The Rose Bride (25 page)

Then she lowered him to her breast and died.

And then Jean-Marc walked in the same bower, a young man, weeping over the dying babe in his own arms.

“Forgive me
, mon enfant,”
he whispered. “Lucienne, forgive me.”

Jean-Marc knew how to love.

He had simply forgotten
.

King Jean-Marc woke the next morning. His heart was aching and there were tears on his cheeks.

He walked to the reflecting pool just as dawn colored the water and humbly knelt before the statue of Artemis.

“I am done,” he said. “I cannot force the Rose Bride to love me. And so, I will become a man she could love. A lovable man. A father to my subjects:”

A lark trilled. The sun warmed Jean-Marc’s face
and glowed on the face of Artemis. And did he see Rose’s features there Did the statue smile?

In his privy council, he called his advisors to battle. He told them they must wage a war against poverty and injustice as surely as the Pretender had hoped to wage a war against the Crown. They must educate the peasants and make sure they were safe and protected. If need be, they must strike down nobles and warriors who abused power and privilege.

A week passed, and a year. King Jean-Marc found the widow and boy who had stolen a loaf of bread on the road. His name was Jean-Marc and the king made the boy his royal ward and gave his mother a house, a title, and piles of gold coins. Jean-Marc taught the young man how to ride and joust; Reginer taught him how to paint.

Rose watched Jean-Marc change. He flowered. His broken heart and his broken dreams slowly mended and healed. And she loved him all the more. He was a good man and a just king, and his journey had taken him far.

She knew he was beginning to forgive himself for that which he could not have prevented—the deaths of his wife and son. He was beginning to see the light.

She was no longer certain if her own heart was his destination. Time and life had changed them both. Perhaps her part in his life was to bring him to the light. Perhaps his eyes would gleam with true
love for someone else. That was not for her to say. Love did not wait to see if it was returned. It simply existed, generously and fearlessly given.

So she held her counsel and bided her time. She played with her nephew and posed for Reginer. He painted a portrait of Artemis flying through the rose garden of the
château
. . . and if one looked carefully beyond the lovely young goddess and the fountain, one could see Rose, hunting with her goddess. They did not hunt deer. They hunted wishes. She hung the painting in her rooms. Few who saw it, saw her.

But Jean-Marc did.

And then on the night of her eighteenth birthday, there was a knock on Roses door. Her maid ushered in a stooped old man and she knew him at once. He was Monsieur Valmont, who had been shipped off to the colonies to serve a lifetime sentence for the theft of her mother’s dishes.

“Monsieur!”
she cried, embracing him. She sounded like a young girl again and he, not quite so old. She led him to the fireplace and called for food and hot tea. “How did this happens”

“The king pardoned me,” he told her. His hand shook when he held the teacup. He was very feeble. “He sought me out and brought me here.”

Rose’s heart flooded with gratitude. She said, “You must live here as my guest and as my friend,”

“The king has said as much,” Monsieur Valmont assured her. He sipped his tea. “He reminds me so of your mother, kind and generous.”

They spent the day and half the night reminiscing. She told him of the fate that had befallen Ombrine and Desiree, and she was surprised to find that he held no bitterness.

“The gods put us on our paths,” he said. “If all that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here now.”

She was moved by his wisdom. She knew he was right.

It was near dawn when Valmont went to bed. Rose was blowing out the candles in her sitting room when was another rap on her door. She opened it to her brother, Reginer, who was in a state.

“Rose, Rose,” was all he could say.

“Is it the baby?” she cried. He was practically mute.

She touched his shoulder.
“Calme-toi, mon
frère.”

He caught his breath as he shook his head. “Non,
non, ma belle
, it is the king! What an uproar. It seems His Majesty has gone mad:”

She covered her mouth with her hand. “What are you saying?”

“He has been planting roses. Purple ones. All around the statue of Artemis. All night. Then he began shouting that the roses were speaking to him:’ He touched his forehead. “You see?
Fou!”

“They . . . the roses?” she echoed, startled. Her heartbeat picked up as she looked at Reginer. “The purple roses?”

“Oui
. He summoned Sabot and the privy council and told them to listen. Of course no one heard anything. He kept pointing at roses and saying, “Don’t
you hear it?’ Of course they didn’t. And now they’ve gone off to confer, to decide what should be done with him.”

“I know what should be done,” Rose said happily. She threw her arms around him. “Tell them to stay away. I will go to him alone.”

“Non
, he’s crazy,” Reginer insisted.

“How many miracles does it take to open your eyes to the work of the gods? Tell them to stay and give me leave to meet with His Majesty by myself:”

And so it was done, the councillors pacing and anxious in the privy chamber, the courtiers beginning to gossip.

Rose put on a white dress and a gold cloak, and left the castle to walk to the reflecting pool. She had not gone there since the day of the great hunt when Jean-Marc had nearly killed her. She took no lantern to the birth of a new day. The moon guided her steps. And what she saw when she got there took her breath away.

The perimeter of the pool was lined with purple roses. The statue of Artemis stood above hundreds of blossoms, as if the goddess rode on purple clouds, shielded by purple canopies. Hundreds—thousands—of purple rose petals cascaded down from the lush bower...onto the dark, curly hair of Jean-Marc, king of the Land Beyond.

“You
are loved, you are loved, you are loved,”
they murmured, kissing his cheeks, his lips, his forehead.

In his black-and-golden clothes, his head tipped back, he was whirling in a circle, his arms outstretched.
And the boy who became a prince who became a king rotated in a slow circle, laughing.

