Bryony and Roses

by T. Kingfisher

  “Quit making me laugh.”

  “Hmph!”

  His skin shivered like a horse’s when she put the astringent on, but he didn’t say anything. Bryony was conscious of a sudden desire to rub her thumb over his fur and feel it against her fingers, and crushed it ruthlessly.

  She decided against the bandage. It would probably tear out more of the Beast’s fur than it would protect the wound. He stood up and bowed to her, very formally.

  She fiddled with the washcloth in her hands. “Are you, um, going to keep sleeping in front of my door?”

  “I will not, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Um.” She thought about that—about knowing that things were out there in the dark, and about knowing that one of those things would be close at hand if he heard her scream. “No. I don’t mind. But if you’re going to sleep there, then at least let me get you a pillow.”

  He laughed again, quietly, as she pulled several of the pillows off the bed. “I would hate to take your pillows.”

  “I have plenty. Dozens. House must have denuded an entire race of geese to stuff them all.” She pushed the pillows into his hands. They looked much smaller when he was carrying them, so she stacked a few more on top. “Do you need blankets, too?”

  “No, I beg of you. Fur is very warm.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  At the doorway he paused and looked back, with his arms full of pillows.

  “Thank you, Bryony.”

  “Thank you, Beast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “How could you?” asked the green-eyed man, stalking away from her down the hallway. Bryony hurried to catch up with him. “I have asked you to help me, over and over—” His voice shook with emotion.

  “You have?” Bryony could only remember the one time. “Err. Why are you so angry?”

  “You have to help me,” said the green-eyed man. “I need your help, and instead you turn to him, my greatest enemy—”

  “Who? Slow down!” Bryony caught at his sleeve and felt that familiar jolt go through her. “Who are you talking about? The Beast? Is the Beast your enemy?”

  “Why won’t you help me?” he demanded, shaking her hand off and stalking through a doorway.

  “I want to help you,” she said. “But I don’t know what you want me to do!”

  He stopped in front of a window. The lines of his back were eloquent of anger, but as Bryony watched, he slumped.

  “No. You don’t, do you?”

  She joined him at the window. She could not see anything through it except leaves pressed against the glass—a thicket of rose stems.

  He turned to her and took her hand. His thumb moved over the back, a tiny caress that made her shiver so hard she thought her teeth would chatter.

  “Look at you,” he murmured, half-scornfully. “Poor thing. So desperate to be touched that you find yourself half-longing for a Beast.”

  Bryony felt herself flushing furiously. She hadn’t, not really, not seriously. It didn’t mean anything.

  “I should have realized,” he said, while she floundered. “Poor thing.”

  She didn’t much like being called ‘poor thing,’ but then he turned her hand over and stroked his fingers up her wrist. The sensation was so intense that she thought she might drown.

  If he touches me again, if he kisses me, I think I’ll drop dead.

  “You’ll help me, won’t you?”

  “I—” She couldn’t think. A place inside her ached. Whether it was her heart or someplace a bit more venal was open to debate.

  He took her face in his hands. His fingertips were hard against the hinge of her jaw, almost painful. Her skin felt feverishly sensitive. He stroked his thumb across her cheekbone and she parted her lips and panted like an animal.

  She felt desperately ashamed, and moreso when he smiled.

  “I knew you would,” he said, and bent down and kissed her.

  She woke in sheets drenched with sweat and tangled tightly around her feet, shaking uncontrollably.

  “Whoa,” she said out loud. “Whoa.” Her body ached with unfilled desire. There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, either. Not with the house watching. There were limits. And not with the Beast right outside the door, either, just a few feet away…

  She shoved that thought firmly aside.

  This is perfectly normal. Perfectly, totally normal. You’re just healthy and human and been living like a nun for months. That’s all this is.

  You’d think if that was all it was, one of these damn dreams could actually go all the way to the end.

  “Ungh,” she muttered, getting out of bed. The pounding in her head was turning rapidly from lust into a splitting headache. “Whoa. God’s teeth.” She stumbled to the basin and splashed tepid water on her face.

  In the mirror, her lips looks swollen.

  “Biting them in my sleep,” she muttered. “That’s all it is.” She winced. “House, can you find me some headache powders?”

  Hot tea and cold water revived her. Her headache subsided and was replaced with an unfocused frustration. She pulled on her clothes and stomped for the door.

  “House, have a pile of mulch and a pitchfork waiting for me. A big pile.”

  The Beast had left, apparently earlier in the morning, leaving a neat stack of pillows by the door. When she reached the garden and found a pile of mulch taller than her head, her temper subsided somewhat.

  The garden helped a little. She wasn’t sure how long she had been here—a few weeks? A month? The plants had grown furiously. Tall spikes of sage were already hinting at purple flowers to come, and the lamb’s ears had unfurled new leaves. The oregano had grown so enthusiastically over its section of the herb wheel that she had to tear up a few of the more aggressive bits, before it ate the basil and began eyeing the lemon verbena. The clockwork bee crawled up the stem of a pole bean, stopping at every creamy flower.

