Hart's Hope (24 page)

Their eyes widened, and for a moment they said nothing, waiting, he supposed, for Queen Beauty to strike him down. Either she had heard and did not care or, as Orem hoped, she had not heard. Had not heard, and so he might have some small pathetic power here, enough that he need not be ashamed.

“I asked,” he said again, “what I am free to do.”

“Apparently,” said the woman, “whatever you want.”

The grave rumble of the old man's voice added: “You command everyone. You're the husband of the Queen. Little King is who you are, and they must obey.”

It was a heady thought, and Orem distrusted it. “Tell me your names, then.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the ugly woman. “We spoke in error. You command everyone but Urubugala and us.”

“And why not you?”

“Because we do not laugh at you.”

The implication was obvious. “Then all others will laugh.”

They glanced at each other again, and the woman whispered, “It is Beauty's will. And what can stop Beauty from being obeyed?”

It was not an empty question, not entirely. She was asking him if indeed he knew something that they did not know. But he dared not answer, dared not explain to them just what he was, even if he had known for sure himself. What can stop Beauty from being obeyed? Beauty sees all—except that which she sees not that she sees not. Does she not see me? And does she not see that she sees me not? Riddles, riddles. I cannot answer them because I do not know.

“The less you command,” said the soldier, “the less they will laugh.”

“Don't tell him that, Craven,” said the ugly woman. “Little King, command all you like. Your life will be easier if they all laugh. Keep them laughing. The Queen, too, will laugh.”

“If the Queen laughs, then will I command
her
, too?”

Again the moment of startlement at his impudence; again nothing happened. And this time the ugly woman smiled and the old soldier wheezed. “Who can say?” whispered the soldier.

“Craven. Is that your name?”

The soldier immediately soured. “It is the name the Queen gave to me.”

“And you,” Orem said to the old woman. “What may I call you?”

“I am called Weasel, surnamed Sootmouth. It is the name the Queen gave me.”

“I had a name before she named me,” said Orem. “Did you?”

“If I did,” said Weasel, “I don't remember it.”

“But you must. My name is really—”

But she put a rough and scaly hand to his mouth. “You can't say it. And if you could, it would cost you dearly. Don't try to remember.”

And then he made plain to them that he was not the slim-hipped boy he seemed to be. He reached out with his subtle inward tongue and tasted them gently, where their sparks so brightly glowed. In the momentary tasting he could feel how they were bound so cold and grey, their lights smothered under a thousand spells. He did not undo all the spells, only the small spell of forgetfulness there, a common, an easy thing to do; hadn't he done it for Gallowglass?

No sooner done than regretted, however. For they looked at him with widened eyes, eyes that did not see him: they were turned inward, to see what had been lost so long from memory and now had been returned. And they wept. The old soldier Craven with his cold grey tears silently streaking his cheeks, remembering his strength; ugly Weasel Sootmouth with her face contorted more than ever, hideous with grief, remembering her husband.

Then they winced in pain and looked toward the door, and there was the Queen.

Queen Beauty, but now not haughty and imperious: now raging, with her eyes dancing as if aflame. They
were
afire, Orem saw, for flames licked outward, throwing light that danced in the silver discs and dazzled on the table. “How have you remembered what I took from you?” Her voice shook the room.

Weasel and Craven said nothing.

The Queen shouted and the discs banged on the wall. Weasel and Craven fell to the floor. Frightened as he was, Orem thought to wonder if he should pretend to be affected by whatever magic she was using. Before he could act, however, Urubugala took matters out of Orem's hands. He rolled out in front of the Queen and unfolded himself to lie supine before her, his face almost at her feet.

“You can't make Urubugala forget,” he said. “What Urubugala once was, Urubugala always is.”

All was still. The Queen looked down at the dwarf and smiled beautifully. It was the smile of impending cruelty; we all knew it well by then, except Orem.

