Rose & Thorn

  He nodded, and we were silent for a while, thinking. Suddenly, Griff straightened. “You need to learn how to fight.”

  “It’s hardly a ladylike accomplishment,” I noted.

  He shook his head, not understanding.

  “I’m supposed to learn embroidery and to play cards, things like that. Polite conversation and one lump or two for tea.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s very boring.” I got to my feet and tightened the sash on my robe. “But yes. I do want to learn how to fight. You’ll teach me?”

  He nodded.

  At that, despite the danger we were in, I felt a sudden glow of happiness. He was so serious, so sober. He needed to be teased once in a while. “So you did run out of words just now.”

  He stared at me.

  I stepped closer. His face was so finely drawn; he didn’t have to speak for me to see what he was thinking. Now he had the faintest line between his brows, a frown gathering. “You might try smiling now and then,” I said to him. I’d seen his smile before, and it transformed his face from something stern and austere, like his father’s, to something completely different.

  “Rose,” he breathed.

  And suddenly I felt a little breathless myself. “I’ll . . . um.” I gazed up at him. He had a faint line of stubble along his jaw. “I’ll come to the stable for fighting lessons,” I said in a rush. “Every day after lunch. Will that be all right?”

  Yes, Griff’s nod said, his gray eyes fixed on me. It would.

  CHAPTER

  20

  ARNY, IT TURNED OUT, SPENT A LOT OF TIME WITH HIS jug, which meant he spent even more time snoring in the little room in the stable loft that Griff shared with him. He couldn’t blame Arny for the jug, given what he was. Not quite human. But definitely not an animal, either.

  And Arny’s fondness for drink gave Griff more time to plan his escape, with Rose and Quirk and Timothy, from the castle. He had trained most of his life to fight Story. He knew what he had to do.

  The horses had a fenced paddock outside the castle walls, where they could graze. While they were out, Griff took the opportunity, as he’d been trained, to scout the land around the castle. It was as he’d thought: empty grasslands, no place to hide. If they tried to run, the Forest would be their only refuge, and even with the thimble—he refused to think of it as his thimble—it might not let them in again.

  After bringing the horses back to the stable, he cleaned their stalls, forking up heaps of manure and straw and carting it to a pile behind the stable, and lugging buckets of water to refill their troughs.

  Once he’d finished, he had a wash at the pump outside the stable, put on his coat, and went to check on Quirk, who’d been moved by the healer’s assistant from the other servants’ dormitory. He found him in a closet that had been partly cleared to accommodate a small bed. It had one narrow window that let in a little light. After collecting a lantern and a cup of the herb tea that the healer had prescribed, Griff squeezed past a broom and a mop and sat down on the edge of the cot.

  He rested a hand on Quirk’s forehead. Still hot. Any plans to escape would have to wait until he was better.

  At his touch, Quirk’s eyes fluttered open.

  Griff shifted so that he could lift Quirk’s shoulders, then held the cup of tea to his dry lips. “Drink this, all right?”

  Some of the tea dripped onto the pillow, but Griff thought most of it had been swallowed. He used a corner of the sheet to wipe the spilled tea from Quirk’s face and neck.

  Quirk’s eyes were half open; his face was chalky white except for a flush over his cheekbones. His lips moved.

  Setting the teacup on the floor, Griff leaned closer. “Listen,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure if Quirk could understand him or not. “We’re in the castle. The one Rose was taken from as a baby.”

  “No,” Quirk said faintly. “Can’t . . . go to the castle.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Griff told him.

  “Too late . . .” Quirk blinked, then seemed to focus on Griff’s face. “Ah. Junior.”

  “Yes,” Griff said patiently, though he wasn’t a junior Watcher anymore. “Do you understand, Quirk? We’re in the castle.”

  A slight nod. “Get away. You must. Take Rose and Timothy and go.”

  “You’re too sick to travel,” Griff told him.

  “Go anyway,” Quirk said. His trembling hand groped over the blanket; finding Griff’s hand, he clung to it. “Go,” he repeated.

  Griff wasn’t going to argue with a sick man. Instead he picked up the nearly empty cup, gently raised Quirk’s shoulders, and made him drink the rest of the tea.

