Fairy Tales For Sale

by Rosamunde Lee

“Meet Greython, bringer of death, who also has never failed.”

  “One will fail today,” she said, crossing swords with him.

  “Yes, Lady.” He said.

  Her eyes were green as leaves, and she was a fast and silent fighter, both things deadly. If Voel had any thoughts of mercy or gentleness because of her sex, he soon set them aside, for she pressed him hard and even wounded him in the thigh, which no man had done. He used his strength to try and batter her, but her skill was too great. He made sparks fly and dented both their swords, but neither of them lost ground. She would take no steps back toward her father’s couch, and Voel would stray no farther from it. They battled the sun across the sky until the light threatened to fall into his eyes and blind him. Voel could wait no longer but thrust hard at her, pushing her back. Her left foot slid and touched the earth, but her sword touched his throat.

  “Valkim has not failed,” she said.

  “Neither has Greython.”

  Voel’s sword tip lay between her breasts.

  She laughed at him, pressed harder, drew a drop of blood, “You will not kill what you have come all this way to possess, but I will kill a murdering thief.”

  Voel pressed, making her gasp and bleed.

  “I have not come all this way to lose what I desire. I will have you even in death.”

  She drew her second drop, “And what do you want of me, what your eyes see? You do not want me, but this flesh I wear. Take it, take both our lives, but you will never have me.”

  Voel’s blade pressed her a second time, “If I were blind I would still want you. I wanted you even when you were but a fragrance on a leaf. I would want you if you were old and ugly, because what I want in you will never change.”

  But she did change; tears clouded her green eyes, and she became old and bent, too weak to hold her sword. It fell to the ground. She dropped beside it and covered her face.

  “What have you done to me?” she cried.

  Voel knelt by her, his heart pounding in his chest, wanting to touch her, wanting to comfort her.

  “I don’t care,” he said, reaching for her with a trembling hand. “Only say that you will be mine, and I will be by your side forever. I will serve you as you have your father.”

  “Never!” she said, and ran from him.

  Voel followed her, but she was swift of foot like a gazelle. She ran into a maze of brambles. He followed as closely as he could, but the brush was thick. It tore at him with every move. He hacked at it. His sword caught in the branches as she slipped farther ahead. Soon he had to make a choice, either lose Greython or lose her, so he let go of his sword only to hear the low laughter of the brambles, see the blood pouring from the bones he had broken. These were not thorn bushes, but the bones of men twisted into the shape of shrubs. Thousands of lost lovers blocked his way. They closed in around him.

  “Hear me,” Voel called, “Love’s madmen. You would kill me thinking if you cannot have her then none should. But I love her as much as you. You were once mighty men full of honor. In memory of that, let me pass.”

  The thorn bushes held their places for a moment only, but it was enough. Voel struggled and regained his sword. With hard battle, he made a path through the brush to find a fountain at the center of a garden. There three women sat. A nubile girl with a lyre. A matron heavy in pregnancy who sang. And an old woman with a drum.

  “If you love me find me in all my faces,” the matron sang with the voice of the Rose Princess. “If you love me, dance.”

  Voel stood looking from one to the other. While the matron had the voice of the Princess, the young girl had her form and the old woman her scent. They were all her. How could he know?

  “Dance,” the matron sang, and Voel drifted toward her.

  The girl strummed her lyre and smiled so that he stumbled toward her. The old woman banged her drum and the wind picked up her fragrance, bringing Voel before her.

  Voel tore his robe and covered his eyes, stuffed his ears and nose with the cloth. With Greython in his hand he danced to no music, danced deaf and blind, flinging his sword, until he felt her.

  He pulled the blind from his eyes and saw with horror that he had stabbed the matron through her womb. All three women looked on calmly as the belly became transparent, and the child within became visible with three drops of blood falling from a wound. In a flash of light the women were gone, and only the Rose Princess stood.

  “Come this way,” she said.

  She led him back to her father. She sat by the old man.

  “I am vanquished,” she said, sobbing and putting her head on his knee.

  “That is good, my child,” the old king said, putting out his hand to Voel.

  “I will not kill you,” Voel said, kissing it. “I love her too much to destroy what she loves.”

  The old king smiled, “You do not have to. When you vanquished her, you broke my heart. I am dying and this is good. Listen to me, my Daughter, my bud. I have been cruel to you to keep you here all this time.”

