by Anna Mendell
Rosa approached Dunstan and clasped both of his hands. “Erik has spoken very warmly of you, and I love you for the love you bear him.”
Dunstan did not respond, mesmerized by the beauty of the princess before him. Erik coughed and clasped his friend by the shoulder. “How are you? You seem to be recovering well.”
Dunstan tore his gaze away from the princess and smiled, then looked at Emma standing quietly a little bit away. “Thanks to my ministering angel over there. She has been tireless in her care for me these past two days.”
The dark-haired girl went up to Dunstan’s side and said, “You should go back and lie down. Your wounds have not yet healed.”
Dunstan turned to Erik and said in mock despair, “Do you see what a tyrant my angel is? She won’t let me rise from my bed. Yesterday your horse returned riderless, and I was determined to set out in search for you. But she insisted and tearfully pleaded that I wait until my wounds were healed. I would have set out tomorrow, though, if you had not returned. Now tell me everything that has happened since we parted ways.”
Despite his complaints, Dunstan let Emma lead him back to bed, and the others followed, and they spent the evening recounting the prince’s adventures and how he had come to wake the princess.
THE NEXT DAY, Erik and Rosa set off for the castle, while Dunstan stayed behind as Emma declared him still not well enough to travel. When Rosa bid the girl farewell, she begged her to come to the castle and be her handmaid, as Edwina had been before her. Rosa knew that she would be a stranger in the castle and that it would be comforting to be near someone connected to her old way of life, no matter how indirectly. Emma promised to come, saying that it would be an honor to wait upon the princess. Dunstan was looking at Emma as she spoke, but she studiously avoided his gaze.
Erik and Rosa entreated the healing woman to come with her daughter, but she shook her head and said that she wished to remain behind in the woods and practice her healing craft on those who managed to stray in and lose themselves in the forest. She had a premonition that the wood would let more wanderers in, now that the princess’ curse was lifted.
As Rosa and Erik rode through the forest, Rosa’s spirit reveled in the wind, the sun, and the birdsong. She was reborn, still waking up to the world around her, everything new and strange. She felt all things at once, joy, delight, and also sorrow, loss, and a tinge of fear.
She was surprised to spy a huddled figure waiting for them at the edge of the forest like a bump on the stone wall. She felt Erik tense up and then relax behind her.
“Corwin!” he called out. “What are you doing here?”
Rosa saw that the man called Corwin was as surprised to see them as they were to see him, and he stared at the both of them in amazement as he explained, “The Grey Hawk has posted a man here every day and every night on the chance that you would return. But none of us did expect to see you again. Come back with me to our campfire and introduce this fair maiden to us.”
Rosa had been curious to see the Grey Hawk ever since Erik had spoken of his nobility and was glad when they followed Corwin to the camp. They were greeted with cheers as Erik presented her to Lord Gavin, and she noticed that the disinherited lord looked thoughtful as he observed her with Erik.
They feasted that evening, and, near the end, Aymer asked Rosa if she would sing some of the old songs of her kingdom, songs that had long since been forgotten. She took the outstretched lyre and, as her fingers hesitantly skimmed over the strings, she called forth ancient melodies not heard in hundreds of years. She softly hummed, and then the music in her throat swelled into song. She sang along to the melody of the stars, the melody that had been vibrating in her blood and her bones ever since she had awakened.
When she finished, a solemn hush fell over the campsite, and no one dared speak for fear of disturbing something blessed. Then the Lord Gavin bowed before the princess, and each of the men did the same in turn. Erik knelt before Rosa, took her hand, and kissed it. Rosa touched her cheek and felt that it was wet. She had been crying, but hadn’t even realized it.
THE next morning, Erik and Rosa bade farewell to the Grey Hawk and his men and began their journey to the castle. They galloped across fields and farmland, the green valleys and sloping hills of the kingdom, and some of the land Rosa recognized, but most of it she did not. As they journeyed, Erik murmured in a low and quiet voice about the history of the kingdom since his people had come and the strife that it still endured, and she soaked in every word he said.
