She hated to think that House might be doing something bad. It always seemed so kind. It had given her a really spectacular wheelbarrow full of chicken manure, and she had dug her gloves into it and danced around, whooping, and the Beast had put his muzzle in his hands and stared at her as if she were crazy.
If evil things could create really excellent chicken manure—other than chickens, which were admittedly borderline wicked, most of them—then what hope was there for the world?
She paced some more. Her plants waved at her from the garden.
If the house wasn’t evil, then was the Beast?
She shied away from that thought, not wanting to look more closely at it. Surely it couldn’t be the Beast. He had seen her list of questions, and he hadn’t gotten angry. He’d hinted as broadly as he could that she needed to find the answers.
“Come on,” she muttered to herself, as House opened the doors, “somebody has to be the bad guy.”
Creepy magic house. Giant terrifying monster. It shouldn’t be hard to cast one of them as the villain, and yet…and yet…
And neither of them explains why there was someone in my room!
When she reached the courtyard, there was a tray of warm buns and a wedge of crumbly cheese waiting on a little metal table. She wasn’t sure if the table and the chairs had been there before. She rather thought not.
It was as good a place to stop as any. She dropped into the chair and applied herself to the cheese.
The courtyard had not changed. The roses grew in the same way as ever, flowering regardless of the season. She wondered if she should bring them some chicken manure. Even enchanted flowering had to wear a plant out.
They didn’t seem to need it. If anything, they were even larger and more vigorous than when Bryony had arrived. The canes wrapped tightly around the birch tree, leaving cuts that oozed crystalized sap.
Maybe she should get in there and cut them back.
The thought made her groan. Mere pruning shears were no match for a really entrenched rose. She’d need a hedge clipper and maybe a suit of plate mail.
“I’ll start with the shears,” she said, putting her chin in her hand. “I can at least get them away from the trunk…”
The roses were sunk deep around the roots of the birch. They were probably stealing the tree’s water, but digging them up might disturb those same roots.
Not that I have any hope of digging them up. Rosebushes that size would take a draft horse on a chain to pull out.
Well, whatever the tree needed, it was pretty clear that the Beast needed her help.
Help to do what? What if he wasn’t the good one?
If she helped him, and it turned out that he was an astonishingly good actor and had been evil all along, and went off to begin eating nuns and small children….well…
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she told the birch tree, and thought she heard the leaves rustling in agreement.
It took two hours to free the birch tree from the roses, and most of that was tying the roses back enough to get in close to the trunk.
The rose thorns were wickedly curved and had a malicious bite to them. When she pulled them out, the wounds throbbed as if they had left venom behind.
Nevertheless, once Bryony had started, she would be damned if she was going to admit defeat. Her gloves were streaked with sap by the time she fought her way to the birch trunk, but at last she could reach out a hand and pat the white bark of the tree.
“There you are,” she said, in the same tone she would have used to address Fumblefoot. “There you go. Just let me get these nasty bits out of you…”
The rose whips were embedded so deeply that the trunk had swelled and overgrown them. She had to hack through wood to get at some of them, which her shears were completely unsuited for.
“House?” she said. “May I have a saw?”
A saw did not appear, or if it did, it was somewhere under the roses where she couldn’t get to it. Bryony scowled and picked up her shears once more.
It was more butchery than surgery, in the end, but she cut the birch free of the strangling roses. In a few places they had ringed the trunk entirely.
“That might have killed you in another few years,” she told the tree. “And then the rose would probably have eaten your stump. Plants can be quite merciless.”
She stepped back from her handiwork, down from the raised bed, and onto the tiles of the courtyard.
“Inelegant,” she told the tree, “but the roses will grow back and it’ll look less awful. Of course, when they grow back, I’ll only have to cut them again…”
She went inside, prying a last stubborn bit of thorn out with her teeth. Her clothes were a mass of snagged threads and her shears were dull, but at least she had accomplished something.
When she curled up for a nap that afternoon, she dreamed of a woman in a silver dress, with grey-green eyes. Her face was smooth and youthful, but her voice creaked like an old woman’s. She took Bryony’s hands, and hers had skin as thin as old parchment, the bones fine and hard within.
“My dear,” she said. “Oh, my dear. I think it may be you who will save us. I cannot believe that anyone who is so pleased with chicken manure will be allowed to fail.”
Bryony relaxed. There was something odd about the dream—the edges were fuzzier and the woman sharper than any dream she could remember—but if the silver woman understood about chicken manure, then everything would be all right.
“I wish I knew what was going on,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Someone who was once young and foolish,” said the silver woman. “I am old and foolish now, perhaps. There is little that I may tell you, my dear. Be careful.” She squeezed Bryony’s fingers, like the Beast did when he tried to convey a message. “Be careful of who you trust.”
“Can’t you tell me anything more specific?” cried Bryony. This was rapidly becoming maddening. This woman looked as if she knew things that Bryony desperately needed to know.
“I am afraid that I cannot.”
