The Rose

by Tiffany Reisz

  Even if he didn’t know himself, she knew him.

  “I am Perseus,” he said. “And there is no time for tears now, my lady. I am a son of Zeus by a mortal mother. I have slain the Gorgon and I will slay your Cetus. Surely that will make me an acceptable suitor.”

  “Death alone is my suitor. This is my last night on earth. Leave me to the evening stars. I will never see a morning star again.”

  He smiled, and on any other man she would have called it too proud. But he wore it well.

  “Dry your tears, my lady. You may live to see the morning star, after all. And I hope from my bed.”

  She would have laughed at him but for the earnest tone of his voice.

  “Save me,” she said, “and I will marry you tonight. My father would far prefer to pay a bride’s dowry than hold a funeral banquet.”

  “Stay brave, Andromeda,” he said. “I will come to you again.”

  She meant to speak and wish him well, to thank him for trying even if he failed. But that was when the monster rose from the deep.

  Lia screamed.

  The beast was enormous, rising and writhing from the water. It had flesh like a week-old corpse, bloated and gray, a thousand teeth in a head large as a house, and huge eyes, big as a soldier’s shield. When it screamed, birds fell from the sky, felled by its foul and poisoned breath.

  She would have fallen to her knees if the chains had not held her. But Perseus did not pause once, even to take in the enormity of his task. He mounted his strange horse and, with a cry and a kick and a beating of wings, they rose into the air.

  The beast, Cetus, snapped at the horse as it flew around its head. And despite her terror, Lia couldn’t look away.

  Artemis, guardian of virgins, protect this man who dares to guard me from certain death. If he has his way, I will live and, by dawn, no longer be under your protection. But as I am a maid still, I am your maid, and I beg of you, protect this man.

  Did Artemis hear her prayer or did Perseus defeat the beast all on his own? Or was it Zeus who intervened to save his half-mortal son? She could not say. All she recalled ever after was that one moment Cetus’s head and body danced side to side, snapping at the horse and its rider like a scorpion. And then it simply...stopped.

  It went still as a statue. And nothing had scared her more than that moment when everything, even the endless rushing sea, went completely and utterly silent.

  Then the beast began to crumble.

  A fin fell from its back. A tooth broke out of its head. Piece by piece it came apart, like a stone watchtower in an earthquake. Perseus, she saw, held something in his hand. A horrible thing, so hideous that to look on it would turn anyone to stone.

  Lia closed her eyes, closed them tight, and waited.

  She did not open them when she heard the beast’s shattering cry. She did not open them when she heard a thousand voices rising in a cheer. She did not open them when she heard hoofbeats on the sand.

  She heard the voice of Perseus whispering into her ear.

  “Andromeda, the gods have spared you. Open your eyes.”

  She obeyed. How could she not?

  “I am saved?” she wondered. Perseus stood before her, hands on either side of her body. Sweat and seawater drenched his hair, and there was blood on his tunic. His skin was flushed and his eyes wild with victory. She had never seen a more beautiful man.

  “Yes, my lady. You are saved. I saved you for myself. Am I yours?”

  She smiled. “As I am yours, my lord.”

  He brought his sword, gleaming and gold, and with it he broke her chains.

  Next, he pulled off his tunic and helped her into it. She stepped forward off the rocks and nearly stumbled in her relief and her shock. She clung to his bare chest, his arms, and felt the flesh of him under her cheek. The mad pounding of his heart betrayed that he, too, had fought in mortal fear.

  “You are safe now, my lady. Now let us go rejoicing into the city. You will be my bride by morning.”

  “I can’t... I can’t stand.” Though she believed him when he said she was safe, her body would not obey her commands to move, to walk, to accept she was free.

  “Then you shall ride.”

  He lifted her like she weighed nothing and set her on the back of his winged horse. She took hold of the bridle and Perseus led her and his beast from the edge of the water up the path to where the guards waited and stared, and the citizens of the city waited and stared, and her father waited and stared, and her mother stared and wept.

  “Andromeda...” her father breathed as he came forward and touched her bare foot with his hand.

  “I live, Father. I live. And you have this man, Perseus, to thank.”

  He looked at Perseus, shining like copper in the light of the guards’ torches.

  “How can I repay you for my daughter’s life?” her father asked, eyes wide and beseeching. She had never seen the mighty man so humbled.

  “With her heart,” Perseus said. “I will wed her tonight.”

  “She was...before all this... She was to be wed to her uncle, my brother Phineas.”

  “Where is he, then?” Perseus demanded. “Was he the man who slayed the serpent of Poseidon and saved your daughter? Or was it another man, perhaps?”

  Her father nodded. His word was law.

  “You shall have her,” the king said.

  “Yes, he shall,” Lia confirmed. “But not at your word. At mine.”

  “I wish you luck with her,” her mother said. “With a tongue as sharp as hers, you will need your shield as much as your sword.”

  “The most beautiful maiden in this kingdom and the next wishes to have me as her husband,” Perseus retorted. “What man can ask for more luck than that?”

