Hart's Hope

21

Orem's Future

How Orem learned that he must die for Beauty's sake, and what he planned for himself in the face of death.

A Chance Conversation

One evening Orem stood on a portico that hung emptily over a roof garden. He often came there to look down on the little forest there. Despite hours of trying, he had not yet found a way to reach the garden itself through the maze of the Palace. He thought sometimes that this is how the world must look to God, close enough almost to touch, and yet so infinitesimally small that he dared not touch it lest it break.

Out beyond the Palace Park, with its perpetual spring, a snowstorm was covering the city, the first of that year. It had been eleven months now since the snowstorm in the cages, when he stared death in the face. He thought back and remembered that he had not been afraid. He had fought death, but with stubbornness, not fear. Not passion, either. His life was so placid in the Palace that he now believed that he was by nature a man of peace. Seventeen years old, and already comfortable in the contemplative life. Of course it was not true. He was pent-up, frustrated, but these feelings left him languid and morose, so that the more he needed action the less he felt like doing anything. That was why he came to the portico and looked down over the garden and wished he could dwell in that small place; that was why he looked out over the city and wondered what Flea was doing tonight in the snow.

"Look. Snow again." It was Craven.

"Already? The time has been so short." Weasel.

"Eleven months. Rather long, I thought." Urubugala.

Do they know that I am here? thought Orem. He almost gave them an island in the Queen's Searching Eye, so they could converse in privacy; then it occurred to him that there might be things he could learn by listening unnoticed himself. For a moment, accidentally, he could eavesdrop the way the Queen did all the time.

"How we all look forward to the joyous day," said Craven. "The birth of a little offspring."

"Beauty's rebirth and replenishment. Power for another few centuries or so. Does the Little King

yet know his part in it?"

"I think not," said Weasel. "No, he does not."

"Should we tell him?" asked Craven.

Weasel answered quickly. "I think we must."

"No," said Urubugala.

"It's always better to know the truth."

"Can he stop it?" asked Urubugala. "If he tried to stop it, all would be destroyed. For the Queen

to renew herself, all her power must be placed in the living blood. He will play this part better if he knows nothing."

"More merciful that way," wheezed Craven.

"Yes," said Weasel. "But will he thank you for his mercy?"

"I care nothing for his thanks," said Urubugala. "The cost of power is never paid by the one who wields it."

And then silence. He did not even hear them leave.

Orem knew nothing of the books of magic. From his time with Gallowglass, however, he knew this much: that the price of power was blood, and whatever gave the blood must die. Beauty was coming to the time of her renewal. And they would not tell Orem of his role in it because all her power must be placed in the living blood. In that moment he reached the obvious conclusion. The blood of a hart was more potent than the blood of a rat; the blood of a man more potent than the blood of a hart; and the blood of a husband more potent than the blood of a stranger.

Suddenly his almost empty life in the Palace made sense. He was the fatted calf. Beauty had bedded him and conceived his child because otherwise he would not be her true husband and so would not have power enough for her. Probably she awaited only the birth of their child, and he would die.

He leaned on the railing now because he could not stand. He was still in the cages after all. He had not been saved when Beauty sent for him. He had simply been set within her plan. For an hour he watched the snow and mourned himself.

As he mourned, he foresaw many versions of his death. Would she ridicule him then, in his last moments? Or thank him for his sacrifice? More powerful than the mere blood of a husband would be the blood of a husband shed willingly. What if Beauty asked me to give my blood freely? Does it occur to her that a man might gladly die for her? He imagined himself going to her and offering his life—but he knew that she would laugh at him. She thought him ludicrous even now; he could not make a grand gesture with her watching, for it would seem ludicrous even to him.

He also thought of escape. But after thought, he scorned that, too. Had he come out of Banningside to Inwit, come from Wizard Street to the Palace, just so he could escape at the very moment that was plainly meant to be the meaning of his life? He had wanted a name and a song and a place, hadn't he?

And after an hour spent thinking such thoughts, he decided he could bear having his life end this way. He was reconciled to being a pawn in Beauty's game.

Then, suddenly, he remembered lying down in his cage because he was too weary to keep walking in the snow. He felt the other men's spit on his shoulders and face. Even when you have no hope, you do not die of sleep when you can die struggling.

