The Rose Bride (23 page)

Night. Rose had tried all day to get close to the king, Reginer, or Claire. But none of them had come out of the palace and she couldn’t find a way in. The guard had been doubled, tripled. Men in official robes came and went, murmuring together.

Monsieur Sabot strode out of the palace. Perhaps she could go to him, try to make him understand.

Monsieur Sabot nodded at a young pageboy holding a trumpet. The boy blew on the instrument and suddenly the yard was filled with armed men wearing the colors of the king. Some were running; a trio cantered through on horseback. Torches burned. Swords and axes caught the light.

“We can’t find them anywhere,” a man in a helmet said to a bearded man in a broad-brimmed hat. “They must have been warned.”

The bearded man took off his hat and scratched his forehead. “I can’t believe this. Someone is misinformed. Reginer Marchand and his wife are devoted to the king.”

“The king himself denounced them,” said the man in the helmet. “He’s ordered their arrest. He’s signed their death warrants.”

“It’s a pity then.” He put his hat back on. “Well, we have royal orders to follow. King Jean-Marc has spoken and we must obey,”

Rose reeled. She thought of Reginer, how devastated and terrified he must be. And Claire
she had to be near the time of her child’s birth.

And the God of Shadows had been promised a firstborn.

Non
, she protested, but it came out as a bleat. She forced herself to silence and stayed well to the shadows as she slinked away.

A crier shouted, “Reginer and Claire Marchand, you are hereby charged with high treason! Throw yourselves on the mercy of His Majesty King Jean-Marc of the Land Beyond!” His voice echoed, as the voices of criers do.

Rose turned and fled.

Where could her brother be? She had to help him, had to hide him until she could find a way to reach Jean-Marc. She had to stop him from murdering the Marchands.

I
should have tried
harder
when I had his ear
, she thought.

She ran through the woods, bleating, calling for her brother. Wolves and boar shot from their lairs, eager to run fresh venison to ground. They gave chase; she clattered over rocks and splashed through streams. Branches slapped her face and cut into her sides. She started to slow and her enemies cut the distance in halves, in quarters.

Reginer?
she called. My
brother!

She ran, bleating, alerting more predators. The forest teemed with death. She kept going, kept running, searching everywhere for her family.

What can I do for them when I find them? It would be better to find the king.

“But you have lost Jean-Marc,”
a cold, sorcerous wind whispered in her ear.
“He is ours now because of a wish. Your mother’s wish.”

I don’t believe that
, Rose thought.

Through the dark and the night, as the wolves howled and the boar slathered, she ran.

White-knuckled, Jean-Marc clutched the crone’s magic mirror. The glass reconfirmed the three conspirators—Reginer, Claire, and the little brown doe. Of the three, the doe’s betrayal cut the deepest. He had believed her to be a messenger of Artemis and he poured out his heart to her. He was humiliated.

Perhaps she
was
a messenger of Artemis. Perhaps Artemis herself had betrayed him. His Lucienne dead, his Rose threatened . . . perhaps the goddess needed killing too.

His wine goblet splashed against his doublet as he swayed before La Magnifique, his hunting horse. The riders were assembling. The king would lead the hunt for the treacherous deer.

Ombrine was dressed for the hunt, in riding clothes and boots. A huge dark bird sat on her leather gauntlet. She held out a goblet of wine to Jean-Marc and said, “Fortify yourself, Your Majesty.”

He drank lustily. “By the gods,” he said, “this is bitter brew.” But he drank it down.

Then she turned her attention to Desirée, as
her litter approached. Lying on soft pillows, she had put on her bridal gown as a token of her love. When Jean-Marc’s eyes met hers, a tear slid down her cheek.

“Please be careful. Come back to me and to our child.”

“I’ll come back to you,” he vowed. He took another draw on his wine. Then he handed her the cup.

“To horse!” he cried.

The call went up.

“To horse! To horse!”

Miles from the castle, Rose found Reginer and Claire beneath the wooden bridge that spanned the river Vue. Claire was in labor and Reginer was frantic.

Wolves and boar swirled behind Rose like a living cape.
Reginer, I am your half sister, Rose
, she pleaded, as a black wolf pulled forward from the pack and flew at her. She smelled dead meat on its breath. Droplets of saliva sprinkled her fur.

It was about to go for her throat when her fur turned white and she began to glow. From head to hoof, she shimmered with magic, and Reginer gave a shout of surprise. He pulled his sword from his scabbard. He speared one wolf through the foot; another, through the heart. He cut down a boar, which squealed and thrashed until it died.

The rest ran off to await an easier catch.

“Do you come from Hermes?” he asked, dropping to his knees. “For the love of the gods, I pray
you, help us. Our horses have run off and my wife is having our baby.”

She said nothing, only nosed him aside so she could examine Claire. There was nothing she could do for her sister-in-law, so she bumped up against Reginer, hoping to give him comfort.

Horns, drums, and hounds exploded, and Rose sniffed the air. The fur rose on the back of her neck. She smelled at least a dozen horses. At least twenty men.

And Jean-Marc
.

“They’re hunting us,” Reginer said. “I heard the herald. We’re wanted for treason. I’m sure it’s the queen’s doing. I’ve had a feeling about her. She’s an imposter. I know it.”

You are
right. She stamped the earth. She heard the swoop of the threshers as they smacked the bushes. The clamor of the drums. The baying of the dogs.

Horse hooves pounded. Horse tack jingled.

“Reginer,”
Claire moaned, reaching for her husband. Her hair was damp against her forehead. “Our baby, our baby. I can feel it coming!”

“I pray you, help us,” Reginer implored Rose. He fell prostrate before her. “I have been a loyal worshipper of Hermes for my entire life.
Je vous en prie
, reward my loyalty. Or if I must die, save my wife and child.”

