Her masklike face altered into the most subtle of frowns. “It is a song of Eanrin, Chief Poet of Rudiobus.”
“I know,” said the prince. “Believe me, I know.”
“It is the most renowned of all his ballads.” Her voice was as cold as a winter morning before sunrise, contrasting with the brilliance of her smile.
“I won’t dance to it,” said Lionheart. “It’s the worst verse ever written, and that’s saying a great deal for Bard Eanrin.” He started to go, but her hand suddenly tightened.
“Don’t leave me, Lionheart,” Daylily hissed. “Don’t leave me standing here.”
“I won’t,” said he. “You can return to the table with me until the musicians learn to play something bearable.”
“You cannot insult me like this. In front of the whole court.” No one watching them could have guessed at her words from the expression on her face. “You cannot.”
“It’s not an insult if you walk with me.”
“I will not.”
“There we are, then.”
“Dance with me, Lionheart,” said Daylily. “Or—”
“Or what? You’ll threaten me?” He shook his head and dropped her hand. “I’m not playing your games.”
With those words he turned and strode away. The singer faltered, but the musicians kept playing. Lionheart approached the table, meeting first the gaze of his father, then that of Baron Middlecrescent. The baron looked like thunder. Lionheart sank into his seat beside his father and took a deep gulp from his goblet.
“Lover’s quarrel?” asked Hawkeye.
“I hate that song,” said Lionheart with a shrug, setting his goblet back down. Then he sat upright, gripping the arms of his chair, his mouth dropping open.
For Foxbrush had made his way to the dance floor, taken Daylily in his arms, and whirled her away in time to that music beneath the warm glow of the lanterns. The musician sang:
“Sing ye of all the lovers true
Beneath a sky of sapphire hue.
In light o’ the love I bear for you
All theirs must fade like morning dew.”
And every one of Southlands’ barons saw it.
Lionheart knew what he should do. He should rise up, storm to the dance floor, challenge his cousin to a duel . . . or simply take Daylily from his arms, laughing it all off like a big joke, and dance away to that pathetic tune. Either of which would have satisfied her. Either of which would have satisfied the barons.
Lionheart pushed back his chair, not caring how it scraped and drew the attention of every man and woman in the room, nobility and servant alike. He bowed to his father with as much dignity as he could muster and withdrew from his own wedding banquet.
He hastened along the dim corridor, uncertain whether he was furious or relieved to get away. The passages were mostly deserted here, for everyone, even the servants, was busy back at the hall. He needed a few moments of peace. That was all. A few moments to collect his thoughts and reinforce himself before returning. He needed—
“Lionheart!”
He turned, and Daylily stood before him. The light of a wall sconce cast a glow upon her hair and lit her eyes ablaze in her otherwise still face. “Lionheart, how can you do this to me?”
Lionheart drew a deep breath before answering. It would be best not to shout. Even in these quiet passages, someone might overhear. “Do what, Daylily?”
“Desert me on the floor, in front of everyone. And then huff out of there like a merchant’s spoiled brat.”
“I told you. I don’t like that song.”
He could almost feel the pressure of her anger hitting him like a wall as she neared. Yet her face remained quiet as death. “Can you be so foolish, Lionheart?” she asked. Her voice was deep for a woman’s, strange coming from that dainty mouth. “Can you not have realized?”
He made no answer but allowed her to draw nearer until she could drop her voice still lower.
“Your life is not about likes or dislikes,” said Daylily. “Not anymore.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“You may become Eldest someday, but your power in Southlands hangs by a thread.”
Everything went still inside Lionheart. For the moment he had control of himself. He needed to grab hold of that moment now, with all his might, or regret it forever. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Daylily.”
