Briar Rose - Part 1 of 4
The roses of the briar hedge grow fat on blood...
Chapter 1
The roses of the briar hedge grow fat on blood. Succulent blossoms, ripe as forbidden fruit, they bid the passing traveller to reach out and pluck. But behind the blooms thorns sharp as knives have twisted and entwined their way through a century.
Men spy the towers beyond the briar hedge and set out to find the palace of dreams.
Here’s the scene: eyes pierced, mouths torn open, silent screams echoing into eternity, flesh clinging to stem and thorn, fallen standards, bones picked clean.
And the roses, never out of season, never out of bloom.
Chapter 2
In this place I speak to no one and no one speaks to me. I pass around on ghostly feet. Though my body lies in my chamber, I have learned the trick of wandering free of it. I have tried to talk to those who lie sleeping; they do not answer. If their spirits walk, I do not see them.
This palace is - was - the finest in the land. Nature has reclaimed the gardens, statues and fountains buried beneath thick vegetation. While the roses do not grow here, other once-cultivated blooms do. Nature stretches her green fingers up staircases, walls, and through broken windows. In the kitchens, the sleeping servants are thick with dust. Everywhere, cobwebs hang like tapestries, like veils, across passages, doorways, and the glass case of my coffin.
Chapter 3
This morning I hear a trumpeting from beyond the hedge. A fanfare for fools. There are the shouts of men, as always, and I know there to be a number of them. It will do them no good. An army once died in the thorns.
I take refuge in my body and escape the coming screams in sleep. When I awaken and step out of myself, I sense a shimmering in the air and leave my chamber, hurrying down to the gardens.
Something is happening. Beyond the palace gates, the hedge is opening up, revealing a narrow corridor.
“Magic defeats magic!” a male voice cries.
That’s when I see a woman chanting, arms raised. Men hang back, watching as the pathway is cleared.
I return to the palace, to the chamber of my mother and father, queen and king of another age. They lie, bare bones inside rotten clothing. For them, rescue is too late. I leave them and go from chamber to chamber shouting the news in my silent voice.
And though the sleeping may not hear me, the rats scurry from my path.
There is a great commotion in the gardens. From a casement, I watch men hack their way through the bushes below. One man stands above the rest in height and bearing. He gazes up and his eyes fall on mine before passing on.
The waking cannot see me.
All the men pause in their exertions and look up. Their gazes lick at the walls of the palace, and I wonder what they know of this place after so long, what the world can know, and what they think they shall find here.
I leave the chamber, skipping down to give my silent, invisible welcome. I have waited so long for those from the world beyond to come here, so long that all hope was gone.
The great doors scrape open. Sunlight spills over the threshold like water. A tall silhouette stands, sword drawn. When he steps out of the light and enters, I see that the sword in his hands drips with blood, scattering droplets like rubies. With a long stride, he vaults up the great staircase.
Men pour in like rats.
I take refuge in a darkened corner until the last enter; then I venture into the light. The bodies of the gardener and his son lie together. A red puddle spreads out, pooling around my ghostly feet. I leap away.
Their heads are severed from their bodies.
I turn to look at the path the men have cleared. How far will I get before my spirit is cut free of my sleeping body by the sharp blade of a sword? For one hundred years I have waited for life, only to find death.
On the path to the world beyond, I see her, the black-garbed sorceress astride a black horse. Her hair flies in the wind like night’s standard, a banner to lead the armies of Hades. Her black steed paws the ground.
The men around her gaze through the opening in the hedge, or look down on the old bones scattered on the dusty ground. They point and direct servants to root out the jewels and gold coins fallen from the pockets and purses of their predecessors. The servants reach into the hedge with care, crying out from time to time as a thorn opens their flesh.
“It was the blood,” the woman says. “The blood fed the spell.” She holds a briar rose in her hands, the edges rimmed in red.
Her escort glance at her, fear in their eyes.
“Don’t spill too much, my friends,” she laughs, looking on the men scurrying about below her. “Or the thorns may close up again.”
She turns back to look on her handiwork, this passageway through the hedge.
And for the first time in one hundred years another gaze meets mine.
Chapter 4
In the kitchens, a headless girl lies, skirts pushed up around her waist. Everywhere I look, the dead are piled or scattered.
I walk from chamber to chamber. Tapestries have been torn down. Spiders hurry to safety before they are flattened by careless feet. A clock is thrown to the floor. It has not counted time in a century. They search every bit of the palace, these men, looking for treasure.