“Why can’t you? What’s going on? What is the house? What was the Beast? Why is he here? What does he want from me?”
She woke up with the last words on her lips, and blew out her breath in frustration.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She was still annoyed at dinner that evening, and took it out by snapping at the Beast. “Another meal where you sit and watch me and I drink wine and try to pretend that there is nothing strange about it?” she growled. “And quit pulling out my chair. I am perfectly capable of sitting down by myself.”
The Beast left her chair alone. Bryony flopped down in it. With the skirts, it really was easier with help, which annoyed her even more. She glared at her plate.
“Would you like some wine, or would you prefer to yell at me for a little longer?” asked the Beast pleasantly. “I could leave, if you prefer, but I generally hold that those who leave the room when you wish to yell at them are among the most despicable of beings.”
Bryony folded her arms. After a minute she said “Damn you for being reasonable.”
“Also despicable,” he agreed. “Shall I yell back?”
“What would you yell?”
“An excellent question.” He propped his muzzle up on his hand and wrinkled his nose at her, which made Bryony want to laugh. She squelched it, because she wasn’t done being annoyed yet. “I can hardly complain that you are a poor houseguest, as you are not here by choice, and you have in fact been quite mannerly about it.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly. “I do try.”
“Mmm. I suppose I could complain that you are not at all forthcoming about your past—”
“Mister Kettle, may I introduce you to Mister Pot?!”
“—well, yes. And since I cannot give you mine, I can hardly expect you to fall over yourself with every detail of your own history.”
“Cannot?” she asked, looking up. “Or will not?”
“Cannot,” he said
firmly, meeting her eyes, and went on meeting them while the candles winked out around them, one by one, and the silence fell thickly over the table.
His eyes were very gold. Even over the smell of food and the sharp tang of wine, she could smell cloves and, strangely, roses.
Cannot. He cannot tell me. This—this magic, whatever it is—is watching to make sure he tells me nothing of his past. He is courting the magic, I think, just by telling me that. He knew it would come, and he did it anyway.
What does it cost him, to try to hint these things to me?
Aware only of a desire to make that awful sense of listening go away, she stammered “I—I did not realize that you would want to know. I am not special. I am a gardener and the youngest of three sisters, and my parents are dead. You know all that.”
“Indeed,” he said. “And I remember the names of your sisters, and that benighted animal that you call a pony—Fumblefoot, wasn’t it? That is very little information. Where did you live, before you came to Lostfarthing?”
The candles were beginning to wink on again.
“I came from the capital,” said Bryony. The Beast hadn’t poured her any wine. She picked up the wine bottle and splashed some out herself. Her hands were shaking a little, which infuriated her.
She had just realized that the silence frightened her. The listening sound seemed to suck at her bones. If it went on long enough, surely it would strip the marrow from them and leave her picked clean on the dining room floor.
The Beast took the bottle away from her and poured out a measured glass.
“You might as well pour yourself one,” she said wearily. “Ask the house for a bowl or something.”
He stiffened. “It is—”
“Unsightly, I know. Beast, does it matter? You are what you are. I promise that I will not be horrified if you lap your wine instead of sipping it.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Perhaps I should beg your pardon for sipping it. Who is to say which one of us is doing it correctly?”
The Beast was silent for a long moment. Then he turned and reached out a hand into the glittering mass of tableware, and drew out a glass.
It looked rather like a brandy snifter that had suffered some middle-age spread. The bowl was broad and shallow. The Beast poured nearly half the bottle of wine into it and then held it to his muzzle and dipped his tongue into it.
It was like watching a bear drink. His tusks were well back and while he made slightly more noise than a human might, he was not nearly as loud as a dog or Fumblefoot.
“You note that I have not screamed in horror,” said Bryony, when the Beast had set the glass down on the table. “Frankly, I think you’ve been exaggerating. I’ve seen much worse from people who didn’t have tusks in the way.”
The Beast gave her a hangdog look. She grinned and reached for her own wineglass.
Progress, of a sort. In a few more years, he might even agree to eat at the same table.
She suppressed a sigh at the thought of spending years here. Surely not. I will get to the bottom of this foolishness and then go back to my sisters. It will not be years. I will not allow it to be years.
“Why did you leave the capital?” asked the Beast, gazing at her over the rim of his wineglass.
Bryony bit her lip. Having forced him to expose himself, apparently he was going to take payment in kind. Still, she’d started it.
And I can hardly complain that he isn’t telling me anything when I’m not telling him anything. Not that any of it matters now anyway, it’s all just a stupid and sordid tale.
“My father was a merchant,” she said. “Heh. No, I am not being entirely honest. My father was the wealthiest merchant in the city, and he made sure that everyone knew it.”
The Beast waited. Bryony grabbed a roll and began buttering it savagely.
“He was good at what he did, but after our mother died, he got reckless. He began gambling on investments that he shouldn’t have. Things with ships. I don’t know all the details.” She waved the butter knife at him.
The Beast smiled. “I was never a banker. I would not know either. Go on.”
