I am happy to announce that I have finished then podcasts for all eleven parts of Roses, Briars, Blood.
I am in the process of creating an e-book so the story can be read from beginning to end, as is only proper, And you will be able to download it, hopefully with the podcasts for free!
I have a also got another original story of mine coming on board — the final revision of The Strange Marriage of Lady Crawford.
Also planned is a serialization of Theophile Gaultier’s wonderful vampire faery tale, Clarimonde. I will also do a podcast of this story in one go with sound effects to really scare you!
I hope you enjoy these stories. If you want to contribute, please leave a message on Your Page. The tab can be found on the navigation bar at the top of the blog.
The beautiful Sorceress was gazing at her reflection in a tall mirror. Her face was like a sundial on which the passage of time was kept by the balance of light to darkness, and now the shadows lingered around her eyes, and the forelock of her raven hair was powdered with sudden snow.
Yet the face of the Princess Mirabelle retained the freshness and bloom of youth, and like sunlight captured in clear crystal, she glowed with a ceaseless inner light. The roses around her bed never faded, rather they grew in lush arrangements, as if jealous of intruders in the Princess’s domain. Sometimes the Sorceress heard voices around the Princess’s bed, humming a low minor air and then drifting away.
The nine ladies, she thought resentfully. Will they never cease? They were meant to work for me!
Restless and unhappy, the Sorceress went out to wander the the labyrinthine paths of the snowy garden. Her reverie was suddenly broken by a strange undulation in the roses that trellised the walls of the tower. She quickly drifted over the snow to see what it was, and what she saw froze her blood.! A young man, handsome enough to be a Prince, was standing among the strong branches of the roses, climbing up wall of the tower.
How had he found his way through the mirror clouds? The Sorceress stood directly below him on the path, and stared up at his violet cloaked back, but he took no notice of her.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” she shouted.
The young man, startled, turned to look down, lost his grip, and slipped. He fell and fell until he was caught in the tangled rose branches, and buried under the blossoms. The more he struggled to free himself, the tighter the thorns held him, until finally, he grew still, and moved no more.
As the Prince’s cries faded away, the beautiful Sorceress flew back to the tower chamber where Princess Mirabelle was sleeping. She paced around the curtained bed, so like a bier sometimes, or a sarcophagus. What magic did the Princess do in her sleep to draw them to her, for surely she lived in an endless dream, or she would not be sleeping, but dead.
Perhaps in her dreams she spins. She sends out threads like spiders silk. The threads attach to Princes, as she wills, and then she pulls them to her, wishing for rescue before the time is up. The Sorceress brooded over this for a long while.
The Sorceress stood before the enchanted mirror and looked out into the world.
She saw another Prince on a fine horse, coming through the forest towards the castle.
They know about us, Princess Mirabelle. But how do they know? No one from the Palace could have told them.
A sweeping gray cloak hung in the wardrobe. It had enough fabric to hide the graceful slenderness of the Sorceress’s body, and the hood was deep enough to conceal her face as she went through the streets of the Kingdom on the other side of the river.
The winter that held sway in the mountains, gave way to high summer in the valley, and when the Sorceress set her feet down in the courtyard of the Castle in the Kingdom on the Other Side of the River, the Courtiers looked at her strangely.
“Hallo, old woman, isn’t it warm for that cloak? Mind the heat.”
“Yes. It can be dangerous for one of your years to become overly hot.”
Stung, the Sorceress drew herself up to her full height, and turned the glowing lamps of her eyes on them.
“Oh, she’s mad,” one of them scoffed. They hurried away.
Oh, I wonder…The Sorceress covered her face with her hands, feeling it for lines. It must be this cloak that gives them the impression I am old…
Slipping through the narrow cobbled streets, the Sorceress made her way to the Palace, for wasn’t that where Princes lived? Soon the fine portal loomed before her. Smiling and coy, she had only to slip a golden coin into the hand of the smirking guard to be allowed inside. The great doors opened and the light of a thousand candles shone through.
