White roses signify silence, for Cupid gave a sacred rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, so that he would not reveal the amorous secrets of Venus, Cupid's mother. Thus noblemen carve or paint a rose on the ceiling above the table where they dine, or hang a white rose from the beams where they meet to show that nothing which is spoken in that place must be revealed. So mortals speak of sub rosa or 'under the rose', when they desire to hold their discourse in secret. But mortals beware, we mandrakes see all and will reveal all in time, for the rose has no power to stop our ears or our mouths. At the end of days we will break the silence of gods and mortals alike, for were we not birthed in a scream?
The Mandrake's Herbal
The Summoning
'It is time,' Madron said.
Her milky eyes swivelled towards Gytha as if she could see her in the darkness and beyond her into her very thoughts.
Gytha shifted uncomfortably on her bed of bracken, trying to ignore her mother. Once this business was done, they'd have to move on, and Gytha was happy here. She'd no wish to go traipsing into the city. She hated it. People staring at you suspiciously as if you were going to thieve from them, that's when they weren't trying to rob you themselves. You couldn't breathe, all those people jostling and shouting. You couldn't hear anything above the foolish clamour of their voices, not even your own thoughts.
'Take me outside.' Madron's tone was more querulous than usual.
Gytha sighed and struggled to her feet. It was a warm night. She needed no shawl over her coarse, threadbare kirtle. She bent over her mother and the old lady put an arm around her neck. Gytha scooped her up in her arms and, ducking low, carried her out of the bothy. Madron was as light as a bag of fish bones, but the thin arm locked around Gytha's neck had a grip as hard as ice in winter.
Gytha placed her gently in the centre of the clearing. The old woman's head lifted, turning her face towards the bright moon, as if she was seeking its coldness.
She pinched Gytha's arm. 'Fetch my bones and my blackthorn rod.'
Gytha returned once more to the bothy and fetched the objects, laying them in her mother's lap. This summoning would require greater magic than a thorn apple, for they had nothing of his which they could use against him.
The air was still and heavy in the forest. The trees were shaggy with leaves. They encircled the glade like great dumb trolls silently watching the stars glittering above: the Bear and the Swan, and the great arching bridge of stars over which the souls of the dead travelled. The Milky Way, Gerard once told her she must call it, but he would know it for its real name now, for his soul had walked that path. She had seen it.
Madron was squatting in the glade. Her hair glowed silver in the moonlight, her skin was turned to pearl. She had drawn a circle around herself in the leaf mould with the tip of the blackthorn rod. Then around the circle she had made four marks. A stranger might not have recognized the crude symbols, but Gytha knew them well, for her mother had taught them to her when she was still in her cradle: a serpent for the earth, a fish for the water, a bird for the air and a salamander for fire. The moonlight poured into the scratches in the earth, filling them with molten silver. Madron could not see them, but Gytha knew she could feel them just as well as she could feel her own hands.
Madron fumbled in the bag and drew out one slender bone, only as long as a woman's hand. She placed it before her, then from her sleeve withdrew a small posy of herbs, bound together by a scarlet thread — periwinkle, orpine, vervain, monkshood and deadly nightshade. She laid the bundle across the bone, so that it made a slanted cross.
Finally she turned her sightless eyes towards Gytha, extending her hand.
'Come, you must stand inside the circle, else you'll not be safe.'
Gytha stepped over the mark scratched in the floor of the forest, careful not to break the circle. Then she crouched behind her mother and waited.
The old woman threw back her head and lifted her face to the