The Puzzle Ring by Kate Forsyth Page A

shall not bud, the green throne shall not sing, until the child of true blood, is crowned the rightful king.”’
    Her voice broke at the end.
    â€˜Don’t tire yourself out,’ Roz said. ‘There’s no need to distress yourself.’
    â€˜Hannah needs to know,’ Lady Wintersloe said gently. ‘It’s her heritage.’
    â€˜Does that mean the blackthorn on the hill?’ Hannah asked. ‘The one that hasn’t blossomed in so many years?’
    â€˜Yes, though it means the family too.’ Lady Wintersloe’s voice was very weak. ‘Wintersloe Castle is named for the blackthorn, remember, and our family arms bear the symbol of the thorn tree. Eglantyne spoke both curse and prophecy—they are entwined.’
    â€˜Who’s Eglantyne?’ Hannah demanded.
    â€˜She was the eldest daughter of the king of the hollow hill,’ her great-grandmother replied. ‘The king of the fairy realm. Our ancestor Lord Montgomery saw her ride out one May Day and fell in love with her. He wooed her and won her, and took her away from fairyland to be his bride. Except she was betrayed.’
    Roz stood up. ‘Please, Belle,’ she said sharply. ‘I don’t see what can be gained by dwelling on this silly old story.’
    â€˜She needs to understand,’ Lady Wintersloe said.
    â€˜You filled Bob’s head with all this nonsense when he was a child too, and he became obsessed with the idea of breaking this stupid so-called curse,’ Roz said angrily. ‘Even after wewere married, and when Hannah was just a newborn, he was always worrying about it and thinking about ways he could break it. He would never have gone out that night if he didn’t think he had found a way to break it!’
    â€˜You mean the night he disappeared?’ Hannah cried. ‘He went out to try and break the curse . . . and ended up dead?’
    She was remembering the diary with its strange, incoherent messages.
Back through the winter gate I must go
. . .
    â€˜It was an obsession with him,’ Roz said tightly. ‘And I won’t have you infecting Hannah with the same nonsense! I knew I should never have come back.’
    Just then the door opened and Linnet came trotting in, pushing her tea trolley. It had a steaming silver punchbowl and a bottle of whisky instead of the usual gilt-edged teapot. ‘I’ve brought you all a nice hot posset to drink. It’s a nasty cold night and you’ve all had a bit of a shock, seeing Jinx like that.’
    â€˜What’s in it?’ Hannah sniffed the steaming bowl suspiciously.
    â€˜For you, my lamb, sweet apple cider, rosehip syrup, and some heather honey.’ Linnet doled out a cup for Hannah, who sipped it carefully before deciding she liked it, and swallowing more bravely. ‘I made the syrup from our own sweetbrier roses, which grow in the castle.’
    â€˜Sweetbrier?’ Hannah cried. ‘That old rose in the castle, it’s called a sweetbrier?’
    â€˜Yes. Sweet for its fragrance, and brier for its thorns. Though Genie would call it
Rosa eglanteria
. She always likes to give plants their proper name.’
    â€˜Eglantyne,’ Hannah breathed. She remembered the last verse in her father’s book:

    Back through the winter gate I must go
to the time of two hornet queens
flying around the one great chair.
Cut free sweetbrier from thorny tower
find the waxing gibbous moon,
its bewildered quarter I left safe
with the rose of the world, my double rose
.
    As a final message from her father, it left a lot to answer for, but suddenly some of it seemed to make a kind of sense.
Cut free sweetbrier from the thorny tower
must be a reference to Eglantyne, and surely the thorny tower meant some kind of prison or cage. Her father had meant to rescue Eglantyne!
    But Eglantyne had died in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, more than four hundred and forty years ago