Inside the Palace hall, the atmosphere was subdued; the elegant Courtiers walked quietly in slippered feet, their rich satin clothes glowing in the candlelight. They spoke in whispers, as if to make a sound would bring on a terrible headache. A grand staircase rose toward magnificent windows of colored glass. As the Sorceress ascended the stairs, she heard voices floating and echoing in the chambers above. Wrapped in her gray cloak, she was like rain upon a window, or a shadow cast by torchlight. Blended thus, she moved from corner to corner, following the sound of the voices without being seen. Suddenly a door opened and a Queen walked out. She was dressed all in white as if in deepest mourning. A small crown was perched upon her head, and her once lovely face was creased with lines. A priest walked beside her, bent towards her in sympathy.
“I fear I will be dead before they wake,” said the Queen. “ It has been so many years…”
“”Ah, Your Highness, they sleep under deep enchantment, for they do not age as we have. If we could only find the witch that cast this spell upon them, I am sure they would be restored to you.”
“But we have sent forth many search parties. They return claiming the Sorceress must surely be dead by now. There is a strange tower in the mountains, they say, covered over with red roses. The Sorceress’s Tomb they call it. You don’t think she is immortal do you?’”
“Impossible, Highness. Only the soul is immortal, and she does not have one.”
The Sorceress watched the white Queen and the priest go down the stairs, and when they were quite well away, she hurried on her silent feet, for they did not quite touch the ground, toward the lighted chamber they had left.
Ringed by candle branches, laid out on twin biers, she saw a King and handsome Prince in the same deep slumber as Princess Mirabelle.
That same day, the King was banqueting with the King from Across the River discussing preparations for the marriage of Princess Mirabelle and Prince Agramant. The dowry was to be most magnificent. Apart from her jewels, pearls, precious stones and fabrics, the Princess would bring two hundred thousand gold pieces, paid in ten yearly installments of ten thousand each, secured by the rents of the towns and villages of the kingdom.
“And,” the King smiled as if he enjoyed a private joke,”She will also bring with her, a priceless collection of gloves created by the great Milanese artisan, Sebastiano.”
“Oh,” said the King from Across the River. “I would enjoy seeing that!”
Prince Agramant sipped his wine, smiling with his perfect teeth, his dark eyes flashing. “When shall I meet the Princess? I have been told she is very beautiful. Is she more beautiful than the fair Lady I saw looking down from a high balcony as we entered the castle? Surely no one could be more exquisite than that! Could it have been the Princess that I saw?”
The Prince looked abstracted and pushed his glossy hair back form his face, sighing.
The two Kings laughed together, raising their eyebrows at the Prince. They looked, one at the other, about to speak, and then froze when they caught each others’ eyes. Then they burst out laughing once again.
The King wasn’t sure how he felt about the eagerness of the Prince to see his daughter. Mirabelle was his little girl, after all. With that thought in mind, he quaffed his wine and looked daggers at the Prince over his goblet. The Prince continued to smile to himself as if he had no idea of the implications.
“Tomorrow you shall see her for the first time. At the grand ball,” the King finally said to break the silence. “In the meantime, I have a small gift for you. Here.”
The King dangled a silver locket in front of the Prince as if daring him to accept it. The Prince grabbed it playfully and opened it up with a loud laugh. Then he grew quiet and said,
“But it is that same exquisite Lady I saw on the balcony. Her very likeness! And what is this under the cover of the locket, but a skein of her golden hair!”
The Prince looked mesmerized causing the King to laugh nervously, glancing form the tail of his eye at the King from Across the River who looked soberly down at his plate lost in thought.
“Well,” said the King, Princess Mirabelle’s father. “My Miniaturist is a genius. He has captured my daughter’s likeness exactly. I am glad she does not disappoint you, young man.”
The Prince leaned toward the King, barely containing his excitement. “ Such beauty could never disappoint! Did you know that her beauty is sung by the troubadours who have taken their songs from our Kingdom Across the River, all the way to Paris, and now they shall return here to sing of the beauty of the Princess Mirabelle for the wedding. They say her hands shine like silver, her face is as pure as exquisitely carved ivory, and her hair hangs like sheets of iridescent gold. Now I know it is true. How lucky I am!” the Prince cried looking at his father with fire in his eyes. “Let me see her at once!”
“You must wait, Agramant,” said the King from Across the River, watching the King’s reaction from the tail of his eye. “A gentleman must not be too hasty. Perhaps we shall go hawking in the morning while the Princess prepares for the ball tomorrow night. Work off a little steam, as it were.”
“Yes,” said the King. “I would like that, We have a fine forest here full of game. The young Prince may as well get used to hunting in it straight away. You will meet my sons today, if that is any consolation.”
