Lady of the Roses Read Free

stained the east now, and in the west the few clouds that remained had turned to peach, casting a glow over the village, where a few lights already twinkled. But in the months since my father’s death, I had found that nature’s beauty, far from soothing the ache of my spirit, summoned an inexplicable sadness from within my depths.
    I missed my mother and my father, and I had no sisters or brothers. I was on my way to court to be married, but while my heart yearned for the kind of love that troubadours sang about and wordsmiths described in their lovely manuscripts—the kind of love my mother and father must have had for one another, since he never wed again after her death—I knew love would likely not be my portion. Marriages were made for lands and wealth, not love, and few young women with lands to offer a husband could hope that fortune would bestow on them a love match. Even royalty married for alliances and trade agreements, and my future lay in the hands of the Lancastrian Queen Marguerite d’Anjou, wed at fifteen to a mad king. What pity would she have for me? Her interest lay only in my wardship and marriage, because the wardship paid her a fair annual income, and my marriage would fetch a goodly profit for her purse.
    I didn’t know why the world was made so bitterly, but in this it played favorites, and I—foolishly, I suppose—dared to hope I’d be one of the rare and fortunate few who would find Fortune’s favor. In the meanwhile I longed for small joys, like the banquet that I might have attended tonight, where I could laugh and be with young men my own age, and feel the lightness of life.
    I bowed my head with an acute sense of loss and plucked the chords of the latest lament to sweep the land. Raising my voice in song, I poured my heart into the words, and the haunting melody so encompassed me that I heard my own tears in the music….
     
    Will I never feel the sun before clouds gather?
    Will my heart never dance before it dies?
    Will I never know your love, beloved?
    You are lost to me, lost to me….
     
    I lifted my gaze to Heaven. The sky was awash with color. As I sang, the clouds turned to gold and deepened into rose. A lone bird soared high above, free to roam where it willed. I followed it with my eyes and my words until it faded from my sight. The sky changed again, and now, like fire, the rose glow caught the earth, bathing all the world in tender beauty. I don’t know what came over me, but of a sudden I was swept with an indescribable yearning I could neither define nor understand. Yet I knew instinctively that the only potion that could banish the emptiness, that could break the loneliness, was that elusive thing the wordsmiths called love. I brought the song to a close, bent my head, and closed my eyes. Silent words fell from my heart, and, bartering with the Fates, I sought a gift and made a promise.
    “Isabelle.”
    I blinked. It took me a moment to reorient myself. “Aye, Sœur Madeleine?”
    “We can go to the banquet, if you wish it.”
    Disbelief left me speechless, incredulous. My mind spun with bewilderment, and when at last her words registered, I laughed in sheer joy. I laughed at the sky, at the clouds, at the servants taking the horses from the guests arriving in the courtyard below. I threw my arms up and laughed, and I twirled from the window seat, laughing. I clasped my hands together to my lips in prayer, and I murmured thank you to Heaven, half laughing, half crying, and twirled again. Then I looked at Sœur Madeleine. A tender smile hovered on her face as she watched me.
    I rushed to her side, and, taking her hand to my lips, I kissed the wrinkled skin. “Thank you, dear Sœur Madeleine.”
    She blushed. “C’est rien,” she murmured. “’Tis nothing. But if we are to go, I daresay we had better hurry, ma petite. ”
    I ran to my coffer and rummaged for my new gown: a rich lavender silk and silver-tissue sarcenet, embroidered with tiny silver leaves, which I