  And, irony of ironies, the rutabagas were still flourishing. If they kept this up, she’d have enough to stock a root cellar. Assuming the house had such a thing, or could create one to humor her.

  “Maybe I’ll dig a root cellar,” she said. “That might be a good project to start next. It’d keep me busy, anyway.”

  And when winter hits, what will I do? Take up meddling with clockwork, like the Beast? Try to find another hobby that the house can’t do for me?

  Oh, she understood very well why he tinkered with bits of metal and wire, even though House could create magical monstrosities like the nightingales. It would be the only way to keep from going mad.

  “I suppose I’ll take up hybridizing plants eventually,” she said to herself, or possibly Master Irving. She leaned on her pitchfork. “Planting all the seeds and hoping they throw interesting sports. I’ll invent my own line of rutabagas.”

  “When my mistress among the rutabaga treads…” said Master Irving, and scowled. “No, it is inelegant. You should have planted primroses. Or bluebells.”

  “Primroses reseed like the devil,” muttered Bryony aloud. And I am dreaming of terribly attractive men and daydreaming about fussy poets and living in an enchanted manor house with an equally enchanted beast. For the first time in my adult life, weeds are the least of my worries.

  Even if the lawn did not have a single weed in it, she’d brought enough of her own, tucked away in the edges of pots, to make mulch a necessity.

  I suppose I could just leave them. I wonder if the sorrel and the goosegrass would eat the lawn, given a chance?

  She was too much of a gardener to court such a thing, but she definitely thought about it.

  Bryony had slung enough mulch to take the edge off when the Beast arrived. “I should apologize,” he said.

  “Don’t,” she said. “I was in no temper for company earlier anyway.” She stabbed the fork into the pile again and hefted it onto the nearest flowerbed.

  “Not that,” he said. He scuffed at the ground with one foot. “I don’t think I made it clear enough that
I believe there was someone in your room. That you are not mad.”

  Bryony laughed, not with much humor. “Well, that’s something. No, perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I’m dreaming it all.”

  “Dreams in this house are not always false,” he said.

  She looked up, startled. She could feel a flush rising in her cheeks—did he know?

  Don’t be stupid. He can’t know about your dreams.

  Why can’t he? The dreams know about him.

  They stood on the lawn, looking at each other, with a pitchfork between them. She didn’t know whether to laugh or fall down in despair.

  “How’s the shoulder?” she asked finally.

  “Not bad. I heal quickly. It is one of the advantages of being a Beast.”

  Along with walking silently and being able to smell people. I suppose that’s something. I wish I knew how he became a Beast in the first place, but I suppose if I knew that, I’d have half the key to the mystery in my hands. I wish there was some way he could tell me.

  Unless…

  “I don’t suppose you can write, er, ‘poetry’ yourself,” she said, kicking herself for not having thought of it earlier.

  If I could just write him a list of questions, and he could write down the answers…

  He looked puzzled for a moment, then said “Oh! Ah. No.” He paused, clearly picking his words carefully. “I am not good at reading poetry aloud, as you know.”

  “You’re afraid of criticism,” said Bryony helpfully.

  He looked relieved. “Yes! It has a very…err…silencing effect on one’s poetry.”

  “Oh, indeed. I’ve noticed.” Are we getting somewhere? I think we’re getting somewhere.

  “Those critics have also destroyed my—my confidence in my ability to write poetry in any form,” he said, gathering speed. “Which is a shame, because there is nothing I would like so much as to compose an ode to you, believe me.”

  Bryony laughed, despite her disappointment. “And what would you compose the ode to, Beast?”

  “Your questioning nature,” he said, and grinned as broadly as Bryony had ever seen.

  Metaphor. House is not good at metaphor, or at written things.

  He said House could read simple things. I wonder if it read my list of questions, and that’s why it dumped ink on them…perhaps he’s afraid that it will read anything he writes.

  She remembered the fake book she had tried to read—a few phrases repeated hundreds of times. Did House understand the words it had written?

  The Beast gave me that other book, though, where he had underlined things…then again, it was a very dense book. Most people in Lostfarthing wouldn’t be able to read that. If I hadn’t grown up as a merchant’s daughter, I would have given up on the first page.

  Can I write something complicated enough that House won’t understand it?

  She toyed with the idea and dismissed it. Probably not. My vocabulary’s not that impressive.

  The Beast was looking at her expectantly.

  That leaves metaphor. Perhaps we can work around the edges of this…

  She moved more mulch with the pitchfork, trying to think of ways to couch her questions.

  “It is a shame that you have allowed your critics to silence you,” she said finally, smoothing the woodchips around the edges of the lavender.

  “Believe me,” he said, sitting down in the grass and watching her, “it was not by my own choice. It is a powerful thing, literary criticism. Although I will admit that some of it was perhaps deserved, at least at first. I was a fairly poor poet in my youth.”

  Interesting. Hmm. I wonder… “And when you were a youth, what sort of poetry did you favor?” she asked. That should be safe enough. I hope.

  He thought about this for a bit. “The usual sorts. Poems about the joys of hunting in autumn. Dirty limericks. Unrequited love gone bad. That sort of thing.”