The two Kings and the Prince crashed their goblets together, and drank healths to each other, while the acrobats turned cartwheels, walked on their hands, or sprung circles in the air, and the Court minstrels sang songs about the wonders of true love.
When the Princess arrived at the top of the stairs, she stepped onto a a landing with a long gallery, that looked down over what once must have been a palatial ballroom, now under layers of dust. The sound of the singing, and the bells, drew her to a partly opened door where the glow of firelight shone through. The Princess passed through the door into a vast bedchamber with high ceilings and tall windows, and standing before the hearth in the light cast by the fire, was a tall, dark lady with a spindle in her hand. From her other hand dangled a bobbin that whirled round and around, faster and faster, as she sang the name of Mirabelle. The sound of silvery bells scintillated in the air, invisible, and the floor slightly trembled with gongs, causing the long shadow of the lady to waver over it like a flame.
“Who are you?” asked Princess Mirabelle, entranced by the mysterious presence of the beautiful woman who vaguely reminded her of a figure in a recurring dream.
“Come closer and I will tell you,” said the lady, spinning the bobbin round and round.
“What is that?” asked Princess Mirabelle, for she had never seen a spindle before.
“Come closer and I will show it you,” the lady said.
The Princess, suspecting no harm, did as she was told.
“Do you like the sheen of the silken thread?” the lady asked, holding the spindle up before the Princess’s eyes. “I have been spinning it for a long, long time. It is the softest and strongest thread in the land. First, I spun the copper thread, then the silver. Now, I spin the gold. Look closer. It is made more beautiful with hair-like strands of red and black mixed in.”
The Princess put her face very close to the spindle. “It is lovely,” she said.
“Here, hold it for yourself. Try pulling the silk and see how fine it is. It is like your hair,” the lady said smiling with admiration. “Perhaps you will enjoy the magic of spinning.”
As the Princess grasped the spindle, she put her finger over the very top. It was sharp! It cut her!
“Ah!” the Princess cried out, watching her finger blossom with a stream of sudden blood. She looked at the woman, pleading for help. “The room is spinning! Oh my,” she cried as she fell to the floor and blacked out.
“How dreadful,” said the Sorceress. “How very dreadful.”
A strange, heavy reflecting cloud fell over the Palace so that the day darkened to twilight, and snow began to fall. There were bells ringing, close, yet far away, increasing the silence with their sound as of waves crashing on a distant shore. The servants moved slowly around the table as if they walked in their sleep. The acrobats paused in their contortions, and the minstrels fell down in a picturesque pile of hat feathers, cloaks and mandolins.
The Prince struggled to stay awake, but when he saw the heads of his father and the King nodding, he, too, surrendered to sleep. And as he slipped into darkness, he dreamed he was falling down a deep well into a tangle of blood red roses. As he fell into them, they bore his body up on a nest of thorns, and there he rested, gazing up at a small circle of winter sky. Crows flew over it, black flapping against the white clouds. Snow was falling on the roses that grew up the inside walls of the well, turning them white. The Prince was dimly aware of the face of a dark woman looking down at him from the circle of sky, before he slipped away into oblivion.
*******
If they had been awake, the King’s subjects would have see a heresy: the Sorceress, with the sleeping Princess at her side, flying through the air towards the forest. She landed on the parapet of her Castle, and carried the Princess into a high tower where a luxurious bed, draped in pale satin brocade, awaited its royal occupant.
The Sorceress placed the Princess so that her shimmering hair streamed over the pillows, her shining hands were folded over her breast, and her feet were pointed delicately. Then she wrapped her in gauzy spells, and lucid dreams, spinning a magic cage around her so that no other sorceries could get in.
“One-hundred years is but a day in my world,” said the Sorceress. “The time will soon pass, and then where will you be?”
But the nine ladies of the woods were listening by means of their long ear horns, and they knew their spell was being undermined by the clever Sorceress.
“All we can do is make the one-hundred years pass as in mortal time, and this we shall do by wrapping the tower around with briar roses. It will take the roses one-hundred years to reach the top of the tower. Thus, the spell shall dissolve when the Sorceress is no more. The roses shall also serve to keep the Princess in the perpetual summer of youth, and prevent the Sorceress’s winter of age touching her.”
