Veiled Rose

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  He took a patient tone with her. “We are one of the noblest families in the kingdom. Your pedigree is beyond reproach.”

  “Oh, go on!” His wife giggled. “You flatterer!”

  “Yes, dear. As I was saying, your pedigree is beyond reproach, and not a speck of foreign blood runs in my veins. Our estate is rich enough to support our title, thanks in large part to your dowry, my love.”

  She giggled again.

  “And our daughter is without peer among the daughters of any lord in the Eldest’s court.”

  “She is a sweet ducky, isn’t she?”

  She certainly was not a sweet ducky, in the baron’s opinion, but she was everything necessary to fulfill every wish of his fatherly heart. Nevertheless, he bided his time and did not inform Daylily of The Plan until the evening of her sixteenth birthday.

  “You like the boy, don’t you?” he asked her when he had finished laying out the details.

  Daylily considered in that thoughtful way she had. “He’s a blessed idiot, Father.”

  “But a handsome enough young man, you must admit.”

  “Last time I saw him, he tried to stand on his head and play the lute at the same time.”

  “Yes,” said the baron, trying not to be exasperated, “but he was no more than ten years old. He has since matured.”

  Daylily raised an eyebrow. It was a fine, delicate eyebrow, and more expressive than words.

  “Think of the title,” said her father.

  She did think of the title. She even said it out loud, trying her own name with it.

  “It sounds well, does it not?” said the baron.

  “It would require me to marry him.”

  “Yes. Yes, it would.”

  “I could never love him.”

  “Did I ask you to love him?”

  Daylily regarded her father a long moment, during which time several responses crossed her mind. But she managed to stifle them before they reached her lips. To the fiery temper of her childhood had been added a measure of discretion. And the look on her father’s face told her that she would need to choose her battles carefully in the following months, perhaps years.

  “Very well, Father. Invite him if you must.”

  “Of course, my darling,” said Middlecrescent with a smile.

  So the baron wrote a missive and sent it by a fast horseman to the Eldest’s House, where Leo’s mother, Starflower, received it with interest. She spoke of the matter to her husband, for it was he who must make the final decision. He asked a few questions but expressed little interest in the subject, deferring to his wife’s opinion.

  What Starflower did not know was that Leo talked to his father too, though regarding a different matter.

  Starflower sent for her son. He came to her favorite sitting room (she had three) and knocked politely, but when she bade him enter, he leaned against the doorpost and crossed his arms. She sat at an enormous desk that was all cupboards and drawers, writing at an important-looking document without a glance to spare for her son. “Are you well?” she asked in a tone that implied she could not care less.

  Leo shrugged. “Well enough.” Somehow he knew that this conversation was bound to turn into a confrontation. His mother ignored him for several long moments, as though he were nothing more than a mildly annoying bug on the wall. Yet he must go on lingering, waiting for her to speak, his hackles rising all the while.

  At last she continued. “I am composing a letter.”

  “So I see,” Leo replied.

  “To the Baron of Middlecrescent, my second cousin. You will be spending your summer with him.”

  Leo licked his lips and continued glaring at his feet. He had known this conversation was coming. Each year, as spring ran into summer, he and his mother had the same annual argument with slight variations. Last year it had been Upperwold, the year before, Idlewild. This time, Middlecrescent, but Leo was determined that the outcome should be different.

  “I don’t want to spend the summer in Middlecrescent,” he said, his voice low but firm.

  His mother continued without pause. “Middlecrescent is fine country with clean air, conducive to the studies you are pursuing.”

  Here came the tricky part. Leo knew his mother would never forgive him for what he was about to say.

  “I spoke to Father.”

  The temperature in the room dropped. Leo’s mouth went dry. He cleared his throat, however, and forced himself to go on, despite the dreadful scritch-scratching from his mother’s pen, which never stopped. “He agrees that I’m old enough to choose how to spend my summers.”