“Don’t I?” She was so close now he could have reached out and given her a good shake if he allowed himself to. “I am the Baron of Middlecrescent’s daughter. I know what goes on in your kingdom better than you do, better than you ever have. Remember, you were absent those five years. You escaped.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it? If not escape, what was it?” Her words, though spoken softly, were harsh in his ears. “How did you manage to elude those years of enslavement, of poison? How did you manage to slip out when everyone else who tried was burned to a crisp? How did you time your little jaunt across the Continent so swimmingly as to return just after the Dragon had ceased to find our poor land interesting? If not escape, Lionheart, what was it?”
“You know why I left,” he said, his voice near a whisper. “You were there when I made my decision. You sped me on my way. I went to find the secret to defeating the Dragon. I left in order to help you.”
“Is that why you returned so boldly after the Dragon had torn apart your father’s house? After he ravaged your people’s lands? After he killed your mother?”
“Stop now. Stop.”
“No, Lionheart! You need to know what they’re saying about you. Friend of demons, that’s what they’re calling the man to whom I am betrothed. Bewitched.”
He snorted. “And you believe this nonsense?”
“How can I know what to believe? The Dragon did not harm you. He let you escape the poisons under which the rest of us suffered. Did you ever watch your dreams burn and die and burn and die again before your very eyes?”
I will give you your dream, whispered the cold voice in his mind. You will be Eldest of Southlands.
He grimaced, shaking his head as though to rid himself of that ever-present voice. “What do you want, Daylily?” he demanded. “What will it take to please you? That I fawn over you, that I jig to every nonsensical ballad that strikes your fancy, just for your amusement?”
“Not for my amusement, Lionheart. For my father’s.”
With an inhuman effort he forced back the words that threatened to spill like fire from his tongue. But she continued.
“It is only by his will that you remain Prince of Southlands. Have you not guessed it? Should the Council of Barons vote to disinherit you, your father will have no choice but to comply with their wishes. Or risk revolt.”
Lionheart’s mouth was dry. His veins seemed to pulse fire. “The Council has not been called.”
“Not yet. But it can and will be called faster than you can imagine should my father say the word. Can you really be so ignorant? Your father knows, though he may not let on. Should the Council be called, they will vote against you, and Hawkeye will appoint a new heir.”
Lionheart could not speak the name aloud, but his lips formed it even so. “Foxbrush.”
“I will be Queen of Southlands, one way or the other—”
Before she could finish, Lionheart grabbed her shoulders. It took everything in him to keep from shaking the teeth from her skull. Instead, his fingers dug into the furs draped about her elegant frame, and his eyes burned into hers.
“Don’t threaten me. Not now. Not after everything I’ve gone through to come this far. I won’t hear it from you, nor from your father. I am the Eldest’s only son, and I will sit on my father’s throne. There’s nothing you, your father, or anyone can do to prevent me from having what has been promised me. So keep your threats, my lady! You waste your breath.”
“Oh, Leo!” For a moment, her mask melted away. He saw a flash of true compassion, of sorrow, even fear.
“I am not threatening. I am warning you!”
His fingers relaxed in surprise even as Daylily lowered her lashes, shielding her eyes. When next she looked at him, she was herself again, cold and unreadable. “Do you think I want to see your fool of a cousin on the throne?”
Lionheart let go and backed away, turning from Daylily. She put out a hand and almost touched his shoulder but withdrew it at the last. “It need not happen as I have said. You can prevent my father from calling the Council.”
“How?” said Lionheart through clenched teeth. “By making a fool of myself before the court with displays of doting affection?”
No one watching could have guessed at Daylily’s thoughts had they seen her face. She swallowed slowly and blinked once. “That will not be necessary,” she said. “There is a much easier method of winning my father’s approval and the approval of all Southlands.”
“And that is?”
“Get rid of the demon.”
He turned upon her. She stood like a queen of old going into battle, her shoulders set and eyes hard. “You know of whom I speak.”
No words would come. His mouth opened and closed.
“Rose Red,” said Daylily. “That creature has bewitched you long enough. Have you not heard how she consorted with the Dragon? Have you not heard—”
“Not another word, Daylily,” he hissed.
