Corruption of the Rose

by S. J. Sanders

  Her client’s eyes narrowed on her thoughtfully for a moment before he finally obliged to dip his chin in acknowledgment. “My apologies, Mistress Almander. You are correct. Your skill is indeed what my lady queen seeks and not… drapery,” he said, his eyes flicked toward Alexi dismissively before returning Rose’s regard.

  “I am Felix Roninbar, personal assistant to Queen Beatrice.” He casually picked up a nearby bottle. From the design label, Rose recognized it as one of her lover’s enchantment series blends, although she couldn’t make out which one at her distance. Perhaps it was Come to Me. His mouth pulled into a tight smile as he continued to look over her products, only gradually making his way in her direction, the bottle clasped tight in his hand. “The queen has long been acquainted with your product line and has nothing but praise for your work. Unfortunately, nothing permanently resolves her predicament.” A dark eyebrow arched in her direction. “I’m sure you are aware of the rumors that abound regarding the queen and her delicate situation with the king?”

  Rose snorted mirthfully, her eyes narrowing on him.

  “You mean aside from the string of courtesans that he keeps at court to oblige him with their sexual favors? If rumor is correct, the king has more mistresses than I have fingers on both hands. The queen is said to see his highness so infrequently that there is doubt if he will ever sire an heir on her. No doubt there’s worry of a child being produced elsewhere and fear that she might be set aside.”

  As expected, Roninbar’s jaw stiffened, a tick betraying his fraying temper. “Quite accurate. Naturally, my lady wishes to avoid this at all costs and so is willing to offer considerable reward if you can produce a particular perfume.”

  The hairs on the back of Rose’s neck tingled in ill omen, but she brushed it aside. Superstition was again attempting to invade her thoughts.

  “And what would that be? As you no doubt can see, I have many perfumes designed to entice and beguile.”

  Roninbar’s eyes skimmed her shop. “Yes, you do have an impressive selection, but my lady is desiring something specific. It is rare and difficult to manufacture, but she is certain that a reputable perfumer such as yourself will be up to the commission.”

  The last note of his words ended almost on a question, as if he were doubting Rose’s ability to fulfil the order. How insulting. She never had a difficulty creating any perfume asked of her. Rose folded her arms over her chest and eyed her so-called client’s representative.

  “Spit it out, already. What is the commission? And don’t you worry, I will come through.”

  Roninbar’s answering smile was chilly, but he reached to his belt and removed the bag of coins which he held out from his fingertips in offering. Rose felt her mouth go dry. She did not hesitate. The size of the sack guaranteed she would be well supplied with anything she might need for months, if not longer. She palmed the silk bag, opening it only long enough to assure herself that it was filled with gleaming gold coins, and slipped it into the deep pocket of her skirt.

  “What is the assignment?”

  He removed a cloth from a small bag at his hip and began to wipe down his gloved hands, as if even touching her were repugnant. His eyes on her hard and merciless.

  “My queen heard tell of a special perfume, the Forial Attar. Are you familiar with it?”

  Rose hesitated, a pinch of uncertainty suddenly assailing her. “Yes, of course. It is a special blend of perfume from the old grimoires—I don’t have the grimoire, but I am intimately familiar with all the rarest blends as a pursuit of passion. It is said that the one who wears the perfume will bewitch all those around her, that she might possess the one whom she desires.” Her lips flattened. “I would caution the queen that it is not something to play with. The rose itself grows only in the Urgal Mountains… It is forbidden.”

  “Yes, her majesty is aware. Hence the appropriate compensation for the task. She demands that you begin preparing it immediately, without delay. When can I tell my lady that you will have the perfume completed?”

  Rose swallowed as she did some hasty math. Procuring the rose could take a week or two. Thankfully, it was still the right season, since the Forial Rose bloomed always in the last weeks of summer, but that didn’t mean that it would be easy to find. Then she would have to wait for the right heavenly alignments to begin her work.

