Hart's Hope Part 25

And you delayed. Because you did not believe that it was not a trap. You waited, outnumbering Beauty's troops-a hundred of yours for every one of hers. You could have piled corpses of your fallen men to scale the walls and still had enough to sack the town and take the Castle. She could not have stopped you then, for she hadn't the strength. You could have come to her, and all the power she had could have barely turned a sword. How would you have killed her then, Palicrovol? Fire? Rope? Drowning? Any would have served-or what, had you a plan to use them all? If you had acted then, King Palicrovol, your grandson would still be alive, for as Beauty said, until the year was up he was not ripe.

But you delayed, and gathered your armies, and waited, and waited, while others took the only path, the impossible path, the hopeless path to bring her down before she was una.s.sailable again. You could have stopped her, Palicrovol, but once again it was your son who saved you. Think of that, too, before you slay him for daring to sit upon your throne.

They kept him in the Little Donjon, and the keepers there perfunctorily tortured him, because that was what prisoners were sent there for. He wondered as they pulled his arms from his sockets if this was what had made the man scream; it did not make Orem scream. Was it the suffocation? Needles in the soles of his feet? The binding of the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es? The broken gla.s.s forced into his mouth that cut his tongue and filled his mouth with blood that he dared not swallow-was that what broke the other man? It did not break Orem.

For he did not dwell inside himself now. He dwelt in the body of a year-old child whose mind was five times that age, whose heart was bright, whose life was all rejoicing; Orem lived in Youth, and only watched his own agony from a distance, almost unconcerned. He had once drawn a sword through his own throat, he remembered. But the pain of that had been erased. All the pain was gone, was locked away somewhere and he could not remember where. Only the child's kiss on his lips, only the small arms around his neck. I never knew how a father loved a child until now. How did my father find the strength to ride away from the House of G.o.d and leave me? And when the pain was worst, Orem dwelt again with his father, and was four again, and saw the world from his father's shoulders, gripping the golden hair of his father's head as the world bounced up and down.

It was his comfort then, that Avonap had been his father. What if Orem had learned fatherhood from you, Palicrovol? He would have thought then that fathers do not love their sons. He would think that a father is a King, and decrees a man's death because he usurped his place. And then, when he is told that the usurper was his son, the King doubles the reward for his capture, for now he knows his son is guilty of incest as well as treason. How long would Orem have lived in Corner Castle, Palicrovol, if he had learned fatherhood from you? Not long enough to save your life, I think.

Urubugala On the sixth day Urubugala came to the Lesser Donjon. It had all been a mistake, he said. Orem was not supposed to be tortured; the Queen sent her apologies.

Orem lay on his soft bed-for excepting the tortures it was a comfortable prison-and listened to Urubugala, comprehending little, caring less. Why did this small black man keep talking? "Go away," Orem whispered.

"Listen to me," said Urubugala. "Of course she ordered it. But today it stops because tomorrow is the day she means to kill your son."

Orem turned his face away.

"She can't hear us-you saw to that, she has no Searching Eye now. There's a way, only one way that we can stop her, but with your help it can work."

"There's no way," said Orem. "She's bound me. I can't get my power outside myself."

"I know she bound you," Urubugala said. "I taught her how."

"You taught her!"

"She came to me in terror as you savaged her and tore it all from her and she forced me to tell her how to bind you."

"She forced you not at all," Orem said. "I had freed you first, before I ever set myself against her."

Urubugala shrugged. "Then she didn't force me. If I hadn't taught her how to bind you, then she would have had to kill you to save herself. So you owe your life to me."

"I don't want my life," said Orem. "My son is going to die."

"Yes. Tomorrow," said Urubugala, brutally. "Your son has no hope, he never had hope, and Beauty warned you not to love him. We all warned you not to love him, but you did, for Hart knows what reason. How can we undo that? You chose it yourself, Little King. But there's still a way that when Queen Beauty kills your son she'll destroy herself as well. Listen, Little King. You know who I really am; can you doubt that I know what's possible and what is not? The Queen will do the rites that put her power into the child. All that she is she'll take out of herself and put in him. And in the moment that the Pa.s.sage is complete, she'll cut him and drink the living blood, and through the blood receive back all herself, a hundred thousandfold increased."

