by Ana Mardoll
Chapter 6 - Cienzo
Cienzo kept a close eye on his cart through the open door as he sipped at his mug. The liquid in his cup -- he hesitated to call it wine -- was some foul home-brew recipe with dark flecks of floating debris that weren't at all hidden by the dim light. Still, the water from the local well had looked even dirtier, and he'd had to slake his thirst somehow.
It was odd, he reflected, how the road home always seemed so much longer, hotter, and drier than it had at the start of a journey. The trip home was additionally rather trying because he was forced to keep such a close eye on his cart whenever he wanted to stop and stretch his legs. The bulk of his goods from the ship were safely on his person in the form of solid coin, but he had brought a few luxury items back with him to trade: little necessities that would fetch a low price in a port city, but a high price in his secluded home village.
"You didn't seem to like the wine much when you passed through two weeks before, sir," the innkeeper said to him with a light, teasing grin. "And yet you still came back for more!"
Cienzo coughed a little to clear his stinging throat and smiled cheerily at the slender man. The inn was a small one, really more of a dining room to serve nightly meals for the local field hands, but it was one of the few places on his road where he could rest and shake the dust from the road out of his clothes and hair. To the innkeeper's teasing question, he fibbed with a conspiratorial grin, "I'd be considered a traitor in my home town if I preferred another village's wine to our own!"
The man returned the knowing smile politely, but looked distracted as he quietly swept the empty room. Cienzo lapsed back into his wine, wishing he wasn't so bone weary from the road, and wondering how much longer it would be until he was home.
"You're a merchant, I think?" the man asked abruptly, and Cienzo nodded.
"Yes, I'm on my way back home from a trip to the port," he confirmed. He smiled again, but a little warily. He'd been lucky so far not to have to deal with any extortion on the road, and he didn't want to press his luck now. "I haven't had the best luck on this trip," he confessed, trying to look pensive and poverty-stricken.
The innkeeper brightened at his lie. "Well, perhaps you can make a profit in our village," he said cheerfully. "We're always needing replacement field tools and sturdy clothing, and it's so hard to find an honest merchant to make the trip out here frequently." The small man looked a little bashful and confessed, "We don't have a lot of coin to trade, but we do have our crops -- and even some goats!"
Cienzo couldn't stop himself from laughing at the thought. "Goats, huh? What would I do with those?" he asked with a grin. The thought of his sweetly spoiled Bella being presented a scrawny village goat sent him into a guffawing fit. "She wouldn't know whether to milk the beast or slaughter it," he thought, chuckling heartily. Her delicate sensibilities would probably have her fainting at the thought of doing either. He jovially slapped the slender man hard on the back and hoped the innkeeper would excuse his outburst. "I'm sorry, my good man," he apologized, "but I'm afraid I can only trade for coin. My ladies eat well enough at home without me bringing back goats."
He winked good-naturedly at the man and turned back to his mug, but then stopped as an idea struck him. The thought of Bella had jogged something in his mind, and he suddenly remembered that he was still missing her present. A single rose, she'd asked for. He'd been frustrated by the unexpected amount of time and effort that the request had demanded. When he'd asked around in port, the few bouquets he found had wilted within hours of his purchase, and the little bush he'd bought in a basket had died a day later. One woman had recommend that he dry the flowers, but he must not have followed her instructions properly, because the dried flowers were wrinkled and ugly and he'd thrown them out when they started to drop their petals. He'd finally given up and put the whole silly thing out of his mind: it was sweet that his little princess hadn't wanted armfuls of clothes and jewels, but he wasn't going to spend any more time or money chasing the matter. But here, so close to home, maybe a rose might stand a chance of surviving the rest of the trip.
"However," he said to the slender man, who had returned to his silent sweeping. "There is one thing I could trade for ... does anyone in the village keep any roses?"
In the dim sunlight struggling through the cracks in the thatched roof, Cienzo could see the innkeeper's eyes swivel up to gaze suspiciously at him. "Roses?" the man asked in a peculiar voice. "Why do you ask about those?"