  “One month should be sufficient,” she replied stiffly.

  His brow drew down into a scowl. “Must I remind you that the queen has an urgent need for it? She desired to have it ready for her in a matter of days.”

  “A month,” Rose confirmed, her voice strengthening with resolution. It was just another assignment. She had collected rare ingredients before. Alexi was a genius at making such difficult finds. He had an uncanny ability. For the right price, she would be able to persuade him. “It will take time to acquire the flower and necessary ingredients and to prepare. It shall be done, but in no less time than what is required.”

  Roninbar’s expression did not lighten, but he inclined his dark head in acknowledgment. “Very well. I shall pass this information along to the queen and return in one month’s time for the perfume. I advise you not to disappoint the queen.”

  The warning would have been hard to miss even if Rose had been a foolish person. Not being particularly foolish, she had already surmised as much without it needing to be said. The reminder merely made her stiffen, her skin prickling with foreboding. She nodded sharply and watched as he swept out of the store with a flourish of his long overcoat. Rose did not move until the street in front of the little shop was empty and she was certain that Roninbar couldn’t overhear. The description and growing location of the flower were carefully guarded secrets.

  Assured that they were alone, Rose approached the side of the desk and leaned down so to speak as quietly as possible.

  “I assume you were listening.”

  Her assistant didn’t pause in his writing, nor did he show any sign at all that he had heard her other than his abbreviated nod.

  “Good. I have a task for you.”

  The pale, elegant hands holding the pen stopped, and he gently set the writing utensil in its place on the inkwell stand. His brown eyes glittered with interest.

  “A quest up the mountain, I surmise. Do you think that taking this commission will be safe for either of us?”

  “It will be fine. The locals will never find out, and you will not be going too far up. The rose only grows in the lower foothills, in the marshy areas around the Lethe River. You will be able to identify the rose by its fan-shaped bloom and its red-black petals. The perfume of it is potent so you may smell it before you ever set eyes on it.”

  His lips pressed together in a calculated smile, and he nodded. “In that case, it would be my pleasure… for the right price.”

  Rose grinned and removed a small handful of coins to set them before him. She understood this sort of motivation and was quick to capitalize on it. Alexi was greedy. Therefore, he rarely hesitated to do as she asked and seldom asked questions. He stared at the coins, his smile widening roguishly, the expression belying his soft, educated voice. With one quick movement, too fast for her to follow, he pocketed the coins, and the tension that had filled Rose with Queen Beatrice’s demands faded. His picked up his pen, his lips still curved in their wicked smile, as he began to write in the ledger once more.

  He glanced up at her from the corner of his eye when she stepped away from the desk. “It’s a delight doing business, Mistress, as always,” he murmured silkily.

  Chapter 2

  Rose paced back and forth over the weathered wooden floors of her shop, her skirts swiping against her legs with each nervous stride. Outside, the sky had darkened, and rain had begun to pelt down an hour ago, the atmosphere in the shop and out on the street settling into hues of gloom. Not even the faint light of the candles was able to adequately disperse the dark.

  Alexi had been due to return days ago, and the window of time for her work was growing narr
ower with every day that passed.

  Where was he?

  Her fingers twisted in a rare show of nerves. If she didn’t get the perfume completed within the arranged time, she would be at the complete mercy of the queen. For a lone mage, that was a dangerous position to be in. The situation was even more dire for a mage who had not yet achieved the level of adept. She swallowed and wiped her sweat-dampened palms on her skirt.

  Any time now. He would arrive any ti—

  A frightened shout cut through the air, startling her so thoroughly that she jerked to a halt. She swayed for a moment but regained her balance after precious few seconds, her eyes turning toward the doorway. Gradually, more cries began to fill the streets as lights shone from people amassing with their lanterns. The murmur of voices was a confusing cacophony.

  She did not understand what urge was compelling her—perhaps an instinctive, primal fear rising in response to the fear in the streets—but whatever the reason, Rose threw her long coat around herself and stepped out into the darkness.

