Awaken - Sleeping Beauty Retold

by Jade

  Which was now.

  "It is a good evening," she replied. "The last of the disease is gone from her body. She sleeps now, but soon she will wake. Monika is healed."

  He flashed a tired smile. "Then you are truly a good witch and a worker of miracles, Princess. I am grateful for your care, and I am certain that when she wakes, Monika will be, too."

  "I must heal you," Rosamond insisted. "Monika will be weak for a while yet. She will need your help, and you cannot return to the city if you carry the sickness."

  "She will have you, Princess. You have enough strength for a whole kingdom."

  Rosamond wanted to laugh at the irony of his statement. She barely had the strength to stand. She knew what the knight did not – that she had contracted the disease when she healed Melitta, and soon she would no longer be able to hide it from him. She suspected she had only lasted so long because the healing energy coursing through her into Monika had kept the disease at bay somewhat. Not enough, though. It was only a matter of time before the disease won. Rosamond could not heal herself – magic didn't work that way.

  If Sir Warin would not allow her to heal him, then she would wait until he was asleep tonight and take care of him then, Rosamond decided. She had so little time left.

  Fortunately, she didn't have long to wait. Sir Warin had scarcely finished his dinner before he stretched out before the fire, mumbling something about the lateness of the hour.

  Rosamond's eyes darted to the sky, where the sun had not yet set. Sir Warin was sicker than he was willing to admit, too.

  He had chosen a patch of grass to lie on, so Rosamond lay beside him. One of the briars on the wall had sent runners snaking through the grass, which was all she needed to help her heal him. At least, she hoped it would be enough.

  Grasping a handful of thorny runners, she sent a wave of healing through Sir Warin's sleeping body. She would not have days for this; if she did not heal him completely in one go, she might not manage to heal him at all. So even as her head ached and her body grew numb, still Rosamond worked her magic. The brave knight must survive, even if she did not.

  The full moon had risen high in the sky by the time she had rid Sir Warin of his ailment. He would sleep for some time yet, as his body still had healing of its own to do. If she were stronger, she would help him, but as it was...

  She climbed laboriously to her feet. Rosamond wanted to check Monika one more time before she lay down to await her fate. There would be no healer to save the princess, but Rosamond knew this was the only way to save the kingdom. She could not carry this curse home.

  Rosamond had already chosen her resting place. She believed it had once been a kind of courtyard, open to the sun and rain, because very little of the roof had fallen onto the mosaic tiles still visible beneath the leaf litter. In the middle of it stood a fountain, though it held no water now. Instead, the basin had filled up with roses, so that it resembled a bed of flowers. This would be her deathbed. Far more befitting of a princess than the cold vaults beneath her parents' castle. A castle she would never see again.

  Would her last sight on this earth be of sunny blue skies or sparkling stars? Rosamond wondered. It mattered little. She would be surrounded by the scent of roses, which would be enough.

  With considerable effort, she made her way to the chapel where Monika lay resting.

  Rosamond laid a hand on the maid's forehead, searching for signs of the disease, but finding none.

  "Mistress?" Monika croaked.

  "Rest. You were ill, but you are better now," Rosamond soothed her, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. No one would reassure her when the time came. "Sir Warin sleeps in the courtyard, but he will wake when he is well, too."

  "What of you, mistress? Who cares for you?" Monika asked.

  No one. Rosamond didn't dare speak the words aloud. "I am well cared for, I assure you. My sleeping chamber is over there. The roses guard me while I sleep. They will allow no harm to come to me." For she would soon be beyond harm, and the kingdom would be safe.

  "Mistress..."

  "It is time for me to retire. I only came to check on you. If Sir Warin survives until morning, you must return with him."

  "What of you, mistress?" Monika said again, more urgently this time.

  Rosamond smiled sadly. "If I do not succumb before morning, then I will return with you. If my body lacks the strength to fight this plague...you must leave me here. Do not bring my remains home. Tell my parents I died on the road, of an illness that I would not wish to visit upon my people. Promise me, Monika."

  "No, mistress!" Monika tried to rise, but she was too weak.

  "Thank you for your service to me. Please thank Sir Warin, too, when he wakes."

  And with that, Rosamond bent her final steps toward the rose-shrouded fountain. Perhaps it was selfish to use the last of her strength to reach the pretty courtyard, but she did not care. She had used so much of what she had left to heal others. If she did not put enough distance between herself and her travelling companions, they might contract the disease again from her remains, and she would not be around to heal them a second time.

  When she reached the stone basin, she nearly tumbled in, she was so tired. The briars would not let her, though, snaking beneath her to hold her weight until they formed a proper bed. Thorns shredded her clothes and some pierced her skin, but she felt little any more.

  The world was no more than a dream to her now.

  Rosamond lay on her bed of roses, weaving her fingers between the blossoms. She could feel the disease running riot through her blood, though it had not invaded her lungs as it had Melitta, Monika and Sir Warin. As her energy waned, she fancied she felt the tiny disease motes slowed their dance, almost as if they would die with her. That was a good thing.

  The briars she touched – a dozen bushes, at least, all sending their runners toward her – offered her welcome, wishing her health in ways that felt like sap running through her veins instead of blood.

