Winter Rose

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “Turn over,” she said. “And I’ll do your back. Rois, you even have scratches in your hair…”

  “I know.”

  “What did you expect to find, watching Corbet’s life at night? That he eats and sleeps like the rest of us? That he might have a lover?”

  “He might have twelve,” I said, with my mouth full of sheet I bit when the oil touched my mangled skin. I felt her hands pause, questioning: Does he? Who? “But not from our village,” I added, “or we would all know the morning after.”

  She made a light sound, almost a laugh; her hands moved again. “I am willing to admit that we’ve all been curious about him. But you seem possessed. Talking to Anis and to Halov—”

  “And to Leta Gett.”

  “All to find out which curse he is under—nobody was there to hear one, it’s just one of those tavern stories.”

  “Maybe.” She drew the sheets down from my legs; the chilly air prickled over me. She wanted me to tell her; she wanted to hear anything at all about Corbet. “It’s a sad story,” I said temperately, avoiding what she would not listen to. “Nial Lynn was very cruel. He hurt his son in so many ways, until Tearle grew wild—”

  “That was Corbet’s father?”

  “Is.” Her hands paused again. “If what Corbet told us is true, and his father is still alive.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be true?” she asked, but without conviction. I didn’t bother to answer. She was silent a moment, weighing, I thought, her good sense against her curiosity. “Is that why Tearle Lynn killed Nial?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “And then he walked on snow without leaving a track to follow.”

  “It must be as you said—” I bit the sheet again, as her fingers worked behind my knees. “The snow covered his footsteps.”

  “And no one ever heard of him again. He doesn’t answer questions, does he?”

  “Corbet?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ask them,” I said. “He may answer you.”

  She was silent again. I heard Perrin playing the flute below, softly, a lilting ballad of betrayed love. Music has its messages, but even I could not guess what misgivings lay behind Perrin’s clear eyes. Perhaps none; perhaps he trusted Laurel without question. Perhaps he was right. All I knew is what Laurel’s hands said when she spoke Corbet’s name. And how often she said it, until it seemed, like the falling autumn leaves, or the long ribbons of migrating birds, one of the season’s changes.

  I stirred again, the headache raging behind my eyes, seeing Corbet’s face in the well, his hand lifted out of the water, not to my waiting hand to pull himself out, but to catch Laurel’s hand and drag her down.

  “Is he down there?” I asked, sharply.

  She did not even ask who I meant. She pulled the quilts up over me, and handed me the oil. “You can finish. I’ll bring you some supper. He came to ask about you.” I felt her hand on my cheek. “Don’t think about him. Just try to be peaceful. Don’t you have a tea for that?”

  “Not for Corbet Lynn,” I answered, but after she had gone.

  Twelve

  I dreamed of a red rose blooming in the snow. Corbet picked it and gave it to me. When I woke, I heard his voice, mingled with the sounds of Perrin playing the flute, Laurel’s voice. I had slept through another day. Or perhaps there were no more days; they had withered and died for the season, left us with the winter flowers of darkness and dreams. I got out of bed, wrapped a quilt around me, and followed his voice down.

  Fire bloomed in the dark, like the winter rose. I saw his face beside it. He smiled at me, shadow softly stroking his face, light catching in his hair, in a fold of his sleeve, sliding between his fingers. Perrin, softly playing on the other side of the fire, seemed to belong to another world; so did Laurel beside him, and our father falling asleep over his pipe. I went to Corbet; his eyes drew me, at once clear and secret, like the water in the well. He lifted a hand as I drew close, to draw me closer or to stop me. I took his hand and leaned over him. I felt the flush of fire in his skin, heard his indrawn breath just before I kissed him.

  I heard the wind whispering around me, the trembling silver bells. Then the thorn bit my lip again, and I drew back.

  That will cost you, his eyes said to me across the room.

  I stood at the foot of the stairs, shivering despite the quilt, sweating despite the cold I felt deep in me. An unbearable silver fire glanced off the flute as Perrin lowered it. Laurel said, surprised,

  “Rois. Are you awake or asleep?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I felt at my hair: a tangled bramble. I knew then that I was awake. Laurel rose quickly, felt my face.

