Thirty-Eight

 

Midsummer's Day dawned, and it was glorious. King Siward held his bride in his arms, and though Rosamond's eyes were closed, they fluttered as if she was about to wake. Then she did, and her green eyes outshone the sun.

"Are you healed?" he asked softly.

She laughed. "Yes, and so are you. However did you get all those bruises?"

Siward thought hard. "I was attacked by a tree."

Amusement sparkled in her eyes. "You mean you weren't watching where you were going, and bumped into a tree?"

"Not this time. It whipped out a branch, grabbed me from the saddle, and threw me into the river. Then it screamed about how it had to bring me back. To you."

"A tree screamed? You must have hit your head."

Siward shook his head, which didn't hurt at all. "No. And not one tree. The whole forest screamed with the same voice. Your voice. Every tree ordering the others to 'bring him home'."

Rosamond wet her lips. "Truly?"

"Truly. And now I am home, I realise my queen has no crown."

Rosamond reached up for Queen Margareta's crown, which her captors had left on her head when they tied her to the stake, in mockery of her mother's gold crown, which she should have worn yesterday. Now she had neither, for the rose crown had disappeared. It was fitting.

"The people called me a witch. A traitor. Not a princess, and not their queen. They don't want me. They want you. Are loyal to you. I am...no one."

"Then we will change their minds. Slowly, at first, but some day soon, you will be more beloved as their queen than you ever were as their lost princess. I promise you." Siward rose from his bed among the roses, and held out his hand. "We have other promises to keep. First, we must go to the cathedral and finish what we started."

"But..."

"I promised you will be queen." The fervour in his eyes brooked no argument.

Rosamond accepted his assistance to rise, and, hand in hand, they walked out of the castle gates.

They did not notice, but if either had turned their heads to look, they would have seen two dead traitors, dangling from the battlements. No hand had yet touched them, for no one was willing to unwrap the choking rose vines from around Monika or Fodor's necks, or pry out the pine bough that had somehow impaled Fodor so that one end stuck out the bottom of his tunic, while the other jutted from the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

The square was empty but for ashes from the fires and a brittle circlet of dried roses that disintegrated in a puff of wind. Siward led Rosamond through the doors of the cathedral and shouted for the bishop.

Several minutes later, the bishop appeared, looking like he had dressed in a tearing hurry. He eyed the ragged, blackened pair before him. "What do you want?"

"For you to finish the coronation. My queen needs a crown."

When the bishop heard his king's voice, he fell to his knees. "Forgive me, sire, I did not recognise you. Are you certain that you don't wish to wash before...?"

"I said crown her, now."

"Yyyyyes, sire."

In a gown of scorched silk, Crown Princess Rosamond knelt before the bishop. Like King Siward before her, she vowed to rule her kingdom fairly, protect its people and property, and uphold its laws for as long as she lived. She wept as she said the words, for they meant the end of all that had come before. The death of her parents, a goodbye to her childish dreams of freedom, and any desire to throw away duty, even for a day. But it was also a wondrous beginning, with Siward at her side.

Siward placed the royal cape around her shoulders, and the bishop set a crown on her head.

Queen Rosamond took her kingly husband's hand, and, both clad in radiant smiles that outshone the morning sun, they stepped out of the cathedral into a brand new day.