Chalice of Roses

by Jo Beverley

  No. This she required to pour into the chalice. She tucked the bottle into the voluminous pockets, gripping her walking stick for reassurance as she crossed the moat and paused before the door cut into the garden wall. From somewhere came the sound of a stringed instrument, and a woman’s sinuous voice sliding around a song in a language Alice did not understand.

  It might be Acacia, playing the lute she’d brought with her into the pub. Perhaps Alice should wait for a little while.

  But even standing still, she could feel the lure of the place on her senses, an offering of such deliciousness it sang through her mind like the heavy buzz of nectar-laden bees, making her limbs weighty, her eyelids—

  She jerked herself awake. Disaster if she fell asleep here!

  Which left no choice. Making not a sound, she circled the wall around the garden, visualizing where things were in the mortal world. Near the front of the manor house was a tree, with branches reaching long arms out nearly to the stream that fed the moat.

  Moving as quietly as possible, she climbed into the gnarled branches and peered over the wall. There was the queen wearing a long green gown, her black hair cascading in ribbons over her back and arms. She bent over the lute, playing and singing sweetly, the song a narcotic to stun her swain, lying across a bench in a patchwork of sun and shade, his eyes closed.

  William!

  A sudden vision of that mouth devouring hers, his hands moving urgently over her breasts . . . his lean belly, his sorrowful cry, the low groan of him as he—

  As if her thoughts nudged him, he opened his eyes and stared right at her. The queen noticed nothing amiss, but William was riveted, slowly coming to a sitting position, and then he stretched, reaching for a cup near him on a table. Lifting it slightly in her direction, he drank, and Alice understood the question.

  She patted her pocket.

  He bowed his head, acknowledging her, then turned his attention to Acacia. He stood and pulled the leather tie from around his hair, and bent to kiss the fairy queen along the nape of her neck. She leaned backward, and he whispered something in her ear. She laughed, and Alice died a thousand times as William stroked the other woman’s throat, touched her breasts, tugged her to her feet, and gave her a tiny push. She heard clearly, “I’ll be along in a moment.”

  Acacia ducked inside, and practically before the fairy queen had begun to move, Alice was scrambling down the branches, dropping lightly into thick grass. From the other side of the wall William opened the gate, and they flew into each other’s arms, arms tangling, mouths devouring.

  William halted, taking her arms. “You brought it?”

  “I did.” She swept the cloak from her and took the chalice from her pocket. It had taken on a slight rosy cast. “And I bought mead from a Siamese cat.”

  That startled a chuckle from him. “Ah, that must have been Curran.”

  He took the cup in his long-fingered hands as Alice tugged at the stopper in the bottle. As she poured golden mead into the golden cup, she noticed that he was breathing too fast, and his hand shook the slightest bit.

  Their eyes met, and Alice knew three things at once—that she had fallen deeply in love, that he was desperately grateful to her and that he wanted to love her in return, but did not. The knowledge struck her heart like a hammer, stopping it cold for a moment, sending hot tears to her eyes.

  “Drink,” she said.

  “Do you love me?” he asked soberly, holding the cup.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and blinked fiercely. Fool that I am.

  A harridan’s shrill cry rent the air, and William looked over his shoulder. From the window on the second floor, which would be Alice’s bedroom in the other world, Acacia leaned out and screamed, as if summoning all the demons of the netherworld.

  “You fool!” she cried. “It will not save you! Not as you wish.” William lifted the cup and drank. “I welcome death if I escape thee, Lady,” he cried, and grabbed Alice’s hand.

  “Run,” he said. “As fast as you can. If I do not make it to the borderland by the time her unseelie hordes find me, I will wither to dust and all will be for naught.”

  Alice gathered her cloak to her tightly. “You didn’t tell me that part!”

  They ran back across the bridge, into the open field. In the distance was a sound like the baying of wolves, a sound that sent horror through her, and she thought, suddenly, of Crystal. “I have to find Crystal,” she cried. “I can’t leave her here!”

