Rose Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

hers off. “Long hair is a silly fashion for ladies
who have nothing better to do with their time than pin it up and lake it down,”
she said.
    “I like my long hair,” said Beauty.
    “You have very beautiful hair,” said Lionheart. “I used to
think—before we shared a bedroom—I used to think it must shine in the dark, it
has such a glow to it. Mine is just hair.”
    Their father was still frail and spent most of his days and
evenings near the smaller fire, in the area which they used as their sitting-room.
His was the one comfortable chair, but none of the three sisters ever sat still
long enough to enjoy a comfortable chair—said Lionheart—so he might as well
have it, or it would be wasted. As he began to grow a little stronger, he found
a pen and a little ink and some bits of half-used paper, and began to write
things down on them, and murmur to himself. But his eyes were now more often
clear than they were not, and he recognised each of his daughters as herself
and no one else, and they began to feel hopeful of his eventual recovery—as
they had not for the long sad weary time just past—and went about their work
with lighter hearts as a result.
    Jeweltongue and Beauty at first were the only ones to
venture to Longchance. “We don’t all three need to go, and Father can’t,” said
Lionheart, “and you two are much better at saying the right thing to the right
person than I am—you know you are.”
    “What you mean is, we can come home and tell you who is going
to vex you into shouting, so you can refuse to have anything to do with them
and leave the work of it to us,” said Jeweltongue.
    Lionheart grinned, then sobered. “Yes, you’re right—you
nearly always are, it’s one of your greatest faults—but, you know, we can’t
afford to... to annoy anyone here. I’ll try to be polite, but when some buffoon
is yammering away at me, my mind goes blank of anything but wanting to knock
‘em down and sit on “em.”
    So Jeweltongue and Beauty went alone to sell their horses
and waggon, leaving Lionheart experimenting with lashing together an assortment
of short whippy poles cut from the saplings they had begun clearing from round
the house. There were still birds’-nests in one of the flues of the kitchen
chimney, which they had thus far failed in reaching from either end, although
Lionheart had managed to begrime herself thoroughly with soot, nest fragments,
and bird droppings once already, with her last lot of lashed poles.
    “You’ll come home to two fully functioning chimneys,” she
promised, “or I’m going to drown myself in the well. Although if I succeed. I
may inadvertently have drowned myself anyway, trying to rasp the feculence off
me again.”
    “Couldn’t we look for a greenwitch to sell us a charm for
the chimney?’’ said Jeweltongue, dropping her voice after a quick glance at
their father, who was chewing the end of his pen and scowling furiously at his
scrap of paper.
    “With what money?” said Lionheart, testing the whip-piness
of one of her poles with a muttered “‘Tis enough to try the patience of a
saint.”
    “You wouldn’t know,” said Jeweltongue. “A witch’s charm must
be cheaper than having your body fouling our well.”
    “I will take pains not to drown myself,” said Lionheart.
“Now go away before I bite you.”
    Jewel tongue, while her sisters had been busy with repairs
lo the house, had spent her time cutting and sewing rough but sturdy shins out
of the several bolts of material they had found slowed in the back of the
housekeeper’s wardrobe. “What in sky or on earth did she want with such stuff?”
said Lionheart on discovery.
    “Perhaps her secret lover is a poacher. It would make a splendid
poacher’s jacket,” said Jeweltongue.
    “It would make an entire regiment of poachers splendid jackets,”
said Lionheart.
    “Never mind,” said Jeweltongue grimly. “The auction house
won’t want the stuff: whatever it is, we get to keep it.