The former Duke of York led his Republican
army up the hill to the castle of
the human king-in-exile, following the
fall of the Faerie Empire. But he triggered
a terrorist spell, which placed all his men under
a glamour that lasted one hundred years.
Each soldier was transformed into a rose bush
and they all became entwined together. Their
discarded uniforms, snagged on thorns, soon turned
to rags and rotted clean away. Brass buttons
lay scattered like mossy pebbles, green with
verdigris. Swords and spears first stood as a trellis,
upon which the roses climbed, until the blight
of rust consumed their blades. A century of
sedition and revolution passed, as the
Crown fell, then was restored and finally was
lost and all magic was exhausted in the
struggle. So the spell was broken and an army
of ten thousand naked, unarmed men came
marching back down from the ruined castle, still
twined arm-in-arm and wearing roses in their hair.