Why was I brought here? Why was I brought here? Beauty does not know that I am a Sink. It was the Sisters who showed her my face in a dream. Perhaps I was meant to overhear this conversation tonight so that I would remember that Queen Beauty is my enemy. Though I still dream of her, though I stammer and feel the fool when I am with her, perhaps I am meant to use my power to weaken her.

If I am to die, let it not be as a willing sacrifice. Let me die knowing that while she can take my life from me, I have also taken something from her. Perhaps I have time enough in the days before the child is born to help Palicrovol. A year I've been here, and in that time I have done nothing at all with the power I have except have a few secret but trivial conversations. I may be weak, but I am the only person who can thwart the Queen at all. And if she discovers me, so much the better. Let her kill me in rage, so that much of my blood is spilled and wasted. It will be my turn to laugh at her.

It was a very satisfying story that he told himself, and it led him to do everything that he ought to do. No one but Orem himself would be hurt when he discovered that he was never meant to die at all.

That night Orem resumed the war that had begun with a single skirmish almost a year before. He found King Palicrovol nearer than a year ago, but not by much. The greatest change was in the number of men who were with him—he was gathering his armies in earnest now, and Orem could not even guess their number. The circle of wizards was still with the camp, and inside that the circle of priests, and inside that King Palicrovol, assailed by the sweet and terrible magic of the Queen.

Calmly and thoroughly Orem undid all her magic around the King. This time he was more discriminating—he left the magic of Palicrovol's wizards alone. The Queen did not respond quickly, and Orem used her sluggishness to cut great swathes in the cloying sea of her Searching Eye. Carefully he widened the area where she was blind, and soon it became clear that she could not even find King Palicrovol. Orem opened his eyes and looked at the candle by his bed. He had only worked an hour, and she was groping and incapable.

Back when he was pranking with his power, that would have been enough. Now, however, he knew that he had only begun. It was not enough to blind her around Palicrovol. He stretched himself to the utmost and blinded her view of whole cities, of whole counties, while she concentrated on finding Palicrovol again. Within the city of Inwit he devastated her power entirely. From wall to wall of her city, and for a mile or more outside, he undid all her spells of binding. Only King's Town itself did he leave alone, not because he could not undo her power there, but because it was better to let her think that her opponent could not pierce those defenses.

This time two more hours had passed, and Orem returned to Palicrovol one more time. The Queen still had not found him. But to make sure, he undid her so far around him that she would not find him in a day or more, if she kept searching at the same rate. Let Palicrovol have a whole day of rest. And tomorrow, I'll let him have another, if I can.

You remember that night and that morning, Palicrovol. It came almost a year after the first respite, when you first learned that another power stirred in the world. All night you waited for Beauty's vengeful counterthrust, but it did not come. In the morning your wizards tried to pretend that they had wrought your salvation, but you knew that they had not. The priests pretended that they had said some new and efficacious prayer, but you laughed at them. You knew there was no explaining what had come, only that whatever this power was, it was kind to you. There was balance in the world once more, the wheel had turned, and you began your yearlong march toward Inwit, toward the city too long denied to you. This time, you believed, you would overcome.

Bathers in the Pool

Although he stayed awake hours later than usual, Orem awoke before dawn. He recognized the faint light outside his window. It was the Hour of the Outmost Circle, the time that he was wont to waken in the House of God. Not only was he awake, but he also felt refreshed and vigorous for the first time in months. He stood up from the bed and walked briskly back and forth in the room, surprised at how good it felt to move quickly again. He was a soldier; he was at war; he was alive. Orem stood at the window and searched to see how much of last night's undoing Beauty had been able to repair. He was pleased to see how little, really, she had done. Palicrovol was still undiscovered. Perhaps more important, though, even Inwit itself was not restored to the level of control she had had before. Each member of her Guard had been bound to her with a spell of loyalty to her and friendship for his fellow guards. Many of the guards in the city had been brought back, but not all. They didn't instantly fall to quarreling among themselves or betraying her, of course. What mattered was that in a single night he could undo more than she could redo in the hours when he slept.

There was a hurry about the servants that he passed, and urgency, sometimes even fear. That was a sure sign that Queen Beauty was feeling out of sorts. The servants always scurried then. Silently Orem apologized to them for making their day a bit more difficult than usual today. Queen Beauty, his poor wife, had perhaps had little sleep.

