Winter Rose - Once Upon A Rose Part 7

"Truly." He began to toy with her hair. "And the skin reddens or browns from it." He ran a fingertip down her arm. Pale as milk, soft as satin. "It can dazzle the eyes." He turned so he could look down at her. "You dazzle mine."

"There was an old man who was my tutor when I was a child. He'd been all over the world. He told me of great tombs in a desert where the sun beat like fury, of green hills where flowers bloomed wild and the rain came warm. Of wide oceans where great fish swam that could swallow a boat whole and dragons with silver wings flew. He taught me so many marvelous things, but he never taught me the wonders that you have tonight."

"There's never been another. Not like you. Not like this."

Because she read the truth in his eyes, she drew him closer. "Show me more."

As they loved, inside a case of ice, the first green bud on a blackened stalk unfurled to a single tender leaf. And a second began to form.

When he woke, she was gone. At first he was baffled, for he slept like a soldier, and a soldier slept light as a cat. But he could see she had stirred the fire for him and had left his clothes folded neatly on the chest at the foot of the bed.

It occurred to him that he'd slept only an hour or two, but obviously like the dead. The woman was tireless-bless her-and had demanded a heroic number of lessons through the night.

A pity, he mused, she hadn't lingered in bed a bit longer that morning.

He believed he might have managed another.

He rose to draw back the hangings on the windows. He judged it to be well into the morning, as her people were about their ch.o.r.es. He couldn't tell the time by the light here, for it varied so little from dawn to dusk. It was always soft and dull, with that veil of white over sky and sun. Even now a thin snow was falling.

How did she bear it? Day after day of cold and gloom. How did she stay sane, and more-content? Why should so good and loving a queen be cursed to live her life without warmth?

He turned, studied the chamber. He'd paid little attention to it the night before. He'd seen only her. Now he noted that she lived simply. The fabrics were rich indeed, but old and growing thin.

There had been silver and crystal in the dining hall, he recalled, but here her candlestands were of simple metal, the bowl for her was.h.i.+ng a crude clay. The bed, the chest, the wardrobe were all beautifully worked with carved roses. But there was only a single chair and table.

He saw no pretty bottles, no silks, no trinket boxes.

She'd seen to it that the appointments in his guest chamber were suited to his rank, but for herself, she lived nearly as spartanly as a peasant.

His mother's ladies had more fuss and fancy in their chambers than this queen. Then he glanced at the fire and with a clutching in his belly realized she would have used much of the furniture for fuel, and fabric for clothes for her people.

She'd worn jewels when they dined. Even now he could see how they gleamed and sparkled over her. But what good were diamonds and pearls to her? They couldn't be sold or bartered, they put no food on the table.

A diamond's fire brought no warmth to chilled bones.

He washed in the bowl of water she'd left for him, and dressed.

There on the wall he saw the single tapestry, faded with age. Her rose garden, in full bloom, and as magnificent in silk thread as he'd imagined it. Alive with color and shape, it was a lush paradise caught in a lush moment of summer.

There was a figure of a woman seated on the jeweled bench beneath the spreading branches of the great bush that bloomed wild and free. And a man knelt at her feet, offering a single red rose.

He trailed his fingers over the threads and thought he would give his life and more to be able to offer her one red rose.

He was directed by a servant to Phelan's room, where the young bard had his quarters with a gaggle of other boys. The other boys gone, Phelan was sitting up in the bed with Deirdre for company. The chamber was small, Kylar noted, simple, but warmer by far than the queen's own.

She was urging a bowl of broth on Phelan and laughing in delight at the faces he made.

"A toad!"

"No, my lady. A monkey. Like the one in the book you lent me." He bared his teeth and made her laugh again.

"Even a monkey must eat."

"They eat the long yellow fruit."

"Then you'll pretend this is the long yellow fruit." She snuck a spoonful in his mouth.

He grimaced. "I don't like the taste."

"I know, the medicine spoils it a bit. But my favorite monkey needs to regain his strength. Eat it for me, won't you?"

"For you, my lady." On a heavy sigh, the boy took the bowl and spoon himself. "Then can I get up and play?"

"Tomorrow, you may get up for a short while."

"My lady." There was a wealth of horror and grief in the tone. Kylar could only sympathize. He'd once been a small boy and knew the tedium of being forced to stay idle in bed.

"A wounded soldier must recover to fight another day," Kylar said as he crossed to the bed. "Were you not a soldier when you rode the horse on the stairs?"

Phelan nodded, staring up at Kylar as if fascinated. To him the prince was as magnificent and foreign as every hero in every story he'd ever heard or read. "I was, my lord."

"Well, then. Do you know your lady kept me abed three full days when I came to her wounded?" He sat on the edge of the bed, leaned over and sniffed at the bowl. "And forced the same broth on me. It's a cruelty, but a soldier bears such hards.h.i.+ps."

"Phelan will not be a soldier," Deirdre said firmly. "He is a bard."

"Ah." Kylar inclined his head in a bow. "There is no man of more import than a bard."

"More than a soldier?" Phelan asked, with eyes wide.