“Look here,” one calls.
“No, here,” cries another.
The golden faces of coins flash in the light. One man slides two inside his clothing.
“Ah, now, we don’t want to be pocketing anything before His Grace has a look at what we’ve found.”
“He won’t miss a few coins.”
“I say he will.”
Daggers are drawn, a sword slides out.
“You know the way it works: we collect everything and it’s divided up after the Duke and his friends take their spoils. Now put it back.”
In the royal bedchamber, I weep as they slip the rings and jewels from the old bones of my mother and father. In my own chamber it is a different story. My body lies there still, under the glass case. I watch the Duke in dread, wondering at his plans.
“This chamber is not to be touched,” he says. There is a smear of blood on his long blond hair.
One of his men steps forward. “Will you wake her as the Necromancer advised?”
There is a smile pulling at the corners of the Duke’s mouth. “No. I’ve a mind to leave her be.”
“What will you do with her?” asks another. There are more than a dozen of them here, all looking down on the glass case. It has been wiped clean, polished with spittle.
“I’ll make her the greatest treasure of all. The Sleeping Princess.”
“Mayhap we should have left some of the others alive. A few servants and grooms or lords and ladies of the old court on display. The Sleeping Palace we could have called it.”
“The Sleeping Princess will do. How perfectly silent she is,” the Duke mused. “One might say, the ideal woman.”
Chapter 5
If I could throw myself from the top of the tower, I would do it. To be with those who have gone, that is my only wish. But a spirit cannot dash her head on the ground. I must stay here, unless my ghostly form can journey far enough that whatever connection there is between spirit and body is broken.
To do that, I have to pass by the silken pavilions of the Necromancer encamped outside the briar hedge.
I will not pass that woman. I will not look on her again or have her look on me. Will she cast a spell to bind me to my body?
I remember the long years of lying trapped in that sleeping form. Dreams were a paltry escape. And it came to me once, in that time when I could not step outside myself, that to be buried alive must be something like this.
Chapter 6
Servants sweep out the palace. Plans are drawn up to repair the windows and those places where the walls have crumbled.
Accustomed to silence, to a world devoid of companions, I seek out hidden alcoves to escape the overwhelming tide of the living. I hide behind giant tapestries only to see them torn down and hauled out by parties of sneezing men.
The Duke strides about passing judgement on what is to be kept and what disposed of. An army of workers attend to the gardens, and gradually statues emerge from the wild greenery. Diana once again takes aim with her bow and arrow.
Seated on a stone bench, I sometimes watch the gardeners. They talk among themselves, and in this way I come to hear of the Necromancer. That though the Duke dresses her in fine gowns and lays jewels and gold on her fingers, she is not of fine birth. She can see the dead, talk to them, get them to do her bidding.
“She’s not come here yet,” one elderly man remarks. “Prefers her tent. But he’ll install her, mark my words. She’ll have a fine room by the time winter comes. His new bride won’t be having any say in the matter.”
I leave them to their talk. I do not want to hear about the impending wedding.
Upstairs, in my chamber, the Duke is giving his opinion. “She requires the robes of a queen. And her face, do something with it.”
“A little rouge on her lips, and some to warm her cheeks, Your Grace,” one of new ladies-in-waiting suggests. Her countenance is a painted mask. I stood by her in her chamber as she applied a thick paste to the pits in her face.
“I fear it will take more than that,” he says. “And she should be lying on silks, on velvets. I want a new casket: this one is too plain.”
One of his men coughs. “Pardon me, Your Grace, but will we be displaying her in this chamber to a chosen few, or somewhere else where she can be looked on by the many?”
“I haven’t decided. Both ideas have merit.”
“A compromise then.”
“Perhaps.”
A maid enters, arms laden with bolts of silk. The Duke studies each colour and design. “This,” he says. “And this.”
“We could curl her hair, thread jewels through it.”
“Yes,” he says. “And I want the best goldsmith in the land to fashion her wedding ring.”
“About the casket, Your Grace, in view of the jewels that will be displayed on your dear lady, should there not be a lock to prevent the casket being opened by robbers? We must also consider souvenir collectors.”
The Duke ponders this. “Yes, you’re right. The casket must lock.”
Whispers and laughter draw me to another room where a few ladies of the court, newly arrived, are gathered.
