Veiled Rose (21 page)

“Um.” Leo licked his lips.

“Yes?” said she, her mouth just hinting at a smile.

“Maybe . . . maybe you’d like to come stay at my house this winter?” He spoke the words in a bit of a rush, and his tongue tangled around several of them. “I’m sure my mother would love to have you.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes, I know she would.”

“What about you, Leo?”

His mouth opened, but his brain could not form any words. Her smile was growing, and he found it difficult to think. “Um,” he tried, and it was not a propitious beginning. “I think . . . well, I think—”

He heard the sound as though he’d been listening for it all along. It was faint through the closed window, but unmistakable.

“Baaaah!”

Leo was on his feet in an instant, sliding past Daylily, who remained blinking where she stood for a moment before following him to the window. Leo opened the casement and leaned out, and a gust of mountain air caught his hair and tossed it back from his face. He saw the garden gate open, and he saw who entered.

“Rose Red!”
he shouted.

She heard him, all the way out there by the gate. He saw her hesitate as she gazed about, looking for him. Beana, that shaggy old nanny, walked in her footsteps. Leo leaned farther out the window, waving an arm. “Rose Red! Rosie!”

She saw him. One gloved hand raised in a hesitant wave.

Leo cupped his hands around his mouth. “Wait there! I’ll be right down!”

“What is it?” Daylily demanded, pressing up behind him and trying to see through the window herself. She received an elbow in the stomach for her pains, and then a string of hasty apologies as Leo excused himself around her. All trace of a smile vanished from her face.

“She’s coming!” Leo cried, disappearing out the door. Daylily looked out the open window. She saw the girl, covered in rags from head to toe, making tentative progress into the yard. She saw the veils, and her teeth set on edge.

Perhaps Foxbrush wasn’t such a blessed fool after all.

Leo pounded down the stairs and was out the kitchen door within moments, running across the garden to meet his friend. “Rosie!” he cried as he approached. She had stopped in her tracks, as though afraid to progress any farther, but the set of her shoulders relaxed as he neared. “Rosie, have you decided?”

She nodded. “I think I’d like to be your servant, Leo. I think I’d like that very well.”

“Lumé’s crown!” Leo could not stop his smiles. “I knew you would; I knew it! Just wait and see what a difference it’ll make to you, getting off this mountain.”

“Bah,” Beana said.

“You can bring Beana too, of course,” Leo added with another smile for the goat. He reached out to stroke her ears, but Beana gave him a look like death, and he retrieved his hand. “There’s plenty of room in my father’s stables for her, especially if she gives good milk.”

But Rose Red no longer saw Leo. She watched over his shoulder as person after person stepped through Hill House’s various doors and approached up the lawn. It took all her willpower to keep from vanishing right then, fleeing back into the forest. Redbird came from the kitchen, her face pale as a sheet, her meaty hand gripping an iron ladle. Leanbear appeared soon after, and he held fire irons in both fists. Foxbrush followed, his eyes huge beneath his oiled hair, and behind him came several footmen and servants, clustering together for the comfort of numbers.

Rose Red saw this cluster of servants part as Daylily marched between them. Her face was like that of some queen of old. She moved ahead of the others, but Leanbear, Redbird, and Foxbrush fell into step just behind, and the others followed after. She was so beautiful that Rose Red’s heart leapt with terror at the sight.

Leo, turning around and seeing what Rose Red saw, reached out and quickly squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, and his voice was not like that of the Leo she knew. It was, in that moment, older. And harder. “Don’t disappear.”

Beana stepped in front of her like a forbidding fortress, and Leo faced the oncoming folk, his arms crossed over his chest.

“So, Leo,” said Daylily, and the smile on her face as she neared was very lovely indeed. “You found your goat girl again, did you?”

Leo smiled back, but his shoulders were tense. “This is Rose Red,” he said. “She grew up in the mountains, but her parents are dead. I’ve offered her a position as my servant, and she will be joining us tomorrow when we leave.” He turned to Redbird and the other servants. “You will make sure she is fitted out properly for the journey.”

“By the Sleeper’s waking snort,” Leanbear growled. “That we certainly won’t.” He was trembling in every limb as he clutched his fire irons. “She ain’t welcome in these parts. Ain’t welcome in the village, nor on this mountain neither.”

