Then suddenly the Queen took to her bed one day with an inexplicable malady. It left her cheeks pale and her eyes dull, and she neither spoke nor smiled. The King, afraid for her life, sent all of his land for the best physicians he knew. They all went away from the Queen's bedside saying that they knew not what ailed her, and that not one of their remedies had worked a cure.
So the King sent them away and tended her himself. For seven days and nights he sat by her. She neither moved nor spoke; but he did not sleep because he wanted to be there if she needed him.
Finally, on the eighth evening, she turned to him and whispered, "My Lord, why sittest thou there by the foot of my bed?"
"Because thou hast been ill, and I have tended thee. The physicians could not cure thee, and nobody knows what ails thee. Tell me, for if there is something that will make thee well, I shall do it myself."
"There is something, Lord," she said, and in her eyes there was a gleam of triumph and of malice. But he saw them not, saw only her.
"Speak!" he cried.
She said, "I want the most perfect rose from thy Rose Garden."
The King frowned and drew back. He said, "If that is the only thing that will heal thee, then I shall find it. But my heart is troubled."
"It is the only thing," she said.
So he rose and went out into the garden. The moon was full, the garden full of light and all the roses seemed perfect to him. The wandered for a long time, and finally cut the topmost bud from the youngest and loveliest rose tree. The night dew was still upon the bud, sparkling like diamonds and the white petals looked like wrought silver beneath it. The King took up the rose and went into the Queen's bedchamber. "Look!" he said. "I have brought it. There is the loveliest rose from my garden. Now, beloved, let the roses return to thine own cheeks, and thy sickness lift."
But the Queen looked on the rose and laughed. "Is that the best thou canst do?" she said. "Thy garden is no marvel then; but I have heard told of a magic garden of roses, to be found further East still than thy kingdom. There grows the most perfect rose in all the world. There must thou go; and that rose must thou bring before me. Otherwise I shall surely die."
So the King took the white rose away, for the Queen would have none of it, and placed it into his own bosom. He ordered his horse to be saddled and rode off from his kingdom with a heavy heart to search for the perfect rose for his Queen.
He rode a long way; he passed the borders of his own country and entered a burning desert. It seemed to have no end, but stretched out all around him. He travelled in it for many days. Soon the day came when he had no water left to drink. He had seen no trace of it in the land he travelled. He sat down in the meager shadow of a squat cactus to at least partly shield himself from the merciless sun. His horse stood beside him on trembling legs and the King could not meet the animal's patient, pain-filled eyes. He buried his head in his hands in despair. It was then that he heard a soft voice, like the chiming of a thousand little bells. The voice spoke to him: "Be not afraid, O King, but take they rose from thy bosom and take what it gives thee."
So the King reached for the white rose and there on its petals still shimmered the night dew that had fallen on them many nights ago in his garden. Wonderingly, the King shook the drops of water on to his palm and a little water collected there. It was not much, just a thin film of moisture, but the King offered it first to his horse. The animal licked off the water, but not looked at its master even more mournfully than before. The King said, "Look! It was only the dew from the rose – and I have no more to give."
But as he looked on the rose he saw that there were still dewdrops on it, and the thought that now there were more than before. So he shook them off again and the more he shook, the more there was, until both horse and man were satisfied. The King put the rose carefully back into his bosom and went on his way.
There came a time when the King and his horse shared out the last morsel of the food they had brought. Once more the King despaired. Again the voice like the chiming of a thousand bells spoke to him. "Be not afraid, O King, but take thy rose from thy bosom and take what it gives thee."
So the King took out the rose again. He marveled at how fresh and lovely the flower still was even after many days in the searing desert heart. He plucked off a velvet-soft white petal because it seemed the right thing to do, but he did not do it gladly, for it marred the rose. Even as he looked the rose was as before, and still he held the petal in his hand. He put the rose back into the folds of his garments and laid the petal down on the hot sand. The petal began to grow and grow. It grew until it lay at the King's feet as a cloth of the finest white silk. Then the cloth brought forth food – a feast fit for an emperor.