As quickly as possible he lost himself in the woods, wandering as he pleased until he found himself at the high west wall of the Castle. He walked north along the wall until it curved in sharply at Corner Castle, where the Lesser Donjon waited, the prison of the great, more dangerous in its gentle way than the Gaols. He could hear from within it, faintly, a distant cry; perhaps, he thought, it's only a sound from the city beyond the wall. It was not. Orem pressed his ear against the stone of the tower and the sound came clear. It was the scream of a man in agony; it was the scream of the worst terror a man can know. Not the fear of death, but the fear that death would delay its coming.

Orem could not conceive of the torture that would arouse such a cry from a human throat. The stone he leaned against was cold, and he shivered. The sun was now half-hid behind the western wall, and already the air was getting cooler. He left the tower and the suffering man inside it. He wondered if his own throat could ever make a sound like that. If it did, he would not know it: when such a sound is made, its maker is past hearing.

He walked back a different way, through the woods again, but this time brutally, thrusting the brambles out of the way and letting them whip back savagely in his face. He let his shirt tear, let his face bleed; pain was a delicious language, one that he knew how to understand. Then he came suddenly to the Queen's Pool.

It was water from the Water House, the pure spring that flowed in an endless stream as if God himself were pumping, right in the heart of the Castle. The Baths of the Water House were public and the water good; but most of the water went somewhere else, went in aqueducts to the Temples, to the great houses and embassies lining King's Road and the even more exclusive Diggings Avenue, went in bronze pipes to Pools Park, where the artists dwelt outside the Palace, and came here, to the Queen's Pool, where few ever bathed and the water was as pure as a baby's tears. Orem stayed back in the trees, just looking at the water rippling in the breeze, transparent, green, and deep because the sun had not yet risen far enough to shine from the surface.

While he watched, two visitors came to the pool. The first to come was an old man in a loincloth, and Orem knew him: the mad servant who called himself God and had no pupils in his eyes. He came and stood across the pool from Orem, looking down into the water. Orem did not move. They seemed to wait forever, both of them statues in the gathering night.

She swam slowly, barely rippling the water, never splashing at all. She is misnamed, thought Orem: Not weasel but otter is her animal self. Then she dove under the surface.

Now the servant who called himself God moved, throwing wide his arms. Green flashed his eyes, a light so bright that Orem looked away. And when he turned to watch again, the old servant was naked, pissing savage green into the water, his eyes bright green and staring into the wood. Still Weasel had not come up. The green spread shining across the water until the pool was all suffused with that living light. Still Weasel stayed beneath. Then the old man bowed and bent and knelt beside the pool, and dipped his head into the water up to the neck. Only then did Weasel rise, only her head above the surface, as if those faces could not live on the same side of the water. She seemed not to notice the vividness of the pool.

The tableau broke; the old servant pulled his head from the water, and Weasel turned to him, reached out and touched him. Perhaps they spoke: Orem could not hear. She kissed his brow and the servant—wept? Sobbed or cried out or spoke a single word, Orem could not tell. Then the servant arose, taking his loincloth, and walked haltingly into the well-trimmed path that would take him to the Palace. Weasel swam a few minutes more until the water gradually grew dull and ordinary. But Weasel did not become dull. Orem looked at her and realized that it was not an accident the Queen kept her close at hand. Those nearest the Queen were those most tortured; the quiet ugly woman who had come with him on so many jaunts with Belfeva and Timias was more than she seemed, surely, or the Queen would not torment her.

He cast his net for her, and counted the layers of spells, the depth of the spells the Queen had laid to pen her in, and yes, as he suspected, she was bound and tortured. Who are you, Weasel? Prisoner here as much as I, and perhaps as hopeless. I who will die, am I luckier than you? For I will soon be free of her, and you will not, bound forever in the company of a Queen who grieves you as she can; and she can so exquisitely give grief.

It was then that Orem first loved Weasel Sootmouth. Not for her flesh—Orem had known the body of the Queen. Not out of pity—he knew her too well to see her from the distance that pity requires. He loved her because he admired her. For bearing without complaint the burden that the Queen put on her. For still being gentle and loving when she had ample reason to be bitter. And because when she swam in the pool and kissed the servant who called himself God, she was, oddly enough, beautiful. Does that surprise you, Palicrovol? That of all people, your son could look at Weasel Sootmouth and see beauty? The Queen Discovers Her Husband

"Queen Beauty has been looking for you."

"Oh," said Orem.

"She wants you to come to her at once."