“Are you?” she asked. “And what did you hope to accomplish? You couldn't stop me before; do you think some petty little spells of unmaking would terrify me?” She took hold of his hair and pulled him up as if he were no heavier than a dog. “Urubugala, my little fool, don't you know that your little unmakings caused all this? Oh, yes, Urubugala, your little try at resisting me, at helping the old cock escape me—I realized then that it was nearly time, nearly time to renew myself, Urubugala, and so the Little King is here, I called upon the Sisters for a dream and they obliged me, and sent me Little King and the infant in my womb. Do you think you can stop me?”

“No,” said Urubugala, grinning.

“Or did you merely hope that I would let you die?”

“Your gracious self has long permitted me to live in your infinite mercy.”

Her smile broadened, and the flames leapt from her eyes and ignited Urubugala's clothing. The dwarf screamed. As if his scream were the power of flight he rose into the air, high above the table, and there burned and burned, screaming. Orem was nauseated, stabbed with guilt. The dwarf had taken blame for all his acts, all his acts, and now was dying for it.

But not dying, after all. For as suddenly as the flames began, they stopped, and the dwarf was lowered, panting and whimpering, to the table. Queen Beauty walked near to him, reached out and took him by the ears, pulled him until she bent directly over his face, looked directly into his eyes.

“Did you block me at the cod's camp? Let me in, Urubugala, or I'll set you burning forever.”

“In in in,” he whispered. “All you like, see it all—” and he gasped a great rush of air and convulsed on the table. His head rose up, eyes locked on Beauty's eyes, until their faces touched, upside down to each other, mistress and slave, mother and child, Urubugala's head suspended by nothing but the force of Beauty's gaze.

She was finished. Urubugala's head dropped with a loud crack on the table. “The truth, the truth, name of the Sisters it's the truth. I was so sure it was you.”

“Oh well,” whispered the dwarf.

“Do you think I'm not a match for it, whatever it is? I won't be threatened by a petty wizard who has learned your unmaking spells, Urubugala.”

“Oh well.”

“Don't try me, Urubugala. I won't let you have even such a victory as that.” And then she touched his forehead and he suddenly relaxed. Slept. Orem saw that his skin was unmarked by the flames. The Queen addressed Craven and Weasel. “And yet, why should I remake the mercies he removed? It pleases me that you should again remember all, think of all. Will you hate me? Hate me all you like. You will watch as I am made again, and hate me as you watch, and still you will do nothing, you can do nothing, don't you see? Urubugala may give you back your memories, but I think you'll wish for the old forgetfulness again. Don't bother asking me. Ask
him
.” She pointed at the sleeping dwarf. “See what
he
can do.”

The Queen was gone. Craven and Weasel watched her go, then turned and stared at Orem. He opened his mouth to speak, but Weasel put her hand to her mouth and shook her head. What then? They only waited, watched him. Until he realized that they were waiting for
him
to make it safe for them to speak. So again he timidly let out his net and cleared the room.

Urubugala instantly sat up in the middle of the table. “Never again,” he said to Orem. “Touch whatever you like, do whatever you like, but not to us. We three, the Queen's Companions, we are her ornaments and she'll not have us altered.”

Plainly Urubugala knew what he was, and as plainly believed that the Queen did not overhear them. What could Orem do but trust him? “I'm sorry,” he said.

Weasel said softly, “You couldn't know.”

“Why am I here?” Orem asked.

Perhaps Weasel would have told him; she made as if to speak. But Urubugala raised his hand. “It's not for us to guess what the gods are doing. You're guided by wiser eyes than ours and we'll tell you nothing more. Only this: Seek not, and you will find; ask not, and it will be given you; do not knock, and the doors will open for you.”

Then Urubugala rolled from the table and dropped to the ground at Orem's feet. Orem looked down and met his upward turning gaze.

“Even Beauty does not know why
you
are here.”

And the black man waddled out the door, his phallus dragging between his legs; no longer funny, not to Orem, for he had seen him endure agony and speak again as if it were nothing.

The dwarf had preserved him, and borne his punishment, and kept him free. Craven and Weasel had kept their silence for his sake. If this was not friendship, Orem did not understand the word. They had his loyalty forever. Yet in truth they did not want it. They were loyal to you, Palicrovol, not to Orem, and he never understood that until the end, too late for him, and only just in time for you.

