Orson Card - Maps in a Mirror - The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

She noticed that sometimes he seemed to forget she was even there. She passed him in a corridor and he wouldn’t speak, and unless she touched his arm and said good morning he might have walked on by without a word.

And then sometimes, for no reason, he would feel slighted or offended, or a servant would make a noise or spill something and he would fly into a rage and throw things against the wall. He had never even raised his voice in anger when he was a boy.

He often said cruel things to the princess, and she wondered why she loved him, and what was wrong, but then he would come to her and apologize, and she would forgive him because after all he had lost a kingdom because of traitors, and he couldn’t be expected to always feel sweet and nice. She decided, though, that if it was up to her, and it was, he would never feel unsweet and unnice again.

Then one night the Bear and her father went into the study and locked the door behind them. The princess had never been locked out of her father’s study before, and she became angry at the Bear because he was taking her father away from her, and so she listened at the door. She figured that if the Bear wanted to keep her out, she would see to it that she heard everything anyway.

This is what she heard.

“I have the information,” the Bear said.

“It must be bad, or you wouldn’t have asked to speak to me alone,” said King Ethelred. Aha, thought the princess, the Bear did plot to keep me out.

The Bear stood by the fire, leaning on the mantel, while King Ethelred sat down.

“Well?” asked King Ethelred.

“I know how much the boy means to you. And to the princess. I’m sorry to bring such a tale.”

The boy! thought the princess. They couldn’t possibly be calling her prince a boy, could they? Why, he had been a king, except for treason, and here a commoner was calling him a boy.

“He means much to us,” said King Ethelred, “which is all the more reason for me to know the truth, be it good or bad.”

“Well, then,” said the Bear, “I must tell you that he was a very bad king.”

The princess went white with rage.

“I think he was just too young. Or something,” said the Bear. “Perhaps there was a side to him that you never saw, because the moment he had power it went to his head. He thought his kingdom was too small, because he began to make war with little neighboring counties and duchies and took their lands and made them part of his kingdom. He plotted against other kings who had been good and true friends of his father. And he kept raising taxes on his people to support huge armies. He kept starting wars and mothers kept weeping because their sons had fallen in battle.”

“And finally,” said the Bear, “the people had had enough, and so had the other kings, and there was a revolution and a war all at the same time. The only part of the boy’s tale that is true is that he was lucky to escape with his life, because every person that I talked to spoke of him with hatred, as if he were the most evil person they had ever seen.”

King Ethelred shook his head. “Could you be wrong? I can’t believe this of a boy I practically raised myself.”

“I wish it were not true,” said the Bear, “for I know that the princess loves him dearly. But it seems obvious to me that the boy doesn’t love her—he is here because he knew he would be safe here, and because he knows that if he married her, he would be able to rule when you are dead.”

“Well,” said King Ethelred, “that will never happen. My daughter will never marry a man who would destroy the kingdom.”

“Not even if she loves him very much?” asked the Bear.

“It is the price of being a princess,” said the king. “She must think first of the kingdom, or she will never be fit to be queen.”

At that moment, however, being queen was the last thing the princess cared about. All she knew was that she hated the Bear for taking away her father, and now the same man had persuaded her father to keep her from marrying the man she loved.

She beat on the door, crying out, “Liar! Liar!” King Ethelred and the Bear both leaped for the door. King Ethelred opened it, and the princess burst into the room and started hitting the Bear as hard as she could. Of course the blows fell very lightly, because she was not all that strong, and he was very large and sturdy and the blows could have caused him no pain. But as she struck at him his face looked as if he were being stabbed through the heart at every blow.

“Daughter, daughter,” said King Ethelred. “What is this? Why did you listen at the door?”

But she didn’t answer; she only beat at the Bear until she was crying too hard to hit him anymore. And then, between sobs, she began to yell at him. And because she didn’t usually yell her voice became harsh and hoarse and she whispered. But yelling or whispering, her words were clear, and every word said hatred.

She accused the Bear of making her father little, nothing, worse than nothing, a weakling king who had turn to a filthy commoner to make any decision at all. She accused the Bear of hating her and trying to ruin her life by keeping her from marrying the only man she could ever love. She accused the Bear of being a traitor, who was plotting to be king himself and rule the kingdom. She accused the Bear of making up vile lies about the prince because she knew that he would be a better king than her weakling father, and that if she married the prince all the Bear’s plans for ruling the kingdom would come to nothing.

And finally she accused the Bear of having such a filthy mind that he imagined that he could eventually marry her himself, and so become king.

But that would never happen, she whispered bitterly, at the end. “That will never happen,” she said, “never, never, never, because I hate you and I loathe you and if you don’t get out of this kingdom and never come back I’ll kill myself, I swear it.”

And then she grabbed a sword from the mantel and tried to slash her wrists, and the Bear reached out and stopped her by holding her arms in his huge hands that gripped like iron. Then she spit at him and tried to bite his fingers and beat her head against his chest until King Ethelred took her hands and the Bear let go and backed away.

“I’m sorry,” King Ethelred kept saying, though he himself wasn’t certain who he was apologizing to or what he was apologizing for. “I’m sorry.” And then he realized that he was apologizing for himself, because somehow he knew that his kingdom was ruined right then.

If he listened to the Bear and sent the prince away, the princess would never forgive him, would hate him, in fact, and he couldn’t bear that. But if he didn’t listen to the Bear, then the princess would surely marry the prince, and the prince would surely ruin his kingdom. And he couldn’t endure that.

But worst of all, he couldn’t stand the terrible look on the Bear’s face.

The princess stood sobbing in her father’s arms.

The king stood wishing there were something he could do or undo.

And the Bear simply stood.

And then the Bear nodded, and said, “I understand. Good-bye.”

And then the Bear walked out of the room, and out of the palace, and out of the garden walls, and out of the city, and out of any land that the king had heard of.

He took nothing with him—no food, no horse, no extra clothing. He just wore his clothing and carried his sword. He left as he came.

And the princess cried with relief. The Bear was gone. Life could go on, just like it was before ever the prince left and before ever the Bear came.

So she thought.

She didn’t really realize how her father felt until he died only four months later, suddenly very old and very tired and very lonely and despairing for his kingdom.