Free The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder Page B

stairs and out of the
château
. She would listen for their return hours later. They would murmur together about “the circle,” and about “him.” The strange plants in the herb garden were joined by more, and occasionally she smelled an odd, sulfurous odor emanating from Ombrine’s rooms.
    She feared witchcraft and she became more cautious, more alert. She prayed to Artemis for protection—and she began to carry a knife in her apron. She made certain she cooked every meal in the
château
, taking nothing from Ombrines hand. She thought of running away, weaving fantasies of fleeing to the village, locating Elise, and joining Monsieur Valmont in the colonies. Life there would certainly be preferable to life here. But she didn’t act; she was certain Ombrine would find them and punish them all severely.
    Life had become a matter of survival and it took all Ombrine’s resources to keep her people from dying of starvation. She no longer worried about mending and clean sheets. A turnip was as precious as an embroidered cloak.
    Although Rose was in more danger of dying then than she had ever been, the disastrous change in circumstances yielded a benefit: freedom. Ombrinedidn’t care where her stepdaughter roamed—as long as she returned with something for the family to eat. If Rose failed, Ombrine would fly into a rage and hit her.
    Thin, bruised, and nut-brown from the sun, Rose would stretch on her back in the rose garden after her days of hard labor, pray to her goddess, and listen to the roses.
    “You are loved
.
    “You are loved
.
    “You are loved.”
    She remembered a night long ago when her mother had promised her birthday magic and how that night had been Celestine’s last. She remembered how urgently her mother had wanted her to know that she was loved. Starving, destitute, and alone, she wondered why it was so important. Could love feed her? Could love protect her? If she was loved, why was she so close to death herself?
    She gazed up at the statue of Artemis and whispered, “Why is all this happening?”
    “You are loved,”
the roses whispered and that was the only reply.
    One dry spring afternoon in her sixteenth year, Rose was searching the deep wildwood for mushrooms. The limbs of the trees interlaced, creating canopies that shielded the loamy earth from the sun. Some places in the forest were so dark that she had to search by candlelight. She kept her candle,her flints, and her precious shoes in the bottom of her gathering basket. She had one pair of shoes left, made of splotched and tattered leather. Her rows and rows of lovely velvet slippers had disintegrated long ago.
    Her stomach growled with hunger. Her hands trembled. She usually found a treasure of little brown caps, but today, there was nothing and her hands shook harder at the thought of coming back empty-handed. Hunger made for anger and everyone was always hungry, especially Ombrine. It hadn’t rained all month, and crops were withering in the fields. The Marchands were lucky; they still had their silvery stream.
    The shadow that had fallen over the Marchands was spreading everywhere. The Pretender was massing his troops against the king. War was coming and the estates were hoarding what food they could manage to coax from the ground. Peasants and villagers had to fend for themselves and the pickings were getting slimmer.
    She decided to give up the search for the day. She was tired and hungry, and night was beginning to fall. She would stop at the rose garden for some solace and to prepare herself to face Ombrine with an empty basket.
    She was back on the grounds sooner than she would have liked. The ruined
château
rose in the gloom like a watchful wolf, eager to run some food to ground.
    Shivering, she walked past the statues of the two does, eager to rest for a few moments among the roses and hear that she was loved.
    She took one step. Then two. Then Rose threw back her head and let loose a shriek of terrible grief.
    Desolation.