How did Orem use the name of King while he sat upon your throne, Palicrovol? You judged a King of Burland once before, when you were young. As Count Traffing you watched King Nasilee and thought him weak and wicked, deserving only death. What were his crimes? He was vengeful and cruel, rapacious and tyrannical. There are some who say it was his taxes that annoyed you, his weakness that tempted you, his daughter you desired, child though she was. You were ambitious, say these envious ones. But you have proved by your acts that you truly despise vengefulness and unjust punishment. So now let us judge the Little King, not by rumor, but by what he did with the power that was his to use freely. By that measure I think he was a fit son of Palicrovol.

T
HE
L
ITTLE
K
ING AT
C
OURT

For a week, Queen Beauty presented him as her husband to all of the hundreds of visitors and thousands of courtiers in the Palace. She never spoke of him without some crude and clever jest, some taunt that set the courtiers tittering behind their oh-so-delicate hands. His thinness, his youth, his supposed stupidity, his genuine innocence, all were cause of much mirth.

Yet Orem was wise, he heeded the advice of the Queen's Companions and bore it patiently and also laughed, and soon enough, though all despised him, all were used to him and content with his role. He had his name at last, and his place: Little King, and butt of jokes.

After the first week the Queen no longer came along to taunt him. Others in a case like his might have hidden, might have stayed away from the balls and suppers. But Orem did not stay away. He came, learning to be ever more regal in his bearing. This excited much laughter among the fops, who thought he was trying to rival them. They never noticed that he was in fact what they only pretended to be. He came and openly sustained the role the Queen had forced on him. Part of Orem's role was to be a bumpkin and a boor. He learned it early and played it well.

Six weeks after his wedding he presided at a petty banquet for the resident courtiers. At his right hand sat Weasel Sootmouth; at his left sat Craven; there is order in these things. The banquet guests were perfectly willing to bait him, of course. No sooner was the first course well placed upon the table than a woman cried out, “My lord Little King, will you judge for us? My husband, there with his hand on Belfeva's thigh—he has treated me most unfaithfully.” She then laid before them the shocking story—shocking, that is, to Orem—of her husband's infidelity with barnyard animals. She told it with practiced wit; only Orem of all the listeners didn't know the pleasant conventions of witty and ribald complaint. His face flushed, and his surprise at hearing such a tale at all gave way to anger at the husband's behavior; after all, there sat the husband, laughing with all the rest. Laughing! These people had no sense of right and wrong, it seemed.

Then Weasel Sootmouth leaned to him and whispered with her scaly twisted lips close to his ears, “Don't take it seriously, Little King. It's a lie, for entertainment.”

At first that did little to soothe Orem's anger. After all, a lie was a lie, whether for entertainment or not. But now the laughter took on a different meaning, and he began to listen not so much to her husband's supposed sins as to the wit of her accusations. She
was
clever. It was the turn of phrase that provoked the laughter, that and the supposed clumsiness of the husband. At last she finished, and imploringly looked at him and said, “So tell me, my lord Little King, command me—should I take him back into my bed or cut off a good six inches when next he comes to me?”

“That would be too hard a punishment, Lady,” Orem answered. “How can you take six from three and hope to have anything left over?”

It was more than the courtiers had hoped for. The crude accents of the country, yes; the high, thin voice of an adolescent; the innocent, guileless face, were all that could be wished. And then to have him match her bawdry—the evening promised excellence. Excellence. The Queen had chosen her bumpkin consort well.

The much-abused husband cried, “I implore you, my lord Little King! Don't make me give up
all
my liaisons! The chickens give little satisfaction and egg production has fallen off considerably. The cows I can part with. But the sow is my heart, my life, my love!”

“How can I judge from here?” Orem asked. “I have to look you in the eye. Let someone else sit here at the end of the table. Nothing against you, you understand,” he told Craven and Weasel. He could sense Weasel's concern for him, that she wanted to be near enough to guide him. With the laughter and conversation loud enough to cover his words, he bent to her and said, “Now I know they laugh at clever foulness.”