  Chastened, her mother dropped her gaze to the ground.

  At the top of the path, where sand met stone and the palace loomed, Perseus took a torch and stood upon a high step. To the waiting assembly, he called out in a voice deep as thunder, strong as lightning.

  “I am Perseus, son of Zeus by a mortal mother, and tonight I have slain the serpent to save your princess and your kingdom. Tonight, I wed Andromeda. Tomorrow...ah, tomorrow you will not see us. And perhaps not the day after, either. The gods saw her beauty and her courage and chose to reward it. Your kingdom is saved and, far more than that, your princess is saved! Rejoice!”

  A cheer rose up, so loud it shook the rafters of the firmament. The stars shivered. Lia shivered. Perseus took his winged horse by the lead rope once more and guided her into the palace grounds. Behind them people streamed in the gates, singing and dancing and wailing in joy. Every torch was lit. Every voice cried out to bring food and wine, to light offerings at the temple, to rouse all the children from their beds.

  Perseus led her and his steed all the way up the high stone steps and through the open palace doors.

  “You!” he called out to one of Andromeda’s maids who had hidden herself in the palace to mourn her lady in private. She came forward, joy in her face.

  “My lady,” she said, and it was all she could say.

  “Yes, your lady is saved,” Perseus said. “And I saved her. And she is my bride. Go prepare a chamber for us. And then make yourself scarce. I will see no face but hers until morning.”

  Into the great glittering throne room, the people poured cheering, amazed by the sight of a horse with wings, at the man who dared name himself a son of Zeus, at the sight of their princess, still living and breathing, and at the madness that, though they had planned a funeral, they were attending a wedding instead.

  Her father uttered a few simple words that acted as a magic incantation. One moment, she was a daughter. The next moment, she’d become a wife.

  It all happened so quickly that Lia didn’t realize it was over until she was being led upstairs to the chamber Perseus had ordered prepar
ed for them. Up the wide stone stairway, servants with torches ahead and behind her. Outside the palace, in the streets and the hills, fires bloomed like anemones in spring as word spread that the princess had been saved, the kingdom had been saved.

  But if she had been saved, why did her heart beat so hard? Hard as it had when she’d been chained to that rock? Was this fear she felt? Fear of her new husband? Or something else that felt like fear and made her heart beat wild as fear...but far sweeter?

  The chamber the servants brought her to, she had seen before but never slept in. A chamber for honored guests with a bed large enough for three, swathed in white netting and heaped high with red pillows fringed with gold. The lamps had been lit and the room glowed warm and bright. She looked at the window, the wall, the tapestries, the bed and floor, even her own hands and feet, and thought, I should not be here.

  Her maid brought her water, washed and perfumed her face and hands and feet and helped her into a simple gown of white.

  The maid had just finished taking down her hair when the door opened and a male voice said simply, “Out.”

  She glanced once into Lia’s eyes before bobbing a quick bow and departing without a word.

  Alone with Perseus, Lia caught herself blushing. Surely any moment now this...what? Dream? Memory? Hallucination? Surely it would end.

  Perseus stood before her, resplendent in his red wedding cloak, gazing at her with August’s eyes.

  “How are you, my lady?”

  “Alive,” she said, then smiled.

  Then she cried.

  She hadn’t meant to weep. Surely, she’d spent all her tears on that rock. And this was her wedding night. She’d been saved by a son of Zeus. He would be furious at her tears, expecting gratitude at the very least, worship more likely.

  “Poor lady,” he said, and took her face in his hands. “Why do you weep?”

  “I’m still afraid.”

  “Of me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

  He smiled at her, and she knew she’d never seen a more handsome man.

  “Nothing to fear. And nothing to forgive.”

  “You are gracious,” she said, swallowing tears.

  “Here.” Perseus lifted a corner of his cloak to her face and used it to dry her cheeks. Her father had done the same a thousand times as a child. Then Perseus wrapped the cloak over her nose and said, “Now blow.”

  Lia burst into startled laughter.

  “Ah, that’s better!” He smiled like the sun she’d thought she’d never see again.

  “My husband is...strange.”

  “Forgive a little foolishness,” he said. “I would face Cetus again to make you laugh.”

  “No need,” she said, and laughed. “See? All you must do is ask.”

  “Is that so?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, not so broad as August’s but in ten years it would be. He furrowed his brow and gazed down at her, his face so serious she could hardly stop herself from laughing again.

  “It is, my lord.”

  “I say laugh and you laugh?”

  She laughed.

  “I say smile and you smile?”

  She smiled.

  “I say swoon and you—”

  She fell into his arms in a faint. He wasn’t expecting it and almost didn’t catch her in time. But he did and he held her, laughing so loudly they must have heard him in the streets.

  “What will they think of us? These are not the sorts of sounds that should be echoing from a bridal chamber. They’ll think we’ve both gone mad.”

  “We have,” she said. “Haven’t we? I think I have.”

  She put her hand to her forehead and sobbed through a smile.

  Perseus held her close and caressed her hair.

  “Cry if you have need of it. I will wait.”