“No, you will hear me!” she declared, and this time it was she who grabbed him, clutching the front of his shirt in a tight fist. “That stoop-shouldered monster has ensorcelled you since you were a boy. Don’t you think it strange that none of the rest of us is so enthralled by her? Have you not heard what my father has whispered into the ears of everyone in court? How the creature kidnapped me and dragged me back to the Eldest’s House to join the other prisoners. How she sacrificed your mother—”
He took her hand in both of his and wrenched her grasp away. “You lie.”
“Maybe,” she whispered, once more lowering her eyes. “But I would do much more, Leo, to see you dismiss her.”
Lionheart’s hands tightened painfully over her fingers, but she would not pull away. “You have always preferred her. She has always been your friend. And what of me? Was I never good enough? Must I be forever inferior to that . . . monster?”
“Rose Red is no monster.”
Daylily laughed. “Are you blind as well as a fool?”
“And I am no fool.”
He pushed her hand from him as though he would like to banish her from his presence. Daylily backed a step away and clutched her crumpled fingers to her chest. But she did not break Lionheart’s gaze.
“I will not dismiss Rose Red,” he said. “Nor will I see any harm come to her. She is under my protection as sanctioned by the Eldest himself. Even your father cannot gainsay the Eldest’s express order.”
“Not yet,” said she.
They stood in the shadows, lit by a solitary candle sconce, two specters in a haunted house. Far away, the music of the banquet continued to play as the people of Southlands celebrated the upcoming nuptials of their prince and his lady.
“Will you return to the hall with me?” Daylily asked.
“I will not.”
The Baron of Middlecrescent’s daughter turned and floated back down the corridor as silent as a shadow, vanishing around a bend. Lionheart watched her go, his mind whirling with too many thoughts to sort through. He turned blindly, continuing up the passage, taking the first turn up a servants’ stair.
He found himself face-to-face with Rose Red.
Moonlight fell from a window in the passage and lit upon her veils, making them luminous in the otherwise dark stairway. She was a phantom, a ghost of some troubled past, standing there in the silver light, her face shrouded, two porcelain pots clutched in her arms. Lionheart startled back. Then he growled.
“Did you hear?”
“Y-yes, my prince,” she whispered.
He pounded a fist against the stone wall, then leaned his forehead against it, sighing. “Rosie,” he said, “I was wrong to ask you to come back. I should have—they don’t understand.”
“They never have,” she replied. “No one ever has. Except you.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been unfair to you. It was wrong of me to have brought you here, to have asked you to leave the mountain.”
“But . . .” Her voice was very small, trembling. “But I’m glad you did.”
Lionheart shook his head. Imprisonment and despair closed him in on all sides. He must struggle for his dream. He must fight. He’d come too far to back down now. “I think I must send you back, Rosie. For your own sake.”
“No!” The agony in her voice startled him, and he took a step back in surprise when she suddenly went down on her knees before him, setting aside her pots and wringing her hands. “No, Leo, don’t say that.” He smiled a little at her use of his old nickname. She never called him that now that she was his servant. It wasn’t right. But somehow, it was natural coming from her, his oldest friend. “Send me away,” she said, “if it’s for your sake. But I vowed to serve you, and I won’t leave unless it’s what you want. I’ll serve you, however you need me to. If that means goin’, I’ll go tonight. Only let me help you, my prince!”
“Rose Red,” he sighed, taking her by the hands and gently pulling her to her feet. When standing, she was still scarcely more than half his size, though he was no giant himself. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. We’ll speak of this again after the wedding week is past. I cannot think now. I cannot make a decision. Try to stay out of sight though, as much as possible. I fear some harm will come to you. I don’t know if I could forgive myself were that to happen.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, her head bowed so that the hem of her veil reached to her belt. The belt was of faded red cloth, frayed with age, though among the frayed ends yet lingered glimmerings of gold. Once it had been a blanket, but years of hard use in the mountains had reduced it to no more than a rag. “Don’t worry about me. You have enough worries as it is.”
