Orson Card - Hart's Hope

These words spoken, the Godsman shuddered, his jaw went slack, and the light departed from his eyes. He began to look about him in tired surprise. This had no doubt happened to him before, but plainly he was not yet used to finding himself in strange places—particularly in the midst of a very serious Feast of Hinds.

"What bright servants this god chooses for himself," said Sleeve.

Palicrovol did not laugh. The fire that had left the old man's eyes had left a spark in Palicrovol. "Here before you all," he said, "I will tell you what I have not dared to say before. I hate King Nasilee and all his acts, and for the sake of all Burland I long to see him driven from the throne."

At these treasonous words, especially spoken at the Feast of Hinds, his own men grew still and watched him warily.

"It is good that we love you," said Sleeve. "We will all keep silence and tell no one that you spoke against King Nasilee. And we will pray to the Hart that you will not be seduced by the flattery of a strange and jealous god."

Sleeve's words counseled against rebellion, but Palicrovol had learned that Sleeve's words rarely gave Sleeve's meaning. Sleeve might mean that it was already too late for Palicrovol to change his mind, for now he would live in constant fear of betrayal by someone who had heard his words. And as to the Godsman's prophecy of victory, was Sleeve doubting? Or testing? Palicrovol looked at the unnaturally white face of the wizard, his transparent skin, his hair as fine and pale as spiderweb. How can I read your strange face? Palicrovol wondered. Even as he wondered, he knew that Sleeve did not mean his face to be read. Sleeve probed others, but was not himself probed; Sleeve comprehended, but remained incomprehensible. "You came to me for no reason I could understand," said Palicrovol. "Until now. You came to me because of now."

Sleeve pursed his lips contemptuously. "I follow the entrails of animals. I use the power of their blood and in return they teach me where to go. Whatever plans God has for you, they're no concern of mine." But his denial was a confirmation, for never had Sleeve bothered to explain himself before.

A trumpet sounded outside the palisade. Count Palicrovol leapt to his feet. The treebark mantle slipped from his shoulders as he stood. "The King," whispered some of the men, for such was the terror of King Nasilee's Eyes and Ears that they thought he had already heard of this treason and come to punish Palicrovol. They felt no easier when they saw an army of five hundred men gathered outside the fortress.

"I am Zymas, once general of the King's army. And who are you, who stand naked at the battlement!"

Palicrovol felt the winter cold for the first time in the Feast of Hinds: the prophecy was already being fulfilled. In that moment he made his decision. "I am Palicrovol, King of Burland!"

But the army did not raise a cheer, and Palicrovol felt the giddiness of despair: he had spoken treason in front of the King's right hand, all because he had believed the mad prophet of a foolish

God.

"Palicrovol!" called Zymas.

"Can these gates keep you out if you want to come in?" asked Palicrovol.

Zymas answered, "Can these soldiers keep you in if you want to come out?"

"If these soldiers are my enemies, then I will not come out. I will stay here and make them pay in

blood for every step they take inside my walls."

"And if we are your friends?"

"Why did you come to me?" cried Palicrovol from the battlement. "Why do you taunt me?"

"I dreamed of you, Count Traffing. Why did I dream of you?"

Palicrovol turned to Sleeve, who smiled. "It is the Feast of Hinds," said Sleeve.

"It is the Feast of Hinds!" called Palicrovol.

"The tripes were heavy, and the womb was all but five days full," said Sleeve.

"The tripes were heavy, and the womb was all but five days full!" called Palicrovol. As he echoed Sleeve's words, Palicrovol was relieved. When the hind that gave herself at the Feast of Hinds was utterly full, the enterprise of the master of the feast could not go wrong. Someone's enterprise, anyway, and it was usually polite to read all good omens for the host.

"I know nothing of augury," said Zymas. "Who is the wizard who is teaching you what to say?"

Sleeve spoke for himself then. "I am Sleeve," he said. "The Sweet Sisters showed me a heavy hind. God spoke to Palicrovol through an old fool. And the Hart has come to you in a dream. If all the great gods are with Palicrovol, what will withstand him?"

Zymas had not said there was a hart in his dream. "What need has he of me?" "What need have you of him? It is enough that you are both committed to treason now. If you work together, you can bring down this King. If you oppose each other, Nasilee will find his work much easier."

"I will be the same sort of king as I have been Count," said Palicrovol. "My people prosper more than the people of any other lord. I am a just judge, as far as any man can be."

"If that is true, I will follow you, and my men will follow you," said Zymas.

So the Godsman's prophecy was perfect, though it had predicted an event as unlikely as Burring flowing backward. Zymas had come to him, and come even before Palicrovol himself had taken one single act toward rebellion. God was now his god. "And I," cried Palicrovol, "I will follow God."

And I, whispered white-skinned Sleeve, pink-eyed Sleeve, I could shake the earth and unmake this fortress, and with my left hand I could cause a forest to rise in the place of Zymas's five hundred men. Why should I link myself to these unmagicked men, particularly if they fear that ridiculous god named God? They have no need of me, nor I of them. But Sleeve felt the hind's blood hardening on his arms and hands, and he was content that Palicrovol should be king, even if he did it in the name of this angry young God.

And that is how Palicrovol began his quest for the throne of Burland.

The Girl Who Rode the Hart

Three times in her life, Asineth learned what it meant to be the King's daughter. Each lesson was the beginning of wisdom.

Asineth's Lesson of Good and Evil

When Asineth was only three, the ladies who cared for her walked her in the palace garden, in the safe part, where the gravel walks are neatly edged and the plants all grow in animal shapes. One of her favorite games was to sit very still, dribbling sand or gravel from her fingers, until the watching women grew bored with her, and got involved in their own conversations. Then she would quietly get up and walk away and hide from them. At first she always hid nearby, so she could watch the first moments of panic on their faces when they realized she was gone. "Oh, you little monster," they would say. "Oh, is that a way for a princess to run off and leave her ladies?"

But this time little Asineth hid farther away, because she was getting older, and the world was getting larger, and she was drawn to that part of the garden where moss hangs untrimmed and the animals are not rooted to the ground. There she saw a great grey beast drifting slowly through the underbrush, and she felt a strange attraction to it, and she followed. She would lose sight of the beast from time to time, and wander searching for it, and always she caught a glimpse of it, or thought she did, and moved after it, farther and farther into the untamed garden.

"Not you," said the soldier who carried her. "Never you. King Nasilee is your father. What man would dare to take a whip to you?"

So it was that Asineth learned that the daughter of the King can do no wrong.

Asineth's Lesson of Love and Power

King Nasilee's favorite mistress was Berry, and Asineth loved Berry with all her heart. Berry was lithe and beautiful. When she was naked she was slender and quick of body, like a racing hound, and all her muscles moved gracefully under her skin. When she was clothed she was ethereal, as distant from the world as a sunburst, and as beautiful. Asineth would come to her every day, and talk to her, and Berry, beautiful as she was, took time to listen to the little girl, to hear all her tales of the palace, all her dreams and wishes.