  He paused. “If we do not exit, I will die.”

  “But I won’t.” She pulled her hand from his. “Run, and I will find her myself.”

  “No,” he said fiercely. “Together we will leave this place. I will not leave you behind.”

  There was about his face a slight difference she had not perceived before, a thinning, a loss of glossiness in his hair, and her heart clutched. “Go without me! I can’t leave her. She was enchanted, just as you were.”

  “Then we will both find her.”

  They turned at the renewed sound of baying, closer and closer. “Is that what came after you the day in the meadow?” Alice asked.

  “In the meadow?”

  She looked at him, remembering. “That’s right. You don’t remember that person, the visits as the mortal you to the mortal world, where you eat cake.”

  He looked wan and gray. “Would that I did.”

  He was growing older right before her eyes. In sudden decision, she asked, “Is there another portal to this place?”

  “In the pub, of course.”

  “Go, then,” she said, “through this one, and meet me in the pub on the other side. Can you do that much?”

  “No, I—” The wolves came closer, closer. He hesitated, and with a piercing sorrow Alice saw the fretfulness of an old man, one who had lost the lustiness of youth.

  “You will be dead before the wolves get here,” she said, and hauled him bodily through the portal, gasping at the sudden cold and the snow around their feet, and with all her might she shoved him hard so that he fell into the guardian. They tumbled, and Alice bolted back into Summerland.

  Turning her cloak inside out, she ran as hard as she could, her breath coming in ragged, tearing gasps by the time she reached the High Street. It was crowded, a market day, every table spilling over with rosy peaches and ripe tomatoes and piles of braided herbs sending their scents to mingle with the fragrance of baking bread in the air. Throngs of beautiful Lords and Ladies milled down the rows, chattering brightly, laughing, the sounds like a symphony, each fairy more dizzyingly beautiful than the last, in every possible arrangement of color and size and style of beauty one could imagine. No one paid her the slightest bit of attention.

  For a moment Alice swayed dangerously and put a hand to the wall to steady herself. Her throat was parched and her stomach grumbled and she had to make her way to the pub to see if Crystal was there.

  Through the fog of seduction, she suddenly remembered the sloan fruits she carried in her cloak, and scrambled through the voluminous fabric to find the pockets. In her haste, she dropped the cloak; then she put it back on, forgetting to reverse it inside out, and suddenly the placid scene changed.

  “Mortal! You, there!” cried a willowy brunette cloaked in sapphires.

  Heads turned in her direction. Alice backed away, trying to think. She shoved the fruits into her mouth, slipped sideways into the alley and flipped the cloak back around.

  She tucked herself into a doorway and waited. It seemed to take a very long time before the crowd all went back to their shopping and gossip. The sun threw long shadows across the cobblestones and edged across a doorway across the way. Carefully, she slipped back into the street, keeping the inside-out cloak on her shoulders. She should have done this when she first arrived!

  “Not everyone is fooled,” said a black-and-white cat on windowsill. She glared at him, but he only twitched his tail and blinked as she passed.

  At last she made it to the pub and pushed the door open int
o a dazzling scene of dancing and music and fairies engaged in all manner of celebration and debauchery. Alice slipped around the room, slinking like a cat between and betwixt, under and around.

  She rounded the edge of the dancing crowd, and there by the fire was Crystal, tapping her foot in time to the music, looking flushed but otherwise exactly the same. Next to her was the dark fairy, Laithe, who sat protectively near his prize, kissing her and feeding her fruits, and sometimes touching her face in a way that made Alice feel sorry for him. Did the fey love?

  That was not hers to decide. For now, she was here to retrieve Crystal, and then find the way out of this place. Biding her time in a corner where no one would inadvertently stumble on her—and reveal her presence!—she looked for something that might be a portal. Thinking of the night she’d been here drinking, she wondered if it might be down that dark hallway that had confused her so.

  A new dance began, and the the crowd swirled into a circle dance. Crystal’s consort dived in, tugging her hand, but she held back, touching her head.