  “Something must have happened,” Quirk mumbled, as Griff helped him lie down again. “She went back to the castle.” His head moved on the pillow. “Why’d she go back?”

  Was he talking about Rose?

  Speaking of her . . . “Do you know what story Rose is supposed to be a part of?” Griff asked.

  Quirk muttered something unintelligible.

  “Do you know what she should be doing?” Griff remembered Rose’s words. “Or not doing?”

  Quirk blinked, as if he was fighting off sleep. “Spindle,” he murmured. His blunt fingers gripped Griff’s hand.

  “Spindle,” Griff repeated. A device of Story that had something to do with Rose’s curses.

  “Tell Rose.” The feverish gaze settled on Griff’s face again. “No, no, no. No. Careful.”

  “Be careful of what?” Griff asked.

  “He has the thimble,” Quirk whispered.

  “No, I have the thimble,” Griff told him. Seeing Quirk so sick was making him feel a bit desperate. He wanted to do something to help, but there was nothing to be done.

  Quirk’s eyes dropped closed and he fell into a deeper sleep. Griff rested his elbows on his knees and covered his eyes. Spindle. He still didn’t know what a spindle was, exactly. And Quirk wasn’t making much sense, but he was clearly worried about the thimble.

  Griff reached into his pocket and drew it out. As always, the silver felt cold, not warming at his touch. It seemed to weigh more than it should. It was important, somehow, but he didn’t know why.

  As he continued his fall from the precipice, the wind rushing past him turned icy cold, and there wasn’t any view at all. Only darkness.

  HALFWAY THROUGH THE morning, and I was finally primped and powdered and dressed in yet another pink silk gown and uncomfortable shoes. My mother was asleep—she seemed to sleep a lot—and my father was busy with other things. So I was in a sitting room with Miss Amity and Miss Olive. They’d been engaging in delightful gossip for an hour. Disgusted with it all, Timothy had stalked out, saying she was going to find someplace to practice her sword work. I got up and paced to the window. The tiny panes of glass were thick and bubbled, turning the view into a smudge of green-brown ground that blurred into the gray sky above it. I leaned my forehead against the window frame, closed my eyes, and for just a moment was back in the cottage with Shoe.

  Ah, Rosie, he would say, with his usual kindness. You’ve been out rambling again, have you? I’m glad you’re home.

  “I wish I was home, Shoe,” I sighed, and opened my eyes again. I wondered what Shoe would think of Quirk, and even more, of Griff. He’d be appalled by the state of Griff’s boots, I knew that much. He would like Griff himself, though. Shoe had been a wonderful talker; he would’ve had no trouble drawing Griff out of himself. I could imagine them, sitting on the front porch of our cottage in the clearing, talking, and then Griff would smile. . . .

  “What do you think, Lady Rose?” called Miss Amity’s shrill voice.

  I turned. The Misses, both dressed in pink silk like me, were sitting on elegant chairs at an elegant table. “What do I think about what?” I asked.

  Miss Olive leaned forward, clasping her hands under her round bosom. “We’re talking about that new stableboy.” She licked her lips. “He’s extremely handsome, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, he is,” Miss Amity agreed. “
Don’t you think so, Lady Rose?”

  “Yes,” I agreed promptly. From the moment I’d met him, I’d thought Griff was nice to look at. Now that I’d seen more of the world, I realized that he was . . . well, he was what Miss Olive had said. His hair had grown out a bit from its short Watcher’s length, and it suited him to be a little rough around the edges. His eyes were watchful, but the gray didn’t seem bleak to me anymore, but clear and keen. He had high cheekbones and a stern set to his mouth that changed when he smiled. . . .

  “Look,” Miss Olive said. “She’s blushing.”

  I put my hands to my cheeks.

  Miss Olive tittered. “She likes him.”

  “She can’t like him,” Miss Amity said chidingly. “He is a servant.”

  “Very nice to look at,” Miss Olive agreed. “And perhaps to dally with. But not for anything more.”