  “You’re burning up.”

  “I know that. I want a silver cup.”

  “What?”

  “To drink the rose floating in the well.”

  “You’re dreaming,” Laurel said. “There are no roses. Look.” She drew back a curtain and I saw the first winter snow streaking the dark outside the window.

  I looked at Corbet. “What will you do?” I asked, for the season of the curse was upon him. He did not answer; how could he know?

  Laurel said, “He can borrow a lantern for the ride home. It’s barely sticking to the ground.”

  Our father rose, awkward and perplexed in the face of illness. He came and patted my shoulder gently. I smelled ale and pipe and wood smoke, the smells of endless winter. “Should we send for the apothecary?” he asked me. I shook my head wearily.

  “I have a tea for fevers.”

  “You spent a cold night bleeding on thorns,” Perrin said grimly. “You might have caught your death. How much can you cure with those teas?”

  I shrugged and was sorry. Corbet dragged at my eyes again, sitting silently beside the fire; I watched his face shape out of light, out of another world. Why would he want to stay in this one, winterbound in two cold rooms, waiting to be discovered by his grandfather?

  “You should not have come here,” I told him, and Laurel exclaimed,

  “Rois, you’re the one who shouldn’t be here. Go back to bed. I’ll bring you whatever you want. You must stop brooding over Corbet’s relatives, or it will be the longest winter we have ever lived through.” Turning, she appealed to him, holding his eyes. “Tell her what she wants to know, Corbet; she’s possessed by your ghosts.”

  “She knows everything she needs to know,” he said simply. “Except one thing.”

  “What?” we all asked at once, even my father, who, hazy as he was about the details, guessed there was some link between Corbet and his daughter flinging herself into brier roses.

  “Why she needs to know.”

  Perrin grunted softly. Our father lifted a thumbnail to smooth his eyebrow, his face puckered. Laurel looked at me speculatively, her own eyes opaque for once, secret, and I shivered suddenly in fear, pulling at the quilt.

  “I know why,” I said sharply. He rose without answering; shadows slid across his face. He spoke to Laurel; his voice sounded strained, haunted by all the ghosts I had set loose.

  “I’m sorry. It seems I can’t help. I won’t come again until you send for me.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Laurel protested as he took his cloak off the hook and swung it over his shoulders. He bade us good night; she followed him, trying to persuade him of several things at once, above all that he must feel welcome any time. Our father followed him with a lantern. I sat down on the bottom stair. Perrin lingered beside me, watching the snow swirling into the light about them as the door opened. I looked up at him. He met my eyes. Silently, we told each other what we saw.

  He reached down, gently touched my shoulder. “You’d best get up to bed. This may well be the longest winter we’ve all lived through, and we’ll need you strong.”

  I dreamed that night of Lynn Hall, as I had never seen it, perhaps as it had never been, with its fine, high walls the color of buttermilk, heavy silk curtains at every window looped back to reveal blazing clusters of crys
tal and candlelight, vast marble floors on which thin, bright carpets were placed as carefully as paintings, marble urns of roses everywhere. Entranced, I moved from window to window; each window I turned from darkened abruptly, as if such treasures only became visible when I looked at them. In the dark, I knew, the carpets turned to scattered leaves, and the curtains to spider web; rose petals the color of blood spilled onto the marble floors.

  I heard his voice.

  Don’t leave me here.

  Rois.

  I woke to find smooth cold sky mirroring smooth cold fields. The world had turned as colorless and shadowless as the face of the moon, and as small; our horizons ringed us closely, reaching down, reaching up, to touch white. I wanted to bury myself away from the sight, under goose-down or leaves, until spring. I never knew what to do when the world turned skeletal and mute, with nothing but withered stalks pushing up between its bones.

  Perversely, I felt better, weak but clear-headed, and in far less pain. I vaguely remembered the things I had said to Corbet. Even in such stark daylight they seemed urgent and true; the winter curse lay over him, and in his two sparse rooms he waited for it. Or in some cold world he waited for the wood to claim him, for his house would never be rebuilt, nor would his fields grow for him.