When both horse and man were satisfied, the sumptuous dishes vanished and the cloth became once more a rose petal. The King gathered it up with care and placed it next to the rose from which it had been plucked.
And so the King journeyed on. When he needed water, he drank the dew from the rose; when he hungered, he ate from the cloth that the rose had spread before him. The rose never faded, but was ever as fresh as on the day it had been plucked and always as white as snow.
The King journeyed ever East, always searching for the fabulous garden of his Queen's vision. He passed through many cities and asked many people, but they all knew nothing. Some said they knew of it, but that it lay further East still – the next city, the next realm. And so he travelled on.
He came to a great sea, and knew not how to cross it. The shores were deserted. They stretched out to his left and his right so that he could see no end to them. There was not even a fisherman's hut where he could find a boat to take him across. He gazed at the foam of salt water which swirled around his feet and thought sadly that this must be where his journey ended. But again he heard the small voice like the chiming of a thousand bells, and it said, "Be not afraid, O King, but take thy rose from thy bosom and take what it gives thee."
So the King took out the white rose again. He plucked another petal and let it float on the foam of the water. It grew and grew, and became a boat of the finest, lightest, polished white wood, the like of which he had never seen before. He stepped on board, leading his horse, for there was easily room for both. The boat, which sailed by itself with no sailor to tend it, reared up delicate white sails of silk and turned into the wind.
For many days the King sailed in the petal boat, for the sea was a wide one to cross. At length, he glimpsed the shadow of land on the horizon. He shouted with joy as he looked on it for the voyage across the waters had been lonely and he rejoiced that he would soon see people again.
The boat came ashore quietly on am empty beach of white sand. It then became once again a single white rose petal floating on the even whiter foam of the sea. The King scooped it up lovingly and placed it with the rose again. Then he was riding once again. Presently he began to look at the land around him, first with puzzlement and then with a growing joy, for it was his own country that he was riding through. But when he looked closer, his eyes clouded with pain and anger. His fertile land was a tangle of wild bushes and weeds; the neat little houses of his people were dirty and ruinous; thin and mangy dogs scavenged there and quarreled over what meager food they found. The further he rode, the worse it became; even the great wide road he had been travelling on fell into disrepair. Grass grew on it and around it, and thorn bushes crowded in and scratched at his legs and the flanks of his horse if he went too near. The King rode on with a sorely troubled heart and lamented the day he had left on his quest, for it seemed that the land had been ruled most evilly in his absence and the glory of his kingdom was forgotten.
He wept when he saw the city walls. The city that had once been the most beautiful in all the kingdoms was now mean and sly. Little, rat-like people scurried from one corner to the next and stared at the golden clasp on the King's cloak with the avarice shining palely from their eyes.
"Where are all the people?" the King asked one. "Where is your Que
en?" he asked another, and "Where is your King, and what city is this now?" he asked of a third.
"We are the people, there are no other," said the first; "We have no Queen," said the second; "We have no King," said the third, "although it is said we once had one. This is no city. There are but walls we live in, for safety's sake."
The King pointed at the ruined wall that he knew had once been his palace, and asked a fourth man, "What is that up there?"
The man replied, "It is nothing now. I have heard it said that it was once a great palace. Nobody goes there now, but I have heard it said that somewhere within there is a magic rose garden in which there grows the most perfect rose in all the world."
"So," said the King, "I have come to the end of my journey and it is at the place of its beginning."
He urged his horse towards the Garden, his Garden, the Garden of the Perfect Rose.
When he got to the place, he saw that it really was no more. Rooms lay open to the sky, mildew had eaten the gold-embroidered tapestries and cobwebs had taken their places. Where once carpets from Persia spread their luxurious tread, there now grew grass and small field flowers, no less lovely for their humbler beginnings. Where spirited horses had lived in gold-embossed stables, now mice and rats scurried and rustled in the rotting straw.