  I can probably dismiss the bit about dirty limericks, and I’m not sure about the hunting. Unrequited love gone bad, though…hmm. Bryony filed that away mentally for later.

  “And over time, your tastes changed, I suppose?”

  “Quite abruptly, actually.”

  “Well, it happens that way sometimes.”

  “Not like this, it doesn’t.”

  Bryony had to fight back a laugh. “I have often found that the worst critics are the ones in your home,” she said.

  The Beast looked up. She felt the air thicken almost imperceptibly, and hurried to amend her statement. “My sister Holly always laughed at my poetry. She said I made the worst rhymes. If a word didn’t have any, I would make up words that would rhyme, like “porrange” and “wilver.”

  The sun came out from behind a cloud, and the dangerous moment seemed to pass.

  “You are definitely correct about that,” said the Beast. “Although I cannot countenance a word like “porrange.”

  “Yes, well…”

  He agrees that the worst critics are in your home. Does that mean the house, or does he mean that someone close to him did this to him? Oh, damn, I wish this were more precise!

  “Still,” she said, stabbing her pitchfork tines down and sitting down on the bench, “I love my sister, even if she is my worst critic.”

  The Beast turned his head toward her, so that she could see his large, inhuman profile. “Perhaps that’s the difference,” he said. “I never learned to love my critics. Indeed, that was part of the problem.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  In the library that night, Bryony read another few passages of mediocre poetry aloud, wracking her brain for ways to ask about the Beast’s transformation that would not upset the house.

  It had occurred to her that she might be making the green-eyed man very angry, but she shoved the thought aside. She was trying to gain information, damnit. And who was he to say what she did? He was a dream. The Beast was real. She couldn’t very well avoid the Beast, living in his manor house, and who would say that she even wanted to?

  “Oh dear,” she said, flipping a page, “poor Master Irving’s titles get worse and worse…Sonnet Written Upon The Death Of A Blacksmith’s Child.”

  The Beast snorted into his book.

  “But,” said Bryony, sliding him a look under her eyelashes, “I should not complain. I have often thought that poetry critics were quite inhuman.”

  The Beast’s eyes flicked up and met hers for an instant.

  “Quite inhuman,” he said. “Although I expect they look human enough. Before they start to criticize your poetry.”

  Bryony wanted to crow with delight.

  They weren’t human! Whoever changed the Beast wasn’t human! And he met them as a young man, possibly while hunting in autumn or reciting dirty limericks, and they looked human and…

  She got bogged down a bit there, but it was more than she had known yesterday.

  “It is a shame that there is no way to silence such critics,” she said.

  “Oh, there might be,” said the Beast. “Yes, I think there definitely might be.” He put his book down and looked at her thoughtfully. “Are you avoiding sleeping?”

  “Maybe a little,” she admitted. “If I’m not in my bedroom, they can’t wake me up wandering around it.”

  The Beast nodded. “Wait here, then,” he said, and padded off into the darkness.

  Bryony settled back into her chair. The library did not trouble her the way that her bedroom did at night. There were too many books, and books were everyone’s friends.

  When he returned, he was carrying a pack of cards and two odd little contraptions that looked like very fine tongs with enormous handles.

  There was a small table between their chairs. He pulled it up between them (it obliged by becoming larger) and laid out the cards.

  “You will have to deal,” he said. “It is difficult for me to do. But I can hold the cards with these.”

  Bryony was fascinated. One set of tongs had broad, flat ends, which held the cards, and the other a small ro
und end that could pick the cards up neatly, while he curled his massive paws around the handles. “Those are amazing!” she said. “Did the house make them?”

  “Somewhat,” he said. “The first few, at any rate. I have made a number of these over the years, so that I may do finer and more controlled work.” He raised a hand, with its blunt nails. “These are not the hands of a watchmaker, so I make do.”

  “I am quite impressed.” She smiled over the deck of cards. “And now I plan to destroy you utterly at cards, Beast.”

  “You have already failed to do so with a knife,” he said, and battle was joined.

  The green-eyed man was very angry with her that night. He was still very handsome, and his touch felt like a whip of fire across her skin, but Bryony decided that there were limits to what even dream men could get away with.

  “I don’t know why you’re angry,” she said. “And since you won’t tell me what I’m supposed to do to help you, you can stay angry, for all I care.”

  “Would it truly mean so little to you?” he asked, sliding a hand along her arm, waking fire under it. “Just to help me. That’s all I ask. Then we could be together outside of dreams.”

  “I want to help you,” snapped Bryony, feeling herself shaking, “but you won’t tell me what I’m supposed to do!”

  He turned away from her and stalked down the hallway. There were windows lining it, throwing bars of moonlight across the carpet. It gleamed blue on his hair and skin when he passed them, a fey, wild look.

  Bryony wanted to run after him, throw herself at his feet, probably panting. She didn’t, mostly because she could hear Holly in her head saying “Huh! Who died and made him the Queen?” and she started laughing.

  Her laughter seemed to make a clear space in the thick air of the hallway, but outside that space, things reacted badly. The darkness grew much more intense, until the moonlit windows were pools of light in unbroken shadow. The green-eyed man was gone.