Never mind. It was worth all the fuss and bother, since so far, all that fuss and bother had managed to keep Rosa alive.
Unfortunately, Siegfried’s triumphant leave-taking from the village of the boar had been marred when he ran across the only thing he feared, lying in a meadow just outside of town.
His Doom. The sleep-charmed Warrior Maid in her ring of fire. He had fled in the opposite direction as if an entire clan of dragons were after him. It was a good thing he’d had the bird to guide him, or he would have gotten completely lost in this forest.
“You don’t suppose I could find a Prince about to awaken a Beauty Asleep and trade girls with him, do you?” he asked her. If only it were that easy! “You know, get him to leave the Beauty alone and come wake up the Shieldmaiden for me? Or maybe…do you suppose I could just hunt around for a wandering prince, then when You Know Who turns up again, shove him across the fire?”
“That’s a puzzler. No one’s ever tried,” she replied. Then—“Hark!”
The bird was always saying things like “Hark!” and “Lo!” and when it did, Siegfried generally found it advantageous to peer ahead up the trail…or as in this case, into the clearing they’d come upon.
And at first he thought it was Doom-Woman again, because yes, there was the ring of magic fire, and the ring of flowers, and the stone slab. But before he turned to run, he took a closer look.
It wasn’t a woman on the slab; it was a really beautiful maiden. She was blonde, but she wore a gown, not armor. She didn’t look frail, but she also didn’t look like the sort that would be inclined to don armor and go whack at things on a daily basis. And she was asleep. He could scarcely believe his eyes, or his luck.
“Get her, Siggy!” chirped the bird, and nothing loath, he was halfway across the clearing before he noticed the sorceress.
And the other man.
6
NOW WAS THE MOMENT TO DO SOME REAL magic. The spell to nullify the slowing potion was actually a lot more like a religious ritual, since it involved a great many symbolic components. First, Rosa had to be on something like a bier, to symbolize death, which was in turn a symbol for slumber.
One Princess on a stone slab, courtesy of some extremely strong Brownies.
She had to be illuminated by rays of sunlight, which symbolized the first rays of sunlight at dawn and the spring sun that brought the earth to life.
One Princess, bathed in a beam of sunlight streaming down through the surrounding trees.
There was the ring of rose petals and violets around the slab, which was supposed to symbolize the quickening of the earth in spring.
There was the flower crown for Rosa, which was supposed to symbolize any one of a hundred Goddesses of Spring, who would emerge from their winter slumber.
To symbolize the slowing effects of the potion, ideally one would want something that hibernated. Snakes and frogs were the easiest. After some consideration, she used a serpent-shaped ring on her finger, and one on Rosa’s.
She would create a circle of fire around the slab, to invoke both the cleansing power of fire to burn the potion away and the awakening power of the sun’s rays.
And lastly, sprinkled all over the rock were various cleansing herbs, and the grit used to polish metal, which symbolized the cleansing of Rosa’s body of the potion. Just for good measure, symbolizing itself, Lily had added the actual antidote to the potion, which would counter it, if the person in question had been awake and able to swallow it when they tasted it…which would have taken about a week.
They didn’t have a week. Lily needed to get Rosa back to the Palace. If the King fell in battle, or even died of natural causes…it would be a race to figure out what to do next, at the very least, and having the actual, legal heir there would buy them some time.
She had just lit the ring of fire and begun the incantation part of the spell, when she spotted the two men, one on either side of the clearing—and the moment she saw them, they spotted each other.
The one on the right must have been from the north, farther north than Eltaria’s northward neighbor. He was kitted out in the “hearty, fears-nothing” style that a lot of them favored up there—bronze breastplate, greaves and armbands, and not much else in the way of armor, short-sleeved brown leather tunic and leather trews that didn’t quite match, brown fur boots, a huge broadsword slung on his back instead of at his side as was common here, and no shield. He was blond, with his hair just on the attractive side of shaggy, a ruggedly handsome face with a square chin, high cheekbones and a broad forehead. He was also tall, incredibly muscular, and with that powerful aura that told Lily “The Tradition is going to pound this lad into his Fate like a blacksmith pounding a horseshoe.” And if it weren’t for the fact that there was acute intelligence in those guileless blue eyes, she would have dismissed him without a second thought except for how to get Rosa awake and out of there as quickly as possible, because he was going to be a complication. A Prince most likely. And not a stupid Northern Barbarian one. But probably a penniless one. A complication, and one she and Rosa did not need right now.
The first thing that struck her about the other man was the look in his eyes; the minute she saw him, she knew. This one is trouble. “Trouble” of the rakish sort. There was a merry devil in those green eyes, and the carefully tousled look of his long brown hair, the dashing set of his battered hat, only reinforced what instinct told her. For the rest—he was as rakishly handsome as the other was ruggedly handsome. He was somewhat lighter in frame than the blond, but then, nearly every man she had ever seen would be. His clothing had been very, very good once, but had seen a lot of hard wear. So, another Prince, probably, but one just as penniless as the first one. And on top of that, the sort of fellow who brought a swarm of problems in his wake. Another complication, and more dangerous than the first.