  Mother never crossed Father, at least as far as Leo knew. But her shoulders set a little more firmly than before. “I see,” she said. “And where have you and your father agreed upon for this year’s jaunt? Will you sojourn to Shippening? Sail to Parumvir and pass your time gallivanting with those northerners? Or maybe the Far East better suits you?” Her voice was like ice. “Tell me, son. I am eager to learn of your plans.”

  How she could manage to half convince him to give in to her pleasure without so much as an argument was beyond Leo. He had to force himself not to exclaim, “Never mind! Middlecrescent is the place for me after all. Finish your letter and send me on my way.”

  But he had come too far now to retreat. “I want to visit Hill House.”

  No answer.

  Not once had he dared touch on this subject in the years since he’d visited his aunt Willowfair. Upon returning to his father’s house after that disastrous summer, he had been forbidden to speak upon the subject. His “behavior” at Hill House was dubbed “reprehensible” and he was never to be given the opportunity for repetition. A lad of his station shouldn’t dream of such tomfoolery, running about the countryside unattended, disregarding his studies, bullying his cousin (a part Leo didn’t remember but couldn’t argue), and fraternizing with the locals. What would people think?

  So five years had passed, and Foxbrush had come to visit Leo’s home, but Leo had never returned the favor. He and his cousin got along about as well as they always had, which is to say, not at all.

  And yet, there Leo stood (his mother could see him from the corner of her eye), bold as brass, requesting to spend the summer months in a remote mountain household, shut away with a cousin he despised.

  Starflower narrowed her eyes at the parchment before her and at her own elegant handwriting. What had gone on that summer so many years ago? She knew that Leo thought about his time at Hill House frequently, though they never spoke of it. What had he found up in those lonely forests that so captivated him? She had asked young Foxbrush many questions on the subject (for Foxbrush was always his aunt’s special pet), but even he had proven reticent. The last thing she wanted was to send her son back to that place where, at least that once, her control over him had slipped.

  But his father had agreed. And Starflower never crossed Leo’s father.

  Yet even now she could turn this situation to her advantage. A smile touched the corner of her mouth. Starflower made certain it was the corner Leo could not see.

  “Very well,” she said, her voice as smooth as silk. “You may visit your aunt at Hill House this summer.”

  “Really?” The clouds on Leo’s face cleared, though his expression was far more surprised than pleased. “Really, you don’t mind?”

  “Of course not! Why should I mind?” She lifted her half-complete letter so that Leo could watch as she tore it into three long pieces. “I shall not send this letter to Middlecrescent after all, but shall inform the baron that you have regretfully declined his kind offer.” Then she turned, and Leo saw the heretofore hidden smile, and his heart sank.

  Starflower handed her quill to him, along with a fresh sheet of parchment. “You may write and invite Baron Middlecrescent’s daughter to join you. Have a pleasant summer, darling.”

  So that was her game, was it?

  Leo should have known this was coming. After all, he was sixteen. Lads in his position always
started having eligible girls forced down their throats right about this time. He shouldn’t be surprised; he should have seen it coming a mile off!

  But this knowledge did nothing to improve Leo’s mood as he stormed down the passage from his mother’s sitting room, up a flight of stairs, and on to his own set of rooms in a nearby wing. He slammed the wall with his fist as he went, rattling the gilt-edged frames and mirrors, and knocking a few candles from their sconces. Servants took one look at his face and quickly bowed their heads, pretending not to see him as he passed.

  Which one was Middlecrescent’s daughter anyway?

  Leo entered the first in his series of five connected rooms, slammed the door, realized there was someone cleaning his hearth, and barked for that person to get out, all without really noticing. His mind was caught up in trying to recall Daylily of Middlecrescent’s face. But memory escaped him. She blended in with all the other girls around his age who’d come and gone from the house throughout the last several years. Of course, he had always known that he would be matched up with one of them eventually, but this thought had never encouraged any particular effort to differentiate among the lot. They were all pretty, flouncy, chattery things as far as he was concerned.

