Snow White and Rose Red Read Online Free Page B

I’ve never known a peddler who refused to show his wares,” Rosamund replied lightly, though she was still thinking of the man’s speech and manners.
    “Then I must answer that you’re as uncommon as I,” the peddler returned. “For, setting aside the fairness of your face—and, Rosamund, you are uncommon fair—I’ve never met a maid who did not blush and run from wayfarers of my ilk, unless a table spread with ribbons lay between.”
    Rosamund, who was by this time blushing furiously, looked down at her basket and said nothing. She was not unaccustomed to hearing her charms made much of by the hopeful youths of Mortlak, but the peddler’s praise, dropped so casually into the middle of another subject, seemed more truthful and more serious than the exaggerated flattery of her would-be suitors.
    “What’s this? Struck dumb?” the peddler said. “I cry you pardon, Rosamund.” His tone was half teasing, half serious, as if he meant more than he was willing to admit, even to himself.
    “You make yourself too free of my name,” Rosamund said tartly. They had almost reached the two rose trees that stood on either side of her mother’s gate, and she felt that the peddler’s boldness deserved some rebuke before she had to leave him.
    “Why, then, I’ll make you free of mine,” the peddler responded, and then his eyes widened, as if he had said far more than he had intended.
    “You need not, an it would discomfit you,” Rosamund said quickly. “Or else I’ll give my promise not to speak of it, save to my mother and my sister, Blanche.” It had occurred to her that the peddler’s evident reluctance to give his name might be due to fear of the Queen’s justice.
    The peddler looked at her as she stood at the gate between the two rose trees, her expression a blend of curiosity, concern, and kindness. His lips twisted in a smile full of self-mockery. “Nay, I’ll not ask it of thee, Rosamund. I am called John, though I was baptized Thomas.”
    Rosamund’s cheeks reddened once more at the peddler’s use of the intimate “thee,” but all she said was, “Will you not come in?”
    “The offer’s kind, but I fear I must refuse it,” the peddler said. He studied Rosamund a moment longer, then leaned forward and broke a twig from the rose tree beside her. He bowed awkwardly, hampered by his heavy pack, and held out the rose, full-blown and richly crimson. “Yet pray accept a token of my gratitude.”
    “Fie, rogue, to offer me my mother’s roses! Have you no shame?” Rosamund said, but she took the flower from the peddler’s hand and laid it gently in her basket.
    “Little enough,” the peddler replied cheerfully. “Farewell, gentle Rosamund.”
    “Farewell,” Rosamund said. As he started down the path toward the forest, she whispered under her breath, “And God go with thee, John.”
    The peddler’s step faltered, and Rosamund feared that he might have overheard her whispered words. He straightened almost at once, however, and continued toward the forest without looking back. Rosamund gave a little sigh, and turned to go into the cottage, glancing down at the rose tree beside the gate. The leaves were limp and darkening toward winter dormancy, and where the full-blown roses had hung in midsummer there were now only the small, hard knobs of the rose hips.
    Wide-eyed, Rosamund looked from the rose tree to the crimson flower nestled in her basket. Then she turned a thoughtful gaze toward the forest. The peddler was already out of sight among the trees.

     
    Within the forest, the peddler’s stride lengthened. By twilight he had reached a small stand of young beech trees, near the brook where Rosamund and Blanche had found wild onions. There he paused. He swung his sack to the ground and opened it, then began to strip off his ragged clothing. The fading light showed him to be a much younger man than he had seemed in his peddler’s garb; he looked to be in his mid-twenties, and well formed.
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