"A bard tells the tales and sings the songs. Without him, we would know nothing."

"I'm making a story about you, my lord." Excited now, Phelan spooned up his broth. "About how you came from beyond, traveled the Forgotten wounded and near death, and how my lady healed you."

"I'd like to hear the story when you've finished it."

"You can make the story while you rest and recover." Pleased that the bowl was empty, Deirdre took it as she stood, then leaned over to kiss Phelan's brow.

"Will you come back, my lady?"

"I will. But now you rest, and dream your story. Later, I'll bring you a new book."

"Be well, young bard." Kylar took Deirdre's hand to lead her out.

"You rose early," he commented.

"There's much to be done."

"I find myself jealous of a ten-year-old boy."

"Nearly twelve is Phelan. He's small for his age."

"Regardless, you didn't sit and feed me broth or kiss my brow when I was well enough to sit up on my own."

"You were not so sweet-natured a patient."

"I would be now." He kissed her, surprised that she didn't flush and flutter as females were wont to do. Instead she answered his lips with a reckless pa.s.sion that stirred his appet.i.te. "Put me to bed, and I'll show you."

She laughed and nudged him back. "That will have to wait. I have duties."

"I'll help you."

Her face softened. "You have helped me already. But come. I'll give you work."

Chapter 8

There was no lack of work. The prince of Mrydon found himself tending goats and chickens. Shoveling manure, hauling endless buckets of snow to a low fire, carting precious wood to a communal pile.

The first day he labored he tired so quickly that it scored his pride. On the second, muscles that had gone unused during his recovery ached continually. But the discomfort had the benefit of Deirdre rubbing him everywhere with one of her balms. And made the ensuing loving both merry and slippery.

She was a joy in bed, and he saw none of the sadness in her eyes there.

Her laughter, the sound he'd longed to hear, came often.

He grew to know her people and was surprised and impressed by the lack of bitterness in them. He thought them more like a family, and though some were lazy, some grim, they shouldered together. They knew, he realized, that the survival of the whole depended on each.

That, he thought, was another of Deirdre's gifts. Her people held the will to go on, day after day, because their lady did. He couldn't imagine his own soldiers bearing the hards.h.i.+ps and the tedium with half as much courage.

He came upon her in her garden. Though the planting and maintenance there was divided, as all ch.o.r.es were in Rose Castle, he knew she often chose to work or walk there alone.

She did so now, carefully watering her plantings with snowmelt.

"Your goat herd has increased by one." He glanced down at his stained tunic. "It's the first such birthing I've attended."

Deirdre straightened, eased her back. "The kid and the she-goat are well?"

"Well and fine, yes."

"Why wasn't I called?"

"There was no need. Here, let me." He took the spouted bucket from her.

"Your people work hard, Deirdre, but none as hard as their queen."

"The garden is a pleasure to me."

"So I've seen." He glanced up at the wide dome. "A clever device."

"My grandfather's doing." Since he was watering, she knelt and began to harvest turnips. "He inherited a love for gardening from his mother, I'm told. It was she who designed and planted the rose garden. I'm named for her. When he was a young man, he traveled, and he studied with engineers and scientists and learned much. I think he was a great man."

"I've heard of him, though I thought it all legend." Kylar looked back at her as she placed turnips in a sack. "It's said he was a sorcerer."

Her lips curved a little. "Perhaps. Magic may come through the blood. I don't know. I do know he gathered many of the books in the library, and built this dome for his mother when she was very old. Here she could start seedlings before the planting time and grow the flowers she loved, even in the cold. It must have given her great pleasure to work here when her roses and other flowers were dormant with winter."

She sat back on her heels, looked over her rows and beyond to the sad and spindly daisies she prized like rubies. "I wonder if somehow he knew that his gift to his mother would one day save his people from starvation."

"You run low on fuel."

"Yes. The men will cut another tree in a few days." It always pained her to order it. For each tree cut meant one fewer left. Though the forest was thick and vast, without new growth there would someday be no more.

"Deirdre, how long can you go on this way?"

"As long as we must."

"It's not enough." Temper that he hadn't realized was building inside him burst out. He cast the bucket aside and grabbed her hands.

She'd been waiting for this. Through the joy, through the sweetness, she'd known the storm would come. The storm that would end the time out of time. He was healed now, and a warrior prince, so healed, could not abide monotony.

"It's enough," she said calmly, "because it's what we have."

"For how much longer?" he demanded. "Ten years? Fifty?"

"For as long as there is."

Though she tried to pull away, he turned her hands over. "You work them raw, haul buckets like a milkmaid."

"Should I sit on my throne with soft white hands folded and let my people work?"

"There are other choices."

"Not for me."

"Come with me." He gripped her arms now, tight, firm, as if he held his own life.

Oh, she'd dreamed of it, in her most secret heart. Riding off with him, flying through the forest and away to beyond. Toward the sun, the green, the flowers. Into summer.

"I can't. You know I can't."

"We'll find the way out. When we're home, I'll gather men, horses, provisions. I'll come back for your people. I swear it to you."