  There was no avoiding writing the required letter, however. He knew better than to take up arms against his mother twice in one day. Standing up to her about his summer destination had depleted his supply of courage. There could be no further rebellion on this score.

  Dragon’s teeth, she would poke, prod, and pry him into the shape she wanted, and Lumé help him if he resisted!

  Leo wrote the letter. Everything polite and well expressed, just as expected, not a single word misspelled, not a single sentiment sincere. Any girl with half a brain reading that missive would immediately write a similarly polite refusal . . . but no chance Daylily would be so perceptive. No, no, she’d probably consider herself highly complimented and set out for Hill House posthaste.

  Leo growled wordlessly as he placed the letter in the gold tray on the end of his desk. Then, because his mood was too black for anything else, he went to his fireplace and took an old urn down from the mantel. Supposedly this urn, carved in a relief of Maid Starflower on one side, the Wolf Lord on the other, and a motif of wood thrushes around the lip and lid, contained the ashes of some venerable ancestor. What it really contained was a set of juggling sacks.

  Leo started to juggle. First one sack, then two, then three, finally five sacks altogether. He moved about the room as he went, first at a slow, sedate pace, then adding little hop-steps, then moving into a silly jig, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the rotation of his sacks. He orbited the room, avoiding furniture and corners, still jigging, still juggling, and as his concentration increased, his anger faded away.

  This was a world that had room for no one else, just him and his sacks, and the energy it took to keep them moving in time to his dancing feet. No one could touch him here, in his element, just so long as Leo kept his eyes steady and his hands flashing, and those sacks flying. He was no prince in this realm of existence; he was king.

  He added a sixth sack. Six was the most he’d ever managed to juggle at one time, and then only for a precious few rounds. But today they flowed almost effortlessly, and he started to jig again, softly singing as he went:

  “With dicacity pawky, the Geestly Knout

  Would foiter his noggle and try

  To becket the Bywoner with his snout

  And louche the filiferous—”

  It was too much. He missed a step and the sacks flew wild. One hit a window, two landed in the hearth ashes, one knocked the gold tray with its letter clattering to the floor, and two more rolled out of sight beneath furniture. Leo stood empty-handed, feeling a bit of a fool.

  No, not a fool. A jester.

  He remembered dreams of boyhood days. Dreams of travel and laughter and tomfoolery. “I’m going to be a jester,” he’d boasted once. A jester, traveling the world, performing for kings but answering to no one. For jesters were wild, madcap, and best of all . . . free.

  Which Leo was not.

  Gritting his teeth, he collapsed into a chair before the fire, contemplating the empty grate. He should have known how his power struggle with Mother would turn out. She’d take even the freedom he’d known at Hill House and turn it into means for her own ends.

  Hill House.

  Leo grimaced. Memories of that summer were indistinct. Over the last five years, many things had slipped away, leaving only vague impressions in their wake. But those impressions weren’t unpleasant . . . he remembered games in the forest, and building a dam. He remembered laughing and running and feeling more himself than he ever had before or since. He remembered breathing freedom in that wild mountain air.

  He remembered Rose Red. His friend.

  Nothing had been the same after leaving Hill House. Perhaps nothing would be the same again, but—dragons eat Foxbrush, Daylily, his mother, the whole fire-blazed world—he was going to find out this summer if it killed him!

  Leo closed his eyes, and his head rested on the back of his chair. Soon his breathing relaxed into a snore. But when the snoring ceased, he dreamed.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  The Lady steps into his dream as if through parting curtains, and they stand face-to-face. He does not want to look into the vast emptiness of her eyes. But she holds his gaze.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  Slowly, the Lady takes him by the shoulder and turns him to the right. There he sees a vista open up before him. He sees a road leading off into the horizon. He sees beyond the horizon, beyond the edge of the world he knows, and the path leads all the way to the sea. Then he speeds across that blue expanse, riding the wind, following the path over land, over water, over mountains, on and on. His soul thrills at the freedom of it, and he laughs and somersaults and leaps just because he can, as light as a wind-tossed leaf.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  The Lady takes his other shoulder and turns him to the left. He wrenches his gaze unwillingly, but as his eyes adjust to the new scene, the smile dies on his lips, replaced with a stern line.