For a terrible moment he thought that his war with her was already over, that she had found him out and meant to kill him now. He did not feel as brave as he had felt yesterday on the portico. Then he realized that if it were death she intended, she would not have entrusted her message to this quiet servant. So he followed the servant to a place in the maze that he had not known existed; Beauty's apartments were well-masked, both with magic and with the illusions of clever artisans. Having gone to her once with a guide, however, the illusions were spoiled for Orem and he could find his way again easily. As for the spells, they never worked on him at all.

Queen Beauty lay in her bed looking out the window when he arrived. The servant left him alone with her. The door closed, and she turned to him.

"My Little King," she said.

Her beauty was undiminished, but her weariness could not be hidden. After all, it was a living beauty that she had, and her face was not unexpressive. She was tired, she was worried, she was grim, and her belly was heavy with the child that she had carried for eleven months. Only then did it occur to him that the pregnancy might be sapping her strength, and that was why she could not respond well to his attacks on her in the night.

"I fear I've ignored you far too long," she said.

"I've made friends."

"I know," she said. "Weasel tells me that you're pleasant company."

He could not hide the fact that it pleased him to know that Weasel Sootmouth had said such a thing—he was young enough to make more of that than was really in it. "Does she think so?"

"It's your child in my belly, you know. I'm weary with the waiting, and the child weighs me down. You should cheer me up."

"How can I?"

"Tell me things. Tell me about your country home. Tell me about childhood on the farm. They say your rustic stories are amusing."

It was a grotesque hour he spent then, telling tales of High Waterswatch to the woman who meant to kill him. It galled him to tell of his father and mother to her—but what other stories could he tell? She laughed a little when he told her of his early attempts at soldiering, and how the sergeant regarded him as unfit. She seemed interested in everything, even tales of how a farmer knows when the grain is near to harvest, and whether a cow is full of twins, and the signs of a storm.

He looked. "No storm today or tomorrow," he said.

"But there'll be a storm all the same. Hart's blood, but I wish that it would come."

He turned and looked at her, wondering if she wished for the storm or the baby growing in her. Her hands were folded across the gravid mound beneath the blankets of her bed, but she was gazing neither at the window nor at her belly. When the child came, his life would quickly end, he knew. But surely he would live to see his child. Surely his future would not forbid him that.

At last, near noon, she wearied of him.

"Go now," she whispered. "I need to sleep."

He started for the door with triumph singing in his heart. She needed to sleep indeed. That was

his doing, and it would be a long time before she slept well, if he had his way.

But she stopped him at the door. "Come to me again," she said. "Tomorrow, at the same time."

"Yes, my lady," Orem answered.

"I've used you badly, haven't I?" she said.

"No," he lied.

"The gods are restless," she said. "They don't bide well under discipline. Do you?"

Orem did not understand. "Am I under discipline?"

"I only noticed it today. You look like him."

"Who?"

"Him," she said. "Him." Then she turned her face away from him to sleep, and he left.

Orem did not understand it, and I did not tell him, but you know, don't you, Palicrovol? She began to love him then. And part of why she loved him was because he looked like you. Does it make you laugh? Three hundred years of torturing you, and her hate for you had twisted into love. Not that she meant to free you. Never that. But still it ought to flatter you. You're the sort of enemy your enemy must love.

This is the way the paths of our lives entwine and cross and go apart: If she had sent for him the day before, even then he might have loved her. But she did not send for him until she was afraid; she was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her. If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done.

was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her. If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done. 2

The Birth of Youth

The tale of the birth of Orem's son, Beauty's son, the bastard grandchild of King Palicrovol, in all the world no child more beautiful and bright.

The Burning Ring

Orem's war with the Queen made him almost frenetic during the days, as if he had to work off some of the power he stole from her. As she neared the time of delivery, he harried her more and more, so that she spent her days exhausted after battling futilely all night. Orem, however, spent his days in ever more active games. Timias and Belfeva were surprised, but gladly joined him, even when he indulged in madness like racing horses with the cavalry on the parade ground or competing with Timias to see which of them could throw a javelin the farthest. Timias was not the sort to let Orem win, and so Orem, untrained in any of the manly arts, invariably lost. But he kept at it furiously, and gradually improved.

