Orson Card - Hart's Hope

"Beauty," he said.

And then the pain passed, and she shuddered and let the cloth slip back to the pillow.

"Beauty," he said again. "Haven't you any magic to end the pain?"

She laughed mirthlessly. "Little fool, Little King, there is no magic that has power over childbirth.

The pain must be felt or the child will die."

Then the pain came again, and she whimpered and writhed as muscles rippled over her belly. The child's head made no forward progress. Beauty looked at him with pleading in her eyes. What

did she want of him? To end the pain, but he could not do it.

"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it," he said.

"Do?" She cried aloud. "Do? Teach me what to do, husband!"

The child would die—he knew that much. A child who did not quickly come once it had

crowned would die. Not my son, he silently said. "Can someone bear the pain for you?" Did she nod? Yes; and whispered: "Not against the other's will."

"Then cast the pain on me," he said, "so the child will live."

"A man!" she said contemptuously. "This pain?"

"Look at the ring on your finger and obey me. Give the pain away." No sooner did he say the words than her convulsive movements stopped. Her heavy breathing fell to normal, her pressure on the sheets eased. He waited for the pain to come to him—but it did not. He had no time to question it, for suddenly the flesh opened impossibly wide, the bones of Queen Beauty's pelvis separated widely, and the child slipped out easily upon the sheets. It was impossible that Beauty could go through such a thing so peacefully, yet instantly the bones came together again, and Beauty reached down and picked the child up. There was no afterbirth; the baby had no trailing cord.

"Command me again, my Little King," she said. "It gave me pleasure to obey."

"But the pain didn't come to me," he said.

"You didn't command me to give it to you." She smiled triumphantly.

He thought back on his words and could not remember. Somehow she had tricked him, but he was not clever enough to know how. "Let me hold the child.."

"Is that also a command?"

"Only if—if it will cause no harm to him."

Beauty laughed again and held the infant out. Orem looked down at him, reached to him, took the child in his arms. He had seen newborns before, nieces and nephews, and had helped to care for foundlings at the House of God. But this child was heavier, and held his body differently. Orem looked into the infant's face, and the child gazed back at him wide-eyed, and smiled.

Smiled. Minutes after birth, and the baby smiled.

"A twelve-month child," Queen Beauty said.

Orem remembered his father, Avonap, remembered his strong arms that could toss him into the air so he flew like a bird, and catch him as surely as the treelimb caught the starling. My arms are strong enough for a child this small. And suddenly he was Avonap in his heart, and he longed for the child. The child Orem had loved his father more than life; that is the sort of child who, when a man, also loves his children with a devotion that cannot be broken. You would not know, Palicrovol, but there are such men, and they are not weaker than you; you are merely poorer than they.

At once Orem knew that he must have this child, if only for a time. "You will let me see him whenever I want," he said.

"A command?"

"Yes," he said. She laughed. "Then I'll obey."

"You are too daring, Little King," she said. This time she didn't laugh.

"I command it."

"You don't know what you're doing."

"As long as I live I command you to let me know and love him, and him me!" She could not

begrudge him that—he did not dare to ask for more, did not dare to ask to be allowed to live a moment longer than she already had in mind.

"Little King, you don't know what you ask."

"Will you do it?"

"Don't come to me and blame me, Little King. Love the child if you want, and let him love you, it's nothing to me, all one to me." She turned her face to the wall.

"A child must know his father if he's to be happy."

"I have no doubt of it. Only this, Little King: He'll eat no food but what he draws from my breast. And he'll never have a name."

That was wrong; it could not be. To have no name is to have no self, Orem knew that. "I command you to give him a name."

"You command easily now, don't you? Like a child, not guessing at the price of things. See how well your old commands have worked, before you try any others."

"Name him."

"Youth," she answered, smiling and amused.

"That's not a name."

"Nor is Beauty. But it's more name than he could earn in all his life."

"Youth, then. And I'll be free with him."

"Oh, you're a delicious fool. I've kept the three most marvelous fools in all the world with me for all these years, but you, the best of all, the Sisters saved you for the last. You will have all the time you want with the boy, all the time you can possibly use is yours. May it bring you joy."

The boy reached up and clutched at Orem's nose and laughed.

"Did you hear? Already he laughed!" And Orem couldn't help but laugh in turn. "That's the way it is with a twelve-month child," Queen Beauty said.

Orem did not see it; but I believe that every word he said was pain to Beauty, made plain to Beauty how much he already loved the child, and how little love he had for her. It could not have surprised her, but it could hurt no less for all that.

"Give me the boy," she said. "He needs to eat."

"Youth," said Orem to the child, who smiled. He handed the infant to Beauty, and this time the child needed no guidance to the nipple. Beauty looked up at Orem with eyes strangely timid, like a doe's. She looked innocent and sweet, but Orem was not deceived. "Beauty," he said, "how did you escape the pain of this, when you didn't give it to me?"

"Does it matter?"

"Tell me. I command it."

Studying his face, she said, "You commanded me to give the pain away; you didn't say to whom."

That was true, he realized. The second time, when she obeyed him, he had not said she had to give it to him. "But who else would willingly take it?"

"The woman who of all women could not bear to see this body torn asunder. The woman whose face this really is."

Orem stared at her stupidly. Who else's face was it, if not Beauty's? Orem had never known that Beauty wore a borrowed shape. But knowing that, it was not hard to know who it was who truly owned that face.

"Weasel," Orem whispered. "You gave the pain to her."

"We always shared my pains anyway," Beauty said. "It seemed only fair. She had had the use of this body during her perfect childhood—we agreed that it was fair she suffer some of the pain of its adulthood." Beauty smiled lovingly at Orem. "And pleasure, too. I made sure she felt half the pleasure of our wedding night, Little King. I wanted her to remember what it felt like to be unfaithful to her beloved husband."

"Her husband?" Orem had not known that Weasel had a husband.

"What a fool," Beauty said. "Her husband, the King! Palicrovol meant to make her Queen in my place. Why else do you think I've kept her here? Weasel is Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin, the Flower Princess. She wanted my place, so I've taken hers. Inside her perfect body. Well, her perfect body just went through a birthing that could have killed it. But thanks to you, her perfect body didn't have to bear the pain, or heal from the injury. Too bad for the imperfect flesh she actually dwells in, though. That may well die." Orem had not realized until then Beauty's perfect malice. "It's you deserves her face," he whispered.

He thought back to Dobbick in the House of God, who taught him that King Palicrovol brought his own suffering upon himself. "But she did nothing to you," Orem said.

"She took my place," said Beauty. "For whatever reason, I care not: she took my place in this Palace, and she pays for it."