“Iubdan’s beard, yes!” Lionheart said. Without another word he stepped past her and continued on his way up the stairs. A cold voice rang in his head, a voice that no one else could hear, and he staggered as he went.
Rose Red watched him go, cursing her ineffectiveness. She looked down at the empty pots she had been on her way to fill with water, intending to arrange more greenery in them. How would withering rose stems lift her master’s spirits now?
She fled the passage, leaving the pots where they lay, and slipped unseen through the back corridors of the House. Rose Red had always possessed a gift for going unseen when she wanted to, and she avoided the other servants with ease. She escaped through a door and pelted across the near garden. In the struggling rosebushes, she thought she glimpsed many white blossoms, translucent under the moonlight. But when she drew near, they vanished.
Beana startled awake at the creak of the door. Other goats lazily opened their eyes, but Beana lurched to her feet and bleated, “Lumé, child! What’s the matter with you? Did you hear . . . Rosie, tell me, did you hear the Fallen One speak?”
Rose Red sank to her knees beside her goat and, wrapping her arms around Beana’s neck, plunged her face, veil and all, into the coarse fur. She began to weep.
Beana blinked. “Oh. Well, maybe it’s not that after all.” She shook her horns, muttered goatily, and knelt down in the straw. Rose Red shifted so that her face was now buried in her goat’s back. Tears soaked through her veil, so she removed it. She sat and sobbed, barefaced, in the darkness.
Beana chewed her cud.
When at last the sobs reduced to sniffs, the goat swallowed and said, “All right, child. If you can manage to talk without hiccups, tell me.”
Rose Red sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. Her face was nothing but shadows in the darkness of the shed, but her eyes gleamed like small moons.
“I need you to talk sense to me, Beana.”
&n
bsp; “Do I ever talk anything else?”
“I need you to tell me,” Rose Red said, “that I’m a fool.”
“If it makes you happy. You’re a fool.” Beana gave Rose Red’s ear a slobbery kiss. “Now, why don’t you toddle off to bed? You’ll feel much better after a night’s sleep, though you’ll have a fierce headache after all this weeping and wailing—”
“I cain’t seem to help myself!” Rose Red sucked in a long breath and bowed her head to her knees. “I cain’t seem to help lovin’ him, and I know that she don’t, but she’ll marry him, and who’s to stop her? And he’ll never see!”
“Never see?”
“Never see the difference! Between me and her. He’ll never see how I love him . . . because he’ll never see me.”
A long silence lingered in the goat shed. One of the other goats bleated, and several shifted. Otherwise all was still.
“Oh, Beana,” Rose Red whispered at last. “My mind plays such cruel tricks sometimes. I can pretend out a whole story of a prince who loves a girl, not because of her beauty, but because she loves him and serves him. Because she would give up everythin’ for his sake. And I can pretend his heart is so moved that he finds it possible to look beyond a face like . . . mine.”
Beana said nothing. She nuzzled the girl again, but Rose Red pushed her away.
“It’s stupid, I know. No one could ever love someone like me, and sometimes, well, sometimes I could just eat my own hand off!”
“Don’t do that. It’ll disagree with you.”
Rose Red turned and buried her face in her goat’s fur once more. Beana felt hot tears seeping into her coat. “Please, Beana,” the girl said, “please tell me to . . . to buck up or somethin’! He’s gettin’ married this week, and I’ve got to serve him, and I cain’t do that with all this dreamin’!”
Beana sighed and began to chew her cud again until the girl had finished her second, less stormy cry. When Rose Red sat up once more, snuffling and wiping tears from her cheeks, the goat said quietly, “The dreaming is dangerous, child. You start letting yourself live in dreams like that, and you’ll find yourself open to such evils. I’ve seen it happen time and again to those I loved. . . .” She shook her head violently, clanking the bell about her neck. Then she put out her long nose and licked tears from Rose Red’s face, allowing the girl to stroke her soft ears.