  Lanterns flickered everywhere, the light swaying and bouncing with people’s movements. Closing the front of her coat with one hand, Rose waded through the crowd. Bodies stumbled into her path in their panic as they turned away from whatever had drawn them and were now trying to flee. More than one person nearly knocked her off her feet, but Rose pushed ahead, her gaze shifting uneasily among milling bodies pressed around her.

  The two men directly in front of her turned away to retch, leaving an open path. A coppery, rotten-sweet smell filled her nose, and Rose gagged, suddenly not interested in seeing anything more, but the crowd behind her surged forward, pushing her into the small clearing around a simple cart.

  The smell of putrefaction intensified, and Rose’s eyes teared as bile rose in her throat. She didn’t want to look, but she forced her eyes down to the remains dumped on the simple cart. The state of carnage was so severe, with mangled limbs hanging in bloody hanks, that Rose could have believed it belonged to any unfortunate creature if not for the mangled human head staring at her with only one remaining eye. Only half of the face was spared from being mangled, and it was covered in bloody mud from where it was likely pressed into a moist patch of earth. The smaller bits were gone, however. The hands and feet had been chewed away, as had one whole arm, his belly, and the soft tissues of the sex.

  A hard hand wrapped around her elbow, yanking her away from the ghastly scene.

  “Mistress, you shouldn’t be here,” a rough voice whispered sympathetically.

  Rose glanced up and met the concerned weathered eyes of an aging city guard, no doubt on the late patrol. She swallowed and shook her head. She wasn’t faintish. The sight was horrible, but not unendurable. She had seen many unpleasant things in cadavers during her apprenticeship. She couldn’t leave… not yet. She had to know for sure the identity of the unfortunate victim.

  “I’m fine, really,” she said quietly, pulling her arm free. “Has anyone said what happened?”

  He thinned his lips slightly at her rebuff but ran one hand nervously through his hair. “A group of hunters found him when they chased a buck just beyond the Winter Springs on the Urgal Mountains. They found him washed up and scattered along the rocks on the banks of Lethe. Did their best to collect of all the remains and left him here with me for me to file the appropriate reports and identify the remains if possible. Judging that he was found with bits of velvet material clinging to his body, I suspect that someone will start missing him soon and report him missing” He grunted unhappily and shook his head. “Those fools were lucky to get away with their own lives—I suspect they won’t be pursuing anymore deer anywhere near that mountain. People should have more damned sense than that. What a young man of some means was doing in the foothills of that cursed mountain I could not guess,” he muttered as he shambled toward the crowd, herding them away from the body.

  Rose stared after him mutely, her heart dropping as she edged closer to the remains on the cart. Unfortunately, she knew exactly why someone dressed as a common lower merchant might have been found on the mountain.

  Alexi…

  Steeling her nerve, she forced herself to examine the ravished face. A low, pained gurgle rose up in her throat, and she stumbled away. Pushing her way through the crowd, she hunted the guard down and strode forward to grab at his arm. He looked over at her, surprise and mild irritation on his face for only a moment before softening once more into sympathy.

  “Mistress? Is there something else I can do for you?”

  “Yes, can you tell me… was there by chance a bag found with him?”

  A perplexed look fell over his aged features, and he shook his head. “I really can’t say. I didn’t see a bag, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t something found by the hunters. If you want to call upon them…”

  “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  If Alexi had found anything at all in his trek over the foothills of the mountain, those who found him would have likely disposed of it quickly. A flower from the mountain would be considered dangerously unlucky at best.

  The guard’s grizzled brows drew further downward as he regarded her. “Did you know him, Mistress? It would help to know what to put in the official records. Our town is small, but the royal court likes to have full accounting of such things.”

  “No,” she murmured with one last glance toward Alexi’s body before it was concealed from sight again as more townspeople arrived. “I just pity him and the suffering his family must be going through.”