In vain Orem cried out and buried himself in the bed, to shut the vision from his mind.

"Little King, if you do the rites along with her, but secretly, so she cannot see, then at the moment of completion, when all her power goes into the child, yours will also go. Yours will also go, Little King, Little Sink, and all the power will seep away into the earth, and when she drinks, there will be nothing, for her power, her life itself will die with the child."

Orem heard, though he did not want to hear; he thought though he did not want to think. "No," he whispered.

"d.a.m.n you, boy! Why not!"

"If Youth is dead, what is the rest of it to me?"

"Doesn't it matter to you that you're the only one in the world with the power to stop her? That the G.o.ds themselves are at your mercy? Why do you think they brought you here? Why do you think that you're alive at all?"

Orem rolled over, looked at the dwarf eye to eye, inches away at the edge of the bed. "I don't know why I'm alive," he softly said. "Once I thought I was myself, just myself, free to make what I liked of my life. But now I know from my conception on I've never been myself, but just a tool. As Beauty brought forth a daughter and a son to use for tools, so G.o.d and the Hart and the Sisters brought me forth. How are they different? If my son is not to be saved from the Queen, I at least can save myself from the G.o.ds."

He looked into Urubugala's eyes, waiting for the argument. But it did not come. The dwarf's eyes filmed over with tears. "You dreamed of freedom, did you?" he whispered. "So have I, for three hundred years. But you're not the only one who'll pay a price for Beauty's end. Beauty's power has sustained the four of us for centuries. Weasel, Craven, Palicrovol himself, and me. When her power goes, what sustains us then?"

Orem had thought that Weasel would simply become Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin again. As she had been on her wedding night. It had not occurred to him that the intervening years would also be restored.

"And yet," said Urubugala, "we'll gladly pay that price."

"If I do what you say, it'll still depend on Beauty killing him."

"Yes."

"Then won't we be consenting to his death?"

"What is the price of freeing all the world? One small child. What is the price of enslaving all the world? That same child. Either way dead."

Orem covered his face with his hands and wept.

Weasel That night Weasel Sootmouth came to him. He did not speak, for there was no need to speak. She took the clothing from him and anointed him with balm, and gently rubbed his swollen shoulders, and changed the bandages on his feet. For an hour she labored over him. And then she covered him again, and sat beside him. He reached his hand for her, and she took it.

"Weasel," said Orem, "how can I give less than you?"

Weasel said nothing to that. What could she say? She only leaned and kissed him on the hand, which set him weeping again, for he was weak and ill and could not bear such tenderness. He talked then, talked until he could talk no longer, told her all that had happened below the ground and all above, told her of the G.o.ds, of the tortures, above all of his son, how he loved his son.

And when all was said, and Orem drifted off to sleep, still he held her hand. She pulled it back, but he clung to her weakly and said, "I love you."

And she said to him, because he was so young, so innocent, and so in pain, "I also. Love you." She said it because it was true.

She left the Lesser Donjon and went to Urubugala, where he waited with Craven in the Palace.

"He'll do it," she told them.

"If all goes well, he'll hate me forever," Urubugala said.

"Why is that?" asked Weasel.

"I lied to him," he said.

"What did you tell him?" Weasel demanded.

"I won't tell you, Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin, or you would tell him the truth, and then I think he would fail us."

"Why can't you believe, Urubugala, that some of mankind will act better if they know the truth than if they do not?"

"Experience is my only teacher," Urubugala answered. "Men are better when they know nothing."

"Then what of you, Sleeve, who know everything?"

Urubugala shrugged. "I'm just the Queen's little black dwarf."

25 The Victory of the Hundred Horns How Youth and Beauty died, and were borne away on the crest of the Hundred Horns.

The Readying of the Twelve-Month Child They wakened Orem in darkness; he dressed by candlelight and walked the Long Walk with guards a.s.sisting him because he could not easily support himself. It was cold; Orem had so diminished Beauty's power that the springtime of Palace Park was broken. The winter of the world outside had come at last. The flowers all were dead, the trees that turn were turning madly red and gold; the fountains were ice, and the wind was bitter here for the first time in centuries.