They stopped at an inn that night, and Rosa woke early before dawn, ruefully realizing that she needed very little sleep after her long enchanted slumber. She threw on her dress over her shift and thought she might take a stroll on the dew-filled grass, but, when she opened the door, she found the prince sleeping propped against the door frame, guarding her room. Her heart fluttered at this unexpected sign of his care for her, and she knelt down beside him, taking the opportunity to study his features unobserved. How gentle his face is when he is asleep, she thought. His raven hair had grown long and unkempt, tumbling over his eyes, and she could not resist brushing it away from his forehead.
Erik woke at her touch, and they both froze, their eyes locked together. Rosa found that she could not break away from his gaze. His eyes were so bright, like the clouded grey skies of the morning. She tried to speak, but her throat went dry, and she could not form the words. Erik seemed to be encountering a similar difficulty. One of them might have broken the silence if they had not been interrupted by a door slam from the depths of the inn.
Erik sprang up and exclaimed at being found in such an unseemly position before her door. Rosa ducked back into her room in embarrassment. She felt a hot blush overspread her features, but she was also annoyed that they had been interrupted.
LATER on that morning, Erik helped Rosa up onto his horse, and she noticed the strength in his arms and was aware of his nearness as he sat behind her. She wondered what she should do to make him speak what he had been on the verge of saying earlier that morning, but, the more she thought on it, the more tongue-tied she became. The unusual silence became almost painful as she felt that she was sinking further and further down into a boggy marsh of embarrassment.
Erik spoke behind her, breaking the awkward silence. “We are entering the woods near my father’s castle, but, before I take you there, there is something I would show you. I hope that I can find it.”
Curiosity stirred through Rosa’s shyness, though she did not speak, still not trusting her voice.
“Ah, here we are. I knew that we should find it as she wished me to bring you here.”
Rosa heard the note of triumph in Erik’s voice and glimpsed the stone walls and the thatched roof of a cottage between the trees and the pines. When they were nearer, she saw a picket fence and the gate that now swung open.
“This is Ninny Nanny’s cottage,” she whispered.
Erik nodded while they both dismounted.
“May we go inside?”
“Yes, but I fear it will be empty.”
Erik opened the cottage door, and the interior was bare and the fire was out. The cottage possessed the particular stillness of a dwelling that has been abandoned.
“I wish you could have met her,” Erik said.
Rosa clasped his hand. She knew he was referring to Ninny Nanny.
He cleared his throat. “This is not what I wanted to show you. Come, let us go back outside.”
Rosa followed Erik to the back of the cottage, and there before them was a rose garden in full bloom. She gasped at the deep, rich blossoms, the vibrant, overflowing wealth of flowers that grew in abundance both in shade and in the sun. She ran to the center of the flower garden and gazed her fill of them and drank in their sweet smelling scents.
“This garden is yours. Ninny Nanny said these roses were a gift to you… and that you would wear them on your wedding day.”
Rosa turned to the prince, and his eyes spoke a question in their cloudy depths,
and there had been something in his voice that made her heart grow too full to speak. She plucked a perfect blossom from a bush, a rose rich and red and deep, and kissed its petals and gave it to him.
Erik clasped both of her hands. “I have loved you since I first saw you, and, when I grew from a boy to a man, so did my love grow. Every time I saw you, every time I discovered something new, how you smiled, how you cried, your joys and your pains, I fell in love with you all over again. And now that you are here before me… Rosa, I have to know if you love me.”
His gaze was so bright that Rosa had to look down. She whispered to him with a waver in her throat, but the more she spoke, the steadier grew her voice. “When I first saw you… my heart recognized you. But I was afraid and did not want to vainly hope. The more I saw you, the more I wanted you to find me and, when I sent you away, I was afraid that you would stop looking… and I knew that I loved you. I have been wondering all this while why you did not speak…”
She said no more, however, for Erik had stooped to catch her downcast face and kiss her. The kiss was so sudden that Rosa could not help but laugh. He kissed her again, and her heart beat faster. He kissed her a third time, and she clung to him.