  As far she knew, Alexi didn’t have any living family—none whom he acknowledged, anyway—but she imagined they would be suffering in some fashion if they knew.

  In any case, she couldn’t tell him the truth. If she told the guard that the dead man was in her employ, it would invite too many questions on her work and the secrets of her business that were only known to her more exclusive clients. Oranthy was one of several kingdoms that outright outlawed magery. Rose wished she knew who spread word to the queen about her more “special” blends so she could flay them.

  It had effectively signed her death warrant.

  Clenching her skirts in her hand, she pushed her way back through the crowds, her head ducking low as raindrops began to fall from the sky. The light sprinkle increased to a steady downpour by the time she slipped back inside her shop, the door swinging shut silently behind her. Taking her key, she immediately locked it. The hour was late enough for her to close, and besides, she was soaked to the bone.

  Blinking through the water streaming into her eyes from the wet tendrils of hair clinging to her face, Rose shivered and made her way slowly to the back of the shop, past the small door that led to her laboratory, until she reached the narrow staircase that led up to small apartment above the shop.

  She didn’t give so much as a second glance around her shop. The small furnace at the back of the shop would bank itself soon when the fuel ran out, so she didn’t linger. As cold as she was, she would be much more comfortable warming herself by a fire in her apartment’s hearth. She would rest for a time before taking what she could carry and escape the kingdom once the rain let up enough to hire a private carriage.

  The stairway opened immediately to the central living space with a small hearth. The apartment was pitch dark as she felt her way to the fireplace. She set a log and a small amount of kindling inside it before she reached up to the mantle, her cold fingers fumbling with the matchbox. Her fingers closed around a match, and she struck it, the warmth flaring at her fingers before she nestled the small flame among the kindling. She stood there, tending to the small fire as she stripped her sodden clothes until it rose to a crackling warmth.

  Sighing with relief as the chill receded from her bones, Rose turned to retrieve the blanket draped on the back of her thickly cushioned chair—one of her few extravagances. She stopped abruptly, her heartbeat speeding as she stared through the shadows at the heavy outline of a man seated there in wait. The darker shadow mo
ved, and a match flared around an elegant hand before the flame was touched to each candle on the candelabra perched on the side table.

  A familiar face slowly became illuminated. The face of a person who shouldn’t be there. Rose’s jaw clenched, but she forced herself to remain as calm as possible as she faced Roninbar.

  “I was not aware that you were in town.”

  He settled back into the chair, a hard smile on his lips. “I never left. I simply conveyed all necessary information to the queen by her majesty’s royal courier who accompanied me here. Her highness naturally commanded me to remain until the hour you produced the perfume. So here I remain, and here you are with your time growing short. Tell me, that unfortunate soul on the street… was that the lovely young man you sent out to procure the flower?”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but he lifted a hand, stalling all protest.

  “Do not lie to me. He left some days ago and hasn’t returned while you remained here the entire time.”

  “It was,” Rose admitted stoically.

  She would grieve for Alexi and offer to his departed soul later.

  “I see. I take it that you have not procured the necessary ingredients.”

  “I have all but the Forial Rose. These circumstances were unforeseen, and in light of them, I really must decline the contract. I can return the coin to you and…”

  His soft laughter sent a note of alarm trembling through her. “Her majesty is not interested in excuses nor in gold, of which she has plenty. She wants results.” His eyes narrowed threateningly. “She wants the promised perfume.”

  Rose stared at him, aghast. “You would suggest that I gather it still after something on that mountain tore Alexi apart?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say bestia, but she did not believe in such nonsense any more than she believed in unicorns existing beyond the metaphorical sense. That in mind, whatever was on that mountain—whatever wild animal that had managed to do that—was dangerous. It was insanity to risk her life against some maddened beast lurking on the mountains. A bear could have done all that and more, easily. No amount of coin was worth that when there were easier funds that could be acquired. It was time to part ways with the queen’s representative.