The palace was the King's no more. It had a different ruler now, for Nature had taken what she could and left what she could not touch to Decay, with whom she shared her throne.
The King walked through the familiar corridors. They echoed around him, hollow, empty. At length he reached the little door under the archway, the door that led to the garden. He took the key from there it hung around his neck on a silken cord and put it into the keyhole. At first it wouldn't turn; the years that had gone by had taken their toll even on the locked and untouched gate. But then, slowly and creakily, it gave. The door swung inward on complaining hinges. And lo! Out of the whole palace the garden alone was as it had been, fresh and pure and lovely, and the same haunting scent of roses hung lightly in the air. Nobody had been inside that garden – not through that stiff and time-frozen door – yet there were no dead blooms on the rose trees, no dead twigs; they had been watered, the weeds had been pulled and the pathways tended. The King stood in the doorway and looked on in wonder, for he could not understand how these things could have been done.
Then he shut the door behind him and walked over to the high eastern wall of the Garden and opened a little hidden window in the wall. He opened the window, and once more he wept, for out of that window he could see all too clearly the sordid alleys of his city that once had been so beautiful and the shabbiness of the countryside all around. He wept at the way the shine of glory had gone from his kingdom. The people had to live under this gloom – and he, their king, could do nothing because his people would no longer believe that he existed.
Then he heard the soft voice like the chiming of a thousand bells, and it said to him, "Be not afraid, O King, but take thy rose from thy bosom and take what it gives thee."
The King did this, but he looked at the rose sorrowfully and said, "Alas, my faithful companion, I believe the remedy of this situation will tax even thy powers. For what canst thou do against fear and greed and disbelief? What canst thou do to restore the people to what they once were?"
And the voice spoke again: "It is the last thing I can do for thee, O King; I will cure thy kingdom."
"Then the stories are true," said the King, "for I do indeed hold in my hand the most perfect rose that ever was."
"Nay," said the rose, "that one was beyond thy powers to find. But here, within thy world, perhaps thou dost speak truly."
"Then why didst thou not tell me? For all I had known, I would never have gone on this quest, and my kingdom would still be whole."
"Thou didst know. Why else wouldst thou have picked from the rose tree thou chose? It was thy wife who made thee believe otherwise; she knew not perfection when she saw it and she laughed at it. So she drove it away, and thy kingdom wilted under her cruel hand."
"If I had known…"
"Thou didst know. Only thy love was too strong. Thou hast held the perfection of thy kingdom all this time safe next to thy heart. Thy love was worthy, King; thy Beloved was not. Therefore thou hadst to leave, before she destroyed thee."
The King bowed his head, and was silent for a long time.
The White Rose presently rustled again and the voice like the chiming of a thousand little bells spoke once more. "If thou dost want thy kingdom back, then hearken. Pluck four petals, each with a drop of dew, and release each into a wind from a different corner of the world."
So the King did as he was bid. He plucked the four petals with dew on them from the White Rose, and the Winds swirled around his head. First name the North Wind, sullen and cold; he snatched the petal offered him and disappeared into the distance amid a great howling and moaning. The West Wind followed his brother, salty from the sea from which he hied. He murmured an apology for his brother from the North, for the West Wind was the peacemaker. With a word of welcome, he also took up his petal and flew away. The East Wind arrived next, with sand from her deserts swirling around her skirts; her breath was hot and dry, and she curled the petal protectively around its dew so as not to harm it. She, too, offered a welcome before departing. Lastly it was the turn of the South Wind, her breath sweet with the scent of frangipani and jasmine from the isles of the South. She took up her petal as gently as a mother would her babe, promised she would deliver it well, and planted a light, feathery kiss on the King's brow – then she, too, was gone. The voice of a thousand chiming bells spoke softly and it seemed to the King to be faint and very far away. "Turn thy eyes outward, O King, and behold."