When Beauty went into labor for the birth of Orem's son, he was climbing up a wall of the Palace, racing to the top with Timias. This was one competition where agility and endurance counted for more than brute strength and long practice, and Orem was holding his own. He was nearly to the top, in fact, when he noticed a sharp pain like a candle flame on his leftmost finger. He looked, and saw that his ruby ring was glowing hot. He could not take it off, not without falling a hundred feet or so. Instead he endured it, climbed the rest of the way to the top, and only then tried to pry it off his finger. He could not.

Weasel and Belfeva were there, watching. "Help me," Orem said.

"You can't take it off," Weasel said. "The ruby ring will burn till the child is born. It isn't really burning you. Anyway, you should be glad—it's proof that the child is not only yours, but also a son."

"The child is being born," Orem said. Then this was the last day of his life, he was sure. He walked to the lip of the roof, reached down, and helped Timias to the top.

"You won," Timias said, surprised. "I didn't think you had it in you."

"I kept looking down," Orem said. "The thought of death makes me quick."

Suddenly Weasel cried out in pain. "What is it!" they demanded, but she would not tell.

"At a birthing? The father?"

"At this birthing, with that mother, yes." She winced again.

"What's wrong? What's happening to you?"

"Help me to my room, Belfeva," Weasel said. "And you, Little King, go to your wife, I say."

"But she hasn't sent for me," Orem said. In truth, he wanted to spend the last day of his life with anyone but Beauty.

"Do you forget which finger bears her ring? She'll obey you if you command her to let you stay."

"No one commands Queen Beauty."

"You do," Weasel said. "But beware how you command her, for she'll obey you with cruel perfection if you ask unwisely."

"I don't want to go," he said angrily.

She winced again, and staggered against Belfeva. "Not for her. Your son. Your son has begun his voyage down the river to the sea. She'll have no other help but you. No one but the father can help at the birth of a twelve-month child."

Orem wanted to stay, wanted to know why Weasel was in such pain. But he knew that Weasel was wise, that Weasel did not lie; if she said he must go to Beauty, then he would go.

Parturition

The Queen was not in her normal sleeping room. Nor were there any servants there, to give direction. He did not know where she might have gone for her lying in. He had only one way of finding out: He spun his web through the Palace, and found her all aflame with silver sweetness, rough to his hearing, silent to his touch.

Through the corridors he went toward the place where he knew she was, but always the corridors turned, always the doors opened only the wrong way. He only understood when he stepped from a corridor and into a room, then changed his mind and stepped back again—and found that the corridor had changed direction. The short end now was on the left, the long end with the rising stairs now on the right. Queen Beauty was where he thought she was, but the magic of the Palace turned all paths away. So he let his power flow loose as a robe around him, lapping against the walls, breaking down the spells, revealing the doors where they ought to be. This was not the magic of illusion that he invariably saw through. It was true bending, and he feared that by finding her, he would confess to her what he really was. He found her worried servants gathered at a door.

"And alone," answered a servant. "She forbids us to come in."

"She won't forbid me," said Orem, and he knocked.

"Go away," came the husky, painful voice from inside.

"I'm coming in." And he did.

Beauty lay alone in the middle of a long and narrow bed. She was naked, her legs spread wide, her knees up. Some sheets had been tied to the five posts of the bed. Two were tied to her feet, and she strained against them; two she held in her hands, and pulled hard. The last lay on her pillow, and as a wave of pain swept over her, she turned her head and seized it in her teeth and bit and moaned, tossing her head, worrying the cloth like a dog with a rag. She dripped with sweat. The high-pitched moan that arose from her throat was not a human sound. Blood was trickling from the passage where the baby's head had crowned. The head was large and bloody and purple, and it would not come. Beauty looked at him through eyes wide as a deer's with fear and pain. The eyes followed him as he walked around the foot of the bed and stopped near her face as she chewed on the cloth. Even in such a state, she was beautiful, the most womanly of women.

"Beauty," he said.

And then the pain passed, and she shuddered and let the cloth slip back to the pillow.

"Beauty," he said again. "Haven't you any magic to end the pain?"

She laughed mirthlessly. "Little fool, Little King, there is no magic that has power over childbirth.

The pain must be felt or the child will die."

Then the pain came again, and she whimpered and writhed as muscles rippled over her belly. The child's head made no forward progress. Beauty looked at him with pleading in her eyes. What

did she want of him? To end the pain, but he could not do it.

"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it," he said.

"Do?" She cried aloud. "Do? Teach me what to do, husband!"