“Then it’s just as well she’s coming with me, isn’t it?” said Leo.

Redbird whispered, “Silent Lady!” and Leanbear spat. “You don’t know what she is, do you? Have you taken a moment to look at her?”

Leo stood with his feet planted. “Look at what?” he demanded. “There’s nothing to look at.”

Leanbear bared his teeth like a dog. “Look at how she covers herself. Look how she hides.”

“So what?” Leo shrugged but did not relax. His hands balled into fists. “She’s got a right to wear what she likes. It’s her business.”

“You know what she is, same as the rest of us,” Leanbear said. “That, or you’re blinded. Or bewitched.”

Daylily caught Leo’s eye.
“Bewitched,”
Foxbrush had told her, just as Leanbear said now. She searched now for signs of that bewitchment but saw none. Perhaps the enchantment was too powerful to be detected, but all she saw in Leo’s eyes was a rising, boiling anger.

“You all are dragon-eaten idiots,” he declared, advancing aggressively. The servants backed up, save for Leanbear, who also stepped forward. “What nonsense are you all talking? Bewitchment? Spells?
Magic?
You’re as backward as first-year schoolboys! Your mountain superstitions have blinded you.”

“Careful what you say about the mountain folk,” Leanbear growled. “We know more of the goings-on in these parts than you, with all your pretty city ways. We’ve lived in these forests, breathed this air, dug our hands deep into the roots and dirt and rock. Call us superstitious if you must, but don’t insult our ways. We’ve survived up here for centuries while the rest of you fled to the lowlands. And we’ve survived by not lettin’ the likes of her poison our lives.” Leanbear raised his fire irons threateningly and took yet another step forward. “She’s not welcome among us.”

“Baah!” said the goat.

Leo uncrossed his arms and held his fists tense at his sides. “I’m not scared of your nursery stories.” He turned to Foxbrush then. “You’re as bad as the rest of them, aren’t you? My own fool cousin—why don’t you speak up? You’ve studied science; you’ve studied logic. Tell them they’re being idiots, and let’s all move on. Or do you believe in this
magic
as well?”

Foxbrush hung his head, too ashamed to speak. For Daylily had turned her gaze upon him, and he found he had no courage under that blue-eyed stare.

Leo snorted and returned his attention to Leanbear. “Stand aside.”

“For your own sake, I will not,” said he.

Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone watching, Daylily stepped forward. With a sneer on her face for the carriage man and Foxbrush, she passed between them and approached the veiled girl. Rose Red had remained silent and trembling throughout the encounter, her goat pressed up against her legs. Daylily stood more than a head taller than she and looked like some ancient goddess to Rose Red, crowned by all that russet hair shining in the setting sun’s light. Daylily’s face alone in that crowd showed neither fear nor anger.

Which made her still more terrible.

Rose Red had been taught social niceties only in the vaguest theory. So when she tried to curtsy, it was not a pretty sight, and her scrawny limbs stuck out at awkward angles. But Daylily’s keen eyes noticed a certain natural grace behind the awkwardness, and her mouth set in a thin line.

“So you are the goat girl,” she said quietly.

Rose Red, still crouched in her curtsy, whispered, “And it please m’lady.”

“Leo has spoken of you,” Daylily said. “Several times, in fact. He is, I believe, fond of you.”

“And it please you,” Rose Red repeated.

Daylily studied the slit in the veil. It revealed nothing of the girl’s face, not even a glimpse of her eyes. “Why are you veiled?” Daylily asked. Her voice was too soft to be heard by any save Rose Red and her goat.

Rose Red gulped. “That is my secret,” she said.

“Does he know your secret?”

Rose Red hesitated before she shook her head.

Daylily did not believe her. She knew very well what those gathered in the yard thought of the goat girl, what they believed she hid beneath all those rags. But Daylily was not one to believe simply because everyone else said it was so. Her own idea began to form then and there, an idea she did not altogether like.

She turned to Leo. “You have asked this girl to become your servant?” she said.

“I have,” Leo replied. His tone was defensive.

“Then why is she not inside being prepared for the journey?”

Leo flung up his hands. “Don’t you hear what they’re saying? They think she’s . . . they think there’s something wrong with her, and they’re scared. It doesn’t take half a brain to see she’s as harmless as a butterfly, but they’re scared out of their minds, the dragon-eaten fools!”