Then he picked up his own plate and silver, held his napkin in his mouth, and marched down to the middle of the table, displacing a particularly colorful dandy to set himself between two of the more outlandish ladies of the court. The husband and wife were both across from him, but several seats away to either hand. He peered at both of them, then laughed. “Lady, I must commend you both for your humility. You, for admitting that your rival was a sow, and he for admitting that no lovelier female would be his paramour. With such humility, I find you suited for each other. You must remain together—such candor deserves nothing less than its equal.” The others at table laughed as much at his boyishness and country speech as at his wit—but no more. He would make his way and bear what he had to do.

But the unusually lovely woman across the table from him only smiled, and in her eyes was a hint of correction, even of pity. “Shouldn't you be at the head of the table?” she asked.

“Wherever I am is the head of the table,” Orem answered. If
you
had said it, Palicrovol, it would have been a rebuke, and the hearers would have trembled. But in his voice and with his forthright manner, the words were ludicrous; and even if they had not been, so strong was the predisposition to laughter that they would have been amused anyway.

There was one man who was not amused, however, or at least gave no sign of it. A youngish man himself, and something of a favorite with the ladies because he was so dark and somber and strong. The sort of man one always assumes has the parts of a stallion, for which one will forgive him the manners of a hedgehog. His name was Timias. He was of that class of men who, like a flower, bloom once, with thorns, and soon fade; taking some minor post that allows them to haunt the scenes of their conquests. Yet he had a knack for truth that was part of his charm and a hint that he might end up with a more romantic and therefore brief career than others of his sort. One might suppose, uncharitably, that he was envious of the boy who had slept with the Queen. But Orem saw something else in him. Another of Orem's unsung gifts, that: to see in someone what no one else could see.

Timias was sitting on the diagonal from the Little King. The laughter died down and the ladies near him began to bask in the attention the Little King was paying them—after all, silly or not, he was the only king in Inwit. Orem made some silly comments about how much more beautiful the ladies would be without their paint—after all, said he, the country girls did well without it.

“What do they do, then, to be attractive?” asked a lady.

“They wash,” said Orem. “And without paint, they aren't as slippery as you ladies—when a man takes hold, they never slip out of his grasp!” How they laughed. It was too good a show to let it lag. He called for water and made a great show of washing the face of a lady—but not the one near him, for he could see that she was in fact quite ugly and her paint was a miracle of salvage. Instead Orem washed the face of the lady across from him, who profited from the cleaning, for she had fine features. And she had criticized him, however tacitly, which gave a little pleasure to his unpainting of her. Who noticed Orem's tact and kindness in the one case, or his petty pleasure in the other? They only laughed, for it was amusing to watch him flout centuries-old traditions and week-old fashions. What a clown. What a rustic. What a boor. Delightful.

It was then that Timias acted—reached out and took the Little King by the wrist before he could follow the laughter of the crowd into washing the false birthmark off the lady's bosom. “You may be an ass,” said Timias coldly, “but you needn't leap into the proof with such assurance.”

All were quiet then, except for murmurs of surprise. Timias wasn't laughing. Timias was spoiling all the fun. Peace, Timias. Let be, Timias. But Orem looked at him, wearing the half-witted smile that in his home country would have been regarded as a sign of frank good will.

“What, man, is she your wife?” asked Orem.

Oh, they laughed at that. But Timias only grew colder and darker. “So your cock has filled a Queen, boy? Bloody lot of good may it do you.”

It was the sort of remark that was not said, above all not in the Palace, for surely the Queen would hear.

“It's done me some,” Orem said quietly. And then he remembered he needed to be amusing. “Shall we have a duel for the lady's honor?”

There were some titters at that. If it hadn't been for Timias's seriousness, there would have been more.

“The lady's honor is above the need of defense,” said Timias. It was the courteous way to back down. Insult was one thing, but the thought of dueling the Little King was too dangerous. The Queen would surely not permit it. The chance of Timias losing would be too slight. But Orem would not let him drop the matter gracefully. The Little King was there to be laughed at, wasn't he? So let there be fuel for many a guffaw.