The Queen was holding Youth in her arms, out in the square before the Palace. The child saw Orem and called for him. Orem did not speak, but stood silent where the guards made him stop. He tried to shut the child's voice from his mind, but could not. We who listened also thought we could not bear it, but then we did.

"Papa," cried the boy. "Where have you been? Let me tell you a story!"

Weasel, Urubugala, and Craven waited on the opposite side of the square from Orem. Only Urubugala did not hold still. He danced and pranced and rolled, cavorted here and there; only once did he come near Orem, and then only to whisper, "All she does, you do!" Then he was gone again, playing the fool at another place, pretending to be bound by spells that could not utterly bind him.

The first light appeared in the sky of the east. They were in the shadow of the Palace, but Beauty was in a hurry. She knew what was truly necessary to the rite and what was not; direct sunlight was not, and she began the Pa.s.sage.

She took all the clothing from her son and laid him on the silver table. Youth cried out, for the metal was cold; but there he stayed, cry or not, while Beauty removed her clothing, too. Orem looked at Urubugala-was this a part of it? Need he undress as well? Beauty had learned almost all of what she knew from Sleeve's books. Urubugala shook his head.

Youth cried out and pleaded with his mother to let him down, it's cold, it's cold. Orem knew he could not escape; Beauty had bound him, and his nets and webs stayed furled within him. We watched, and Orem kept himself as calm as if his son's cries were the calls of a bird, distant and meaningless. Kept himself calm and did all that Beauty did, making every hand sign, muttering every word along with her. After a while Youth stopped crying and began to play, catching at his mother's fingers as she made the signs. If he broke a pattern she repeated it, and so did Orem. It was long, but he made no mistakes; Weasel, Craven, and Urubugala all watched to be sure of it.

As the light grew brighter, just before the sun crested the Palace, Queen Beauty smiled and took a pin from a servant, then drew the pin along her arm, drawing blood. She dipped a finger in the blood and anointed the child's eyelids with it.

What do I do? asked Orem's questioning eyes. The answer came from Craven, who suddenly began to sing a ribald, bawling song from his common soldiering days with Palicrovol's rebel army. The solemnity was broken; guards lunged to silence him; in the confusion Urubugala was near Orem and took hold of his hand. Orem was ready-he had already cut his wrist as deep as he could with his fingernail. The blood beaded on the shallow wound. Urubugala caught some on his fingers and was gone. As he rolled before the altar he jumped up, leaned out and spat in Beauty's face. She shouted at him; guards bound him as they had gagged Craven; but as he spat he had touched his b.l.o.o.d.y fingers to the child's eyes.

The disturbance quelled, Beauty went on, but she kept glancing up at the sky to see how bright it was. In the distance could be heard the sounds of gathering battle-shouts from many thousand throats. Palicrovol at last had started his attack. Too late, by now. Even if the city were undefended he could not get through the walls and barriers in time.

More words; more signs; then sunrise, full light dazzling off the towers of Corner Castle. Beauty bowed her head. All was done, except the killing and the drinking.

But Beauty did not reach and take the waiting knife. She looked to Orem and smiled at him. "My husband, Little King, who loves me loyally and with his whole heart, how easily do you think that I am fooled? Do you think I haven't seen your moving hands, your mumbling lips? Do you think I didn't see your hand cut, your blood put on our child's eyes? What a fool you fools supposed me to be. For even Sleeve is not infallible, I think, and less so when his brains are addled and put in far too small a head. The Pa.s.sage may only be made between parent and child if the if the child has swallowed the fluid of your body which he took of his own power. All these months the boy has suckled at my breast; what did he suck from yours, Little King?" child has swallowed the fluid of your body which he took of his own power. All these months the boy has suckled at my breast; what did he suck from yours, Little King?"

Orem despaired.

The Queen said the final words of the Pa.s.sage.

