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

And of course it was awful.

And at that moment he realized finally that the queen was a queen and could be nothing else, just as a cook had no hope of being a queen. Just so he looked at himself and realized that he could never be anything but a king. The queen, however, was a good queen—while he was a terrible king. He would always be a king but he would never be good at it. And as he chewed up the eggshells he reached the lowest despair.

Another man, hating himself as King Edward did, might have taken his own life. But that was not King Edward’s way. Instead he picked up his rod and began to beat the queen. He struck her again and again, and her back bled, and she fell to the ground, screaming.

The servants came in and so did the guards, and the servants, seeing the queen treated so, tried to stop the king. But the king ordered the guards to kill anyone who tried to interfere. Even so, the chief steward, a cook, and the butler were dead before the others stopped trying.

And the king kept beating and beating the queen until everyone was sure he would beat her to death.

And in her heart as she lay on the stone floor, numb to the pain of her body because of the pain of her heart, she wished that the bear would come again, stepping over her to kill the wolf that was running forward to devour her.

At that moment the door broke in pieces and a terrible roar filled the dining hall. The king stopped beating the queen, and the guards and the servants looked at the door, for there stood a huge brown bear on its hind legs, towering over them all, and roaring in fury.

The servants ran from the room.

“Kill him,” the king bellowed at the guards.

The guards drew their swords and advanced on the bear.

The bear disarmed them all, though there were so many that some drew blood before their swords were slapped out of their hands. Some of them might even have tried to fight the bear without weapons, because they were brave men, but the bear struck them on the head, and the rest fled away.

Yet the queen, dazed though she was, thought that for some reason the bear had not struck yet with all his force, that the huge animal was saving his strength for another battle.

And that battle was with King Edward, who stood with his sharp sword in his hand, eager for battle, hoping to die, with the desperation and self-hatred in him that would make him a terrible opponent, even for a bear.

A bear, thought the queen. I wished for a bear and he is here.

Then she lay, weak and helpless and bleeding on the stone floor as her husband, her prince, fought the bear. She did not know who she hoped would win. For even now, she did not hate her husband. And yet she knew that her life and the lives of her subjects would be unendurable as long as he lived.

They circled around the room, the bear moving clumsily yet quickly, King Edward moving faster still, his blade whipping steel circles through the air. Three times the blade landed hard and deep on the bear, before the animal seized the blade between his paws. King Edward tried to draw back the sword, and as he did it bit deeply into the animal’s paws. But it was a battle of strength, and the bear was sure to win it in the end. He pulled the sword out of Edward’s hand, and then grasped the king in a mighty embrace and carried him screaming from the room.

And at that last moment, as Edward tugged hopelessly at his sword and blood poured from the bear’s paws, the queen found herself hoping that the bear would hold on, would take away the sword, that the bear would win out and free the kingdom—her kingdom—and her family and even herself, from the man who had been devouring them all.

Yet when King Edward screamed in the bear’s grip, she heard only the voice of the boy in the garden in the eternal and too-quick summer of her childhood. She fainted with a dim memory of his smile dancing crazily before her eyes.

She awoke as she had awakened once before, thinking that it had been a dream, and then remembering the truth of it when the pain where her husband had beaten her nearly made her fall unconscious again. But she fought the faintness and stayed awake, and asked for water.

The nurse brought water, and then several lords of high rank and the captain of the army and the chief servants came in and asked her what they should do.

“Why do you ask me?” she said.

“Because,” the nurse answered her, “the king is dead.”

The queen waited.

“The bear left him at the gate,” the captain of the army said.

“His neck was broken,” the chief said.

“And now,” one of the lords said, “now we must know what to do. We haven’t even told the people, and no one has been allowed inside or outside the palace.”

The queen thought, and closed her eyes as she did so. But what she saw when she closed her eyes was the body of her beautiful prince with his head loose as the wolfs had been that day in the forest. She did not want to see that, so she opened her eyes.

“You must proclaim that the king is dead throughout the land,” she said.

To the captain of the army she said, “There will be no more beheading for treason. Anyone who is in prison for treason is to be set free, now. And any other prisoners whose terms are soon to expire should be set free at once.”

The captain of the army bowed and left. He did not smile until he was out the door, but then he smiled until tears ran down his cheeks.

To the chief cook she said, “All the servants in the palace are free to leave now, if they want. But please ask them, in my name, to stay. I will restore them as they were, if they’ll stay.”

The cook started a heartfelt speech of thanks, but then thought better of it and left the room to tell the others.

To the lords she said, “Go to the kings whose armies guard our borders, and tell them that King Edward is dead and they can go home now. Tell them that if I need their help I will call on them, but that until I do I will govern my kingdom alone.”

And the lords came and kissed her hands tenderly, and left the room.

And she was alone with the nurse.

“I’m so sorry,” said the nurse, when enough silence had passed.

“For what?” asked the queen.

“For the death of your husband.”

“Ah, that,” said the queen. “Ah, yes, my husband.”

And then the queen wept with all her heart. Not for the cruel and greedy man who had warred and killed and savaged everywhere he could. But for the boy who had somehow turned into that man, the boy whose gentle hand had comforted her childhood hurts, the boy whose frightened voice had cried out to her at the end of his life, as if he wondered why he had gotten lost inside himself, as if he realized that it was too, too late to get out again.

When she had done weeping that day, she never cried for him again.

In three days she was up again, though she had to wear loose clothing because of the pain. She held court anyway, and it was then that the shepherds brought her the Bear. Not the bear, the animal, that had killed the king, but the Bear, the counselor, who had left the kingdom so many years before.

“We found him on the hillside, with our sheep nosing him and lapping his face,” the oldest of the shepherds told her. “Looks like he’s been set on by robbers, he’s cut and battered so. Miracle he’s alive,” he said.

“What is that he’s wearing?” asked the queen, standing by the bed where she had had the servants lay him.

“Oh,” said one of the other shepherds. “That’s me cloak. They left him nekkid, but we didn’t think it right to bring him before you in such a state.”

She thanked the shepherds and offered to pay them a reward, but they said no thanks, explaining, “We remember him, we do, and it wouldn’t be right to take money for helping him, don’t you see, because he was a good man back in your father’s day.”