“How can you leave the lady championless, when I say her breast is in need of washing?” He turned to the lady. “What's your name, after all? Belfeva! Such a noble breast, Belfeva, and yet so friendless in this company!” He had learned the diction of the court quickly—it was just another game with words, like the puzzles and riddles he had created in the House of God. What a riotous clown, thought most who were there. How artfully he acts, thought those few who watched wisely. “I accept your challenge even if you don't offer it. And the weapon, what weapon will do, except for—yes, take your bread, sir! And your goblet! Wine-soaked bread at twenty paces.”

It was hilarious, of course, just the thought of it. But more: it was impossible for Timias to bear. It's the flaw of the serious and cold—they cannot bear to be made ridiculous. “I'll do no such thing,” said Timias.

“Then you'll come to my rooms tomorrow noon,” said the Little King. “We have things to talk about, my friend.”

“I have nothing to talk about with you.” But the assurance in his manner had weakened. Alone of the courtiers, Timias now realized that Orem was cleverer than he appeared, and could turn things his own way more easily than anyone but the victim would know.

“Then bring this lady, with her breast but
without
her birthmark, and you may help me judge which is more beautiful—your companion, sir, or mine.”

“No one is more beautiful than Queen Beauty.”

“Ah, but Queen Beauty is not my companion. She keeps me as a pet, you know, and doesn't like to hear me bark too often or too near at hand. My companion tomorrow will be—” and he cast his gaze up to the head of the table “—will be the lady Weasel Sootmouth.”

All eyes turned to the formidably ugly woman. She understood something of what Orem was doing, and so she leaned back her head and laughed. All could laugh, then. Once again the inept Little King had provided startlement enough for a week's gossip. Once again the banquet was a success.

Orem was not so stupid as he seemed to the courtiers, nor so clever as he seemed to Timias. He had no conscious plan in mind. He only knew that Timias did not laugh at him, and that attracted him; he was afraid, and lonely, and tired of the constant show he had to perform. Timias's very distaste for him made Orem want to like him.

T
HE
F
RIENDS OF THE
L
ITTLE
K
ING

They came as commanded to Orem's room: Timias, the woman Belfeva, and Weasel. It was a strange meeting, at first. Almost nothing was said while the servants spread a “little” meal. Orem was already used to the plenty, and wise enough not to partake too heavily. He watched Timias and Belfeva as they awkwardly ate, repeatedly asking them the same question: “Is it good?”

“Oh, very good, very good,” they said. It was clear that the strain was making Belfeva more and more afraid, but the truth in Timias led him to be angry, not frightened, and at last he said, “My lord Little King, why did you bring us here? If you want me to apologize, I will. I spoke improperly last night. However you want to shame yourself is fine with me.”

Orem showed no sign of noticing that it was an ungracious apology. “You're generous, but I care very little about last night.”

“Then why are we here?”

“I want company. For an expedition.”

“Expedition?” asked Belfeva brightly. Timias glowered.

“Am I a prisoner in the Palace?” asked Orem. “I want to go abroad. As far as the garden. Or should I be more daring? King's Town is new to me. You know it well, since you have nothing better to do than explore.”

“I have better things to do.” Timias stood.

“We had a name for men like you in High Waterswatch,” Orem said, and the geniality was gone from his voice. “We called them cold cocks. Lots of strut, but you could leave them alone with the hens for a year and never an egg would drop.”

Timias flushed, but bore it silently.

Orem walked nearer. “You're twice my strength and probably twice any other virtue I might have, Timias. Why don't you laugh at me?”

Timias looked away. “I have an idea of what a King should be.”

“So do I,” said Orem. “But the man who fits that idea is off in the country somewhere, wearing golden balls on his eyes and never sleeping without priests and wizards on guard against the onslaughts of the Queen. Why should I pretend to be what he is? While the true King is alive, I can only be a buffoon.”