“There’s no telling if she’s even fertile,” one points out. “After all, there’s no sign of her monthly bleeding.”
“Ah, but she is fertile. He asked Her, the witch, who proclaimed she was. For he was going to lie with the girl and see if nature took its course before wedding her, but the witch said, no, the girl was fertile. It was only that her internal clock had stopped ticking. His seed would quicken it without breaking the spell of sleep.”
“He’s got himself an obedient wife for sure. Always on her back, and never saying no. Just what any man desires.”
Chapter 7
Back in my body, I am a doll to be pulled this way and that. Warmth infuses me as I am lowered into a tub. Scented steam billows. I cannot open my eyes, but I can hear, I can smell. Water enters my nose and I sneeze.
“Bless you,” one lady says.
“Do you think she can hear us?” asks another.
“I doubt it.”
“Imagine she could, that for a hundred years she has been awake, only her body asleep. What a terrible existence that would be.”
“After a hundred years, she is more than likely addle-brained.”
“What would it be like to sleep for a century and wake up to a world where not one single face is familiar? Nor the customs, nor the fashions. Would she find it a very strange world today?”
“It is unlikely that she will wake up and answer that question.”
“She lives without food. How can it be?”
“Magic has her in its spell.”
“Magic more powerful than the Necromancer?”
“What woman gives aid to a rival? Mayhap she’s thinking His Grace will get bored with this one. No, the witch will like things just the way they are.”
Chapter 8
Tonight, I am disturbed from my dreams by light flickering on my eyes. I begin to sit up from my body when I see the Necromancer. I lie down quickly.
Too late. She has seen me.
“Come out and show yourself,” she says. “I know you can leave your body. A very good trick it is. I would do it too if I were you.”
I sigh to myself, but it is a mannerism, not a real sigh, since my spirit cannot expel air. I sit up and slip off the bier, passing through the glass.
“There,” she says and steps back, as though I move with an earthly body she must make room for. “Everyone calls you Briar Rose. But that is not your true name.”
“Tis as good a name as any. Everyone calls you the Necromancer.”
She smiles and I know that for the first time in one hundred years I am heard.
“You broke the spell of the hedge,” I say.
“The spell was dying. It fed on blood. Fewer men had come in recent years to feed it.”
“Then you’re not such a powerful witch after all.”
She laughs at this.
“What do you want of me?” I ask her.
“What? Are you not glad to have another to converse with after so long?” She takes a turn about the room, lifting her candle high to examine the furnishings. “Did you all walk about in spirit? Did you converse with other spirits?”
I don’t know what she wants of me. Surely nothing good. “No. I never saw another person leave their body.”
“So you have been alone for a century and you would wish your new companions gone?”
“You are not my companions by choice,” I say bitterly. “I am more helpless than a babe, for a babe can cry and show distress. I can do nothing. I am dressed and undressed, displayed to visitors, and to be married, and all of it against my will. And you have done everything in your power to aid him. Why should I be glad to speak to you when you are my enemy?”
“I’m not your enemy.”
“If you’re jealous of the marriage, why don’t you kill me? It would be an easy thing to do. Why, you could do it now, and I could be on my way to whatever place lies beyond this life.” But though I say these words, I’m not so sure I’m ready yet to die.
She shakes her head. Her black hair hangs loose and screens her face for a few moments as she turns to look at my body in the case. “I’m not jealous of your marriage. I have come here to help you.”
“If you won’t kill me, then you cannot help me. There’s nothing else I want from you.”
She turns back to me then. “Not even to walk in body among the living again?”
“As the new Duchess? Standing at the side of a man I despise? No, I don’t wish for that. At least now I can leave my body. On my wedding night, I will escape and stay far away until he’s gone. I have more freedom now than I would as a waking woman.”
“You are easily defeated by circumstances,” she remarks. “But you are right. You have more freedom now than you would awake and married to His Grace.” For the first time I have an inkling that her regard for him is lower than I previously thought. She reads my expression. “He is a man the world will not miss, except perhaps the sycophants.”
“Do you mean to poison him? Murder him in his sleep?”
“No, no.” Her smile is secretive. She turns on her heel and walks to the door. “Goodnight, Briar Rose.”
Part One of Four Installments. Art by Fusion Dreams. This is another story that’s been lying around for two decades unpublished. This year I took it out and polished it, finally finding a home for it on Substack.