“Right. Well, in addition to that, he started trying to marry us off. Iris had a lot of offers, but Father was always dead set against marrying anybody who wasn’t nobility.” She shrugged a shoulder. “He was a commoner, you see, and Mother was some kind of minor noble, a Viscountess once removed or something, and he wanted us to marry someone ‘appropriate to our station.’” She glared at the roll and set it down. The Beast refilled her wineglass.
“So there were a lot of very expensive balls and ball-gowns and tutors and whatnot. He might not have had to spend so much on Iris, since she’s the pretty one, but Holly and I are…well…” She made a gesture to take in her lack of height and wealth of nose. “Holly’s taller than I am, but she also turns pink if she’s the slightest bit out of breath, and the fashion at the capital is—was—for pale alabaster maidens, preferably with consumption. And there’s never been a fashion for big noses.”
“Your nose does not strike me as terribly big.”
“Are you kidding?” Bryony put a hand up to the offending feature. “And it’s crooked, too. I wanted to wear a full face veil everywhere and pretend to be a woman of mystery.”
“Compared to mine,” said the Beast, gazing down the length of his muzzle, “it is of very little consequence.”
Bryony giggled.
I should definitely eat more than a roll before I have any more wine…
“That doesn’t work for being short, though,” she said. “You’re, what, seven feet tall? I’m definitely short next to you.”
“My dear Bryony,” said the Beast, “everyone is short next to me.”
“All right, all right. Unfortunately, you weren’t one of the available dukes or barons or earls or whatever.”
Frankly, I might have thought differently if he were. At least you can have a conversation with the Beast.
“At any rate,” she said, helping herself to the food, “it didn’t go well. Nobody wanted to be saddled with us, and we brought Iris down with us. I don’t know if you know nobles, but having ‘a smell of the shop’ about you is about like being a cannibal, if not worse.”
“I am familiar with nobles,” said the Beast grimly.
Bryony waited a moment to see if the candles would go out again, but apparently the magic did not consider this a dangerous statement.
“So there Father was, mounting up huge bills trying to find a fortune-hunter with good enough blood to marry his regrettable daughters, and making riskier and riskier investments, and one day, bam!” She brought her hands together over her plate. “Everything fell down. Our creditors took all of it. I was fourteen.”
“Young to be trying to marry you off,” said the Beast.
Bryony shrugged. “I don’t think anybody expected me to actually be…err…married married. Father was hoping to find an impoverished Duke or someone willing to partner me off to an underage son in return for a very large dowry. I would have probably stayed in my father’s house until I was sixteen or seventeen.” She gazed into her wineglass. “As it was, we loaded ourselves into a wagon—a borrowed wagon at that—and went off to Lostfarthing. There was a cottage there that none of our creditors wanted. My brother—I’ve got a brother, by the way, for all the good it does—took himself off to the army. He doesn’t know where to find us and we don’t know how to find him, and good riddance.”
That was an uncomfortably raw statement to leave hanging. She swallowed, and added, “And I learned how to garden.” She rubbed her thumb along the calluses left by the shovel.
“What about your father?” asked the Beast.
“Dead,” said Bryony shortly. “He got word that one of the ships had come back and there’d be some money on it, so nothing would stop him but he should go back to the city and get it. He still had visions of returning us to wealth and glory, you see, even though Holly and I wanted none of it. I suppose it would have been al
l right for Iris.”
The Beast put his muzzle in his hand. “And?”
“Mmm? Oh. Anyway, I suppose he did get some money out of it, because bandits killed him on the way home and took it all.” She scowled down at her plate.
“I am sorry,” said the Beast.
“Don’t be,” said Bryony. “He wasn’t a very nice man. We were not exactly happy, you understand, but afterwards, there was a kind of relief that we wouldn’t have to keep having the same fights over and over again.”
The Beast nodded. “I understand that very well. My father and I…” He was silent for a moment. “There are things I wish I could have said, now. But I am also glad that there are things that I did not need to keep saying.”
“I used to have long fights with him inside my head,” admitted Bryony. “I still do, sometimes. At first I felt bad about it, but Holly said that just because people are dead, they don’t become saints, and feeling guilty doesn’t make them any less dead.”
“I think I would like your sister.”
Bryony nodded. “You would. She’d like you, too. You’d get on like a house afire.”
The Beast snorted. “I suspect she would be more likely to have me drawn and quartered for making off with you.”
“Oh.” Bryony felt as if she’d slammed into a wall. For a moment, she had almost forgotten that the Beast, regardless of his sympathy, was holding her against her will. “Oh. Well. I suppose.”
“Will you marry me, Bryony?”
She lifted the wineglass. “How can I, Beast?” she said, but did not meet his eyes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The next morning, he came down to the garden, holding a small wooden box in his hands.
“Here,” he said, holding it out. “I made you this. I’m not sure if it will work, but it’s worth a try.”
Bryony looked at the box, looked up at him, and said “Um…?”
“Open it,” he said, barely looking at her, as if he had done something shameful.
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