Cienzo shrugged. "Just something one of my ladies back home has asked for," he said simply. "Who can explain the whims of a woman, but it's always best to keep them happy, eh?" He smiled helplessly at the innkeeper and privately hoped the man wouldn't charge him too much for the knowledge. "Are there any roses growing in the village that I could take off your hands?"
The innkeeper leaned on his broom and stared out the door at Cienzo's cart for a long moment, long enough that Cienzo started to become nervous. He cleared his throat twice, and was just about to thank the man and clear out in a hurry when the man smiled warmly at him. "I can't think of any roses here in the village," he said with another bashful smile. "I'm afraid none of the women have time to tend flowers after a day in the field, and it's still too early for wild roses."
Cienzo's face fell in disappointment, but the man continued cheerily. "But if you're willing to go just a bit out of your way, you could try at the castle. The old lord planted plenty of early-bloomers around the estate before he died, and there's no one left to bother you if you take one for yourself."
"The castle is empty?" Cienzo asked in confusion. He knew of the local lord, but he'd never bothered to visit the country castle or sell his wares there. Even before he'd stopped trading for so long, it had been common knowledge that the man's lands were failing and his coffers were barren. Still, he was surprised to hear that the castle was empty now. "Has the royal family moved to greener pastures?" he wondered.
"Oh, yes, the old lord died from illness very recently," the innkeeper said matter-of-factly, "and his heir left soon after. The servants left with them and most of them came back to live with their families." He shook his head glumly. "But the royal family did leave behind the most lovely rose hedge ringing the estate, a beautiful foreign strain that is very hardy." He smiled cannily at Cienzo. "Just the thing for your lady, sir," he said with a wink.
Cienzo quickly calculated the remainder of the trip in his head. The castle couldn't be far from the village, and he had made good time on the road so far. A quick side trip wouldn't put him too far out of his way. It was an awful lot of trouble just to humor Bella's request, but the extra effort would be worth it if it made her happy. "And it's been so long since she asked for something that wasn't powders and silks," Cienzo thought with a pang. It was no good to pine for the simple little girl his daughter used to be if he wouldn't then honor her wishes for gifts of his heart instead of his money. What was more, he'd bought the presents asked for by Marchetta and Fiorita and it seemed wrong to bring back pearls and velvets for his new daughters and not fulfill a request from his own flesh and blood.
He made up his mind; he would go. "Thank you, my good man," he said warmly to the innkeeper, and he absentmindedly tossed the man a thick coin that would cover the cost of his drink and then some before striding out of the dim cottage to his carefully-covered cart.
The distance to the castle was farther than Cienzo had guessed, but it was an easy path to follow the road to the edge of the estate. He noticed that the wagon tracks that cut into the road had been washed over with the spring rains and had not been traveled in at least a fortnight's time, which confirmed the innkeeper's story that the royal family no longer occupied the castle. The story had seemed odd to him during the telling, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense that a young prince might move out of his family's country castle to somewhere a little more comfortable. "Country estates are for old men," Cienzo thought, waxing poetic. No doubt a young prince would want to move a little closer
to the city for some high living and sophisticated entertainment.
It was strange, though, that there hadn't been a steward left behind to maintain the property and ensure that the fields were worked. Either the royal family was richer than he'd thought and didn't need to bother with such things, or their lands were so poor that leaving behind a steward and a complement of field workers would have cost more in the long run than just abandoning the land outright. "Probably the latter," Cienzo mused.
By noon, the sunlight was beating down on him through the forest canopy. He had just about decided to give up on the whole business when his cart crested a large hill and he blew a low whistle in astonishment. Before him stood the most beautiful gate he'd ever seen, with delicate silver bars that stretched towards the treetops and gleamed brightly in the rays of sunlight streaming through the trees. What astonished him, though, was that just through the silver bars of the gate he could see a thick green hedge, easily as tall as a man, and covered with beautiful red roses. A touch of dew still glistened wetly on a few of the petals, and for a moment all Cienzo could do was stare at the bright red blossoms.