  I bequeath all to the wood.

  I got up restlessly, to look out the window and see which way the wind blew the smoke above Lynn Hall.

  The wind had blown Corbet’s way: I saw a set of fresh hoof prints in the snow, coming and going, or going and coming. I heard Laurel’s steps on the stairs, as if she had heard mine overhead. Her face was still bright with cold; she carried Corbet in her eyes, the smile he had given her on her lips. She smelled of winter.

  “Rois.” She felt my face, then saw what I was looking at. She said composedly, “You look better. I rode over to invite him for supper. Father sent me. He seems to think Corbet’s presence will keep you from brooding about his absence.”

  I did not say what I thought; perhaps, if it remained unspoken, it would become untrue. I said tiredly, “I will try to be civilized.” My feet were cold. I got back into bed, wondering how I could find a door or passage out of this bleak world. Even the well would be covered with a sheen of ice. Perhaps Corbet would give me a key. And then I remembered what he had said: She knows everything she needs to know.

  Except one thing.

  Why.

  I lay back, closed my eyes. I had no idea what he meant. Why she needs to know… And I did not care. Need is need; it is its own explanation. Laurel said something about soup. I made a noise; she disappeared again. I slept a little; a voice as sweet as silver bells, as secret as the wind said: You must hold fast to him, as fast as those thorns hold you, no matter what shape he takes…

  The door opened; I heard no step. “Laurel?” I said with my eyes closed. No one answered. The door closed softly. One of the house’s memories, I thought in my sleep. The door opened again; Laurel said as she came in, “Father is riding to the village. Do you want anything? Rois…” Her voice trailed away. I opened my eyes.

  The room smelled of roses, profuse and sun-warmed, on a hot midsummer day. Laurel, her thoughts drifting, seemed entranced but puzzled, as if she could not have said what caught her by surprise. She moved finally, set a tray of bread and soup on the bed. I said sleepily, “It’s the house. Sometimes it does that.”

  “What?”

  “Remembers a different smell.”

  “Rois, you’re making no sense again. Here. Eat this.”

  “Suppose I am,” I argued dourly. “Suppose I am the only one in this house making any sense at all. Suppose that everything I say is true, and everything I do is vital—”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll suppose. Corbet is cursed and you are trying—by some peculiar means—to rescue him. Now what?” I couldn’t answer; I had no answers yet. She turned away; I saw her hands rise, push themselves briefly against her eyes. “Just be careful, Rois. Just don’t get hurt.”

  I bathed myself for the first time in days, in water softened with oils of camomile and rose. I dressed, then combed my hair dry before the fire, thinking all the while of Corbet, wondering which way to turn next, what to do to help him, not knowing what to do to help any of us out of the trouble we headed into. Perrin did not appear for supper; another sick animal kept him home. Corbet came late. He brought wine with him, not from the inn, he said, but from some other place.

  “What other place?” Laurel asked, smiling. “In winter, there are no other places.”

  He smiled back at her, but did not answer. He poured wine into three of the cups Beda brought, handed one to Laurel, one to our father. Our father tasted it. His brows went up; he became suddenly lyrical.

  “It’s wonderful—it tastes like the smell of new-mown hay.” He took another sip. “In early morning, wet with dew.”

  “It does not taste like hay.” Laurel laughed. “It tastes like the year’s first sweet bite of peach, warm from the sun and so ripe it slides off the bough into your hand when you touch it.”

  Corbet raised the third cup to his lips. “Golden apples,” he said. “And hazelnuts.” He looked at me. “Rois—I forgot. I brought you what you asked for.” He turned, while we watched, baffled. He reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a silver cup.

  I smiled a little, and then I saw his eyes: He was not humoring a sick child. Laurel exclaimed over the cup. Roses spiralled up its stem, spilled around its sides, trailed down over its lip. Our father beamed at Corbet, pleased with himself as well, for asking him to come. I stared at the cup as Corbet poured wine, feeling my heart beat in my throat. The wine, by candlelight, was of such pale gold it looked like water.

