The White Rose

Many thousands of years ago, before the Roman and Grecian Empires, a country named Agoria was a minor power in ancient Europe. It was not an empire as the later cultures would be. The peoples of this land were all consulted before the king or his cabinet made any decisions. It was wealthy with buildings made of the purest white granite with gold and silver lining the windows. The granite was imported from quarries more than one thousand miles away.

No one ever had to suffer or want for anything. Not one person was without a home and every citizen always had more food than they could possibly use. They had a large port on the modern Balearic Sea. From there they established trade with cultures from as far away and Asia and the Americas.

In the center of the capital city was a monument but it was not a memorial for any warrior since the Agorians never fought wars. It was not a monument for any one king or queen. They had their memorials in the forest where the bodies of the leaders were given back to the goddess of nature who provided for all of the citizens. It was a monument built to protect a single plant…a rose plant which lived for more than two hundred generations.

The king or queen had one main duty…they would go before the rose bush everyday at sunrise escorted by a specially trained squad of gardeners. They would kneel to offer prayers and a healthy feeding of water and fish blood to keep the bush alive. If the rose bush died…the king or queen would be executed on the spot as would his family. Fortunately no king or queen was ever executed because of the loss of the plant.

The leaves of the plant were as black as the darkest pitch with a slight edge of midnight blue. The flowers of the bush were also black, a velvety black that absorbed any light that came near. However, the flowers were the magical part of the plant. Although rare, sometimes a single white rose would sprout from the blackness. It was found that whenever a white rose sprouted the king or queen would die within weeks. Needless to say the people and the royal family kept a close eye on the rose bush waiting for a white rose to appear.

Raynor, son of Trisda, was king when Agoria was in its prime. He had reigned for more than eighty years without a challenge or conflict to speak of…until the weather of Agoria changed for the worse. The warm, wet breezes that blew off of the sea suddenly changed direction so they blew in for the mountain of the north. The air cooled and dried to a point where the climatic changes could not go unnoticed. This caused the crops, which had always been plentiful, to wilt on the ground and the animals died in the pastures. Despite that the rose bush produced hundreds of black roses which were picked and given to the children of the country as a gift from the king.

“Why would the gods turn their backs on us,” Raynor asked of his priests in a weak cracking voice. “They have always been so good to my people.” His voice was one of serious concern. Nothing like this had ever happened to his people in their entire history.

“The gods are not speaking to us your highness,” the chief priest replied. “They seem to have left with the breezes of the sea.”

“Have I or have I not been a good king,” Raynor asked. “I have tried my best and that is all I can do.”

“Sire, the gods are not angry with you…the priest said, “…they are pleased with you and they have granted you a long and beneficial life have they not?”

“That they have.”

“The white rose has been held back for so long. Perhaps the gods have more plans for you than you may know. After all they are gods and you are just a mortal man…a king but still just a man.”

The king knew that everything they had said was true. It had been a very, very long time since the white rose came. Raynor was six-years-old when the rose last appeared and he was getting tired and maybe the gods knew it. Every day Raynor made the walk into the city to care for the roses and everyday he saw nothing but black roses covering the plant and everyday for the last four years he sat on the stairs of the monument and he cried.

During his reign Raynor had seen his children being born, he watched as they married and when they died. He had fathered 21 children from three wives, only six were still alive. He had sixty plus grandchildren and more than a hundred great-grandchildren but, even with all that family he lived alone in a castle with no one but servants to care for him.

The drought came in his eighty fourth year as king. He struggled as much as he could to solve the problem but to no avail. His health was too bad to face a problem such as that. Gone were his strong arms and legs. His breath was short and painful and his mind was wandering between his real life and his life in a world his mind created. There were so many times when he prayed for the gods to take him and there were many times that his physicians told him the gods would be calling him but he held on, fighting the gods, fighting his body and fighting his mind. It got to the point where he had men carry him down to the rose bush in a litter so he could do the duty he was born to do but after a time even that got to be too much for the king.

“Why can’t there be a white rose…just a single white rose,” he asked. His eyes were nothing more than slits and his breathing was so shallow it could hardly be felt. No one answered his question.

One day one of Raynor’s guards walked into the king’s chamber. He was solemn and he kept his voice just above a whisper. “Your highness,” he said as the king opened his eyes ever so slightly. “Your highness, there has been a white rose.” This pleased the king so much that he managed a smile. Weak as it was it was still a smile.

“Are you sure,” the king asked.

“Yes, your highness. The entire plant is covered white roses. There is not a black one to be seen. I picked one and brought it to you so that you may see that I am telling the truth,” he said as he held the brose in his hand.

The king took the rose. He was barely able to wrap his fingers around it but he held it and brought it up to his face, He smiled a smile bigger than he had ever had. “There are more of these,” Raynor asked happily. The guard said that the bush had hundreds of them just as beautiful and as pure a white as the gods themselves could ever create. Raynor smiled again and said, “The gods have blessed me. Please tell my people that I am now happy.”

“Yes your highness I will make sure everyone knows,” the guard said.

Raynor lowered his head on his pillow and as he smiled the king took his last breath. After so many years Raynor was now at rest.

The guard was standing the crying as Raynor’s eyes glazed over. He reached over and closed the king’s eyelids and straightened out his clothes. The king must always look his best. As soon as he finished one of the princesses walked in.

“Is he gone,” she asked.

“Yes your grace,” he replied.

She stood there quietly. Maybe she was thinking what to say. Maybe she was so awe struck that she was speechless but that only lasted a minute. “I was down at the monument today,” she said. “I sat on the stairs for hours for the gods to help my grandfather. I looked and looked but I never saw a white rose.”

“Would you like the truth your grace,” he asked shyly hoping she would say no but that didn’t happen. She wanted the truth and nothing else. “Your grace, I have seen his highness suffering years after years. His body was done but he held on to fulfill an ancient philosophy. His highness was dead but his mind would not allow it.”

“I understand,” she said.

“I went to the coast and took a boot to the other side of the sea and I bought a single white rose. I knew that he would let go once he believed that the gods had granted him with permission to die.”

The princess didn’t say a word for quite a while. She was thinking. It was so much to absorb. Finally she took the guard by the hand and told him to sit next to her. “Young man, you brave young man,” she started. “I proclaim that the gods did give him the white rose. It took a god blessing for you to have the courage to take a chance as you did. I just have one thing to say…thank you on behalf of my father.” Then she kissed him on the cheek and walked with him out of the room to get a physician to verify that the king had passed.

It was an orderly transition. The princess was made queen and the guard who she met the day the king died…he was made the new queen’s personal bodyguard.

After Raynor’s funeral a miracle happened. The rose bush that gave all black flowers for centuries sprang forth after a few days and there was not one black flower among them. It continues to bloom until this day and until this day there has never been a single rose that wasn’t the purest virginal white and experts in roses hear the story and the flowers are called The Raynor’s White Princess.