Chapter Two - The Road to Aurelmere
CHAPTER TWO
The Road to Aurelmere
THE CARRIAGE DRAGGED itself through the thick mud of the dirt road which wound its way through the marshes.
The torn leather curtains flapped in the wind and did little to keep the rain from pouring inside.
Rosamund had wrapped herself in her father’s old hunting cloak, though even the thick stag's hide was not enough to keep out the chill.
Across from her, rattled side to side by the ancient coach, her Aunt Beatrice sat holding a scented handkerchief to her nose.
Rosamund suspected it did nothing to block out the stench rolling in from the marshes.
She had peeled back the curtain enough to watch the decrepit old manor fade into the distance, feeling a sense of melancholy as it disappeared into the fog.
As rotten as the old house had been, it had been her home these past ten years since her father’s death.
Even if the prince cast her off, she would not make it out of Aurelmere a second time.
Not alive.
Her shoulders sagged as she sat back against the moth-eaten carriage seat, letting the leather flap drop as her eyes once again adjusted to the gloom.
Her head still ached from where the maid had scraped and pulled at the chestnut hair she had inherited from her father.
She had always been envious of her sister’s bright golden locks, like their mother’s.
The maid had issued every curse under the sun when she found even more hair to bundle up into the elaborate plaited style.
When Rosamund had looked at her rounded, pale face in the mirror, she felt the braids made her look like she had a wicker basket on her head.
Aunt Beatrice had tried to remedy it with an old red and silver headdress with a long silver veil.
Aunt Cecily had proclaimed that Rosamund now looked like a wicker basket filled with laundry.
Neither had seen fit to change it. As with everything else since her father’s passing, they would make do.
The maid had given her a tearful embrace when she left, as had the remaining servants. They had reminded Rosamund of mourners as they had lined up in front of the house to see her off. Caps off. Hands wringing. Eyes downcast.
The closest I’ll get to attending my own funeral I suppose.
The stablemaster and the young maid hadn’t returned, much to Rosamund’s relief. She hoped that wherever Evelyne was that she was safe. That she was far away from this place, from Valdyr, and that she was happy.
The carriage listed to the side as the wheel trundled over a stone.
Rosamund braced herself against the sides of the carriage as Aunt Beatrice’s bulk collided with Aunt Cecily, squishing her against the window.
The leather curtains swung open allowing a stream of rain to rush in and droplets of mud to scatter across them all.
Beatrice shrieked and Cecily banged the roof of the carriage with the silver rose head of her cane in irritation.
Rosamund swallowed a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, reaching up to wipe off a dollop of brown sludge from her face.
“Sorry Ma’am,” called out the young driver who had taken the reins of the old mares that were pulling them along.
“We should have waited until we got there to put Rosamund in that dress,” worried Beatrice as she leaned forward to lift the red velvet hem.
She produced another handkerchief from the pocket of her skirts and began to furiously scrub at the droplets of mud.
“And where would we have done that? What townhouse would we have gone to?” complained Cecily as Rosamund gently reached down to remove her aunt’s hands from the skirt, “What family would have welcomed us in to use their rooms? We are at the King’s mercy sister dearest; we enter the city at his pleasure.
His is the only door open to us, and even then, it is under sufferance. ”
It had not always been this way. There was a time that a Valehart would have been warmly welcomed into any of the great houses in Aurelmere.
Not that they would have needed it; House Valehart had been granted their own townhouse in Crownspire following her father’s elevation to the position of Arcane Advisor to the King.
A stone’s throw from the Celestine Palace itself, the Valehart townhouse spanned four floors, with a spiral staircase that wound its way up each of them.
Each room had chandeliers hanging from tall ceilings, bright latticed windows and rich thick cobalt carpets.
The House Banner, the golden rose, fluttered over the door.
Rosamund recalled her father lifting her up so that she could touch it as they stepped into their city home, on the rare occasion they visited.
Not all the family would travel to the townhouse during the winter months.
Rosamund had often remained with her mother and her younger siblings in the countryside.
The Duchess would manage the estate, and Rosamund would care for Evelyne and Tristan.
