Extract - Chapter 1

In the Monastery Gardens

Lost in thought, the Abbess stood beneath a stained-glass window ; warm in colour, it was the last finished by Bonzai shortly before he died. Because, of course, he could just as well be dead. Three little trained spiders wove on her shoulder; their work was never-ending for the black rose often frayed her long scarlet shawl against her thorns. Worries wrinkled her petals, giving them the rumpled appearance of a parchment of the World Before. The Kingdom of Clematis was threatened. One more, one too many: another floret had been found this morning along the border of the kingdom voiceless and sightless. Like his ancestors, small flowers of the World Before, he lay, moored by his roots, to a wall of gray stones.

From her tower, the Abbess observed the comings and goings of the denizens of the blue castle: florets and florettes, down below, perfuming the interior court with their incessant comings and goings. The glass castle rose, translucent, in the ancient inner garden of an isolated monastery. Bonsai, an ageless tree, the great architect of the kingdom, said that long ago beings in long dresses and sandals wove together silences and endless prayers in the shaded byways of the garden. All the history books talked about those holy glass-makers but no one really believed in them ... such huge creatures ... Each had in a pocket of its robe a little hammer, making and cutting orange glass, yellow glass, arranging these pieces in immense frescoes which, in the early morning, colored the pale daylight.

“Nonsense”, thought the Abbess, “utter nonsense and yet, Bonsai was wise.”
Suddenly, the wide crystalline door of her cell opened. A shy violet appeared, carrying in her right leaf a thin plate of wax, which she handed to the Abbess; not without bowing, a habitual fold of her young stem, which bored the rose to death.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Voilette ... stop sweeping the floor with your petals, your pollen makes my seamstresses sneeze and all these fripperies irritate me. Hmm ... Given the depth of your bow you must be bringing bad news.”
As she spoke these words in a slow monotone, she grabbed the document and read the few engraved words.
“Oh, she sneered ... an old friend is visiting ... at the risk of his worthless life! But I see that this message was not really intended for me. Is it the Queen who asked you to give it to me?” "Yes, she seemed very worried, so worried that we had to water her twice for fear that the news would wither her for good...” murmured Voilette hugging at her dress.
Too short ! The dress was too short! She had grown! She might have enjoyed the sudden realisation in other circumstances.
“Come on, come on ...” grumbled the Abbess, the Queen is tired ... Answer that I will receive Sir Ludon at midday. His return reminds me of a promise! I promised this insolent knave that his head would blossom at the tip of my executioner’s axe if he dared to set a single root here. He must have a very bad reason to come back to Clematis ... unless it is a trap. Write ... write ... and don’t forget to add one ridiculous courtly expression of politeness that you use so well or at least so often. the secret.
Voilette was not at all at ease. She had been the Abbess’s personal messenger since Spring, a long Spring full of little renewed thrills.
Unlike the other orphans at the monastery, Lili-Rose, Eglantine, Marjoline or Capucine, she could never get away from the blue castle and its Abbey. Voilette dreamed, however, of venturing, like her friends, into the Forest-of-the-Limping-Hours, the Mandragore’s hidden clearing, to the porcelain village of Chinatown. By simple survival instinct, she would of course have avoided Can-You-Hear-The-Cries, a terrible region crawling with cut-throats. But the Abbess and Sister Aubémonde, Mother Superior of the monastery, would hear nothing of it. They forbade it without ever giving her the real reason. It was still “much too soon” and Voilette “was not ready”. But ready for what?

Today, Voilette had a hard time carving the short message dictated by the rose. Trying unsuccessfully to take a casual pose, the trembling florette strove to form each of the letters with her stylus; in vain. The stylus was notched and the wax was crumbling.

“Sit down,” said the Abbess, “Perhaps then you will be able to write.”
The rose waved one of her leaves in the air to attract the attention of four gold beetles asleep by the fire. Long flames licked the edges of a stone basin where balls of charcoal burned. The insects left the warmth of the hearth. They gripped the four feet of a low chair made of innumerable pieces of multi-colored glass: a gift from the queen with only its colors to recommend it. The Abbess was sure that her Majesty Clematite had offered her so low a seat only to diminish the ridiculous difference in their height.
Unsurprisingly, Voilette felt the same way.
“If I didn’t feel great before”... she thought, as she sat down.

She tried to hide her fear by casually drooping a few purple petals across her anxious face; at last, she could write the orders dictated by the Abbess. One of her recurring fears was, of course, to make mistakes because she would then have to use a new page of wax and the bees made them pay dearly. Every year, they asked for a little more pollen. Eventually she reached the last full stop.
“Have you finished ?” the Abbess said so abruptly that one of her little spinners tumbled from her shoulder. Its life hung by a momentary thread; a thread too slender even to support its slight existence: the little spider hovered over the hearth an instant before vanishing into the flames below.
“Yes,” Voilette stammered, her gaze still focused on the grilled spider leg that the hearth had just spat out with dull burp. “I’ll take this message to Sir Ludon's page at once. He's waiting in the courtyard.”
The black rose approached the window and glanced down at the young lupin waiting, below, near the ancient fountain. His orange doublet shone in the early morning rays.
“Hum ... It seems that Sir Ludon plucks his messengers when they are no more than seedlings. Voilette ... you can go now ... but promise me to hand it over to Sir Ludon's messenger. Did you hear me? You must not approach Ludon under any circumstances. An ill fate trails at the tips of his roots.”
“Pro ... promise,” stammered Voilette intrigued.
She was about to get up when the Rose added:
“And ... a piece of advice, gain a little confidence and we will get along well. Sluggishness, indecision, timidity are useless and irritate me to the highest degree. You know it. Do not forget it. You are not a frail reed, so far as I know! Come now: go, go! And, above all, mention Sir Ludon's visit to no-one; to no-one ... discretion, I like discretion too; it is the very elixir of long life.”

Voilette did not need it said twice; she left the room in haste, pausing only to tuck a stray root back into her bottines. She was about to leave the room when she noticed the charred legs of the little seamstress.