Had The Tradition at that moment appeared before her in a material form, Lily would happily have beaten it with a stick. Here they were, drawn in without a doubt by The Tradition itself, and without a doubt they both wanted Rosa. They wouldn’t listen to reason and how many more problems were they going to create besides the ones they brought with them? She didn’t know which Paths they were following, and inserting themselves into all the problems of this Kingdom could bring down disaster on everyone!
The two men saw her, then saw each other. Since she looked like herself, she was clearly not a threat, and for the moment, they dismissed her. But both of them recognized a rival when they saw one. Their reaction was instantaneous; they both rushed for the stone slab where Rosa was.
When the blond recognized that the dark-haired one was likely to get there first, he put on a mighty effort, jumped like a horse heading over a fence and threw himself in the air. But not at Rosa; at his rival.
He managed to tackle the man just as he was about to cross the circle of fire and both of them went tumbling into the underbrush.
Lily continued the spell, because the last thing she wanted for either of these fellows was to awaken Rosa with a kiss. Once awakened by her spell, Rosa would be much less vulnerable. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the two men wrestling each other; they rolled around on the grass like a couple of boys—this is more like a tussle than a serious fight. It seemed that neither of them wanted to hurt the other, so their efforts were confined to one attempting to get free and the other pulling him down. They weren’t even trading blows. And there was a lot of shouting from both of them. The blond seemed desperately to be trying to make a bargain of some kind. The other was having none of this, yelling “Bugger off! I saw her first!”
Lily was not going to allow any of this to distract her, and she had three hundred years in spell-casting behind her to give her every ounce of the discipline she needed. She sketched sigils in the air with her wand and punctuated each with a twirl that sent a swirl of dustlike sparkles soaring through the air. This was something of a signature touch for her; it was a characteristic of the magic that most with Fae blood had,
for Fae magic was visible even to ordinary folk. This was why stories were full of references to “fairy dust.” As the men wallowed and shouted at each other, she concentrated on her magic, as drift after drift of sparkling power wafted over Rosa, and the scent of roses, violets and lilies intensified.
She finished the spell with a final arc of power that hung over Rosa like a rainbow dissolving into mist; she knew that it had worked when she saw Rosa’s chest move. A few seconds later, the sleep spell wore off by itself.
For one moment, the men were silent, and in that silence, Rosa coughed.
Both men froze at the sound. Their heads turned as if they had been pulled by the same string, and they stared at Rosa, who was just raising her hand, slowly to her head. Her eyes weren’t open yet, but her eyelids fluttered. Lily sighed in relief. Whatever happened now, the men were both too late for The Tradition to make a hash of this.
Evidently however, they didn’t know this, or else they thought they were still in time to work the Traditional awakening. Both scrambled for purchase on the slippery grass. The dark one was just a bit faster than the blond. He squirmed away and leapt desperately for the groggy Princess, leaving the other grasping at where his heels had been.
Rosa did not so much fall asleep as…well, drop into oblivion. Her last thought, as she felt something very strange start to happen after drinking the potion, was to wonder, was I tricked by Queen Sable into believing she was Godmother Lily, who was impersonating Queen Sable, who—
Then, there was nothing.
Next, like a very heavy wagon being pulled by straining horses finally starting to move, hair by hair, she was aware the way a plant was aware, then her thoughts slowly formed again, floating up out of the dark pool of nothingness, following the path they’d been on when she stopped thinking altogether.
—was pretending to be Old Maggie, who was really—
She coughed, and her spinning thoughts came to a dead stop. So she hadn’t been tricked? She realized she was awake again, and lying on something hard and flat, laid out neatly with her hands folded on her chest. She felt warmth on her skin that felt like sunlight, smelled flowers, heard someone running—
And then, out of nowhere, felt a mouth mashed against hers and a pair of hands on her breasts.
There was a single moment of feeling strangely tingly and an unfamiliar pleasure that warmed her in a way the sun did not.
But only a moment. Then she was galvanized with outrage. Her eyes flew open; all she saw was the cheek and brown hair of someone she certainly did not know, who was taking liberties that no one other than a husband had any right to take. Rage added to outrage. She did the only thing possible for a spirited young woman under such circumstances.
All in an instant, she made sure of where his groin was, which wasn’t at all difficult considering how he was sprawled all over her. And she brought her knee up into it with all her strength. She was someone who had spent all of her life dancing, riding, walking, not a weak little thing that spent her days reclining on a couch, embroidering or listening to gossip. Her legs were strong, very strong.
The person taking the liberties was actually propelled over her head and off to the side by the force of the blow. As soon as his weight was gone, Rosa scrambled off the place where she had been lying. She tumbled from what turned out to be a stone slab and leapt to her feet, looking around herself for a weapon of any sort. She didn’t see one, but she did see the Godmother, whose right eye was twitching, and who had both her hands over her mouth, her wand sticking out at a comical angle.