Youth cried out in sudden, terrible pain. All the powers, all the hatreds, all the knowledge of his mother pa.s.sed into him. He screamed, and there were words he never knew in his weeping, curses in his infant voice that sounded all the more terrible because the voice should have been innocent. Even Youth, great-hearted as he was, couldn't bear the burden Beauty placed on him. But his cries would soon be stilled; Beauty reached for the knife.

Orem watched, unable to look away, despite the fact that Urubugala was waving his hands in supplication: See me, see me! At last Orem looked, not toward Urubugala, but toward Weasel, who also had loved the child. She motioned with her head toward Urubugala, and Orem at last saw him. He looked confused-what could you possibly want of me now? Urubugala mouthed the final words of the Pa.s.sage; Orem shook his head. What good would it do?

But Weasel knew. "Papa," she cried, "why are you crying at my story?"

Orem stared at her; Beauty also paused, the knife poised in her hand. And Orem remembered Youth reaching out to him, taking the tear from the corner of his eye, and tasting it. The Pa.s.sage would be complete after all, if Orem only said the words.

Beauty looked suspiciously from Weasel to the Little King. What was the trick? Were they trying to fool her into staying the knife while the sunlight was still split upon the crest of the Palace? She could not delay now. This was the day, the moment, and so Queen Beauty ignored their attempt, as she thought, to distract her. She turned back to Youth and raised the knife.

In that moment Orem muttered the final words of the rite, completing it. "Come water, come water. Come mother, come daughter. Come father, come son. Come blood and be done. The Hart makes us one, the Hind for the slaughter." In that moment all the power Beauty had bound in him left him, went into his son. In that moment all Queen Beauty's magicking was swallowed by the unbound Sink who lay on the silver altar under the knife. In that moment the knife came down, cut through the child's throat. Blood spurted, ending the child's terrible shouts in a gurgle of foam.

Did Beauty know the power was gone from the blood before she drank? Who can know. She lifted Youth and held him over the basin that a servant held. In seconds it filled enough to satisfy her. She laid down the still-living child, whose hands still struggled, whose eyes still started out of his small head in agony; she picked up the bowl and drank.

It was too late. The child died. The blood was worthless. All her magic was undone. All her sustaining, all her power; she had put it on the child so it would come to her again, and stronger. Lost now. She changed as they watched her; she lost her stolen face, she withered and decayed before their eyes, then toppled forward over the corpse of Youth.

The Last Undoing Her death undid it all. The loyalty of the guards was gone; they made no effort to stop Orem as he ran forward and kissed the warm corpse of his child, weeping. They watched the Little King, some of them. Others looked at Urubugala, who had become pink of eye, stark white of skin, and tall, as all the stories said of Sleeve. Or at Craven, who suddenly filled his armor, a strong man with the fire of war in his eyes. But soon all eyes had turned to Weasel. For there before them all was Beauty again.

Beauty's face, Beauty's body. She had tricked them after all; she had survived; she was alive and would avenge herself.

They fell back from her, all but Zymas and Sleeve.

"Fools," Zymas said. "Queen Beauty is dead. This is the true and rightful wife of King Palicrovol, Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin. You have nothing at all to fear from her."

It was then that Orem lifted his b.l.o.o.d.y, weeping face from the altar and realized that the Queen's Companions had not died. We saw the knowledge come upon him; saw him remember that Sleeve had told him all of them would pay the price. A lie. To trick him to do his part.

"No, it wasn't a lie," Sleeve said gently. "It all depended on whether I could work a spell with the blood of your hand. I was able to replace her spells enough to keep us to the age we were when she first bound us-I wasn't sure that I could do it."

But Orem said nothing, only looked back and forth from Zymas to Sleeve, Sleeve to Zymas.

Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin, pitying him, ran forward to ask for his forgiveness for the lie that she had unwittingly conspired in. But he saw her face and screamed at her, flew at her to attack that face that had no right to be alive. Possibly he thought that it was Beauty-he was that distraught. They pulled him away from her, drew him back; immediately the struggle ceased, and he only hung his head and wept.

