"From time to time, several kings' sons came, and tried to break through the thicket into the palace. This, however, none of them could ever do; for the thorns and bushes laid hold of them, as it were with hands; and there they stuck fast, and died wretchedly." – Briar Rose; The Brothers Grimm
I am a fool, a complete fool. I am ten kinds of complete fool, each of which has a long line of ancestors unsurpassed in their foolishness.
Cale is dead. We are not sure exactly what happened. Perhaps one of the branches holding him had dried and withered in the sun, or one of the rats had gnawed it through. I suspect – though I would never say it aloud – that he threw himself on that thorn. He had been restless, I had noticed it. He said it was just his skewered ankle paining him, I could not see any blood but that does not mean a thing. Perhaps it was an accident, an aphid crawling in his pierced flesh, Richard complains of the brambles being infested with them. And perhaps the discomfort caused Cale to shift too far, too heavily and the thorn bit by chance too deep. Idrissa once said it would be the death of him.
I tried to comfort his mother. She wept, what else could she do? The body is too far in for us to reach. In a day, may be two, it will begin to rot. His mother must not see it. Idrissa is with her now, telling her. Idrissa understands; she was the first to make camp beside the thorns – when, more than ten years and less than a hundred, she smiles – she watched her son dying, then the slow discovery of his pale white bones and their burial beneath the Autumn mould. It does not help, she says, deeper than love are those briars and deeper than love will they die. So his mother will go back to wherever she came from – we never talk about home – and I will keep the watch for her.
Eight of the nine remaining, are almost glad that they are trapped so far in. Their mothers worry more than ever, faced with a constant reminder of mortality in the stiff body among blood-red roses. There are eleven of us who wait on, wait for, wait by the captives; nine mothers, one recently bereaved, Idrissa, and myself – I am Richard's waiter. He is the closest, I can touch the tips of his outstretched finger if I try, I have not in a long while now. He complains and when he does not complain he sings. Cale talked, and wondered, and made me wonder too. It is Cale whom I am betraying Richard for, so I am told. My feet keep returning to one place by the thorns, and my mind never leaves it. I speak but I do not laugh, I smile but I do not cry. My eyes turn blank for no reason, yet everyone knows why. The others see it and they talk and it hurts Richard, so he says.
Sometimes I wake at night, in the blackest hour before dawn, and hear them whispering; a quiet murmur hidden within the creaking, groaning thorns that terrifies me. I should not be awake and I know it, it is their time. Richard would never forgive me if I heard their council – I am not sure if Cale would have cared. I will never know – but I agonise over what they might be saying. Their soft sibilance twines through their prison, closer than their families, more intimate than a lover. The whispers wrap each one in binding brotherhood, it consoles them, heartens them. Deep in the dark, the ten now nine tell each other of bravery, told Cale his soul would fly safe to Heaven if only the thorn were to still his worldly heart, perhaps.
Richard swears that they know nothing, but I do not believe it. My lack of faith terrifies me as well.