  I opened my mouth to correct them—to tell them that Griff wasn’t a servant, of course—but then I stopped. Maybe it was better if they thought he was. I knew that the ladies-in-waiting were really my guards, and surely Griff was being watched, too. If he was thought to be an ordinary servant, and not the trained weapon that he really was, he might not be guarded so carefully.

  Keeping an eye on the ladies, I ambled around the edge of the room, pretending to examine the faded tapestries that covered the black stone walls. “Actually,” I said casually, “I am dallying”—whatever that meant—“with the new stableboy.”

  “Ooh,” Miss Olive squealed. “Tell! Tell!”

  As if confiding in them, I stepped closer to their table and lowered my voice. “I’m to meet him after lunch today. In the stable.”

  “The stable,” said Miss Amity disapprovingly.

  “Well, I can hardly invite him up here, can I?” I asked.

  “That’s very true,” Miss Olive said. “She’s quite right about that, Amity.”

  Miss Amity nodded in grudging agreement.

  “Can you both keep it a secret?” I asked, to make it seem more like gossip, so they wouldn’t take it seriously. “Just between us ladies?”

  “Ooh, yes,” whispered Miss Olive after a glance at Miss Amity, who nodded.

  “And you’ll cover for me if anyone asks where I am?” I ventured.

  Miss Olive gave me wink. “Only if you’ll tell us what his kisses are like,” she giggled.

  Oh, dallying was kissing.

  The only other person I’d kissed before was horrible Tom from the village. Or, rather, I’d been kissed by him, and it hadn’t been at all nice. But with Griff . . .

  “All right,” I agreed.

  WHILE THE MISSES worked on their embroidery, I whiled away the time before lunch by examining the tapestries. They told a story, I realized, that began at the doorway and went around the sitting room, ending at the door again. The tapestries had an edging of entwined roses and brambles; the threads had once been bright, but their colors were faded now. One character was repeated in every panel—a tall girl with dark hair. The story seemed to begin with her father’s death. Then she was in rags, with three women haranguing her. Then a lovely, silver-haired woman appeared, and the tall girl was transformed—there seemed to be bits of gold thread stitched into her dress to make it shimmer. Then something about a lost shoe? My own Shoe had never told me this story—it wasn’t familiar.

  Oh. It wasn’t just a story, it was Story. I started again at the beginning, and when I’d gone around the whole room, the last panel by the door was the girl holding hands with a man who wore a golden crown. So the girl was supposed to end up with a prince of some sort, evidently. I wasn’t sure how that ending gave power to Story.

  “Isn’t it nice?” Miss Amity called from across the room. “The tapestry? Such a nice story.”

  I looked up.

  “Happily ever after,” sighed Miss Olive.

  Was that what it was? As I was scrutinizing the girl’s face in the last panel of the tapestry, Dolly and Sally came in the door, carrying trays laden with our lunch.

  “Ooh,” Miss Olive squealed, and she and Miss Amity set aside their embroidery.

  I pulled my chair up to the table and ate quickly. “Will you wait here, then,” I asked them, taking a last gulp of tea, “while I go to meet Gr—the stableboy?”

  Miss Amity nodded, and dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “We expect a complete report,” Miss Olive added, with another one of her winks.

  Blushing, I went out of the room and made my way outside. As long as I acted as if I knew exactly where I was going, none of the servants tried to stop me.

  At the stable door, I peeked in. A big man with a pig-snouted face and tusklike teeth was slouched on a hay bale, eyes half closed. He’d been with Griff in the Great Hall before, when I’d met my parents.

  “That’s Arny,” Griff said from behind me, then stepped past; I followed him into the stable. At the sound of our steps, a few horses put their heads out of their stalls to look at us. “I suspect he’s supposed to be watching me,” Griff went on, “and reporting in. But he’s drunk most of the time.”

  “Oh,” I said, fascinated. I’d never seen a drunk person before.

  “Ready?” Griff asked.

  “To fight?” I blinked. “I suppose so.” I looked down at myself. Pink silk dress, thin slippers. “I’m not exactly dressed for it.”

  Griff shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Fighting’s not about the clothes. Or the weapons, either.”

  “What’s it about, then?” I asked.

  “Will,” he said grimly.