Artemis will save you through me
, Rose told him.
Adieu, my beloved kinsman
.

She dipped her head in farewell and turned tail. She dashed into the bracken, directly for the hunters. She prayed to the goddess to keep her alive at least long enough to deflect the pursuit from Reginer and Claire.

The light faded from her body. She became a simple brown doe again. But her heart glowed like a comet.

Now I know true love. I know what it is. I know how it feels
.

Overcome with joy, she ran to certain death.

“I’m on the scent!” Jean-Marc announced. Then the world wobbled and rocked and waves of dizziness made him grab the pommel of La Magnifique’s saddle. He put his trembling hand to his sweaty forehead. He was shaky and ill.

“My son,” Ombrine shouted to him. “How do you fare?”

Something is wrong
.

He shook his head as if to clear it. Sharp pain throbbed behind his eyes and sliced into the back of his head. His stomach clenched.

“Keep riding,” he gasped, gathering up the reins as he held on to the saddle.

She couldn’t have heard him, but she spurred on her horse, thundering on ahead into the dark forest.

Another pain seared his eyes. This
is wrong
.

He pulled out the mirror and gazed into it. The little brown doe stared back as if she could see him.
She ran along the river, panting and bleating. He knew she was afraid.

Run
, he told her grimly. Then his heart seized with the memory of the nights they had walked together, the secrets he had shared with her. His heart melted for an instant and he thought,
Don’t let us catch you
.

With another seizure of his body, the thought was expelled from his mind as if he had spit rotten meat out on the grass.

Rose ran. Ombrine’s bird of prey flew above her, cawing, announcing her position to the horsemen. She turned from the river and made for the woods. Alerted, the hounds bayed and charged after her. Horns and drums signaled the change in direction.

Away from the river Vue, away from the wooden bridge, Rose panted and bleated, losing track of her direction. She knew her hoof pads were dropping scent everywhere. The well-trained dogs would run her to ground. The best she could hope for was to divert them from Reginer and Claire before they ripped her to shreds.

She hopped over a branch, smacked into another. Her ankle cracked and she went down. Heaving on her side, she struggled to rise.

The monstrous bird circled, cackled, swooped down. It missed her and soared into the sky again, hovering like a kite, so that its mistress could get a fix on its position.

Rose got to her feet. Her front leg burned; when
she put weight on it, she thought she would faint from the pain. But she hobbled on, praying, always praying and wondering why the goddess was allowing this to happen.

“She’s doubling back!” Ombrine cried, pointed at her circling bird.

The alert was sounded. The buglers and drummers announced another direction as the hounds bayed and looped back toward the horses.

Jean-Marc was drenched in sweat. Something inside him pulled at his stomach and pummeled his rib cage. It hunched inside him like a nightmare on the chest of a dreamer and it tried to take the reins. He wondered if Artemis was trying to thwart him.

La Magnifique thundered through the forest and back onto the manicured lawns of the castle. They rounded the battlements.

And then he saw her as she staggered from the trees to the right of the statue of Artemis. She was limping badly and her sides sucked in and out like a blacksmith’s bellows. She fell to her knees, head drooping downward. With supreme effort, she forced herself back up to a standing position and dragged herself closer to the figure.

She looked over her shoulder at the chargers and the hounds. The archers in the party unhooked their bows and notched arrows. They took aim.

“Kill her!” Ombrine exhorted them. “Run her through!”

“Non!”
Jean-Marc boomed. “I will do it!” He gestured to the lead rider. “Tell the buglers. The kill is the king’s!”

The word was given. The archers put down their bows. The party split into halves as Jean-Marc galloped down the center. He remembered the night that Artemis had slain the Pretender for him and realized that he was facing her down now himself. If she had a mind to, she could let loose her stone arrow and kill him.

Something is wrong with me
, he thought as his guts wrenched. His back felt as if someone were twisting it like a wet bedsheet.
Something is alive inside me. Something evil. Something dark
.

He steeled himself against the pain as he pulled La Magnifique to a stop. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Rose Bride’s litter. Why had she come? He didn’t want her to see this.

Concealing his agony, he dismounted. Then he pulled his sword and advanced on the little doe.

How could this happen?

Tears rolled down Rose’s face as she fell before the statue of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and of the Moon. She heaved with exhaustion; she was cut and scratched. The king had run her to ground and she knew he meant to kill her. His face was grim; his battle sword was drawn.

She could not move.

“I do this for love,” he declared as he raised his sword over his head.

How could that be? Love did not cut down. It never did. Hatred did, and grief. But love nurtured and protected.

At least Reginer and Claire would have a chance now. She had given that to them. Perhaps that was the lesson she was supposed to learn: that to be loved, one had to love first.

She raised her head and gazed up at Jean-Marc. She loved him. She loved what he could have become if he had learned how to love and not only to need. To give and not just to want.

She blinked at him.
Adieu
, she thought as the sun glinted off the thick, sharp blade.

“Do it!” Ombrine cried.

“Do it!” Desirée chorused from her litter. She was wearing Rose’s bridal gown, and as always, Roses face hovered above her own. But her eyes were black.

Jean-Marc looked in turn at Desirée and Ombrine. Ombrine was dismounting. Desirée climbed down off the litter. Together they converged on Rose and Jean-Marc.

Jean-Marc hesitated. As he gazed down at Rose, he grimaced. Sweat was rolling down his face and she realized he was in pain.

“Who are you?” he asked in an agonized wail. Are you a sorceress? What have you been doing? What did you do to me?”

She bleated. She was terrified. Was this to be her end? Would he make it quick?

The sword wavered. His face changed. Angrily,
defiantly, he stabbed the sword tip into the ground.