  He sees a prince . . . no, a king. Noble and bearded and strong, he sits upon the Seat of the Eldest in a great hall of sweeping alabaster arches. The king sits with a golden sword upon his knee, and people flock to his feet, pleading their causes, looking to him for justice, protection, wisdom. At this king’s right hand stands a lady of great beauty, her red hair circled in gold. All those assembled are amazed at the sight of her.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  The Lady cups his face in her hands and forces Leo to look at her, though he strains to catch a last glimpse of that brilliant hall and noble king. But her white eyes fill his vision.

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know,” he says, trying to ward off her hands, which latch onto his face like roots gripping soil. “I don’t know. How can I?”

  “I can make you a king,” she says. “A king like no other in the history of the world. This power I possess.”

  “I don’t know what I want!” Leo repeats. “Why must everyone pressure me? It’s always push, push, push . . . but I don’t know who I am yet.”

  The Lady continues as though he has not spoken. “I can set you free. I can send you down a path without cares or expectations, where you may become whomever you will.”

  He tries to close his eyes and shield himself from her gaze but cannot. “I don’t know,” he whispers.

  “Tell me what you want.” Her white hair surrounds him like a cloud, but the ends of it strike his face like tiny, biting snakes. “The time is near. You must make your choice and let me fulfill your dreams for you.”

  “I’ll make my choice when I’m jolly well ready!”

  “Soon.”

  Blood oozes from the stinging cuts on his cheeks.

  “Tell me what you want, and I will make it so.”

  “When I know what I w
ant, I’ll tell you. Agreed?”

  The stinging stops. Leo opens his eyes and sees her hair, still in a billow about him, but soft and gentle now as droplets of mist. And the Lady’s eyes smile.

  “Agreed.”

  2

  DAYLILY RECEIVED A LETTER sealed in red wax and stamped with the image of a seated panther. She rolled her eyes heavenward when she saw that seal, then braced herself, broke it open, and read the letter’s contents in a quick glance.

  “Dragon’s teeth,” she murmured, though it was not a ladylike phrase.

  “What have you there, my lovely?” asked Baron Middlecrescent. He appeared at her elbow like some bad fairy, and she had no choice but to hand over the letter.

  “Light of Lumé!” said the Baron. “This is better than I’d hoped.”

  “I thought he was to come here, Father,” said Daylily. Not a trace of rebellion could be found in her voice, but her eyes may have flashed beneath those long lashes.

  “And now you’ll go there instead. A fine thing indeed, and his invitation is a sure sign of favor.”

  But for all her pretty arrangement of curls, Daylily was no fool. She had read between the lines and knew that young Leo’s real sentiments were quite different from those expressed in ink. Her face remained calm, however, and she went about the necessary preparations for her journey to Hill House.

  It was the most forsaken and loathsome location imaginable for a summer holiday, she concluded before her father’s carriage had carried her even halfway. She was used to spending her holidays with friends in Middlecrescent City, enjoying the society there, the balls and assemblies and theatrical performances. There was more than one young man of certain birth who had proven himself most ardent in his admiration of the baron’s daughter. And while Daylily bestowed favors on no one, she was not opposed to receiving favors herself.

  Yet here she found herself trundling across bridge after bridge, passing towns of excellent societal repute, even bypassing the Eldest’s City itself, on her way to some remote house in remote mountains where no one in her right mind would want to pass half a day. And under strict orders to beguile, bewitch, and otherwise entrance a boy for whom she had no use whatsoever.