Daylily did not budge in the face of his bluster, but let him talk until he’d quite run down. All the while the household staff watched and the goat girl cringed behind her goat. When at last he had finished, Daylily took a step closer to him.

“Are you the prince?” she asked. “Or aren’t you?”

Leo’s face drained of color.

For a long moment, he did not breathe. Then he turned to those assembled. If his voice cracked when he spoke, it was still deep and full of force.

“I declare to you all, by the blood in my veins, by the sign of the panther, and the blessing of the Silent Lady on the house of my forefathers: This girl is my servant and under my protection. You will treat her as such. I, Lionheart, son of Hawkeye, Crown Prince of Southlands, command it.”

R
OSE
R
ED SAT IN THE RUMBLE SEAT
on the back of the carriage, looking backward up the path down which the carriage rolled. With one hand, she gripped a side bar to keep herself from being jostled out of place; the other hand she wrapped around Beana’s neck as the goat knelt awkwardly beside her.

Rose Red’s head hurt from gazing up the mountain, from watching those familiar peaks grow smaller and smaller, from passing out of forests she knew better than her own face into lands unknown, surrounded by strangers.

Strangers who hated her.

She closed her eyes.

The crown prince! How, by Hymlumé’s light, had she missed that detail? “Hen’s teeth!” she muttered. “What a fool I am.”

The moment she’d understood what Leo said, panic had seized her, and she had flown up through the gate and up the mountain, using secret paths she hoped that he could not follow. But Beana could, and did. The goat had caught up to her by the creek.

“What are you thinking, fool girl?” she bleated. “Get yourself back down there at once, do you hear?”

“He’s the crown prince, Beana!” Rose Red cried, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t know it! I swear.”

“I know you didn’t,” Beana replied. “But you do now. And you’ve left him in an awful pickle by running off! It took some nerve on his part to stand up to all of them for you, and this is how you’re going to repay him?”

“I cain’t go back there.”

Beana rolled her eyes to the heavens, muttering, “Lumé grant me grace! What did we just spend a whole afternoon arguing over?”

Rose Red did not have the chance to answer, for Leo stumbled through the brush and fell into the creek the next moment. Up to the elbows in muddy water, he bellowed, “Dragon’s
teeth
!” then glared at Rose Red for all he was worth. “Dragons eat you, Rosie. Why did you run away?”

To Rose Red’s horror, she thought she saw tears glimmering in his eyes. But only for a second.

She got to her feet and scrambled into the creek to help him upright. “I’m so sorry, Leo—Your Highness,” she said, then bobbed another of her awkward curtsies. “I didn’t know who you were or else I’d never ha—”

“And that’s just why I didn’t want you to know!” Leo exclaimed. “Don’t you see, Rosie, the minute you found out, I knew you’d do just what you’ve done. Did you think you were the only person on this mountain who wanted a friend? A friend who could see past names and titles and . . . and veils?”

Rose Red could not answer. She bowed her head, ashamed.

“I knew you’d run off on me.” His voice was tight, angry. “And I didn’t think there was a chance in this world that I’d find you again.” He put out a hand to her, and his voice softened as though afraid to frighten her away. “Rosie, we’ve both kept secrets. But I’m still Leo. You’re still you. Titles and veils and all that nonsense . . . it doesn’t change anything.”

When she looked up, she saw no more trace of tears in his eyes. But they were large and serious when he spoke. “Please don’t leave me again. Come back, and let’s do as we planned.”

“Leo—I mean, Your Highness . . .”

Suddenly
he
was there again, deep in her mind. The voice that she knew could not be real, but that screamed all of her fears in words of fire.

I’ll make him pay!

She cringed and bowed her head. But Leo was still with her, and he put his hands on her shoulders, gently, as though half expecting her to hurl him across the creek in a second. She didn’t but stood stiff as a board while he carefully held her at arm’s length.

“We can’t be friends anymore, of course,” he said. “It’s not allowed. But you can be my servant, and I can watch out for you, just like we agreed. Nobody can touch you as long as you’re under my protection; it’s the law. Only the Eldest himself can reverse my command. And he won’t. Father’s a good sport, really, if a little stiff on taxes sometimes. And Mother won’t cross Father, so you’re safe. Do you see?”