I do not own The Inheritance Cycle.
The piece of poem below is called Romance of the Rose by William of Lorris, John of Meun, which I picked at random and wrote a short story around. I'll let you know now that I will not bother to try to write poems its simply too much work. Stories I will do- poems not a chance. This is a short story and ends the sort of series I've been doing on Rose and Ilbert, though I will write a thing from Ilbert point of veiw later. A hergaut is a style of cloak with lons full sleeves. This taked place about a year before Chapter 1.
Enjoy,
Dear Little Roe
Rose looked up at the tower of books with a sigh, behind her she heard Cordelia chide her to not sigh as it was quite unladylike. Just to annoy Cordelia, she sighed again and pulled out, at complete random, a small book not much bigger than her hand. The book fell open in her hand to a page, illuminated in bright inks and gold leaf, with an untitled poem written by an elegant hand. On the facing page was picture of a landscape, with a silver river winding away through green fields mountains ghostly in the distance. In the foreground kneeled two young maidens both with an arms full of flowers and blossoms intertwined within their plaited hair, also with them a young man playing a flute, his head bent in concentration.
She began to read the poem silently, moving her lips as she read:
Woman should gather roses ere
Time's ceaseless foot o'ertaketh her,
For if too long she make delay,
Her chance of love may pass away-
An icy splinter seemed to have lodged in Rose's heart as she read and before finishing the poem, she snapped the book shut and placed it forcibly back on the shelve. She turned away, her skirts swirling around her legs threatening to entangle her within their vastness of silk and lace, and walked briskly out of the Libraries. No one stopped her, it was very likely that Cordelia was quite glad to see her go, but even so the sound of pursuing footsteps were heard. She looked behind her and saw the guard, Wyn, as she had thought she might, following after her. She turned away, and hastened her steps.
The castle was eerie and deserted, as it always seemed to be in the winter months. The palace was usually a busy place, where people lived and made things and ate, but this time of year most of the inhabitants left for the warmer air of their winter manor. She wandered down the endless grand halls, around the pillars of stone and iron so big that the columns marched into the distances, and past many countless deeply set doors. At last, she came to the door she wished for, and with a sigh of relief she swung it open, breathing in the fresh air.
The sky was clear and painted in brilliant colors of gold and red, as the sun had clearly set moment before. She bit her lip and squinted through the blinding light reflecting from the snow. Before her glittered a long snow covered slope, muddling dugout paths carved out the artless fallen flurry allowing those who pleased to stroll the barren gardens, between this two low stone walls which met together farther down to form an arch.
Rose hastened her step, almost to a run, down a familiar path. Someplace between the tunnels of crawling ivy and the mazelike turns near the large courtyard where Lords and Ladies often met in the warmer months, the guard trailing her must have had taken a wrong turn as she no longer heard his deafening footsteps. Sometimes she would pass leafless beech and larch, and saw winter detritus of dead weed poking bravery out of the snow. Once, winding through the winding ways of the gardens, she emerged into a tiny court in which there was a marble fountain, with a brass statuette of a beautiful woman holding a ewer, out of which water once poured into a great pool. The brass woman was covered in a white mess of snow and the empty pool around it was clogged with died leaves. A cold wind made a thin whistle as it blew through the through the gasps of the structure.
Nothing stirred within her as she looked around the bleak, wintry absence. This cold, deserted place hardly matched her few memories, which were filled with color and light and delight, and once, and this something she scarcely thought about, a horrifying event. The bleakness filled her with an overpowering sorrow, yet she stood there as long she could bear the cold, breathing in the fresh air. The wind blew harshly, scattering snow and rustling the branches of the shadowing oak above her head, and an object swayed between arms of the sculpture blew in the wind.
She saw with a gasp of astonishment that an old, torn silk slipshoes was attached to the brass woman by a length of trimming, and she walked to the edge of the fountain and gracelessly bound over the edge. The leaves crunched under her feet, and she could feel the stems through the flimsy material of her slippers, as she wadded leafy pool. Rose had to stand on the tips of her toes to reach the slipshoes attached to curled hair of statuette. After fumbling with the ribbon to untie it, she decided it was that the light from the day had faded far too much and she yanked hard on the band until it broke and the slipshoes were sent scattering into the mass of leafs.