The child would die—he knew that much. A child who did not quickly come once it had

crowned would die. Not my son, he silently said. "Can someone bear the pain for you?" Did she nod? Yes; and whispered: "Not against the other's will."

"Then cast the pain on me," he said, "so the child will live."

"A man!" she said contemptuously. "This pain?"

"Look at the ring on your finger and obey me. Give the pain away." No sooner did he say the words than her convulsive movements stopped. Her heavy breathing fell to normal, her pressure on the sheets eased. He waited for the pain to come to him—but it did not. He had no time to question it, for suddenly the flesh opened impossibly wide, the bones of Queen Beauty's pelvis separated widely, and the child slipped out easily upon the sheets. It was impossible that Beauty could go through such a thing so peacefully, yet instantly the bones came together again, and Beauty reached down and picked the child up. There was no afterbirth; the baby had no trailing cord.

"Command me again, my Little King," she said. "It gave me pleasure to obey."

"But the pain didn't come to me," he said.

"You didn't command me to give it to you." She smiled triumphantly.

He thought back on his words and could not remember. Somehow she had tricked him, but he was not clever enough to know how. "Let me hold the child.."

"Is that also a command?"

"Only if—if it will cause no harm to him."

Beauty laughed again and held the infant out. Orem looked down at him, reached to him, took the child in his arms. He had seen newborns before, nieces and nephews, and had helped to care for foundlings at the House of God. But this child was heavier, and held his body differently. Orem looked into the infant's face, and the child gazed back at him wide-eyed, and smiled.

Smiled. Minutes after birth, and the baby smiled.

"A twelve-month child," Queen Beauty said.

Orem remembered his father, Avonap, remembered his strong arms that could toss him into the air so he flew like a bird, and catch him as surely as the treelimb caught the starling. My arms are strong enough for a child this small. And suddenly he was Avonap in his heart, and he longed for the child. The child Orem had loved his father more than life; that is the sort of child who, when a man, also loves his children with a devotion that cannot be broken. You would not know, Palicrovol, but there are such men, and they are not weaker than you; you are merely poorer than they.

At once Orem knew that he must have this child, if only for a time. "You will let me see him whenever I want," he said.

"A command?"

"Yes," he said. She laughed. "Then I'll obey."

"You are too daring, Little King," she said. This time she didn't laugh.

"I command it."

"You don't know what you're doing."

"As long as I live I command you to let me know and love him, and him me!" She could not

begrudge him that—he did not dare to ask for more, did not dare to ask to be allowed to live a moment longer than she already had in mind.

"Little King, you don't know what you ask."

"Will you do it?"

"Don't come to me and blame me, Little King. Love the child if you want, and let him love you, it's nothing to me, all one to me." She turned her face to the wall.

"A child must know his father if he's to be happy."

"I have no doubt of it. Only this, Little King: He'll eat no food but what he draws from my breast. And he'll never have a name."

That was wrong; it could not be. To have no name is to have no self, Orem knew that. "I command you to give him a name."

"You command easily now, don't you? Like a child, not guessing at the price of things. See how well your old commands have worked, before you try any others."

"Name him."

"Youth," she answered, smiling and amused.

"That's not a name."

"Nor is Beauty. But it's more name than he could earn in all his life."

"Youth, then. And I'll be free with him."

"Oh, you're a delicious fool. I've kept the three most marvelous fools in all the world with me for all these years, but you, the best of all, the Sisters saved you for the last. You will have all the time you want with the boy, all the time you can possibly use is yours. May it bring you joy."

The boy reached up and clutched at Orem's nose and laughed.

"Did you hear? Already he laughed!" And Orem couldn't help but laugh in turn. "That's the way it is with a twelve-month child," Queen Beauty said.

Orem did not see it; but I believe that every word he said was pain to Beauty, made plain to Beauty how much he already loved the child, and how little love he had for her. It could not have surprised her, but it could hurt no less for all that.

"Give me the boy," she said. "He needs to eat."

"Youth," said Orem to the child, who smiled. He handed the infant to Beauty, and this time the child needed no guidance to the nipple. Beauty looked up at Orem with eyes strangely timid, like a doe's. She looked innocent and sweet, but Orem was not deceived. "Beauty," he said, "how did you escape the pain of this, when you didn't give it to me?"

"Does it matter?"

"Tell me. I command it."

Studying his face, she said, "You commanded me to give the pain away; you didn't say to whom."

That was true, he realized. The second time, when she obeyed him, he had not said she had to give it to him. "But who else would willingly take it?"