  He handed me the cup. I smelled roses and wet stone. In the bottom of the cup, a reflection of flame from a candle in its sconce above my shoulder changed into a blood-red rose.

  “Drink,” he said. I looked into his eyes; they seemed colder and more distant than the stars.

  I raised the cup to my lips and drank.

  Thirteen

  I saw the world out of Corbet’s eyes.

  Our solid walls crumbled, showed stone under broken plaster, and night where stone had fallen. Winds, dark and faceless, flew restlessly in and out of the holes in the roof between the sagging rafters. Beda and my father were shadowy figures, bulky, indistinct, their voices blurred, their gestures ragged and abrupt, like the gestures of scarecrows. The fire fluttered frantically in the darkness, giving little warmth and less light, even when the shadow with the burning pipe rose with a laugh that seemed to ripple across the air, echoing itself, and heaved a log into the flames. Only Laurel seemed unchanged, a glowing figure. Light caught at her and clung, framed her tranquil movements. Her voice came clearly through the errant winds, the constant flow of dry, invisible leaves rushing across flagstones, down all our crooked, meandering passageways.

  I didn’t see myself out of his eyes. But I saw his face, pale as moonlight, as if the sun had never touched it. Expressions shaped it with every touch of wind. Generations looked out of his eyes. Now he wore his grandfather’s dangerous smile, now his father’s helpless fury; now his own terror touched his eyes, or his desperate need for the one clear, bright figure in his world. And then he would look at me and his face would change again, beautiful and merciless, luring me and warning me away.

  Wind pulled at my skirts as we sat at the table. Like him, I followed Laurel’s calm lead and pulled out my chair, though one slat in the seat fell and scraped the flagstones as I sat. A faceless Beda, her cap like a frilly mushroom on her head, brought in something on a silver tray. Leaves, it seemed, or withered petals, flowed out of her ladle into our bowls. I watched Laurel numbly. She picked up her spoon and ate; so did our father, pulling dry, splintering wood apart to dip into his bowl.

  “What is this?” I breathed to Corbet. “What is this place? Is this where you live?”

  His eyes answered me. A sudden wind sang with an edged, dangerous
voice; his face changed, grew taut, haunted.

  “You’re not eating,” Laurel said in another world. “Rois. Corbet.”

  “Eat,” our father urged. “It’s Beda’s finest: onion and potato soup. Rois, you have hardly touched a morsel in days.”

  I picked up my spoon; it was tarnished, and so worn the silver parted into strands like a web. “Is this the place where you will answer questions?”

  He did not answer. His face changed again, as a figure came to stand behind his chair.

  I knew that face, though I had never seen it so clearly before: that moonlight skin, those eyes the elusive burning blue of stars. Her midnight hair mingled with the winds, flowed everywhere, glittering as with stars.

  She laid an impossibly pale and delicate hand on his shoulder, and looked across the table at Laurel. Laurel changed under her gaze. Her movements, as she ate her soup, grew slower, stolid. Time mapped its course beneath her eyes, along her mouth, spun a silver web over her chestnut hair. Corbet watched, motionless under the slender hand; I saw the longing for time kindle in his eyes.

  Laurel, caught in his gaze, stared back at him out of aging eyes; he made a sound, twisting against the hand on his shoulder, but it did not yield to him.

  “This,” the woman said, her voice like high, sweet bells. She looked at me then. “And this.”

  Winds dragged at my hair, petals caught in it. Seams tore along my sleeves; my hands grew creased, dirty, my nails broken and black with earth. A strand of ashen hair blew into my bowl.

  “Rois, your hair is in your soup,” Laurel said patiently, as to a sick child or a wandering old woman. Her own hair was bone-white now, the skin puffed and sagging on her face. Only her eyes were familiar, still the same wide-set, smoky grey, though the faraway world they saw seemed imminent now, defined.

  Still Corbet watched her, hungering for time. She smiled at him. Such a smile on any face is beautiful. His face changed again; a smile came out of him like light. I stared at my wrinkled hands; they closed like bird-claws around nothing.