Orson Card - Heartfire

"If you can't fix it," said Honor‚, "you shouldn't break it."

Calvin glowered, then pushed himself out of his chair, vaulted the railing, and knelt down by the hummingbird. He fiddled with the wing, trying to straighten it. The bird kept struggling in his grasp.

"Hold still, dammit."

Calvin held the broken wing straight, closed his eyes, concentrated. But the fluttering of the bird kept annoying him. He made an exasperated gesture, as if he were shaking a child, and the bones of the wing crumbled in his fingers. He took his hands away and looked at the ruined wing, a sick expression on his face.

"Is this a game?" asked Honor‚. "See how many times can you break the same hummingbird wing?"

Calvin looked at him in fury. "Shut your damn mouth."

"The bird is in pain, Monsieur le Maker."

Calvin leapt to his feet and stomped down hard on the bird. "Now it's not."

"Calvin the healer," said Honor‚. Despite the jesting tone he was sick at heart. It was his goading that had killed the bird. Not that there was any hope for it. It was doomed to die as soon as Calvin made it fall from the air. But even that had been partly Honor‚'s fault for having asked Calvin not to do it. He knew, or should have known, that would be a goad to him.

"You made me do it," said Calvin. He couldn't meet Honor‚'s gaze. This worried Honor‚ more than a defiant glare would have. Calvin felt shamed in front of his friend. That did not bode well for that friend's future.

"Nonsense," said Honor‚ cheerfully. "It was your own wise choice. Do not kill bees, for they make honey! But what does a humming bird make? A splash of color in the air, and then it dies, and voila! A splash of color on the ground. And where is color more needed? The air is full of bright color. The ground never has enough of it. You have made the world more beautiful."

"Someday I'll be sick of you and your sick jokes," said Calvin.

"What's taking you so long? I'm already sick of me."

"But you like your jokes," said Calvin.

"I never know whether I will like them until I hear myself say them," said Honor‚.

He heard footsteps inside the house, coming to the door. He turned. Margaret Smith was a stern-looking woman, but not unattractive. Au contraire, she was noticeably attractive. Perhaps some might think her too tall for Honor‚'s comfort, but like most short men, Honor‚ had long since had to settle for the idea of admiring taller women; any other choice would curtail too sharply the pool of available ladies.

Not that this one was available. She raised one eyebrow very slightly, as if to let Honor‚ know that she recognized his admiration of her and thought it sweet but stupid of him. Then she turned her attention to Calvin.

"I remember once," she said, "I saw Alvin heal a broken animal."

Honor‚ winced and stole a glance at Calvin. To his surprise, instead of exploding with wrath, Calvin only smiled at the lady. "Nice to meet you, Margaret," he said.

"Let's get one thing straight from the start," said Margaret. "I know every nasty little thing you've ever done. I know how much you hate and envy my husband. I know the rage you feel for me at this moment and how you long to humiliate me. Let's have no pretenses between us."

"All right," said Calvin, smiling. "I want to make love to you. I want to make you pregnant with my baby instead of Alvin's."

"The only thing you want is to make me angry and afraid," said Margaret. "You want me to wonder if you'll use your powers to harm the baby inside my womb and then to seduce me the way you did with another poor woman. So let me put your mind at rest. The hexes that protect my baby were made by Alvin himself, and you don't have the skill to penetrate them."

"Do you think not?" said Calvin.

"I know you don't," said Margaret, "because you've already tried and failed and you don't even begin to understand why. As for wanting to seduce me-- save those efforts for someone who doesn't see through your pretenses. Now, are we going to dinner or not?"

"I'm hungry," said Honor‚, desperate to turn the conversation away from the dangerous hostility with which it had begun. Didn't this woman know what kind of madman Calvin was? "Where shall we eat?"

"Since I'm expected to pay," said Margaret, "it will have to be in a restaurant I can afford."

"Excellent," said Honor‚. "I am ill at the thought of eating at the kind of restaurant I can afford."

That earned him a tiny hint of a smile from the stern Mrs. Smith. "Give me your arm, Monsieur de Balzac. Let's not tell my brother-in-law where we're going."

"Very funny," said Calvin, climbing over the railing and back onto the porch. The edge of fury was out of his voice. Honor‚ was relieved.

This woman, this torch, she must truly understand Calvin better than Honor‚ did, for Calvin seemed to be calming down even though she had goaded him so dangerously. Of course, if she was protected by hexes that might give her more confidence.

Or was it hexes she was counting on? She was married to the Maker that Calvin longed to be-- maybe she simply counted on Calvin's knowledge that if he hanned her or her baby, he would have to face the wrath of his brother at long last, and he knew he was no match for Alvin Maker. Someday he would have it out with him, but he wasn't ready, and so Calvin would not harm Alvin's wife or unborn baby.

Certainly that was the way a rational man would see it.

Calvin tried to keep himself from getting angry during the meal. What good would it do him? She could see everything he felt; yet she would also see that he was suppressing his anger, so even that would do no good. He hated the whole idea of her existence-- someone who thought she knew the truth of his soul just because she could see into his secret desires. Well, everyone had secret desires, didn't they? They couldn't be condemned for the fancies that passed through their mind, could they? It was only what they acted on that counted.

Then he remembered the dead hummingbird. Lady Ashworth naked in bed. He stopped himself before he remembered every act that others had criticized-- no reason to list the catalogue of them for Margaret's watchful eye. For her to report to Alvin with, no doubt, the worst possible interpretation. Alvin's spy--

No, keep the anger under control. She couldn't help what her knack was, any more than Calvin could, or anybody else. She wasn't a spy.

A judge, though. She was clearly judging him, she had said as much. She judged everybody. That's why she was here in the Crown Colonies-- because she had judged and condemned them for practicing slavery, even though the whole world had always practiced slavery until just lately, and it was hardly fair to condemn these people when the idea of emancipation was really just some fancy new trend from Puritan England and a few French philosophers.

And he didn't want to be judged by what he did, either. That was wrong, too. People made mistakes. Found out later that a choice was wrong. You couldn't hold that against them forever, could you?

No, people should be judged by what they meant to do in the long run. By the overarching purpose they meant to accomplish. Calvin was going to help Alvin build the Crystal City. That was why he had gone to France and England, wasn't it? To learn how people were gathered to one purpose and governed in the real world. None of this feeble teaching that Alvin did back in Vigor Church, trying to turn people into what they were not and never could be. No, Alvin would get nowhere that way. Calvin was the one who would figure it all out and come back and show Alvin the way. Calvin would be the teacher, and together the brothers would build the great city and the whole world would be ruled from that place, and even Napoleon would come and bow to them, and then all of Calvin's mistakes and bad thoughts would be forgotten in the honor and glory that would come to him.