"The woman who of all women could not bear to see this body torn asunder. The woman whose face this really is."

Orem stared at her stupidly. Who else's face was it, if not Beauty's? Orem had never known that Beauty wore a borrowed shape. But knowing that, it was not hard to know who it was who truly owned that face.

"Weasel," Orem whispered. "You gave the pain to her."

"We always shared my pains anyway," Beauty said. "It seemed only fair. She had had the use of this body during her perfect childhood—we agreed that it was fair she suffer some of the pain of its adulthood." Beauty smiled lovingly at Orem. "And pleasure, too. I made sure she felt half the pleasure of our wedding night, Little King. I wanted her to remember what it felt like to be unfaithful to her beloved husband."

"Her husband?" Orem had not known that Weasel had a husband.

"What a fool," Beauty said. "Her husband, the King! Palicrovol meant to make her Queen in my place. Why else do you think I've kept her here? Weasel is Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin, the Flower Princess. She wanted my place, so I've taken hers. Inside her perfect body. Well, her perfect body just went through a birthing that could have killed it. But thanks to you, her perfect body didn't have to bear the pain, or heal from the injury. Too bad for the imperfect flesh she actually dwells in, though. That may well die." Orem had not realized until then Beauty's perfect malice. "It's you deserves her face," he whispered.

He thought back to Dobbick in the House of God, who taught him that King Palicrovol brought his own suffering upon himself. "But she did nothing to you," Orem said.

"She took my place," said Beauty. "For whatever reason, I care not: she took my place in this Palace, and she pays for it."

(That argument should be familiar to you, Palicrovol. He took my place in the Palace, you said, and so he must pay. Do you then admit that Beauty was just when she punished the bride you brought from Onologasenweev?)

"I see now," Beauty said. "I see now." And her face became dark.

"What do you see?" asked Orem, afraid that she saw what he really was.

"I see that she has taken my place again."

"Yes! She's bearing the pain of the birth of your child."

"Once again she has my husband's love."

Orem looked at her in disbelief. "For a year you've despised me. How can you be jealous of a

thing you threw away!" And then he lied quite cruelly to her, thinking he was telling her the truth. "I never loved you."

She cried out against his words. "You worshipped me!"

"Name of God, woman! I hate you more than any living soul, if you are alive, if you have a soul. You're three hundred years old and you have no more love in you than a mantis for her mate, and you never—you never—"

"I never what?"

"You never took me to your bed again."

"If you wanted me, boy, why didn't you come to me and ask?"

"You would have laughed at me."

"Yes," she said. "I laugh at all the weak things of the world. And when you leave me now, and

go to Weasel Sootmouth, and comfort her, I will lie here laughing." "Laugh at me all you like." He turned to go. "But I won't be laughing at you."

"At me."

He turned back to look at her. "You aren't one of the weak things of the world."

She smiled viciously. "Not for long, anyway. Not once I've finished what I began with you."

Orem was sure she was hinting at his death.

"Sing to me, Little King. Sing to me a song from the House of God. Surely they taught you songs in the House of God."

He sang the first thing that came into his mind. It was Halfpriest Dobbick's favorite passage in

the Second Song.

God surely sees your sins, my love,

The blackness of your heart, my love.

He weighs them with your suffering.

Which is the lesser part, my love?

"Again," she said.

And when he had sung it twice, she made him sing it again, and again, and again, as she rocked back and forth, suckling their son. Despite his hatred for her, Orem had never seen a thing that pleased him so much: his baby drawing from his wife's breast, as the grain drew life from the soil. He loved his son instinctively, the way Avonap loved his sons and his fields. He regretted every word he had said that might cause her to kill him sooner, and deprive him of an hour he might have had with Youth.

At last she did not murmur "Again" when he finished the song. "Forgive me," he whispered to her. But she was asleep, and did not hear him.

So he left her, and went to find Weasel, who had born Beauty's pain at his command.

The Healing of Weasel Sootmouth

"You can't come in," said the servants standing guard at Weasel's door.

Orem pushed past them. Weasel lay delirious on the bed, crying out and weeping, calling now on Beauty, now on Palicrovol, and now and then on Orem, too. He thought that meant she loved him

as she loved Palicrovol, though in fact she was crying out to save him, not for him to save her.

He questioned the doctors gathered at her bed. "We can find no cause for the pain," they said.

