Veiled Rose (13 page)

Leo pressed his nose to the carriage window and looked back, gazing into the higher forest as though somehow he thought he might see something in those deep shadows. But he did not think to look in the topmost branches of the great grandfather tree, so he did not notice the veiled figure clinging there, seeing him off until he was long out of sight.

D
id he see?”

“I ain’t sure what he saw.”

“You are withholding something from me, princess.”

She sinks her chin down to her chest, but she cannot disappear in this place. “I told you, I don’t know what he saw.”

“He did not see me.”

“No, I don’t think he did.”

“But I saw him. This handsome young friend of yours. This Leo, who makes you forget me.”

She turns away from the pool, and her Dream puts out a hand as though to tilt her face back to him. “Would that I had a corporeal body, sweet princess. Then I should be your playfellow, and I would make you forget him as swiftly as he made you forget me.”

She shivers and refuses to look at him.

“Now,” says he, “things will return to what they were. Your Leo left you, just as you knew he must. But I am here still, and though I may not be so fine to look upon, I will care for you just as I have always done. We will talk together, here in your dreams, and you will know that I am the only friend you need. And someday, sweet princess, you will let me kiss you.”

Here Rose Red straightens her shoulders and draws her head up, for a moment as imperious as the princess he says she is. She looks him in the eye when she speaks in a clear, even tone:

“You ain’t never goin’ to kiss me.”

The Dream watches her rise and slip her veil back over her face. Without another word, she leaves his presence, and though his eyes are full of longing, he does not try to stop her. He watches until her tiny frame disappears through the mouth of the cave.

Then he too leaves.

He steps from one dream to another, then another, spreading his shadow far and caring nothing for the sleepers he disturbs. They moan in their sleep as they watch their dreams burn, then wake up in cold sweats, afraid to close their eyes again.

On he progresses, through the realm of the sleeping, until he crosses into the world where dreams come true. There they cease to be dreams and dissolve into nothingness. No color exists in this land, only shades. Even nightmares dare not venture past its borders for fear of losing themselves. It is a solitary world, wherein only one being can dwell.

She is the Lady of Dreams Realized.

The Lady Life-in-Death.

Her brother rarely visits her. He finds her company rather cold and prefers the fiery fervor of worlds where he can move and breathe and work with equal passion. But every so often, he finds it necessary to remember the Lady and to pay her a visit, as he does now.

“Greetings, sister,” he hails her, and his voice carries across the colorless expanse of her kingdom to the center, where she sits upon her throne.

“Greetings, brother,” she replies. At a word from her, the world about her alters, reorienting its boundaries and bearings so that her brother is suddenly before her and she need not raise her voice. “Have you come to play our game?”

He raises his hand. In the palm are two dice. “Only one game this time,” he says.

“One is enough.”

“There is a boy.”

“Boy, girl. Man, woman. I care not which.”

“I want him for one of mine.”

“Roll the dice.”

He smiles. His smile is strangely hot in that land, and the heat of it sizzles the air before freezing into nothing. “You know, dear sister, they all must be mine in the end.” His teeth are blackened from the fire that burns inside him, and his skin is white as leprosy. He rattles the dice in his hand.

She does not return his smile. Beneath the ghostly white mantle of her hair, her face is as black and still as a petrified tree. “Roll the dice,” she repeats.

“It will avail you nothing,” he says as he continues to jangle the dice. “Eventually all of yours come to me.”

She speaks without moving her mouth. “And yet, you have not found the last child for which we played. The princess, Beloved of your Enemy.”

“I believe I have found her,” says he, though the smile turns to a snarl. “The child of Arpiar, hidden in the mountains, guarded by one of his knights . . . she must be the one. My Enemy may protect her from Arpiar, but he cannot keep her hidden from me. Besides, I won our game. I have my rights.”

“Then kiss her and be done.”

“Patience!” he replies, then licks a forked tongue across the jagged cage of his teeth. “These things take time. But give me the life of this boy, and I shall find it far easier to convince her that my kiss is her desire.”

Her eyes narrow, and they are cold eyes indeed. “Roll the dice.”

He casts the lot, and they watch them fly across the floor, his eyes empty blackness edged with fire, hers empty whiteness edged with more emptiness. Under their fervid gazes the twin dice roll, a light chipping clatter on the stone, and the mists swirl in their wake.

At last they are still.

He steps forward to inspect the result, and fire flicks across his eyes. The Lady reads what those eyes say. Now it is her turn to smile.

“The game is done. I’ve won.”

Her brother turns on her with a snarl, and for a moment the fire in his throat shines red before the airless chill dissolves its color and heat. “He’s yours, then, sister,” he says. “I’ll not touch him. Yet. But he will be mine. All of yours come to me in the end!”

The Lady makes no reply. But the smile remains fixed upon her face.

T
HE
B
ARON OF
M
IDDLECRESCENT
had only one child, a girl, which many would have considered an inconvenience as far as family inheritances went. But the Baron of Middlecrescent was a far-seeing man, and from the time his daughter was two years old he hatched what he fondly called The Plan.

For his daughter was already beginning to display certain talents.

She sported a mass of curly red hair and a pair of enormous blue eyes, unusual coloring in a country given to darker complexions. Young Daylily of Middlecrescent was, in fact, remarkably fetching.

She also possessed a willful nature that her nursemaids thought dreadful but which, the baron soon recognized, could be found charming when she came of age. So the baron took Daylily and her willfulness in hand and began the work of shaping her into the right sort of person to fulfill The Plan.

