lapsed into silence, thoughtfully sipping her tea, then adjusting a golden velvet coverlet with fringe and tassels higher up on her breast. I supposed I was to ask my question, but hadn't I already? I thought back over our conversation.

“May I have my doll?”

Her head bobbed, maybe in drowsiness. But then she spoke. “What will you give me in return?”

“It belongs to me by right—I shouldn't have to purchase it from you.”

“Ah, but it belongs to me in fact. You shan't bully me out of this, young Amelia, as the King attempted to do. You won't find it without my help. It's well hidden.”

“My father?” I felt stupid. Of course she meant Uorsin. “He wanted it?”

“He wanted everything of Salena's. Everything she had with her when—at the end.”

I sat on a tufted hassock near her feet, my thighs suddenly watery. “What happened . . . at the end?”

“Another question? And yet you have offered me nothing.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

“Your firstborn.” She answered me with certain immediacy, the deadly blade of her wish catching me as surely as Ursula's swift sword. My breath clogged behind that knot of tears, all bound up with the other ugly emotions that stuck to it, accreting like a dirty snowball rolling across the muddy courtyard.

But I stood almost immediately. “Good night, Lady Zevondeth. I would wish you well, but I don't.”

Her croaking laugh followed me. “So the fragile flower has a spine, after all. Come back, little Ami. I didn't mean it.”

I hesitated. “That wasn't funny.”

“It wasn't a joke.”

“You said you didn't mean it.”

“I didn't. I said it to you, not in jest, but in warning.”

“Warning that you'll take my child if you can?”

“That others will.”

Despite the hothouse heat, a chill washed through me. “Who—the Tala?”

Zevondeth shook her head, but it might have been the palsy. Her blind eyes focused on nothing. “You will understand, when the time comes.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but we still hadn't agreed on a price. “If not my firstborn, then what will you take as payment?”

She smiled, cracked lips moving to show one unlovely brown tooth, alone in the gaps. “Blood.”

Yuck.
“Why?”

“Never you mind that. It's my price. Yay or nay?”

“How much blood?”

“You're not so silly. Even Andi didn't ask that.”

“You took Andi's blood, too?”

Zevondeth pointed her chin at the mantel, where three crystal vials rested, two empty, one filled with dark fluid. “There. The same from you.”

“And the third is for Ursula's?”

“Not yet. In time.”

“What game do you play?”

“Not mine. I've lived beyond my years to finish this game for another.”

“Salena.”

“Get the vial.”

With my body between her and the set of vials—just in case she
could
see—I touched the vial with Andi's blood, the middle one. Unaccountably, despite the blazing fire that seemed it could set my skirts on fire from sheer proximity, the vial was as cold as mountain water. And seemed fixed in place. It had occurred to me to take it, but it wouldn't be moved.

“Only yours, Ami. The others are not for you.”

My skin prickling with foreboding, I took the vial to the right of Andi's. It came easily in my hand. Mine.

Zevondeth took it from me without fumbling in the slightest, set it in her lap, and then, quick as a snake, gripped my wrist. I forced myself not to yank my hand away and stared off over her head, at the velvet-curtained walls of her chambers. The pain came fast and nauseating, my blood oozed hot over my skin.

“You'd best sit, dear. No fainting allowed.” She laughed, the croak turning into a hoarse, bone-deep cough.

I sank onto a tufted hassock, sucking on my bleeding finger, my mouth full of salt and fear.

When I managed to look at her again, the vial had disappeared, likely secreted somewhere in all those blankets.

“What will you do with it?” I whispered the question. I'm not sure why.

She whispered, “It's a secret.” And she winked at me. “If you're not too proud, kneel down on those tiles before the fireplace. The ones with the deer mosaic.”

I mentally groaned at approaching that blaze again. The hair all along my scalp seemed to be soaked with sweat. I'd have to wash it before dinner tonight, and it would take ages to dry. Once that would have been enough to ruin my day.

No more.

I followed her instructions and knelt by the tiles. They showed deer chased by curious half men, half wolves. I didn't want to know.

“In the one with the swan, lay your bloodied finger over the image of the woman in the woods.”

I had to squeeze the finger she'd sliced, to make the blood well up again, then found the image she spoke of. The woman in the woods stood as a silhouette among shadows, dark hair flowing, her face obscured. Setting my finger on her, for a moment I smelled my mother again. The scent of forests and love. The tile gave way, shifting under my touch as if the mortar had dissolved.

Digging my nails into the sides, I managed to lever it up, showing a space beneath. In the cavity lay the pieces of a doll. Two legs and an arm were attached to a sack body dressed in pink silk. Another arm, a rose sewed to the nubby palm, sat nearby. I rummaged around in the niche but found nothing more.