  Come on, come on, Alice thought. Leave her; go dance.

  When he did exactly that, Alice made her way to the table and sat down. “Hey!” Crystal said. “I thought you were going home.”

  She took Crystal’s hand. “I need you to pretend I’m not talking to you. Ignore me. Can you do that?”

  “Is this a game?”

  “Yes. Just listen. Look at Laithe and wave.”

  She did. He left the dance and started to come over.

  Alice squeezed Crystal’s fingers urgently. “This is all going to sound completely strange, but will you come with me to the loo? So I can tell you something that’s weird?”

  “I need to go to the loo,” Crystal said as Laithe sat down.

  “Very well.” He bowed. “I’ll be dancing.”

  Alice walked close behind Crystal into the hallway and pressed a sloan fruit into her hand. “Eat this,” she said, and when the gloom grew deep, she flung the inside-out cape around them together. “I’m not trying to make any moves on you, Crystal, but I need you to trust me.”

  “This is weird. I don’t even really know you.”

  “And you know him? Them? Who do you know out there?”

  By the silence, Alice knew she was on the right track. “You can always come back in here, but will you help me find the door? I really need to get out of here.”

  “Will you give me an A?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “All right.”

  “Good.” Alice spied a door in the wall, a door she had not seen from the mortal side the night she met William here. She tugged Crystal behind her. “Keep the cloak around you and hold on to my hand.”

  “How will we get by that big guy in front of the wall?”

  “He won’t see us.” She started to slide by, but the man was enormous, both tall and wide, and he felt them. Reaching out blindly, he caught a fistful of Alice’s hair. “Who passes without leaving me a gift?”

  The only gifts Alice had left were the Grail and a last slice of Mrs. Leigh’s cake. Remembering how William had loved it, she took out the latter and put her hand through the opening of the cloak. “Here is your gift. Trust me.”

  “That will do,” he said, and stepped aside.

  And just like that, they were through, standing not in the pub, as Alice had imagined, but in the street outside, in a swirling snow-storm that had them both shivering.

  Crystal blinked. “How did that happen?”

  “I’ll explain everything later,” she said. “Run home and I will find you tomorrow. Don’t ever eat anything the Lords and Ladies give you, do you understand?”

  She nodded. “God, I’m tired!” she said, and stumbled toward the lane.

  For an uncountable number of times that day, Alice ran. Ran as hard as she could, heart pounding, breath ragged. As she reached the edge of the field, a powerful stitch stabbed her side and she doubled over involuntarily. A whip of wind blew icy snow into her eyes and she could not see at all.

  After long moments, she straightened and peered across the field to the tree. No light leaked out around the portal, but there was a dark bundle lying beneath it, utterly still.

  Cold pushed through her.

  Wading through ankle-deep snow, Alice moved as fast as she was able, thick dread in her gut at what she feared she would find. As she came closer, she saw the half-snow-covered lump was a man, and as she knelt beside him, she saw it was William, a very, very old man.

  Who had died in his sleep.

  And had not loved her.

  Chapter 8

  William awakened with a start to feel something cold and wet on his face. Bolting upright, he found himself in the garden of the manor house. No one was about, only the winter-still garden, covered in snow.

  Snow!

  In wonder, he tilted his face back to it, letting flakes cover his forehead and cheeks and eyes and lips. How many centuries since he’d felt the cold kiss of it on his eyelids, tasted the bite of it in the air? It was so cold he had to wrap his arms around himself. As he sat there, snow beginning to collect in his hair and on his arms, he became aware of his hunger, as ever, and something more—a sense of lightness that he could not, at first, recognize.

  The gate clicked and a woman in a green cloak came through, her dark hair loose on shoulders that drooped in dejection.

  Alice!