It was then that the Hart came from Palace Park and walked easily to the altar. He put his horns under the bodies and lifted. It was a curious thing: the bodies rose and yet remained, as if the Hart had found the truth of the mother and her son and raised them up, while leaving the empty bags of flesh behind. Raised them up and carried them away exultantly; they rode high among the hundred bright points of the Hart's horns.

Orem watched them out of sight into the woods. Then he shook himself like a wet dog, and made as if to walk away. The guards restrained him until Zymas called out, "Let him go. We have to hurry and give the city back to the King, before another life is lost!" It was enough for the guards. They followed Zymas at a run, armor and all, to the Palace gate, rushing to get to Corner Castle and raise the flags of peace; to take down and defile Queen Beauty's ermine banner.

Enziquelvinisensee watched Orem Scanthips, no longer Little King, as he walked away from the place where he lost all his loves and all his trust. Almost she called out to him. Almost she ran to him and pled for his forgiveness. But that would have been misleading. He might have thought she loved him. Might have forgotten that she belonged to Palicrovol. Might have tried to bridge the centuries. But Palicrovol, your wife was not such a fool as that. Love works no miracles; it could not have happened. She watched Orem out of sight, and then went off to look for the returning King, to give herself to him whom she had loved perfectly through all the centuries. She was still a virgin, after all; there was a wedding to complete. They would begin again what had been inconveniently postponed. But she did not rejoice in her heart. She grieved to know that Orem Scanthips hated her; grieved most of all that he had reason.

26.

The Rage of the King How the King treats his enemies.

Rejoicing You commanded the soldiers to lay down their arms when you saw the change of the flags. Beauty would either have the strength to destroy you, or she would die. You knew she would resort to no trickery. Your men laid down their arms and the city was yours. The people poured into the streets to cheer for you, though in fact they had not longed for you when you delayed your return. You wore your Antler Crown through the streets.

Zymas you embraced; Sleeve you greeted with a bow; Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin you only gazed upon, and said, "Yes. I know you."

Forgiveness All of Beauty's soldiers, all the courtiers who had flattered her, all the merchants who had profited from her rule, all the servants who had cared for her, all the magistrates who had administered her laws-you forgave all these.

Honor You found her body upon the altar, and the baby under her. You had them carried to the riverbank. You had the bodies burned, and their ashes cast upon the river. It was this water where you had a million flowers strewn to greet the Rower Princess. It was this water that you swam, though it was swift and cold, to get a son upon a farmer's wife.

Vengeance Now with your troops you wait at the base of a mountain redoubt, not even properly a castle. Within the place you know that Orem Scanthips waits, and with him, you imagine, there waits an army, or a wizard of some terrible power. I will tell you who waits inside: A boy with no ears, who can pick a pocket or handle a keener and live; he may bruise a soldier or two before you slay him.

A man of breeding, a courtier, the best of those who waited on Queen Beauty. He will wound five, and deeply, before he dies.

A woman of high station who serves the Little King, because Orem Scanthips taught her to value mercy above justice, virtue above rank.

A young, young man of eighteen years, dark of hair and pale of skin, with the blood of a King in his veins and the weight of the world in his heart. He flees from you only because his friends command it. He cares nothing for you. He grieves only for the ashes that you cast upon the stream.

G.o.d is not with him. The Sweet Sisters are not with him. The Hart is not with him. He finished the task they raised him up to do; they have no further need of him.

Blessing I write this with my own hand. I write this in your own tent. I will give it to you in the evening; when you return to the tent it will be waiting for you. If you have read it you know it is the truth.

Did you think that only wizards and witches had powers? I have p.r.i.c.ked my finger and blotted the living blood upon this page. I have written two blessings here, which no eyes but yours are fit to read. If you are the sort of man who will abide strictly by your oath and slay the usurper called Orem Scanthips, called the Little King, then you will see only the blessing that will give you the strength to finish your work quickly, and slay him on the morrow. But if you are the man who is merciful, even at cost to himself, then you will see only the blessing that will heal your heart and reconcile you to your son. I will love you whichever man you are, and in truth I do not know which end Orem himself would wish for, if the choice were his.