  Protect me, she told them, envisioning vines closing off the courtyard to all but the sky, so that no one could reach her while the disease still survived in her body. Protect the kingdom. In her mind's eye, this involved all the plants in the kingdom forming up like armies for battle, keeping anyone at bay who might threaten her people with a plague like hers.

  She lay facing the sky, but Rosamond saw neither stars nor moon as her eyes closed and her consciousness sank into oblivion, surrounded by the plants she loved, promising to obey her wishes.

  While she lay alone in the moonlight, briars wove themselves into an impenetrable wall, blocking off the courtyard. Leaves whispered in the night breeze, telling trees and bushes of the princess's desire, until every bush along the borders had heard her final command.

  Roses cradled her body, while berry bushes built a wall of their own around her lands. They would keep the kingdom safe for her, they promised, as only plants can.

  ELEVEN

  "You should be here, planning a coronation ceremony and ruling the kingdom. Not riding about, chasing birds in the woods!" Lady Schutz hissed.

  Lord Siward sighed. "Grandmother, this kingdom is so small, it almost rules itself. And it has been scarcely three weeks since the king died. The earth has not even had time to settle over his grave. It would be an insult to his memory to attempt to steal his throne before we know whether an heir can be found."

  "Normal kingdoms name a new king on the same day the old one dies. A kingdom should not be without a ruler for even a day!" she insisted.

  "If only our kingdom could be normal, but it is not. Neither is it without a ruler. I am not leaving the kingdom. I am simply riding out of the city for a little while. I shall visit the borders and the outlying villages, make sure all is well, and if I choose to spend a day or two hawking, what of it? It is the sport of kings, after all, and you are so set on me becoming one. It seems to me I should enjoy some of the privileges, seeing as I already shoulder the burdens of a position which are not mine to b
ear."

  She threw her wrinkled hands up into the air. "Be it on your own head, then, if some other noble tries to claim the throne while you are playing with birds!"

  "If some madman attempts it, then he is welcome to the throne," Lord Siward snapped. If only another man would lay claim to that much-vaunted chair, then he could do the job his father had done, instead of trying to rule in the king's stead. If they could find an heir...

  But there was no heir. The king and queen had managed to have one child, and she had died young. A normal kingdom could ask for a near relation who had married into one of the royal families of a neighbouring kingdom, but this was no normal kingdom.

  So that left him. Siward sighed, knowing he would have to ascend the throne on his return. No other man in court was capable of ruling, though others had blood far more noble than his. Yet the king on his deathbed had appointed him Regent, for his sins.

  All the more reason to take this trip now, for it might be his last chance at freedom before the heavy yoke of kingship settled on his shoulders.

  His head started to clear as he left the city. Perhaps it was the lack of courtly arse-kissing, or maybe it was the clean scent from the woods instead of the smoke from cookfires, but he took heart when the city walls vanished from sight.

  It was easily a week's ride to the border by way of the main road, but checking the borders was his first task. Every year, like his father and grandfather before him, Siward rode the borders, checking for signs of weakness. He hadn't found one yet, but if ever there was a time he needed one...it was now.

  When he arrived at the end of the road, Siward sighed. He hadn't expected any change, though he had hoped for one.

  Bramble hedges soared into the sky, forming a wall more formidable than simple stone. This wall ringed the kingdom, allowing no one in or out, and it had stood since his grandfather's time. His grandfather, Lord Schutz, had said the Wall had been a simple hedge once, but when the princess passed, the plants had risen up in protest to protect the kingdom. Siward never understood what they protected the kingdom from, for his grandfather had rambled considerably in his old age. Sometimes, he'd said it was to prevent a plague. At other times, he'd insisted it was to prevent war with a neighbouring kingdom, who had apparently killed the princess.

  The truth of the tale was lost in time – and with his grandfather, who had lain in his grave for many years now.

  Yet the Wall still stood, testament to some mysterious truth. Perhaps someone had cursed the kingdom, Siward decided. It seemed as good an explanation as any. If it weren't for the Wall, he could send messengers to neighbouring kingdoms to search for an heir. With it...he would be king.

  The first time he'd seen the Wall, Siward had slashed at it with his sword, determined like a hundred other men before him that he could cut his way through. The brambles would have none of it, wrapping tendrils around his sword until they dragged it from his hand as they repaired the damage to the Wall as though he had never sliced a single stroke. The Wall was magic, most certainly. Which made it all the harder for a soldier like himself to understand. There were no witches in the kingdom, so whoever had cast it must be on the other side of the Wall, and out of his reach.

  Astor, his hunting hawk, ruffled her feathers as if impatient to do something more than sit on her perch.

  "You have the right of it, my friend," Siward told the bird, pulling off the creature's hood. "Let us hunt, and forget politics for a time. Worrying about it will not bring down the Wall."

  He headed off the road, toward a spot known only to his family. It had the best hawking in the kingdom, and so it would continue as long as its location remained a closely-kept secret. Not even his grandmother knew this spot, he'd wager, for she had no desire to hunt.