Rose kicked around in the leaves until she found the rutted slipshoes, and when she did she quickly snatched them up and hurried out of the pool, visualizing large, hairy spiders. Nearly laughing at herself for her foolishness, as there were no spiders crawling about in iciness of winter, she turned the shoes over and something fell out of one of them and went clattering onto the icy path into a swelling of snow. Without a delay, Rose chased after the object and stuck her hand into the snow, nearly squealing as she did so. It did not take long for her to pull out the object. Rose quickly pulled her numb hand out of the icy mush and turned the object over twice before clenching her hand and hiding it from view.
A vivid vision came to her mind of a young boy with curling hair, a teasing smile on his lips, as she threw the wooden toy at him. The toy had hit him on the head and left an angry mark on his forehead. He had been so angry with her that he had taken her slippers from the fountain, where she often placed them, and tied them together before placing the toy and her slippers out of her reach. She had walked back into the palace barefoot and gotten a thumping from Cordelia which completed, as the boy said jokingly the next time they met, his revenge.
"It's dreadfully cold out here, is it not, Muirgheal?" said a voice at her shoulder. Rose jumped with shock and turned around. Ilona was standing just behind her, her blonde hair swept up into an elegantly misshaped, beaded hat. "You were thinking no doubt about my brother?"
Rose saw no point in dissembling. "How is he fairing?" she said. "I have not heard from him in quite some time."
Ilona smiled, it was the very same smile that her brother often adopted when he about to do something incredibly foolish. "My brother doing as well as expected," she said, "though it'd help if he were not diverted by your countless letters."
"Is there a reason you are out here?" Rose asked, feeling her irritation rise. "As you said, it is dreadfully cold."
"I was following you," Ilona said with a shrug. She looked around the small court with a look of distaste. "You and Ilbert met here a quite a few times, yes?"
Rose narrowed her eyes. "Several," she said. "There must be a reason you were following me."
"There is," said Ilona, standing taller. "I heard about Tornac and his loss, and I wished to pass my condolences through you seeing that he left. It must be difficult knowing that someone you hardly trust is now following after where a trusted friend once had. Is his absence troubling you something terrible?" She waved her hand in the air. "I only ask because you seemed to be a dire state, when you running down the halls."
Tornac had left weeks ago to return to his childhood home to mourn the passing of his brother. He left Wyn to work in his absence and he was, thought Rose glancing about in search of guard, doing a shameful job.
Rose took a deep breath through her nose and clenched her fists tightly to her side. "I'll make sure to pass along your commiseration to Tornac, when I see him next," she said, her voice was as chilled as the air. "Is there anything else I might pass along as I seem to be playing the part of a messenger?"
Ilona looked up thoughtfully, her tongue wedged between her teeth. "There is not a thing that I can think of at this moment," she said. "Would you like to walk back with me? It's dreadfully dark and you're shivering something awful."
It was getting dark. The stars dotted in a hard brilliance over a deep-blue field. The air was freezing but, now, very still. Rose shivered and looked at Ilona's fur-lined hergaut with a ping of regret.
Very slowly she nodded, and Ilona laced her arm through Rose's as if they close friends strolling in the gardens, then they welded their way through the gardens.
"What is it that you found?" Ilona asked after a moment of walking.
Rose looked over at the shadowed figure was Ilona, she did not answer for a time and continued to walk. "An old toy of Ilbert's, I suppose you wish to have it," she said.
"May I see it?"
There was catch in Ilona's voice that Rose had never heard before, and without pause Rose handed the wooden toy to her. Ilona took turned it over in her hand, squinting the dim light, then very softly she began to laugh.
"A little roe deer," she said shoving the toy in back at Rose. "You should keep it. I remember my brother playing with this, and I am correct my brother gave it to you. He would wish for you to keep it." There was a long silence. "How are you fairing?" Ilona asked.
Rose paused. "Very well, thank you," she said, fingering the toy. "Why do you ask?"
"You are my brother's friend, for reasons that are beyond me," she said. "It's my responsibility to ask after you when he is not here to do so himself."
Rose smashed her lips together and refused to say anything more to Ilona until they reached the doors to the palace. As the two girl slipped inside, they said their farewells and deliberately went different ways though their chambers were not far apart.
Once outside her chamber, Rose held the wooden toy into the light and looked it over. The toy was weather-beaten and part of its antler was missing but it was as Ilona had said a little roe deer. Rose smiled slightly and opened the door to her chambers and walked to polished wooden box, and after opening it, she placed the little roe inside next to a golden ring with a sigh. She threw the slipshoes in the fire.
