The falling snow looked like the dust of the land itself, Vira thought, shivering at their soft, subtle kisses. The wilds of Skördsta were far more pleasant than the cell she had known, of course, but thinking on the journey north towards a frost deeper still made her rue the hubris that led men to decide such uninviting lands were fit for settling. Superstition was in their nature, so Vira expected that their forefathers would have but suffered one of Valkeavise’s harsh winters and turned back, taking the blizzards as a sign nature refused them passage. More than that, she cursed her erstwhile sisters for having allowed such folly to go unpunished. The Rose should allow outsiders to die in droves now and then so that they don’t get the delusions of self-determination that have them plotting against their own saviors.
My, when have I grown so bitter? She glanced aside, to Sergeant Agnur and Duke Hallgor riding wordlessly, the lord on a handsome garron, the soldier atop a dull-coated rounsey, and she was reminded of the answer. She broke bread with them, sparred with Agnur and his soldiers, she conversed with Hallgor about the troubles in the realm, but still she slept lightly in their presence, and always demanded her own accommodations, apart from their ranks, be it in inns or castles or manors on their way. And at times, far from what passed for civilization here, she counted them, observed their weapons and armor, and judged their skill. She was not underfed and shackled anymore, and couldn’t help but be reminded of how frail and slow men were in the face of a Blossom’s power, how defenseless they seemed when they were alone, when it would be the simplest thing to spill blood like rose petals upon the immaculate white of the snows. Had she a taste for killing, she could have butchered them many times over. But she didn’t have it in her, she feared. She had dedicated her years to saving lives for long enough that she felt sick at the thought of killing those who looked so much like her… It was easy to wield one’s blade against the spawn of darkness, against the accursed and demonic. But for such thoughts to even begin to haunt her… What would her bloom-sisters think of her, if they knew what whirled in her head?
But the dead cast no aspersions upon the living. She led her mare along the road, its stones better maintained than Vira would have guessed. The snows were not yet so thick that a horse was like to founder, but she would not chance it. That it meant she had to keep to the roads and could not ride off on her own to be rid of her unwanted companions was merely poor fortune. She wondered how many Blossoms had survived, how the past months had treated them. Her captors – Vira was not a fool to see them as anything but – were miserly with any word of her bloom-sisters, of the world beyond their borders. Perhaps they cannot see past their snows, and that is why they have failed to see that the rest of the world moves towards the future.
Vira rode on ahead, past a slow-flowing rill that supposedly marked the border between one barony and the other. This far south the waters were unlikely to freeze, but the same could not be said of the province of Ísafverfi where treason turned from whispers to screams and from screams to rebellious blazes. Life could be cheap so far north, when winter and famine still claimed countless lives each year, nature’s own tithes so bluntly collected. Her bloom-sister Arna once said that in this land men were like to whip out their cocks and see their piss freeze, so it was no wonder they were always so wroth and eager to warm themselves inside the first cunt they could find, thus breeding new valklings to carry on their proud culture of reaving and robbing and raping and burning their own shit to live through winter. Their mentor, Lady Clément, had beaten her bloody for the boorish words, but she had laughed at the joke alongside her pupils.
Lady Clément is dead now, though, and Arna as well, and everyone else. They won’t be lonely in hell, that’s a joy.
“Only a few days and we’ll come to Ísafverfi,” an unwelcome voice called right behind her, gruff even in the attempt at friendliness.
“So it is, Sergeant,” she said, cold. But warm enough for a man of these lands, so Agnur seemed to think his presence was wanted, and he came to her side. “Duke Hallgor speaks of his lands with pride,” she remarked. “I look forward to a warm reception in his halls, before we part ways and I head north. That’s where we will part ways, is it not?”
“It could be,” he said. “Mayhaps I’ll ride north with a detachment, lend you some aid. We’ll enjoy the hospitality of Duke Hallgor and once he’s safely back home we can make our way to Ísafverfi together.”
I don’t need an escort, she meant to say, but knew better than to waste her time arguing. It was not a question that he was asking, but stating that his masters wanted Vira watched and her actions overseen. She would not be easily rid of Agnur, it would seem. His words occasionally broke what was otherwise a silent ride underneath colorless skies, flanked by narrow birchwoods that gave way only to passages towards small, secluded villages, which drew Vira’s attention only by the plumes of smoke subtly rising above and by the barking of dogs. Clad in well-worn black leather and wool, she went unremarked upon by the men and women who, once every hour or so, passed by the Duke’s retinue. The roads were wide enough for wagons and sumpter oxen, and most travelers journeyed on their lonesome or in pairs, unafraid to walk or ride alone towards Skördsta.
“We have had no need to perform any arrests in five months,” Agnur noted with some pride, “and you can count on one hand how many robberies have taken place this year in the Lohti Road. Not a hanging in six years, either,” he then went on to explain how the Lohti road was named after some town by a river that had been of great import for travel and transport, and Vira nodded and feigned interest well enough for the sergeant to continue talking.
She was fortunate to learn a great deal about the poaching laws of Valkeavise, about some border dispute between two barons three years ago, about the time some scandalized peasants were convinced that a woods witch had taken residence not two hundred meters from their land. Agnur said nothing about himself, though. Even when recounting events he was part of, he spoke as though he had merely been an observer, like things simply happened around him.
Not so the Duke, who, when he had Vira’s ear, would sear it with his avid prattling of past glories, such as they were. Always speaking too close to Vira, whenever he grew too engrossed in telling his tales, spittle would make its way from his pale, wormy lips to Vira’s face. He speaks of friends long dead, enemies who had joined the soil. He regaled his captive audience of one with stories of how he’d vanquished some outlaw band or another, how he defended Valkeavise from Hrangen raiders before he’d even grown a beard. He spoke of companions he feasted with in victory and buried in defeat.
“Our dead are honored by our words,” he said, “and in the saying of their names and their tales there remains some life to them. Grief is medicine and poison, Lady Blossom, easing our sorrow and consoling us in loneliness, but to live is to be haunted. The longer you live, the more ghosts you can name.”
“So I carry my bloom-sisters with me, is that what you are trying to say?” She understood his point, and how this was what passed for kindness for Duke Hallgor. But Vira did not wish to speak of the lost. Not to him. His silence invited her to share tales of her own, but her ghosts she looked away from, or else their words would become her own. Her mother now fed some truly unfortunate worms, and yet she still spoke with Vira’s voice, every time she asked herself why she of all people had survived. “You are an old man and have an old man’s sickness to only ever look back. I would too if I had all of my years behind me. But I’ve no such luxury, and must move forward.”
She did not stop to wait for his answer. Vira wished to be left alone. She wished for a great many things, most of them contradictory. I want to go home, she thought, though home was hell. I want my bloom-sisters back, she thought, but that was a childish desire that could never be. I want to turn back and run. I want to be brave. I want…
A soft snow was falling now. There was, she thought, a time she found it to be solely beautiful. She had seen snow before, in Snaygos and Carilor both, and later in Cartasinde, but those had always been ugly flurries, and they made the ground more mud than the perfect whites of Valkeavise. She must have looked quite the enchanted child, wide-eyed in wonder. For a second she laughed at how young she had been, but of course she was still young. At times it felt smart to forget that fact, to think she was old and wisened, but suddenly she found she didn’t wish to become like the Duke, sharing tales of a past beyond reach and thinking that age made him wise and his words worth listening to. There is nothing in the past, she told herself. Like my bloom-sisters, the cold wind scattered all yesteryears to nothing. Let me be like the pure falling snow, untainted by past and future and the memory of what it once was.
The Rose's Torn Petals 