  He unhooded Astor, held his fist high in the air, and watched the bird fly off with powerful wingbeats. Siward wished for a moment that he could fly with her, high above the Wall, to see the world outside. Was it so different to their kingdom? As long as the Wall stood, he would never know.

  With his eyes on Astor, Siward urged his horse to follow the bird. The forest was not so dense here, though there was no village nearby. Perhaps there once had been one, but it had been too close to the border that before the Wall it had been attacked too many times until it had been abandoned. Surely there would have been some ruins left, then, to mark where the town had stood. Yet Siward had never seen them. Perhaps the brambles and briars had consumed those, too.

  Astor hovered, and Siward held his breath for a moment before the hawk dived, gracefully seizing a bird on the wing before her prey had even been aware of her presence. Astor swooped down with her catch still in her talons, toward a briar-shrouded rock.

  Siward thought she would perch on the rock, but Astor dipped down behind it and disappeared. Swearing, he rode around, trying to find the bird, but the rock seemed solid on all sides, and the bird was nowhere in sight. He called her and heard an answering cry, but she did not reappear.

  He swore again. The rock must be hollow, and his bloody bird was in the middle of it. If he didn't catch her before she devoured her prey, he'd lose her as a hunting hawk. Bird be damned, but she was his best, and he was loath to lose her. If there was no other way in, he would have to climb.

  Siward had not climbed rocks or trees since he was a boy, but he was not so old that he did not enjoy doing it again. Just as long as his grandmother or his future subjects didn't catch him behaving like a youth.

  The rock had a surprising number of easy toeholds for him, so it wasn't long until Siward had reached the top. The view he saw from his vantage point, though, made his mouth fall open in surprise. What he had taken for a rock was in fact a sprawling building – he'd been climbing the walls. Astor, bright bird that she was, had perched on a wall that had partially fallen down, hiding her from his sight until now. He called her again, but the stubborn bird did not move.

  Siward swore again. He would have to fetch her. At least it would be a simple matter of walking along the walls to her current spot, scooping her up and hooding her once more.

  He could not keep his eyes on the bird and his footing, though, and by the time he looked up, the blasted bird had moved to a wall in the middle of the building. She teetered there for a moment, before diving into the room below.

  Siward made his way to the spot where he'd last seen Astor, and stopped. Below him was a courtyard, free of the collapsed roof fragments most of the other rooms had sported. Yet it was not the courtyard that drew his eye, but the incredibly lifelike statue of a woman in the middle of it, surrounded by roses.

  Made of alabaster or white marble, she looked as though she would open her eyes and rise at any moment. Some virgin goddess or the Queen of Heaven, Siward guessed, depending on how old the statue was. Yet it looked newly carved, not as though it had been lying in this ruin for centuries, as surely it had been. A wondrous work of art indeed.

  If he had to take the throne, he would place this statue in the throne room, so that every time he was bored, he could stare at her and wonder what her story was, and remember how he'd found her on his last days of freedom.

  Siward jumped down from the wall, bending his knees to cushion the impact of his landing. Good thing, too, for the ground beneath his feet was harder than he expected. Swiping his booted foot through the leaf litter, he pushed aside the thin layer to reveal a mosaic floor of remarkable craftsmanship, though it paled into insignificance when compared to the magnificent statue.

  Now he was closer, she looked even more divine. Like his every desire made flesh – or stone, at least. Siward laughed at himself. A statue so real it stirred his loins. Perhaps becoming king would not be such a bad thing. He would be expected to take a queen, and ensure a clear succession. That would stop him from lusting after statues.

  No, he decided, inspecting the goddess, for no real woman could look so perfect. He must have this statue in his throne room.

  He reached out to touch the stone, to see what faste
ned her to the plinth below. Perhaps he could move her out of here and send someone to collect the statue, so that it would be in place when he returned. If she had been fastened by her feet and fallen over at some point, he might be able to...

  A briar shot out, twining around his wrist so fast he could not move it. "What in blazes – " he began, only now realising that the plants had sent tendrils around both of his legs and his other arm, too. A thicker branch snaked around his middle, yanking him away from the statue.

  Siward shouted for help, but he was alone in the ruin, as he well knew.

  No, not quite alone.

  Astor, his traitorous bird, landed on the plinth beside the statue's shoulder and peered at the goddess' face, as though working out what her lips would taste like. That beak could chip stone, and ruin the statue. The bird had caused enough trouble today.

  "No!" Siward commanded. "Leave the girl alone. She is not to be harmed."

  Finally deciding to be obedient, the bird flew off, perching on the wall once more.

  Siward breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe.

  He thought he heard something rustling through the leaves, and turned his attention back to the statue. What he saw stole his breath and his voice.

  For the statue's closed eyes now stood open, green as emeralds, as she stared back at him.

  TWELVE

  Rosamond's mind drifted as she slumbered, dreaming of the endless cycle of the seasons as the plants around her grew, flourished or lay dormant, all the while whispering that they kept her safe. If such was her afterlife, she would not complain. Sometimes in her dreams she was a tree or bush herself, fighting the bite of an axe or blade as she defended her kingdom. Even if it was no longer hers in death.