  “You deserve reward for your heroics,” she said. “Not a bride who can’t stop weeping.”

  “I am a stranger to you.”

  “What husband isn’t to his wife on their wedding night?”

  “Oh, I can name a few,” he said. “But not us. Though I would not like to stay a stranger to you. Perhaps we could be...friends?”

  “You saved my life. And the kingdom. I will withhold nothing from you. Certainly not my friendship.”

  He lifted her hair off the back of her neck, stroked her cheek with careful fingers, careful not to hurt her, careful not to startle his skittish bride.

  “Shall we be close friends?” he asked. “The best of friends? Intimate friends?”

  “No foe has ever risked his life to save me as you did.”

  “Then we’ll be friends,” he said. “As only soldiers who fought side by side in the same battle can be friends. Friends who would die for each other. Friends who would ask anything of each other.”

  “Ask anything of me,” she said.

  “Would you lie with me? Now?”

  She nodded, no hesitation, though the fear was in her heart again.

  The bed was high on its marble pedestals and he had to lift her to put her on it. She sat on the edge and watched as Perseus, her husband and her friend, took off his clothes. It was done quickly and simply. She turned away, blushing.

  “No.” He took her chin in hand. “We are friends, remember? We have battled together and defeated the Cetus. We cannot be shy with each other.”

  “Ah,” she said. “But it was only my first battle.”

  “Not mine,” he said. “So I will teach you how to fight. As friends do?”

  She looked at his face. That she could do without blushing.

  “Give me your hand,” he said.

  She held out her hand and he caught it and kissed it.

  “Is this how soldiers behave in battle?” she asked.

  “Oh, but you would be surprised.”

  “I have heard stories,” she said. “You hear things from servants when they think you aren’t listening.”

  She stared steadily at his shoulder. Her fingers were in his hands, his thumbs rubbing her palms.

  “Do you know what happens between us tonight?” he asked. “Have you seen it happen?”

  “I...” She laughed, nervous. “Horses in Father’s stable. The groom couldn’t cover my eyes in time.”

  He dropped his head back and roared a laugh. Gods, what those listening out in the hall must think...

  “If horses are what you’ve seen, then you’ll either be relieved tonight or very disappointed.” He glanced down, and she did, too.

  She shook her head.

  “Well? What is it? Relieved or disappointed?”

  “Relieved you aren’t a horse from the waist down? Yes,” she said. “I’d rather we not have centaurs for children.”

  “Not disappointed, then,” he said. “Good. Very good.” He kissed her hand again, met her gaze. “Perhaps...pleased?”

  As she looked into his eyes and he into hers, he lowered their joined hands and wrapped her fingers around him. She tensed in surprise, blushed deeper. He was hard in her hand, hard and soft at the same time. The flesh was soft, smooth, like a woman’s skin, but stiff, a core like iron.

  “There,” he said. “Like that.” With his hand around her wrist he guided her fingers where he would have them go. Around the center of the shaft, holding firmly. Then he let go of her wrist, but she did not release him.

  “What do I—”

  “Just touch,” he said softly. “That’s all.”

  With both hands she lightly, ever so lightly, stroked his organ. It was upturned, which she’d heard tell of—one of the girls had joked that the statues in the courtyard were never happy to see her. Upturned and moving, shifting in her hand like it had a will of its own. She pushed against it and it pushed back. Perseus made a sound in his throat, a pained
sound, and she looked at him, questioning, but he replied, “Don’t stop.”

  He seemed to like it when she gripped it, so she did again, and he inhaled once and sharply before laughing at himself. As she stroked him he touched her hair, her cheek, with his fingertips. His gaze was intent and almost tender.

  “I will put it inside you,” he said. “You understand that?”

  “I...think so?”

  “From where you bleed,” he said. “Do you bleed?”

  She nodded. How strange it was to talk of these things with a man. For her whole life it had been forbidden and now, with the speaking of a few words, it was no longer forbidden but, it seemed, required.

  “For some time now. Father’s turned away all the suitors. His brother made the best claim on me.”

  “Until I made a better claim.”

  She smiled, kept stroking. The flesh was darkening. He had thick hair around the bottom and a line of it to his strong navel. She touched it, the hair, with the back of her hand and found it soft and warm.

  “It may hurt,” he said. “When I go inside you.”

  “Will it?”

  “You’ve heard it will. Surely.”

  “I have heard. But those are women who...”

  “Who what?” he asked. He tugged her earlobe to make her smile.

  “Who didn’t want their husbands,” she said.

  “And you do?”

  She dropped her gaze to the floor, embarrassed.

  “Speak true,” he said. “Do you?”

  “I think I do.”

  “The place between your legs, does it ever ache?” he asked.

  “Ache?”

  “To be touched? Do you touch it yourself?”

  “My lord?”

  He grinned. “Do you ache now?”

  “I...”

  “I want you to ache,” he said. “And the gods do say women feel more pleasure in the act than men. When there is pleasure, that is, women have the better time of it.”

  “Do we?”

  “You will see. I will make certain you see.”