However, Edmund and Roland would follow their father to the city; Edmund to take advantage of the entertainments offered in Larkhill, and Roland to watch the military drills in Ironward.
Rosamund would plead with her father to let her come with him to the city.
More than that, she wanted to see his greatest creation, his life’s work.
That was the reason he travelled to Aurelmere so often, and why he’d been named the Arcane Advisor.
It was the one place she would never be allowed to step foot in, and the one place she was dying to see.
Her father would pat her cheek, kiss her forehead and calmly explain that it was too dangerous.
“Some old crow would try to sweep you away my little flower,” he would say to her, “and I don’t want to lose you. ”
Finally, on her fifteenth birthday, he had relented and the whole family had arrived at the townhouse for the Festival of the Silver Lady.
It has been the last festival they had spent together, the last time all of them had been in the one place.
Rosamund remembered that her father had been distracted for most of the evening, staring into the fire as his children and his wife laughed and danced.
She had noticed though. She had knelt beside his scarlet wingback chair and rested her chin on the arm of it.
It had taken a moment for him to notice her, and when he did, that melancholy look had gone from his eyes, filled instead with love and joy.
The last time I saw him smile.
The King’s guards had arrived the next day to take her father, and her brothers, to the Iron Keep. The doors in Aurelmere slammed shut, and the families that had welcomed her father shunned him the loudest. As she and her mother looked for somewhere they could go, Rosamund heard their whispers.
‘…he sold the secret of the elixir to Ravenor…’
‘…a coup against the king…’
‘…he tried to burn the Baurnhof…’
None of it was true. She would not believe it. Her father was an honourable and loyal man. He devoted his life to the King, to the university he founded, he would never have betrayed them. But no one would listen. They were left in the cold as one by one the court turned their backs.
Rosamund reached up to quickly wipe her eyes with one hand, whilst the other grasped at the ring around her neck.
Her aunts pretended not to notice. She had the unfortunate disposition to turn red and blotchy when she cried.
It was a testament to her aunt’s empathy that neither of them chastised her for this weakness.
Aunt Cecily cleared her throat and gestured to the open book in her lap, “Tell me again, which of the great families of Valdyr is the Bronze Ox?”
She looked down and the words swam on the page as the carriage swayed. Even a brief glance at the page had caused a well of nausea within her.
It’s not just the reading, she thought.
“I can’t do this,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I get travel sickness too dear. I find taking deep breaths-”
“Not the reading,” said Rosamund as she snapped the book shut, “this. The betrothal. How can I marry the son of the man who murdered my father? How can I live with him? How can I,” she choked, “let him touch me! They killed father. They killed Edmund.”
“And they’ll kill the rest of them too if you don’t,” said Aunt Cecily, firmly, not without kindness, “we have been through this, there is no other option.”
Rosamund held up the book she had been trying to read; ‘Houses of Valdyr’.
“The people in this book, the honourable people in this book, turned their backs on us. And now I am to walk in there and pretend that everything is forgiven? That is, if they will even deign to speak with me.”
Before her Aunt Cecily could speak Rosamund dived into the leather satchel beside her and pulled out another small, cloth covered book, “Do you know what Evelyne wrote here? About her intended husband? Let me share it with you,” she flicked through the pages, “‘The Seventh Son of House Mordane, Prince Dorian is the final son of King Ovidian to marry. Though many a maiden has been sought for the hand of the prince, all have refused.’”
The aunts were silent. Neither of them could look at her.
“A Prince would be a worthy husband for any of the noble ladies of Valdyr,” said Rosamund bitterly, “so why is it that King Ovidian seeks to marry him off to a traitor’s daughter? What is so wrong with him, that Evelyne or I would be his only choice?”
“There’s nothing wrong with Prince Dor-”
“The ‘Prince of Death’ you mean?” said Rosamund with an incredulous look, “there is nothing wrong with the Prince of Death? Do you know why they call him that? Evelyne did.”
“Rosamund,” said Aunt Cecily in that tone that usually had her falling silent, but not now.
She opened her sister’s journal again, “‘Prince Dorian is a paragon of the Circle of Necromancy, an adept of the spirit world. His main function within the Royal family is shepherd of the dead, and executioner.’”