  “Will,” I repeated. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Without warning, he moved. So fast. So fast. Grabbed my shoulders, shoved me until my back was against the stable wall, with his forearm across my throat.

  For just a moment, I was back in the village with Tom pressing himself against me, his rough kisses, and I screamed and flailed against the memory.

  Griff released me, stepping swiftly back.

  I covered my face with my hands, shaking, gasping for breath.

  “You’ve been attacked before.” Griff’s voice was steady, quiet.

  Still hiding, I nodded.

  He was silent.

  Firmly I pushed the memory of Tom away and peeked out from behind my fingers. Griff was studying me.

  “Because of that,” he said. He reached out, as if to touch my face, but stopped halfway.

  Yes. Then I found my voice. “He thought the beauty gave him permission. I tried to fight him.”

  “Like you tried to fight me just now?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I was . . . I was lucky, I suppose. Merry—she was an old woman I was staying with—she came in and stopped him, before . . .”

  “You were lucky,” he said soberly. He gave a half shrug. “But screaming isn’t a bad idea if you’re doing it to call for help, and not because you’re panicking.”

  “Have you ever screamed before? In a fight, I mean?” I asked.

  A smile lightened his eyes; then he turned away and took off his long coat, hanging it on a nail.

  “I’ll bet you haven’t,” I said.

  “No.” He started rolling up the sleeves of his ragged shirt. “Right, so the first thing is balance.” He shifted to stand ready.

  Kicking off my uncomfortable shoes, I joined him.

  He explained what to watch for, demonstrated how to move, and showed me how my pointy, hard parts—elbows, the edge of a hand, the tip of a shoe—should strike out for my opponent’s soft bits. I listened carefully to his instructions, and moved as he directed, but half of my mind was observing how intently focused he was. He was usually so silent, but he was very good at explaining the elements of fighting.

  He told me that anything could be a weapon.

  I laughed. “Anything?”

  “Yes,” he answered, with a sudden smile that made me feel happy all over. He looked around the stable. “Pitchfork is obvious. Oat scoop—” He picked it up and demonstrated how he’d use it to bash
an opponent in the head.

  “What about this?” I went to a hay bale and picked up a leather bridle and reins he’d been mending.

  He nodded. “Toss it low to entangle your opponent’s feet.”

  “Oh, very clever.” I stood with a hand on my hip and surveyed the barn, looking for another potential weapon. Hmm. “What about a . . .” My cheeks flamed into a hot blush as I remembered that I was supposed to be dallying with him. “What about a kiss? Can a kiss be a weapon?”

  He swallowed. Our eyes met. For just a flash of a moment I felt connected to him again, just as I had when he’d tried to lift my curse, and it was something beyond blushes and kisses.

  Then he looked away. He seemed distracted as he taught me what he called the City Kiss, bringing my forehead down hard across the nose of whoever was attacking me. “Lots of blood with that one,” he noted. “Gives you time to escape.”

  Yes, Griff, I thought. Very useful.

  But that was not the kind of kiss I was talking about.

  CHAPTER

  21

  GRIFF HAD NOTED ROSE’S PHYSICAL GRACE BEFORE, SO he wasn’t surprised to find that she had a natural sense of balance and a decided, confident way of moving, once she knew what she was supposed to do. She was unexpectedly strong, too, given her delicate appearance.

  That was good. She would need to be strong if they were to escape from Story’s plot.

  “Tomorrow we’ll work on grappling,” he said, when it was time for her to go back to the castle.

  She was sitting on the hay bale next to the sleeping Arny, putting on her shoes. She grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling. “What’s grappling?”

  “It’s . . .” He paused, gazing at her, forgetting what he’d been saying.

  Since she’d said the word kiss he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it’d be better if they didn’t get too close to each other. He changed the subject. “Do you want to visit Quirk?”

  “Yes indeed,” she answered, getting to her feet and shaking out her skirts. “Is he better? Will he be able to travel soon?”

  “Not yet,” he answered. He put on his coat again and led her across the courtyard, which was busy with servants going about their work, and into the castle. During the afternoon, when Griff had checked on him again, Quirk had been sleeping. He’d eaten something, though, the healer’s assistant had reported, and the fever wasn’t as high.