The bases of the rose bushes were thick and woody, completely denuded of leaves. They resembled nothing so much as human bones, a trait that allowed them to blend seamlessly with the old skeletons from which they grew.
That was the thing that had so alarmed Bratu and the others. Each of the rose bushes was rooted in a corpse. Malocchio had left the butchered Vistani where they fell, then planted his victory garden amongst the dead. Some of the bodies were partially buried. Some lay atop the dark loam. The branches so resembled bleached bones that the remains were invisible from a distance.
As he walked the weed-choked paths Ganelon realized that some of the corpses were newer than others. They still retained some scraps of desiccated flesh or some tatter of clothing. Around a few of the beds lay coins and small trinkets, even a rusting knife or two. The remains of failed thieves, no doubt, he guessed.
The thought made Ganelon stop dead in his tracks. He peered more closely at one of the bushes. Through the mold-flecked leaves, he could make out wicked greenish-yellow thorns running along the stems and branches. Ribbons of mummified flesh dangled from some of the spikes. Others were dark with old blood.
An insight blazed across his mind: Those aren't thorns. They're teeth. These are corpse roses.
The intuition's clarity stunned Ganelon. He wondered briefly at its origin, but left that problem for another time. The information it had imparted was indisputable. They were all in terrible danger.
"Don't touch the roses," he said into the severed ear. "Stay on that side of the wall!" He directed Bratu to join the others. The Vistana was reluctant to leave the garden, as if he could sense that these poor souls were his people. Eventually, Ganelon took him by the hand and forced him over the wall.
His charges out of harm's way for the moment, Ganelon returned to his examination of the corpse roses. There was no way around it; without the roses, the Beast would not cure Helain. Cautiously he plucked one of the flowers. The stem shuddered and oozed blood as red as the bloom but did not lash out at him. So long as Bratu and the others could harvest the roses carefully, they'd be all right.
He walked back to the wall, giving the bushes as wide a berth as possible. Through the Beast's charm, he gathered the madmen who had strayed from the wall. That none of them had ventured into the garden, as he had ordered earlier, gave Ganelon some small hope as he outlined his orders to them. If he was precise enough in his instructions, they might survive this ordeal.
"All right," he said, "remember why we're here. We are collecting roses for the Beast." At the mention of their tormentor's name, the madmen whimpered piteously. "He does not want leaves or stems or thorns-especially thorns. Whatever you do, do not touch any part of the rose bushes except the flowers."
Ganelon slung the small pack he had been carrying from his shoulder. "The sack tied to your waist is for holding the flowers." He dropped the bloom in his hand into his pack. "Like this. Just the flower, nothing else."
One of the older men, scarcely any hair left on his head, grabbed the canvas sack from his neighbor. He hugged it to his chest as if it were a long-lost friend. Ganelon returned it to its owner quickly, before a brawl broke out; then he led the old man into the garden.
"See, Grandfather," he said kindly, "we want all the pretty flowers, but only the flowers." Ganelon beheaded a few blossoms to demonstrate. With palsied hands, the old man slowly pulled the roses free. Ganelon bit his lip as he watched the man's shaking fingers pluck at the blooms, but the man seemed to catch on quickly. With a quick word of praise, Ganelon was off to get the others started.
At first he kept a careful eye on the demented souls as they went about their task. As the afternoon wore on, though, Ganelon found himself less and less attentive. It was tedious watching them work, or attempt to work. And after three days with the madmen, leading them from the Beast's lair to this field just across the Invidian border, he had little stomach left for the manifestations of their sad, awful, infuriating sickness.
Thoughts of Helain were quick to provide distraction. The fragrance of the roses reminded him of the plans they'd made for the wedding, how they would transform Ambrose's store into a blossom-filled chapel. He was caught up in imagining what that happy event might have been like when a soft voice startled him from his reverie.
"They smell like churches should smell," Helain said quietly. In her hand she cupped a single red rose. "Though they're the wrong color. White roses are my favorite."
Ganelon's heart sang. Even when she turned away in mid-sentence, making it clear that she wasn't speaking to him so much as to herself, the happiness lingered. The old Helain had surfaced for just an instant, long enough for him to realize she still existed. It was enough.
Helain knelt to collect the blossoms from a particularly thorny bush, and Ganelon moved to her side. Even if she weren't aware of his presence, he might bask in hers and hope for another glimpse of her old self.
She hummed a work song from the mine as she plucked the flowers. It had been one of Ambrose's favorites. The stout old fellow sang it endlessly around the shop. Helain went through three verses as she stripped the bush, pausing only when she dropped a large blossom. It fell onto the skeleton beneath the bush, into its open rib cage, where it sat like a suddenly resurrected heart.
Ganelon warily reached into the bones and retrieved the rose. He marveled at the bloom's color, a crimson so deep it was nearly black. He held it out to Helain. She looked first at the blossom, then up into Ganelon's face. Without a word, she slowly shook her head from side to side.
Before Ganelon could ask her why, a shriek of fear rent the garden's calm.
Bratu stood before a particularly large bed, face contorted with terror. One of the partially buried skeletons was moving. The bare bones trembled, seeming to push up out of the ground. Ganelon was at his side in an instant. He immediately spotted the rat, disturbed by the Vistana's proximity, as it burrowed deeper into its home within the bones. Bratu, however, was too blind with fear to recognize his terror's mundane cause.
Mouthing silent prayers to his ancestors, Bratu backed away from the rose bushes. He could not hear Ganelon's murmured words of reassurance or the frightened squeals of the other madmen. He shoved Ganelon's hands away when the young man tried to grab hold of him. An instant later, the Vistana toppled backward onto a plucked rose bush.
The struggle was brief, too brief for Ganelon to react in time to aid the Vistana. The thorns bit into Bratu's back. He howled in agony and tried to stand, but the branches entangled his legs. He reached down, frantic to pull himself free. The limbs of the bush bent to meet his fingers, and the thorns buried themselves in his hand. As they drank in the Vistana's blood, they pulsed and swelled in the wounds until they were all but impossible to shake loose.
More branches wrapped themselves around him, eager for his blood. Finally, the brawny Vistana got his feet beneath him. Using all his considerable strength, he pushed himself up. Some of the branches tore loose. Their thorns etched gory streaks in his flesh as they fell away. Most of the bush kept its awful grip upon him, so that when he stood, the skeleton from which the corpse rose had sprouted jerked to its feet, too. The skeleton appeared to wrap its arms around Bratu, though it wasn't clear if it was acting on its own or merely animated by the vines and branches of the corpse rose.