He pulled up the reins on his mule and the tired animal was all too happy to stop its steady trudging. Cienzo hopped down from his seat and found a low hanging branch to loop the reins around. He walked slowly to the silver fence, still astonished that such a lovely and delicate piece could be left on an abandoned property, and amazed that it could shine so beautifully without anyone to maintain it. The metal couldn't be silver, Cienzo decided, it would be too expensive and impractical to maintain. "Some new alloy from the city?" he wondered. He didn't know much about metal-work except what he needed to know to sell jewelry, but he imagined the women back home would go wild for jewelry made out of this stuff.
Cienzo walked the length of the fence a few yards in each direction, each time coming back to the gate where he'd left his cart. Both the silver fence and the rose hedge inside its bounds stretched as far as he could see in either direction through the forest. He had hoped to reach between the bars to pluck a rose, but there was a good yard-length between fence and hedge. Cienzo looked at the gate hesitantly. He felt uncomfortable intruding on someone else's property, but would anyone ever know or care? The hedge was loaded with roses that would surely fade in a few short months; it couldn't hurt for him to take just one.
The gate was unlatched and opened inward at his touch, moving lightly over the smooth dirt road. Cienzo stepped quietly on to the estate property, unwilling to break the silence that had settled over the forest, and wincing a little when the silver gate swung closed behind him with a clang. He held his breath and waited, but when no one appeared to challenge him, he laughed at his own nerves and strode confidently over to the lovely hedge. The road cut through the hedges down into the valley below, and through the overgrown gap he could see a dingy castle. Cienzo looked long enough to see that there was no movement in the neglected fields and empty courtyards, and nodded to himself in relief when he saw nothing stir on the abandoned property.
The first rose he plucked from the hedge was truly gorgeous: a soft red bloom, perfectly shaped and completely symmetrical, with a profusion of gently opening petals clustered around the delicate center bud. He'd reached deeply into the hedge to keep the stem as long as possible, and a few sharp thorns had scratched him. With a breed like this, it was no wonder the hedge had been fenced in, if only to keep the deer out, he mused. No sense in having all the forest game bleed themselves to death trying to get at those tempting blossoms. He turned to go, clutching the rose gently to his chest, but then paused and looked back at the lovely hedge. It seemed silly to come all this way for just a single rose, and it was surely a waste to leave so many pretty flowers behind when he could just as easily take a whole bouquet home.
He laid the rose gently on the grass and walked back over to the hedge. It was the work of a few short minutes for him to collect an impressive pile of long-stemmed roses. He lay each one carefully on the grass beside the others, quietly counting as he went. After the first dozen, he hit upon the idea to pick another six for a total of eighteen beautiful roses for his eighteen-year-old Bella. Smiling at his cleverness, he reached gingerly into the hedge for another stem.
The roar only reached his ears after he'd been bowled over into the grass with a force that knocked the breath from him and left him desperately gasping for air. Cienzo scrabbled under the weight of something huge and hairy. An animal howl reached his ears and he felt something wet and sticky running down his right arm. The world above him seemed to be spinning, and in his confusion all he could make out was that he was grappling with some kind of wild animal. Panic seized him and he kicked out at the strange creature on top of him -- "Some kind of bear?" he wondered wildly -- and was rewarded with a pained howl.
Cienzo scrambled to his feet and dashed to the gate, crashing into it in his terror. Not daring to look behind him, he pushed madly at the gate, but it refused to budge. After an eternity measured in seconds, his mind supplied him with the hazy detail that the gate opened inward. Gasping with relief, he yanked on the gate, but to his horror the gate still would not move. His eyes shot down; the latch had somehow fallen into place and no matter how he tugged at it with his bare hands, it wouldn't yield to him.
