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moment, Millie confessed petitely, because he was rotten and she was insubstantial, but they hoped for
improvement in the future. Meanwhile, Millie would be happy to serve Rose as she had served living
folk when she had been a maid. She had a fair notion of the expectations of royalty.
Rose was hungry. Millie offered to have her friend the Zombie Master get a zombie chef in the kitchen,
but Rose decided graciously that the zombies had done more than enough already, and she would not
rouse them from their graves for something she could handle herself. She got up and followed Millie to
the kitchen, where she found a collection of fruits and cookies with only a little zombie rot on them. She
washed them without comment, realizing that it was not her place to be finicky, and had a good meal.
Thus commenced her life at Castle Roogna. She was free to roam the castle and the grounds, picking her
own fruit and nuts, but not to leave: the outer ring of trees was woodenly firm about that. It was, she
understood, protective custody; she was safe as long as she remained here, and no hostile party could get
in. It was a pleasant life, with all the best of everything, except for the fact that she had no living
company. Fortunately there seemed to be a sanity spell on the premises, so that she did not go crazy; she
simply regretted that she was mostly alone, and comforted herself with the realization that company was
as one defined it. Millie was excellent company, and so were the other ghosts: sultry Renee and her male
friend Jordan the Barbarian, Doreen, the child Button, and one whose name she didn't quite catch. Even
the zombies were tolerable from upwind, once she got to know them. She learned to play cards with the
lady ghosts, though she had to deal the cards and hold theirs up facing away from her for them to see.
But mostly she just napped, to wile away the boredom.
After a year, even napping became somewhat dull. "I need something to do!" she exclaimed.
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r r
"Perhaps some cross-stitching," Millie suggested. "It is dull for us ghosts too, and we can't do anything
physical, but you can."
So Rose took up cross-stitching, starting with the image of a cross face, as it seemed appropriate. It
seemed inadequate by itself, so she pondered a few days and devised a bit of verse to go with it. She
would give it to the Magician who finally came to marry her and be king.
These little stitches that were mine
Had to be taken in time
And so they grew cross
For they counted it loss
And decided they wanted to be thine.
She went on to do a great deal of fine needlepoint and tapestry, and this pursuit wiled away another year
or two. But even this became dull without company; normally she made such things for others, and there
were no others to give these to. She had offered to make things for the ghosts, but they declined, as they
were unable to wear them.
"But do you know, you might like to see Jonathan's Tapestry," Millie said.
"Who is Jonathan?"
"The Zombie Master. He-oh, I can't talk about it!"
But Millie did show Rose the Tapestry, where it had been carefully folded and put away in a drawer.
Rose brought it out and hung it on a wall and gazed at it, and was amazed. For the pictures stitched into
it moved.
In fact it was a historical presentation. It responded to her command, for she was a princess, and showed
any pictures she desired. It had been made by the wonderful Sorceress Tapis, given to the Zombie
Master in the form of a jigsaw puzzle, and hung on a wall of Castle Roogna after his death. It showed
the history of Xanth. From it she learned exactly what had happened to Millie, a tragedy indeed, and
even what had happened to Rose herself, for it covered everything through the present.
Rose lost track of the time she spent enraptured by the Tapestry. She learned everything about Xanth.
But eventually even this palled. The one thing she refused to watch was her mother; she did not want to
confirm her mother's loneliness and decline. Again she was up against the ultimate limit: she had no one
to share this with. Doing things alone, no matter how interesting they might be, was incomplete.
She talked to the ghosts, but they spent most of their time fading out entirely. She sang and read poetry
to the plants in the castle and garden. She made fancy meals for herself and an imaginary companion;
since she had to eat the companion's food too, she made sure it was good, and because it was
unprincessly to get fat, she made them small. She even forced herself to make and eat her most disliked
food, sour kraut soup. A steady diet of that would make her thin as a ghost!
But mainly she planted and tended her beloved roses in the courtyard of the castle. This was her talent,
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r r
and her roses were very special. They would live long after she was gone, and their precious magic
would be available to anyone who requested it. The one thing that was forbidden was to cut any of them
from their living stems. These roses had to be appreciated alive. They were a great comfort to her. Yet
they could not make up for her lack of human company.
Then Millie had another suggestion. "The library-"
Rose checked out the musty castle library. There were volumes collected by King Roogna and his
successors. They related to everything in Xanth, its history and magic and people. She had never been
strong on reading, but now she got into it and spent a long time learning aspects of things the Tapestry
hadn't covered. Much of the material was beyond her understanding, but of course it was not intended
for her; it was intended for the edification of Magician-Kings. But she would be able to show it to the
Magician who came to marry her and give him a good head start finding whatever type of information
he might desire or need. In short, she was Making Herself Useful, before the fact.
One day when she was out picking new pillows for the beds, as she did every month to keep them fresh
for the Magician-what a horror if he arrived and was turned off by imperfect castle-keeping!-Rose spied
a monstrous serpent.
"Eeeeeek!" she screamed, affrighted.
But the creature made no hostile move. Instead it bowed its head as if penitent. She realized that only
appropriate folk were allowed through the defensive trees, so perhaps she had misjudged this one. She [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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