The King did. As he watched, he understood how the Rose Garden had kept itself tended so well. For where the dew of the White Rose Fell, the same few that had quenched his thirst in the wilderness, all that was evil or foul melted away and there arose the cleanliness and love and faith that had succored his kingdom before the evil times had come. Whichever side he looked, it was the same picture – the land was coming back to life, and his people with it. The King wept once again, but this time it was for joy.
But when he looked down at the rose in his hands, he saw that it had taken on the color of cold ashes, and the smooth petals had shriveled into wrinkles and lines. And he exclaimed, "Thou art dying! What can I do to aid thee?"
"The new glory of thy kingdom will never fade, for it is the glory of the heart of the rose. From this moment, thy kingdom will be thy garden; but this garden will not bloom again – it will die, for it has given its heart away in four drops of its dew. I, too, must die with it. Farewell, O King. Thy garden has repaid thy love."
When the King looked again, he held naught but a handful of fine ash dust, and when he turned to look at the lovely rose garden he had entered only a short time ago, all he saw was a waste – a graveyard of dry and dead rose trees. Around each, on the earth by its roots, lay a pale wreath of dust which had been its leaves and flowers.
The King came out of the dead garden, his heart heavy with sorrow. The people, his people, such as he remembered them, came and thronged around him and shouted welcome from a thousand throats. The King said to them, "Peace! Be still, there is a tale I have to tell you."
So they fell quiet and listened as he related the story of the rose, and they were silent for a long time when he had finished speaking. Then the King asked after the finest gold and silversmiths in the city, and the finest makers of gems, and they came forward. To the goldsmith he said, "You will coat all the rose trees in the garden with the finest gold you can find, and fashion blossoms of red and yellow gold to adorn their branches forever."
To the silversmith he said, "You will make a White Rose out of the most fragile and precious silver."
"And you," he said to the maker of gems, "will form crystal dew drops out of the most perfect diamonds, and adorn the rose of silver with them."
"This ros
e," he then said, "will be placed upon the topmost tip of the rose bush which I shall show you. The Perfect Rose will bloom forever in the Garden it has made its own."
As he said, so it was done. The voice like the chiming of a thousand little bells may be silent, but the beauty of the White Rose, the most perfect rose that ever was, will never pass away.
-----0----
On some of Alma Alexander's other works
The Secrets of Jin-shei: "Vivid and involving'... both an exotic journey into the imagination, and a graceful exploration of the heart." -- SF Site
Changer of Days: "Powerful characters and a powerful setting help to deliver what I am thrilled to say is a great bloody book." --Altair
Gift of the Unmage: "This latest book seems as if it is going to be your standard coming-of-age magician tale, but then you realize it is so much more. It is philosophy, it is science fiction, and it is beautiful." -- Kelly A. Ohlert
Spellspam: "Ms. Alexander crafts a creative story that keeps the reader engrossed and marveling at the worlds that are created." -- TeensReadToo "
Cybermage: "I loved this book." – MelHay
Other books by Alma Alexander
Dolphin's Daughter and Other Stories (Macmillan, UK, 1995)
Houses in Africa (David Ling, New Zealand, 1995)
Letters from the Fire (Harper Collins New Zealand, 1999)
Secrets of Jin Shei (HarperCollins, USA, 2004/2005)
The Hidden Queen (Eos, USA, 2005)
Changer of Days (Eos, USA, 2005)
Embers of Heaven (HarperCollins , UK, 2006)
Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax, (Kos Books 2010)
Midnight at Spanish Gardens (Sky Warrior Publishing 2011)
WORLDWEAVERS SERIES
1) Gift of the Unmage (HarperCollins, USA, 2007)
2) Spellspam (HarperCollins, USA, 2008)
3) Cybermage (Harpercollins, USA, 2009)
Once Upon a Fairy Tale Page 3