“You see, my dear,” he said to his wife, “we are just distant enough of relations.”

His wife, a simple woman with huge doe eyes, smiled at him. “Are we, husband?”

“We are.”

“In what respect?”

The baron had long since given up hope of his wife’s developing anything like a cunning mind. At one time this had bothered him. But as he aged he came around to appreciating her. In the scheming world where he moved and breathed, it was a relief to know that at least one person in his inner circle couldn’t begin to plot.

He took a patient tone with her. “We are one of the noblest families in the kingdom. Your pedigree is beyond reproach.”

“Oh, go on!” His wife giggled. “You flatterer!”

“Yes, dear. As I was saying, your pedigree is beyond reproach, and not a speck of foreign blood runs in my veins. Our estate is rich enough to support our title, thanks in large part to your dowry, my love.”

She giggled again.

“And our daughter is without peer among the daughters of any lord in the Eldest’s court.”

“She is a sweet ducky, isn’t she?”

She certainly was not a sweet ducky, in the baron’s opinion, but she was everything necessary to fulfill every wish of his fatherly heart. Nevertheless, he bided his time and did not inform Daylily of The Plan until the evening of her sixteenth birthday.

“You like the boy, don’t you?” he asked her when he had finished laying out the details.

Daylily considered in that thoughtful way she had. “He’s a blessed idiot, Father.”

“But a handsome enough young man, you must admit.”

“Last time I saw him, he tried to stand on his head and play the lute at the same time.”

“Yes,” said the baron, trying not to be exasperated, “but he was no more than ten years old. He has since matured.”

Daylily raised an eyebrow. It was a fine, delicate eyebrow, and more expressive than words.

“Think of the title,” said her father.

She did think of the title. She even said it out loud, trying her own name with it.

“It sounds well, does it not?” said the baron.

“It would require me to marry him.”

“Yes. Yes, it would.”

“I could never love him.”

“Did I ask you to love him?”

Daylily regarded her father a long moment, during which time several responses crossed her mind. But she managed to stifle them before they reached her lips. To the fiery temper of her childhood had been added a measure of discretion. And the look on her father’s face told her that she would need to choose her battles carefully in the following months, perhaps years.

“Very well, Father. Invite him if you must.”

“Of course, my darling,” said Middlecrescent with a smile.

So the baron wrote a missive and sent it by a fast horseman to the Eldest’s House, where Leo’s mother, Starflower, received it with interest. She spoke of the matter to her husband, for it was he who must make the final decision. He asked a few questions but expressed little interest in the subject, deferring to his wife’s opinion.

What Starflower did not know was that Leo talked to his father too, though regarding a different matter.

Starflower sent for her son. He came to her favorite sitting room (she had three) and knocked politely, but when she bade him enter, he leaned against the doorpost and crossed his arms. She sat at an enormous desk that was all cupboards and drawers, writing at an important-looking document without a glance to spare for her son. “Are you well?” she asked in a tone that implied she could not care less.

Leo shrugged. “Well enough.” Somehow he knew that this conversation was bound to turn into a confrontation. His mother ignored him for several long moments, as though he were nothing more than a mildly annoying bug on the wall. Yet he must go on lingering, waiting for her to speak, his hackles rising all the while.

At last she continued. “I am composing a letter.”

“So I see,” Leo replied.

“To the Baron of Middlecrescent, my second cousin. You will be spending your summer with him.”

Leo licked his lips and continued glaring at his feet. He had known this conversation was coming. Each year, as spring ran into summer, he and his mother had the same annual argument with slight variations. Last year it had been Upperwold, the year before, Idlewild. This time, Middlecrescent, but Leo was determined that the outcome should be different.

“I don’t want to spend the summer in Middlecrescent,” he said, his voice low but firm.

His mother continued without pause. “Middlecrescent is fine country with clean air, conducive to the studies you are pursuing.”

Here came the tricky part. Leo knew his mother would never forgive him for what he was about to say.

“I spoke to Father.”

The temperature in the room dropped. Leo’s mouth went dry. He cleared his throat, however, and forced himself to go on, despite the dreadful
scritch-scratch
ing from his mother’s pen, which never stopped. “He agrees that I’m old enough to choose how to spend my summers.”

Mother never crossed Father, at least as far as Leo knew. But her shoulders set a little more firmly than before. “I see,” she said. “And where have you and your father agreed upon for this year’s jaunt? Will you sojourn to Shippening? Sail to Parumvir and pass your time gallivanting with those northerners? Or maybe the Far East better suits you?” Her voice was like ice. “Tell me, son. I am eager to learn of your plans.”

How she could manage to half convince him to give in to her pleasure without so much as an argument was beyond Leo. He had to force himself not to exclaim, “Never mind! Middlecrescent is the place for me after all. Finish your letter and send me on my way.”

But he had come too far now to retreat. “I want to visit Hill House.”

No answer.

Not once had he dared touch on this subject in the years since he’d visited his aunt Willowfair. Upon returning to his father’s house after that disastrous summer, he had been forbidden to speak upon the subject. His “behavior” at Hill House was dubbed “reprehensible” and he was never to be given the opportunity for repetition. A lad of his station shouldn’t dream of such tomfoolery, running about the countryside unattended, disregarding his studies, bullying his cousin (a part Leo didn’t remember but couldn’t argue), and fraternizing with the locals. What would people think?