Orson Card - Hart's Hope

A grocer from High Waterswatch comes once a year, not long from now; Glasin Grocer, who was once the Corthy Price. Find out where he is and tell me.

And they told him. Orem sat in the Coal House, where the spies of the city are controlled; Orem sat there with Timias, Belfeva, and Weasel, and heard: Flea Buzz was caught a month ago, no pass and robbing a poor pisser in Little Market. Lost both ears and now lives pimping in Beggarstown.

Tell no one who ordered it, but give Flea Buzz his pass, a full and free pass tied to no man, and give him an unlimited draw upon the Great Exchange; arrange it for me out of what the Queen lets me spend. I care very little how difficult it will be. It's either that or give him back his ears—if you can't do the second, you will do the first. And so they did it, and more: they watched over the boy, the guards who had been his terror, watched him quietly, protected him from harm; for wasn't this lad beloved of the Little King, who plainly had the blessing of the Queen?

As for Rainer Carpenter, the answer came more slowly, for he had never lost an ear and so did not figure on the perpetual records of the Gaols. At last the spies reported. Known to be a violent, drunken man, he was killed a year ago, days after being turned away when he tried too early to enter the city on a pauper's pass.

"Has it been a year?" Orem said quietly.

"Well over a year," said the spy, making sure again on his written report. "And so too late before I even left the city." Orem looked at the coal-blackened wall. "Had he a family?"

"Give them twenty cattle and land enough for them, and money enough for safety without arousing the envy of all their neighbors. Tell them it was earned by Rainer Carpenter before he died trying to save a lad from thieves. It isn't even a lie."

Glasin Grocer they found last of all. Prospering in his village far to the north of Banningside, loved and respected by all who did not envy and respect or fear and respect him. Orem thought of vengeance, but it was not his way. Glasin had cheated him, but all the same he had a chance to sell Orem into hopeless slavery, and did not do it. Was it Glasin's fault that those who had done better for Orem had suffered more? The Sisters did not weave justice into the cloth—that would be one thread too many. So Orem told them to grant Glasin a permanent stall in Great Market, in the best place, where the square debouched into Market Street at Low Court. Never had authority taken interest in a mere grocer until now: it was enough to make Glasin chiefmost grocer and something of a legend; it added many strophes to Glasin's song.

What matter if the guards and spies thought Orem odd? It was as if he thought his life were an artifact, and he the carpenter determined that all legs shall stand flat. Saw here, plane there, even things up, set things right until all is firm and steady again.

He had forgotten that he was not an artisan at all, but rather a farmer, whose only skill was to know the calendar and watch the sky, plow when the ground is ripe, bind when the corn is dry, and save a bit of the crop to seed the field next year.

Why Did You Choose Me?

It became their life together. It became the way they passed their time. Belfeva and Timias spent their hours doing what no one in the Great Houses had ever thought to do: noticing the lives of the weak and helpless. They could not undo all the suffering of the city, but they could find the single acts of infamy that might be halted, to make the whole of the city that much less unfair. Then Timias and Belfeva would bring their tales to the Little King, and he would make his plan, blind the Queen, and work his small mercies. It did not go unnoticed in the city. The word quietly spread that the common people had a friend in King's Town, and among the hopeless and afraid, there grew a little hope, a little courage.

One day, when they were alone, Timias asked the Little King, "Why did you choose me?"

"Choose you?" answered Orem.

"To help you in this work we're doing." At Orem's puzzled expression, Timias laughed and explained. "Haven't you noticed that we're doing a work?" "But—I only do this because I have you with me," Orem answered, and that was true.

"I think because whatever hand moved me to where I am, moved you to be near me."

But truest of all was the answer he gave to Weasel Sootmouth, when she asked him bitterly one day, "Why do you keep Timias and Belfeva with you? Don't you know it makes them ridiculous in the court, to be known as flatterers to that buffoon called Little King? And don't tell me the gods have brought you together, because you and I both know the gods are bound."

Orem thought for a while, and then said, "When I was a scholar in the House of God, I used to play at words and numbers, and my teachers thought that I had written truth. I laughed at them for finding truth in my play. Now I think—there's a shape to the way the world runs. Within that shape are many names that a soul can wear. I've fallen upon a name that brings me here, and whoever is named Timias and Belfeva must be with me, because that's the way of the world. All of it's a puzzle, but it's still the truth."

I think you see now that Orem Scanthips will bear his death if death is what you require of him. It is we who love you both who cannot bear it if the man who has most reason to be grateful to him is the man who takes young Orem's life.

Orem's Future

How Orem learned that he must die for Beauty's sake, and what he planned for himself in the face of death.

A Chance Conversation

One evening Orem stood on a portico that hung emptily over a roof garden. He often came there to look down on the little forest there. Despite hours of trying, he had not yet found a way to reach the garden itself through the maze of the Palace. He thought sometimes that this is how the world must look to God, close enough almost to touch, and yet so infinitesimally small that he dared not touch it lest it break.

Out beyond the Palace Park, with its perpetual spring, a snowstorm was covering the city, the first of that year. It had been eleven months now since the snowstorm in the cages, when he stared death in the face. He thought back and remembered that he had not been afraid. He had fought death, but with stubbornness, not fear. Not passion, either. His life was so placid in the Palace that he now believed that he was by nature a man of peace. Seventeen years old, and already comfortable in the contemplative life. Of course it was not true. He was pent-up, frustrated, but these feelings left him languid and morose, so that the more he needed action the less he felt like doing anything. That was why he came to the portico and looked down over the garden and wished he could dwell in that small place; that was why he looked out over the city and wondered what Flea was doing tonight in the snow.

"Look. Snow again." It was Craven.

"Already? The time has been so short." Weasel.

"Eleven months. Rather long, I thought." Urubugala.

Do they know that I am here? thought Orem. He almost gave them an island in the Queen's Searching Eye, so they could converse in privacy; then it occurred to him that there might be things he could learn by listening unnoticed himself. For a moment, accidentally, he could eavesdrop the way the Queen did all the time.

"How we all look forward to the joyous day," said Craven. "The birth of a little offspring."

"Beauty's rebirth and replenishment. Power for another few centuries or so. Does the Little King

yet know his part in it?"

"I think not," said Weasel. "No, he does not."

"Should we tell him?" asked Craven.

Weasel answered quickly. "I think we must."

"No," said Urubugala.

"It's always better to know the truth."