  “No, father, no! I would stay here with you forever.”

  “You cannot, a rose is not a rose if it remains a bud, the beauty of the rose is also in its bloom and its fading and seeding. All these things must come to pass or you cannot live. This man has brought life to you.”

  “He has brought death!”

  “Death is life and life is death. They do not exist without one another. He too has come seeking life in you. You both must go out and never come in again.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “You must,” he said and closed his eyes. There was a great mournful wailing that filled the air, that came from stone and earth and wind for the King is the land and the land the King.

  Voel bowed his head in respect for the old man’s passing.

  “Go, now,” the Rose Princess said. “Let me mourn my father. I will come out to you when I am done. But I admonish you to eat nothing until you see me again.”

  “I will go, Lady, and do as you command and more. I will mourn your father’s passing with you, though we are apart.”

  Voel was good as his word: he left the garden of the Rose Princess by the seventh door. But the fool was gone. Voel knelt before the garden wall and made vigil for seven days. Every day one of the seven doors opened and a maid servant stepped out bearing a tray of food, but Voel would not eat. On the seventh day, the princess emerged with a golden tray.

  “Eat my lord and refresh yourself,” she said. She looked tired and wane as if she had fasted with him.

  Voel reached for the food on her plate. He gave her of it first, and she accepted the morsel with a sad smile. Then the sound of marching filled his ears. He drew his sword as the fool danced in with a cohort of armed men.

  “So, you have done it, great King of the Eight Lands. I knew you would do what none other could. I am the son of the Rose King, and this land is now mine. I claim my sister as my bride and take all that was my father’s.”

  “Fool, I have no more patience for you!” Voel shouted, putting his hand on Greython.

  “You are the fool!” the other said, tearing off his mask and clothes, revealing a young man close in beauty to the Rose Princess. “My father kept her here for himself, and from me. But you have set her free and given me my kingdom, for that I thank you and assure you that your death will be quick. Now, come to me, Sister.”

  The Rose Princess turned to Voel, saying, “See what you have done to me?”

  “My life is yours,” Voel told her, laying his sword at her feet. “Command me only to face this fool and his army and I will, for you who are worth dying for.”

  The Rose Princess met his gaze, “Voel has brought death to me but also life. So, I say, strike and free me once and for all.”

  Voel rose and struck with Greython, his unbeatable sword, which was hungry for blood. The lord of the Eight Lands confronted the men-at-arms, his heart never quavering as he stared into the face o
f his death. Then, suddenly, all seven gates of the garden flew opened and the thorn soldiers poured out and joined him in his struggle. Their enchantment ended, they pledged their fealty to Voel and fought well and with honor against the foes of the Rose Princess. With the army defeated, Voel was left facing the Prince. Though he was wretched and evil, the prince was trained with a sword, and his skill was not little, but Voel’s was greater because he was a king. He wounded the Prince again and again. As the Prince staggered near death, he shouted, with one last lunge:

  “She will be mine in death if not in life.” The Prince attacked his own sister. Voel moved to block the thrust and received the blade in his side, but as he fell, he removed the head from the Rose Prince with a terrible blow.

  The Rose Princess came to Voel where he lay dying on the hard ground and held out the promised morsel of food to him. She placed it between his lips, and his eyes closed from the sweetness of it as he was healed of every wound.

  “You have passed every test, my love,” she said, “and won my heart besides.”

  When Voel opened his eyes, they were inside the garden, lying upon a white silken bed with downy pillows. Above them a pleasant arbor covered with blooming red and white roses grew. Voel took the Rose Princess into his arms and kissed her. He cried out then in ecstasy, feeling his heart pierced by a bittersweet thorn that came from her body into his. This thorn’s name is True Love, and it does not pierce without being pierced and does not wound without being wounded. So, Voel Iversfore* and the Rose Princess, King and Queen of the Nine Lands, became one and ruled well until it was their time to pass away. Till this day, in their honor, when the wise are pricked by a rose’s thorn and bleed, they smile and shed a tear, for they know that somewhere in the world their true love bleeds too.

  * Voel Iversfore is an anagram for “Love is forever.”

  About the Author

  Rosamunde Lee live in Brooklyn, N.Y. with her husband and three cats. She has loved fairy tales since she was a little girl and cannot stop reading them even as an adult. She loves Grimm, Perrault and has read most of the Lang’s fairy tales over and over again until her head was full of them..

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