Rosa staggered over to her side, and turned toward her attacker, but it was obvious that he was in no shape to take any further liberties, and probably would not be for a good while. He was alternating between gasping and groaning and was curled up in a fetal position with both hands tucked between his legs. She felt a moment of intense satisfaction, seeing him like that. Served him right, taking liberties with a girl he thought couldn’t defend herself.
Stifled laughter was leaking between Godmother Lily’s fingers. Surprisingly, Rosa felt a laugh bubbling up inside her, too, and she had to fight to suppress it.
There was a heavy, sorrow-filled sigh to her right; she glanced over, and realized there was a fourth person in this forest clearing.
A very blond, very large man picked himself up out of the grass and flung himself at her feet, babbling at her. She tried to sort out what he wanted, but his accent was so thick she couldn’t understand a word he was saying. For a moment, Rosa wondered if she had gone mad, and this was all some delusion or other. Or maybe Coward had hit her over the head and this was some sort of brainstorm. Why else would she be standing in the middle of the forest with the Kingdom’s Fairy Godmother and two men she had never seen before, one of whom didn’t seem to be able to speak reasonable Eltarian, the other of whom was a libertine?
But his words definitely had an effect on the Godmother. She stopped trying to stifle her laughter and sobered, but as the blond man tried to grasp her hand she stepped back and snapped, “Silence!” Rosa’s eyes widened. Granted, she had not seen Godmother Lily all that often, but she didn’t ever recall the Godmother using that commanding tone of voice before. Nor one so overflowing with irritation.
The blond shut up abruptly, his guileless blue eyes going very wide indeed, and Lily strode over to Rosa’s victim. She made a perfunctory gesture with her wand, one that didn’t produce any of the usual fairy dust; and the man stopped groaning and slowly began to sit up.
“I—” he began.
“Shut up,” snapped Lily. “Here is an order. I do not, ever, want to hear a sentence from you beginning with ‘I’ again. You very nearly ruined everything. So did you,” she added to the blond, who dropped his chin and looked up at them both with a hang-dog gaze. She contemplated them both; her expression softened just a little, looking at the blond. Rosa looked from one to the other of the men. On the one hand, she wanted to feel sorry for the blond, and he hadn’t yet done anything to her, but on the other, that was all she knew about him. For all she knew, he and the other man were confederates. She supposed that there might be a good explanation for why the dark-haired man had been doing what he had. She couldn’t think of one—all right, granted, she had been asleep, and the Beauty Asleep was supposed to be awakened with a kiss, but it wasn’t supposed to be that sort of kiss. “Both of you, get up,” the Godmother ordered, looking frighteningly stern. “Stupid, interfering—I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know where you came from, but since you managed to insert yourself into this situation, you are coming along with us. I strongly suggest that if you do not care for this option, you pick yourselves up, start running and hope I don’t feel like lobbing any curses at you. You might, might, be useful. But I am going to use you for target practice if you foul things up again. They are bad enough as it is.”
Rosa almost gaped with astonishment. She had never, ever heard the Godmother talk like this! Did Godmothers ever actually curse anyone? Was that allowed? Why was she so angry with them? If The Tradition had brought them here, surely that wasn’t their fault…was it?
Evidently neither man was intimidated enough to turn around and run. Either that, or for whatever reason, they had both decided that sticking with Rosa and the Godmother was very important. That probably meant that either The Tradition was beating heavily on their doors, or they saw an opportunity.
As soon as the blond was standing, a small, brown bird landed on his shoulder and twittered at him. The man listened for a moment, then spoke in a voice still heavy with an accent Rosa didn’t recognize, but at least she could understand him this time. “Aye, I agree. Maybe we had just better go find a kindly little shepherdess.”
She blinked. Had he been talking to the bird? And why would he need a shepherdess?
Lily fixed the big blond man with a glare that made him wilt. It was rather funny, actually, to see such a big man almost cringing in the face of the wrath of such a small woman. “Follow me,” she barke
d. “And don’t dawdle.” That didn’t make much more sense to Rosa than the man talking to the bird. A moment ago, Lily had told them to run…
Well they hadn’t run, so perhaps Lily thought she was stuck with them.
The Godmother stalked off into the trees, her lace-edged skirts swishing with indignation, down a path that looked as if it had only recently been beaten into the grass. Rosa followed her closely, the men at a discreet distance. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that her gown was definitely the worse for her adventure, and that the “bath” she had had was a sketchy one at best. Fortunately it seemed that the aroma of the flowers, and not something a lot less pleasant, was what was lingering around her as they passed single-file through what was a very wild forest. The trees towered above them, fifty feet in the air, at least. It was gorgeous, actually, with golden beams of light slanting down through breaks in the foliage, lighting up the peaceful, green gloom. It was hard to believe that this was the same forest that had so terrified her in the storm.
At the end of the path was a huge wooden cart pulled by two glossy brown draft horses waiting in a primitive track, a couple of ruts in the grass that led through a kind of tunnel through the trees. The rear of the cart was full of very small men in earth-colored clothing. Rosa was extremely happy to see the cart, but she wondered just how the two strangers were going to take being told to ride in the bed with the tiny people. They didn’t look like the sort who would take to that.
The Sleeping Beauty Page 7