Rosa lay in Erik’s arms in the brilliance of the rose garden, and he whispered to her, his lips touching her hair, “Rosa, we must be married this instant, before we enter my father’s castle. I cannot allow him or anyone the power to part us.”
She nodded happily against his chest and reluctantly withdrew from his embrace. She gathered an armful of roses, and they rode Lodestar to a little church at the outskirts of the wood to which Erik’s mother had once taken him when he was small. Rosa was dressed in no finery beside the blue dress she had woken in and the armful of roses picked from the faerie garden, but their own beauty was enough, and nothing could have added to the radiance of her joy in marrying the prince.
Before nightfall, Erik brought Rosa to his father’s castle. The herald announced them to the throne room, and both Rosa and Erik faced the cold, silent stares of the king and queen. Rosa observed that King Mark thawed slightly when he gazed at her, and she gave him a deep curtsey.
Erik took a step forward, his arm protectively shielding his new wife. “Father, allow me to present to you my bride, the Princess Rosamund. She has lain under an enchantment for hundreds of years, and it was with the purpose to wake her that I set out on my journey.”
The king waved his son silent and gazed with sharp, appraising eyes at the princess. Then he rose and, in an unexpected gesture, greeted Rosa with open arms. Queen Sigrid followed suit, and Rosa felt the queen’s cold cheek against her own.
When she withdrew from the queen’s embrace, she saw that the queen was all smiles, graciousness, and courtesy, though there was something lurking hidden in the majestic woman’s eyes that Rosa could not quite fathom. The queen was speaking, informing her that she would personally prepare for the princess and the prince joint rooms upstairs and that the princess must be tired from the long journey. Did she have any gowns? No, then she would lend her some until new ones could be made. Before she could resist, Rosa was guided upstairs by the pressure of the queen’s firm grip on her arm, and she knew that queen had engineered for Erik and his father to be alone.
Erik calmly endured the king’s calculating gaze. There was much that he needed to explain to his father, and he suspected that there was something hidden behind their warm reception. He waited, wondering what direction their conversation would take.
“There were troublesome rumors of your journey through the western marches,” the king began.
“You speak of the Lord of Westhane?”
“Indeed. I heard you fell in with the Grey Hawk and his band and sought to incite a rebellion against my crown. It was said you were gathering forces to act against me.”
“No, father,” Erik said sharply. “I would never act against you. You can count on my loyalty. I fell in with the Grey Hawk by chance on the journey to the Shadowood… He stole my horse.”
“Cursed bandits.” The king grimaced. “We shall rout that band of outlaws for good.”
“Nay, father, for we came to an understanding, he and I. The Grey Hawk aided me on my quest, and he has much reason to be aggrieved. There is evil done in the western lands in your good name that must be remedied.”
The king fell silent, a curtain overspreading his features, and Erik felt with uneasiness that he had not said something that the king wanted to hear.
“There were other rumors as well,” the king continued, “tales of a mysterious stranger and his companion seeking the sleeping princess and then finding her, whispers of the western peoples’ hope in her golden lineage. Such a union would finally unite Lothene once and for all.”
“You heard of Rosa before she arrived?” Erik said in surprise.
“Don’t think that two such unusual companions can pass by without comment, particularly when they stop at inns. Why did you not tell me of your plans?” the king asked.
Erik weighed his response. He knew that the king would never believe that he had had dreams of Rosa and that she was actually who she said she was. He suspected that his father thought Rosa was a ruse steeped in myth and legend to gain the west’s support, that he had fabricated the princess’ past so that he would have the freedom to choose his own bride.
“I was afraid that you would try to stop me… I met her long ago… and I love her,” he said finally.