“You
are loved.”

He looked over at her. His cheeks were wet with tears of joy.

He said, “I know it now:’ He reached out his hand. “I know it, Rose:”

The moon glowed as the sun rose and she put her hand in his. “Then know me”

So of a night, the pair walked, as in the old days when she was enchanted. Every night, beneath the moon, they strolled around the pool and talked. People remarked on the closeness they shared. The warmth and humor. They laughed often. Jean-Marc taught Rose how to play the lute and to use a sword. She taught him how to grow vegetables and to forage for berries. They took care of little Laurent, giving his parents sufficient opportunity to make a sister for him. Her name was Clarisse.

Some said they could never be lovers because they were friends.

Then came the night of Rose’s nineteenth birthday. She thought of her dearest mother, dead so long. She remembered Tante Elise and even her father. There was no bitterness that they were gone, only joy that she had known them. She felt such happiness that she thought she should be glowing like an emissary of the goddess. She was at peace.

Arriving for their walk, the king said, “Tomorrow
well feast your day. I think Laurent should have a new puppy, and Clarisse will get a kitten.”

“Those are the best gifts I will receive,” she declared.

“One hopes not,” he said. He reached behind his back and offered her a single purple rose.

It was a moment and she knew it. She caught her breath.

He knelt. “Rose, my friend, ma
belle copine
. I know you now You’re my dearest friend in all this world.”

“And you are mine,” she replied. Her heart forgot to beat.

“You know very well that I will always love Lucienne. You know that I will always miss her.”

“I do,” she said softly. She touched his hair. It was as soft as a petal.

“And that I grieve so for Espere, my little son.”

“Oui,” she whispered. “I, too.”

“Loving them in my imperfect, wounded way was the seed that has blossomed into the love I bear for you. For my people. For the world.” He extended his hand. “My lady and my love, it is time. You know that it is. Please come into my garden as my true Rose Bride:”

On the next full moon, they were married in the garden Claire lovingly sewed the magnificent pink gown into inserts in the bridal dress. She attended Rose, baby Clarisse laughing in her mother’s arms. Reginer, Delmont, and Jacques were the king’s men, and little Laurent carried his aunt’s ring. Three priestesses of Artemis and three priests of Zeus officiated. Rose wore
a white gown; Jean-Marc wore black and gold. Coronets of purple roses encircled their heads. Festoons of purple roses bound their wrists together.

True love’s kiss took Rose back in time, to a night of stars and roses when her mother made a wish.

True love’s kiss took Jean-Marc back in time, to a childbed and a mother who swore to love her son forever. To a son and a wife who proved that true love could never die. It lived on in the heart of the beloved.

And as true love’s kiss sealed king and queen together, the statue of Artemis took on many guises, her facial features shifting and altering—Celestine, Elise, Marie, Lucienne.

“
I have granted the wishes of my Best Beloved women,”
she said aloud, for all to hear.
“The journeys I set their children on were in fulfillment of
their
prayers and not due to any
whim
of mine. These two, who truly know what love is, are the purple roses of the world. Their hearts are mended. May
they flourish
forever. May they sow seeds.”

She let her stone arrow fly into the air, and stars cascaded down. The roses twinkled with fairy lights and fairy tears of joy.

A tiny fawn stumbled in from the greenwood, bleating, and wobbled up quite fearfully to the royal couple. Rose knew it was the baby of the king buck, who had mated with another. At the same instant, Rose and Jean-Marc knelt down and gentled the shy little creature. Rose took off her coronet of purple roses and draped it around the graceful neck of the fawn. Their magical scent soaked the air.

“You love,”
the roses whispered.
“You love.”

After Rose and Jean-Marc married, anyone with a gleam of light in their heart could hear the reassurance of the purple roses. “You
are loved, you are loved,”
they whispered to lord and lady, merchant and beggar. It lifted their souls to hear the words, and the light in their hearts grew brighter. So they planted purple roses of their own and more people listened. Those people in turn planted roses. The Kingdom of the Land Beyond became a shining, magical country, and people came from all over to bask in its joy and prosperity.

A daughter was born to the king and the queen, and they named her Marie-Cieline. The gown she wore when she was presented to Artemis was fashioned from the last bits of Rose’s pink birthday dress, and Rose could almost see Marie-Cieline’s grandfather, Laurent, coming home at last to hold the precious child.

All were home now, and the world shifted on its axis most perfectly, more beautifully, the star in the diadem of the Goddess of the Hunt and of the Moon as she beamed down on the Rose Bride, her emissary of love.

I
t
is difficult to write about grief and loss when one is the mother of a fairy child. But by writing about the Rose Bride’s journey, my hope was to show that while love may not conquer all, it can heal all. I think people who write (and read) feel deeply. Joy and despair are both very strong forces in us, and so I want to say to you, if your path seems too dark for you, fear not. Keep going. If you stop, you stop in shadow. If you move forward, you will find sunlight beyond the black. I know this for a fact.

Besides the miracle of my beautiful daughter, and the strong and enduring love of so many friends and family, I had a number of other sources of inspiration for this book. One was the film
Ever After
, directed by Andy Tennant and starring Drew Barrymore. Another was Jean Cocteau’s 1947 version of
Beauty and the Beast
. While I wrote, I played
Changes Like the Moon
, a CD of evocative harp music by Judith Pintar. Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my two writing mentors, Dr. John Waterhouse and Charles L. Grant. Rest in peace, Charlie, and thank you for everything.