"Treat her," Orem said, "as if she had just given birth to a twelve-month child. Treat her as if the birthing broke her loins apart and tore her flesh."

Orem watched when he could bear it, sat by Weasel and held her hand when he could not. She knew nothing of his presence, only cried out with pain and delirium. At last the doctors finished all that

they could do.

"She's lost so much blood, what can we do?" said one.

"How could this have come to be?" asked another.

Orem only shook his head. He could not explain to them that it was his doing.

The doctors left, but Orem stayed, holding her hand. Once she called out, "Little King."

"I'm here, Enziquelvinisensee," he answered. Hearing her own name seemed to soothe her. She slept. He said all the prayers he could remember from the House of God. He knew they were meaningless here in Beauty's house, but he said them anyway, because he was afraid of what he had done to her.

He must have dozed off, for he awoke suddenly to find that Craven and Urubugala waited with him beside the bed. Out of habit he extended his web to include them, freeing them to speak unheard by Beauty.

"How is she?" Craven wheezed.

"She bore the pain of the birth," Orem said.

Craven nodded.

"The Queen has been harvested," said Urubugala. "But what was the crop, little farmer?"

"A boy, named Youth."

"She'll live," said Urubugala. "Does that comfort you? Beauty won't let Weasel die."

"Her name isn't Weasel," Orem said. "Did you know? The Queen told me. She's really

Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin. The Flower Princess."

Craven and Urubugala looked at each other, and Urubugala laughed. "Did you think to surprise us, Little King? We've been with Weasel from the start."

Only then did Orem realize that they, too, were disguised characters from the same ancient tale. "Zymas," Orem said. Craven smiled faintly. "I haven't been myself lately," he apologized.

The dwarf only answered with one of his rhymes. "Who is the magical leper who cleans us with

his tongue? He puts our names in picture frames and paints them out with dung!"

"You are the King's companions," Orem said. "In all the old stories—"

"The stories are very old," said Craven. "We are the Queen's Companions now." He gestured at

Weasel's sleeping body. "Send for us if she awakes."

Weasel Wakes

They brought a chair for him because he would not leave her. All night he waited. And in the morning he opened his eyes to find that Weasel was awake beside him, her ugly face hidden by darkness except for the skewed eyes watching him.

"You're awake," he said.

"And you," she answered.

"I was afraid for you."

She searched his face. "You called me—I dreamed you called me by another name."

"Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin."

"She told you?"

"After I commanded her—commanded her to give the pain away."

"Ah." The eyes closed, then opened again. "I forgive you, Little King. You didn't know what you

were doing." She startled him by smiling. "Just think of it—I'm still a virgin, and yet my body has conceived and given birth." She laughed a little, then groaned in lingering pain.

"I will think of you," Orem said, "as the mother of my child."

"Don't," she said.

"It was your body that bore him."

"I would not have born a twelve-month child."

"He's beautiful. Queen Beauty has promised me that I can have him as often as I like. I didn't know how much I longed to have a son until I saw him. He already smiled at me." "Don't love him," Weasel said. "Don't let him smile at you."

Weasel nodded, but turned away her face.

"I'm not ashamed," said Orem. "Weasel, I love you. Before she told me that this wasn't your flesh I loved you. Let me pretend that I'll live to see my son become a man. Let me pretend that you are my—"

"No," she said. "You have a wife."

"Have I?" he asked angrily.

"And I have a husband."

Orem fell silent then. Only after she pitied him and touched his hand did he speak again. "I was wrong," he said. "Forgive me."

"I always forgive you," she said. "Even before you ask. Little King, I will not deny my husband for you. Nor will I ever love your child. But I'll stay with you and be your friend to the end of this mad course you've chosen. Is that enough?"

"What makes you think I chose my course?" But he agreed, and let her sleep again.

Those were the very words they said, and neither one suspected that Orem had misguessed his future. From then until you came to the city gates they never spoke of it again; though they were together every day, Weasel never guessed that Orem thought that Beauty planned his death. Weasel would have told him the truth if she had known that he did not know.

I have heard it said that you were told that the Flower Princess betrayed you with Orem Scanthips, the Little King. Of course you do not believe any such lie. But she did love him as if he were her own son. And remember this, Palicrovol: if you had been faithful to the Flower Princess, Orem Scanthips never could have been conceived. Remember that when you pass judgment on what we did when you were exiled from Hart's Hope.