The king peered at his son shrewdly. “Ha! And here I was, doubting your manhood, and you were keeping this pretty face secret all the while. It is well for you that you returned with a bride. I can forgive a lover’s weakness, but not treachery. Do you think the princess can stand to scrutiny?”
“In what way?” said Erik, startled.
“Can she prove that she is a princess of Aurlia, enchanted sleep or no?”
“She is who she says she is,” Erik said softly.
The king gave his son a knowing smile. “Then all is well. Her authenticity must not be questioned, so we must have her identity acknowledged by the lords of the west. Make sure she is ready.”
Erik bowed stiffly and left his father’s company to seek out Rosa and warn her that her identity was going to be tested before the lords of the west. She received the news with a shrug of her shoulders and assured him that her own people would recognize her. Erik found her lack of concern maddening, but she laughed and then banished away his worries with a kiss.
THE next day the king dispatched heralds to the four corners of the kingdom, summoning the lords of the major provinces to a royal conclave. Such a conclave had not been called in many years, and, while the purpose of the assembly had yet to be announced, rumor carried tales of the sleeping princess, so that nobility and the common folk, those invited and those who had not, all streamed in droves to the capital.
Dunstan and Emma arrived at the castle during the flurry, and Dunstan chaffed the prince for marrying the princess so quickly. His teasing did Erik good, for the prince was anxious about the conclave, though he tried to hide it, especially from Rosa. It had not escaped his notice that his father had called in militia from his outposts and that there was double the guard at the castle. He wondered through gritted teeth if the conclave was really an excuse to threaten the lords of the west with a show of force and arms rather than extending the olive branch of unity and peace. He wondered if the guard’s glistening silver swords would shine red if the proceedings turned sour.
Finally, it was the evening of the conclave. Erik and Rosa glided into the throne room, their entrance causing a hushed stir among the crowd as the two of them took their seats beside the king and queen. Erik stole a glance at Rosa seated beside him. She was dressed in a gown of the royal sapphire studded with the golden stars of the old kingdom. Both she and he wore a piece of the silver symbolon around their necks.
For a moment all was silent. Then one of the lords from the west stood up to be acknowledged. He bowed to the king and que
en and then spoke to the princess. “My lady, we would not do you the indignity of besieging you with questions, but we do desire to hear your story from your own lips.”
Rosa smiled graciously and then told the story of her sleep in accents more ancient than their own, with an odd word or two unknown that had to be repeated and explained. Erik observed with relief that her language, the unhesitating simplicity with which she spoke, her regal bearing and grace, favorably disposed those who listened to her. He was then asked to tell his own part in the story, which he did, aware the entire time that his father’s watchful eyes were on him.
When he finished, the assembly stood as one divided. The lords from Midlothia, the east, and the north had no qualms about accepting the princess; as Erik could have predicted, they would cast their vote whichever way his father wanted. It was the western lords that hesitated. They would demand further proof of the princess, since with her rested their hopes for peace and justice for the west.
An elderly man, doubled over with age and wearing the long robes of a scholar, asked for permission to approach the princess. With a slow stride, he reached her, then, pulling out an ancient scroll from one his voluminous sleeves, he held it before Rosa with a deep bow, his white beard almost brushing the floor. Rosa took the scroll with a puzzled look on her face, which then transformed into an expression of wonder as she unrolled it.
“Do you recognize it?” the old scholar asked.
Rosa nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. The old man signaled one of his clerks to bring him a writing case containing vellum, quill, and inkwell, which he then offered to the princess. She dipped the quill in ink and copied the first line of the scroll onto the fresh piece of vellum. The old scholar’s eyes lit up as he examined first her writing and then the manuscript, and, when he spoke to the princess, he spoke in words that none in the room could understand. Rosa laughed and then spoke to him in the same unknown tongue. Murmurs traveled round the assembly, and the king asked the old scholar to explain what they had been saying.