  Everything about her rushed through him: Seeing her in the garden the first time, cutting late-autumn flowers; opening the window to her bedroom to come and sit by her fire. He saw the night at the pub and the day he had arrived in the mortal world to court her, and his heart swelled at the memory. He thought of her ripe red mouth and the ease of her laughter and, above all, her brave, strong spirit, for she had ventured into Summerland to save him. She had found the Grail and broken the spell, and he thought he had never seen a woman so lovely. Emotion crowded his throat so that he did not think he would be able to speak.

  He remembered her shoving him through the portal by the tree, remembered lying down in the cold snow, and the enchantment that had kept him finally breaking.

  But the Grail had saved him, giving him back the life the unholy fey had stolen. Because Alice had been brave enough to enter Summerland and bring him the Grail, he could now have his life back.

  With her.

  She had not seen him, and he turned and saw the last rose of his enchantment waiting on the vine. He stood on the wall and reached for it, a dewy new bud, yellow at its base, with the deepest, most passionate red bleeding through it.

  As she came closer, he saw that she was weeping, and at last he stepped forward. “Alice,” he said quietly.

  Her head shot up, and for a long moment he could not read her expression. It wavered, washing from joy to sorrow to bewilderment. “William! But you—”

  “The being who lived in the land of the fey could not come back to this world after so long a time. By bringing me the Grail, you restored my life. You see I stand before you, whole and young.” He offered her the rose. “If you will have me.”

  “Which William are you?” she asked, and he could see the blue circles beneath her eyes. “The one who was enchanted over there, or the one who came to the mortal realm and made love to me by the river?”

  “Both, my lady, in that I have memory of all that transpired.”

  “And are you here out of obligation? Because I saved you from eternal enchantment?”

  Ah! Suddenly he understood. “I am grateful,” he said, moving toward her. “But as I sat here in the garden, what I thought of was your kiss, sweet Alice.” He touched her cheek with the rose, drew it down her throat. “Your lion’s heart.” When it seemed she would not resist, he bent to kiss her, lightly at first, and then he could not bear it—he hauled her into his arms and held her tightly, and at last she gave in. “I am yours for all of time, Alice. I love you—not for saving me, but because it seems now that my enchantment was a gift to give me leave across all of
time to find my one true love.”

  She kissed him fervently, her cold fingers on his cheek. Suddenly she pulled back. “Do you smell that?”

  He took in a breath of sugar-laden air. “Cake!” His stomach growled.

  “I am so hungry!” Alice cried, taking his hand. “Let’s go see Mrs. Leigh, shall we?”

  He held her hand tightly. “Wait.”

  She halted, perplexed. “What is it?”

  “Do you love me, Alice? Love me now, the way I am? Mortal?”

  Alice laughed. She stepped forward and stood on her toes. “Yes, William, I do. I love you just as you are.”

  Mrs. Leigh, angel or guardian, magical cake maker, poked her head out of her back door. “Yoo-hoo! I’ve got strawberry sponge if anyone is hungry after all that hard work.”

  Joining hands, William and Alice dashed through the snow to her snug, warm kitchen.

  “Did you bring me a cup?” she asked.

  Alice withdrew the Grail. “What will we do with it?”

  Mrs. Leigh tucked the chalice into a pocket of her skirt. “We’ll return it to Glastonbury, where it belongs,” she said, and for one long moment Alice could see the shimmering of her benevolent and protective spirit beneath the glamour meant to fool the world into thinking she were mortal, when in fact she was what many would name a fairy godmother, although the term had terrible connotations right now because of the drama they’d just undergone.

  William stuck his finger in the cream. “Oh.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Cream and cake and snow and Alice, all in the same day.”

  Alice laughed and kissed him.

  And they all lived happily ever after. Or at least Alice and William did, and that is what matters.

  About the Authors

  Jo Beverley is widely regarded as one of the most talented romance writers today. She is a five-time winner of Romance Writers of America’s cherished RITA Award and one of only a handful of members of the RWA Hall of Fame. She has also twice received the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. Born in England, she has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Victoria, British Columbia, just a ferry ride away from Seattle. You can visit her Web site at www.jobev.com.