Orson Card - Hart's Hope

He looked. "No storm today or tomorrow," he said.

"But there'll be a storm all the same. Hart's blood, but I wish that it would come."

He turned and looked at her, wondering if she wished for the storm or the baby growing in her. Her hands were folded across the gravid mound beneath the blankets of her bed, but she was gazing neither at the window nor at her belly. When the child came, his life would quickly end, he knew. But surely he would live to see his child. Surely his future would not forbid him that.

At last, near noon, she wearied of him.

"Go now," she whispered. "I need to sleep."

He started for the door with triumph singing in his heart. She needed to sleep indeed. That was

his doing, and it would be a long time before she slept well, if he had his way.

But she stopped him at the door. "Come to me again," she said. "Tomorrow, at the same time."

"Yes, my lady," Orem answered.

"I've used you badly, haven't I?" she said.

"No," he lied.

"The gods are restless," she said. "They don't bide well under discipline. Do you?"

Orem did not understand. "Am I under discipline?"

"I only noticed it today. You look like him."

"Who?"

"Him," she said. "Him." Then she turned her face away from him to sleep, and he left.

Orem did not understand it, and I did not tell him, but you know, don't you, Palicrovol? She began to love him then. And part of why she loved him was because he looked like you. Does it make you laugh? Three hundred years of torturing you, and her hate for you had twisted into love. Not that she meant to free you. Never that. But still it ought to flatter you. You're the sort of enemy your enemy must love.

This is the way the paths of our lives entwine and cross and go apart: If she had sent for him the day before, even then he might have loved her. But she did not send for him until she was afraid; she was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her. If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done.

was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her. If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done. 2

The Birth of Youth

The tale of the birth of Orem's son, Beauty's son, the bastard grandchild of King Palicrovol, in all the world no child more beautiful and bright.

The Burning Ring

Orem's war with the Queen made him almost frenetic during the days, as if he had to work off some of the power he stole from her. As she neared the time of delivery, he harried her more and more, so that she spent her days exhausted after battling futilely all night. Orem, however, spent his days in ever more active games. Timias and Belfeva were surprised, but gladly joined him, even when he indulged in madness like racing horses with the cavalry on the parade ground or competing with Timias to see which of them could throw a javelin the farthest. Timias was not the sort to let Orem win, and so Orem, untrained in any of the manly arts, invariably lost. But he kept at it furiously, and gradually improved.

When Beauty went into labor for the birth of Orem's son, he was climbing up a wall of the Palace, racing to the top with Timias. This was one competition where agility and endurance counted for more than brute strength and long practice, and Orem was holding his own. He was nearly to the top, in fact, when he noticed a sharp pain like a candle flame on his leftmost finger. He looked, and saw that his ruby ring was glowing hot. He could not take it off, not without falling a hundred feet or so. Instead he endured it, climbed the rest of the way to the top, and only then tried to pry it off his finger. He could not.

Weasel and Belfeva were there, watching. "Help me," Orem said.

"You can't take it off," Weasel said. "The ruby ring will burn till the child is born. It isn't really burning you. Anyway, you should be glad—it's proof that the child is not only yours, but also a son."

"The child is being born," Orem said. Then this was the last day of his life, he was sure. He walked to the lip of the roof, reached down, and helped Timias to the top.

"You won," Timias said, surprised. "I didn't think you had it in you."

"I kept looking down," Orem said. "The thought of death makes me quick."

Suddenly Weasel cried out in pain. "What is it!" they demanded, but she would not tell.

"At a birthing? The father?"

"At this birthing, with that mother, yes." She winced again.

"What's wrong? What's happening to you?"

"Help me to my room, Belfeva," Weasel said. "And you, Little King, go to your wife, I say."

"But she hasn't sent for me," Orem said. In truth, he wanted to spend the last day of his life with anyone but Beauty.

"Do you forget which finger bears her ring? She'll obey you if you command her to let you stay."

"No one commands Queen Beauty."

"You do," Weasel said. "But beware how you command her, for she'll obey you with cruel perfection if you ask unwisely."

"I don't want to go," he said angrily.

She winced again, and staggered against Belfeva. "Not for her. Your son. Your son has begun his voyage down the river to the sea. She'll have no other help but you. No one but the father can help at the birth of a twelve-month child."

Orem wanted to stay, wanted to know why Weasel was in such pain. But he knew that Weasel was wise, that Weasel did not lie; if she said he must go to Beauty, then he would go.

Parturition

The Queen was not in her normal sleeping room. Nor were there any servants there, to give direction. He did not know where she might have gone for her lying in. He had only one way of finding out: He spun his web through the Palace, and found her all aflame with silver sweetness, rough to his hearing, silent to his touch.

Through the corridors he went toward the place where he knew she was, but always the corridors turned, always the doors opened only the wrong way. He only understood when he stepped from a corridor and into a room, then changed his mind and stepped back again—and found that the corridor had changed direction. The short end now was on the left, the long end with the rising stairs now on the right. Queen Beauty was where he thought she was, but the magic of the Palace turned all paths away. So he let his power flow loose as a robe around him, lapping against the walls, breaking down the spells, revealing the doors where they ought to be. This was not the magic of illusion that he invariably saw through. It was true bending, and he feared that by finding her, he would confess to her what he really was. He found her worried servants gathered at a door.

"And alone," answered a servant. "She forbids us to come in."

"She won't forbid me," said Orem, and he knocked.

"Go away," came the husky, painful voice from inside.

"I'm coming in." And he did.

Beauty lay alone in the middle of a long and narrow bed. She was naked, her legs spread wide, her knees up. Some sheets had been tied to the five posts of the bed. Two were tied to her feet, and she strained against them; two she held in her hands, and pulled hard. The last lay on her pillow, and as a wave of pain swept over her, she turned her head and seized it in her teeth and bit and moaned, tossing her head, worrying the cloth like a dog with a rag. She dripped with sweat. The high-pitched moan that arose from her throat was not a human sound. Blood was trickling from the passage where the baby's head had crowned. The head was large and bloody and purple, and it would not come. Beauty looked at him through eyes wide as a deer's with fear and pain. The eyes followed him as he walked around the foot of the bed and stopped near her face as she chewed on the cloth. Even in such a state, she was beautiful, the most womanly of women.