A strange calm fell on Cienzo as he stood there, his hands helplessly resting on the stubborn gate latch. His eyes followed the stream of blood that poured slowly from three long gashes on his arm and was dripping into the fine detailing on the silver gate and its heavy latch. Behind him, he heard the labored breathing of an angry animal, and as Cienzo looked about him for any possible weapon or escape, he realized he was going to die. The realization stirred only a little surprise in him, which in itself was surprising; he felt suddenly light-headed. "Am I going to faint?" he wondered. Losing consciousness now would perhaps be a mercy. Slowly, he turned to face the beast that would kill him, and his eyes widened in renewed terror.
The beast was unlike any Cienzo had seen before. It stood on two legs, like a bear, but it was huge, and even hunched over at the shoulders it stood taller than he. One paw clutched at its stomach in a gesture that looked almost pained -- "Was that where I kicked it?" Cienzo wondered -- and the other hung at the beast's side, claws dripping with Cienzo's blood. But what was most stupefying was that somehow the beast was dressed in fine clothing as though it were a man. Cienzo stared at the creature in amazement wondering how and why someone would dress up a beast in a mockery of human fashion. "Is it a trained bear?" It was the only explanation his mind could supply.
"You have trespassed on my land!"
The voice was an animal roar, but the words were impossibly human. Cienzo stared at the beast in astonishment, mouth agape, certain that his mind had left him and that the words were strange fancies that his dying mind had spawned. "Wha ... I ... It ..." he stammered meaninglessly.
"You have stolen my roses!"
This time there could be no doubt that the beast had spoken; those strangely intelligent eyes bore angrily into him and the rage was clear in its guttural, howling voice. Cienzo's eyes darted towards the pile of abused roses that he had so carefully laid on the ground, now sadly trampled in the dirt. "Your ... roses?" he asked in amazement. He felt as if he were in some kind of trance, and that he might wake up at any moment and find himself back on his gently jolting cart, lost in a thick daydream.
"You will die for this, thief!"
The beast dropped the paw that had been cradling its stomach and the claws tensed in anticipation. The creature started to stalk towards Cienzo. His dreamy stupor fell away and he felt only fear. Desperately, he clawed clumsily at the gate latch behind him, but his fingers were sticky with blood and the latch was still firmly stuck. An impulse struck him, and he flung himself on the ground before the approaching monster.
"Please, my lord," he begged the strange animal, hoping that it could understand him, praying that it would respond to flattery. "Please forgive me! I didn't realize t
hat these roses were yours, I didn't understand what they meant to you. Please, I'll pay you for your loss -- I'm a wealthy merchant and can pay you thrice what you've lost!" Cienzo realized he was babbling, but still the beast approached him with determination in its eyes. Tears welled up in his eyes and blurred his vision. Pleadingly, he moaned, "Don't take me from my daughter ... Please, sir."
A long moment passed as Cienzo cowered in the dirt and waited for his end. He felt the tears streaming down his face; dirt and sweat dripped into his eyes and stung him, but he didn't dare move to wipe them. Above him, he could hear the beast's slow, panting breaths and he could feel the heat of its body so close to him, ready to strike.
"You have ... a daughter?"
The voice this time was different: no longer full of rage, but rather something else that Cienzo couldn't identify through the strange guttural accent of the creature. "Pity?" Cienzo hoped. He dared to look up from where he crouched on the ground. With a vague sense of shock he registered that the beast had hooves for feet, instead of the bear paws he had expected. He craned his neck up further to see the beast's face hovering high above him, those strange black eyes fixed intently on him.
"Y-yes, my lord," Cienzo answered in astonishment. Would the beast spare him for his family? With a glimmer of hope, he gushed, "I have three daughters, my lord, very lovely and delicate girls. They would be lost in this world without their father. Please don't take me from them." He dared to smile up at the beast, and then hastily dropped his gaze back to the ground -- would showing his teeth to this animal set it off in another rage?
Above him, he heard the beast snort; the sound would have seemed almost introspective in a human creature. When it spoke, however, the voice was low and threatening. "I will let you go," the beast said fiercely, "if you promise to bring back one of your daughters to be my bride."