The old soldier came first, his step slow and unsteady as he lurched under the weight of the armor. His voice was hollow and soft, full of air. He spoke to Orem first.

  “Little King,” he said, “I see you wear your ring wisely. Look at it often and follow its advice.” Then the old man turned to the Queen and looked her in the eyes. Orem was surprised by the force of his gaze—when the old man had looked at him his eyes had been tender and soft, but now they were full of fire. Hatred? This man had power despite his weak body and the large armor that made a joke of it. “Beauty, dear Beauty,” said the old soldier, “I give your child a blessing. May your son have my strength.”

  Orem looked toward the Queen in alarm. Surely she would be angry that the old man would curse her unborn child so. Orem well knew the power of wishes on the unborn—many a dull-wit and cripple had been the product of an ill-thought jest. But the Queen only nodded and smiled as if the old man had given her a great gift.

  And then the woman. Closer up she was uglier still. Her walk was canted a bit, so that one step was long, and the other short. Her hands were gnarled and twisted, and when she touched Orem’s cheek it felt like her fingers were scaled like fish. She smiled, and Orem realized the dirt on her lip was a scraggly moustache; her hair was also thin and wispy, and she was bald in a few patches. “Little King,” she said to him in a voice that grated on him like the cry of a rutting hen. “Be lonely, love no one, and live long.” Then she, too, turned to the Queen. “Beauty, I also give your child a blessing. May your son have my beauty.”

  Again, the Queen accepted the cruel curse as if it were a gift.

  Then the short black man waddled up, grinning idiotically. He stopped in front of Orem and pulled down his loincloth to reveal that he had only one testicle in his scrotum, and a penis so small it could hardly be seen. “Pm half what I should be,” said the fool, “but twice the man you are.” Then he giggled, pulled his loincloth back in place, and darted forward to lift Orem’s gown and peer under it. He re-emerged from the boy’s costume as quickly, laughing hysterically. “Little King, Little King!” he cried. And then, suddenly somber, he said, “The Queen sees all, except that which she sees not that she sees not. Remember it, Little King!” And then he turned away from Orem. But for a brief moment Orem realized that the fool was no fool—or for a moment, at least, seemed to speak with serious intent.

  “Beauty, dear Beauty,” sang the little black man to the Queen, “I bless your little unborn child on whom all gods but one have smiled: though all his life the lad hear lies, he’ll be as wise as I am wise.” Then, laughing uproariously, the fool somersaulted backward and sprawled under the table.

  Orem was horrified at the bitter gifts they had given the Queen’s child—his child, for that matter, though he was far from having much parental feeling for a creature he could not even imagine yet. All Orem knew was that a great discourtesy had been done, and he fumblingly tried to put it right. He knew no blessings for the unborn except the common one used in Banningside and the farm country, the blessing Half priest Dobbick had invariably used. Orem turned to the Queen and said, “Queen Beauty, I’d like to bless the child.”

  She glared at him, but he hardly noticed—he just blurted out his gift in words that almost had lost meaning to him: “May the child live to serve God.”

  Orem had meant it as a kindness. The Queen took it as a curse. She slapped his face with such force that he fell to the floor; his cheek was cut open by her ring. What had he said? But from his place on the floor he watched as she looked imperiously at the others and said, in a voice dripping with hate, “My Little King’s gift has no more power than his little pud.” Then she turned to Orem. “Command and bless as you like, my Little King; you will only be obeyed by those who laugh at you.” Then the Queen turned and started toward the door. She stopped at the threshold.

  “Urubugala,” she said firmly, and the black fool suddenly scrambled out from under the table. It must be his name, Orem realized.

  “Come here,” the Queen said. Urubugala kept crawling, whining about his sad lot in life. He passed close to Orem, who instinctively retreated from the strange man—but suddenly the fool’s black hand snaked out and grabbed Orem viciously by the arm and pulled him close. Orem lost his balance, and in the struggle to get up he found the fool’s lips against his ear. “I know you, Orem,” came the almost soundless whisper. “I have waited long for you.”

  And then the fool was standing as Orem knelt—they were almost the same height, then—and the fool kissed him firmly on the mouth and put his hands on Orem’s head and shouted, “I name you with your true name, boy! You are Hart’s Hope!” But as abruptly as the naming ritual had begun, it ended. Suddenly the fool was writhing on the ground, screaming in agony, clutching his head. Is it a show, Orem wondered, or is the pain real?

  “His name,” said the Queen softly from the other side of the room—softly, but clearly heard despite the black mans screams—“his name is Little King, and he will have no other.”

  The words finished, she left. Urubugala immediately stopped screaming. He lay panting on the floor a moment, then arose and walked out of the room, following the Queen.

  Orem also stood up. His cheek hurt, and so did his elbow where he had hit the floor. He was confused; he understood nothing. The heavy gown felt like a burden he did not want to bear. The door where the Queen had left was closed now. Orem turned to the others, the ugly woman and the weak old soldier. They regarded him with pitying eyes. He did not really understand their pity, either.

  “What do I do now?” he asked.

  They glanced at each other. “You’re king,” said the soldier. “You can do what you like.”

  “King.” Orem didn’t know what to make of it. “I saw Palicrovol once.”

  “Did you?” said the woman. She did not sound interested.

  “He covers his eyes with gold balls, so the Queen can’t see.”

  The woman chuckled. “Then he does it in vain, doesn’t he? For the Queen sees everything.”

  “But she can’t look everywhere at once, can she?” Orem asked.

  “She sees everything, like an orchestra of visions in the back of her mind. She watches always.” The woman laughed. “She sees us now. And she is laughing, I’m sure.”

  It made Orem afraid. If she saw everything, hadn’t she seen him with Galloway? Didn’t she know that he was a Sink? Did she feel no fear of him because her magic was so powerful that he could not possibly swallow it all? Yet she hadn’t even tried to work any magic on him—Was it because the spells would not have worked, or was there another reason? He was grateful for this, at least: Galloway had taught him well, and Orem could hold his strange power in abeyance so that at least he wasn’t irritating the Queen in her presence by swallowing any of the magic that he could taste thick in the air in every room he had visited. She filled this place with magic, no doubt to some purpose more than a mere Searching Eye, and it would surely irritate her if he sucked holes in it wherever he went.

  He wanted to ask the soldier and the ugly woman whether the Queen knew of his gift; but the asking would give the answer, since she would overhear. He would have to find more subtle ways of discovering what he could and could not do with his inborn gift. Perhaps somehow it could work to his advantage in this strange place where everything was bent to the Queen’s will.

  “What am I allowed to do?” he asked.

  “Whatever you want to do,” the old soldier answered.

  “You command everyone,” said the ugly woman. “You’re the Queen’s husband, Little King, and they must obey.”

  It was a heady thought, and Orem distrusted it. “Tell me your names, then,” he said.

  “I must beg your pardon,” said the ugly woman. “I misspoke myself. You command everyone but Urubugala and us.”

  “And why not you?” Orem asked.

  “Because we do not laugh at you,” said the ugly woman.

  Orem thought about that for a moment; he remembered the Queen’s words. “Then everyone but you and the black man will obey me?”

  The ugly woman nodded.

  “Because everyone but you and the black man will laugh at me.”

  “It’s awkward for you, I know,” said the old soldier. “But I can promise you this—the less you command, the less they’ll laugh.”

  “Don’t tell him that, Craven,” the ugly woman said. “Little King, command all you like. Your life will be much easier if everyone here keeps laughing. Command all you like. The Queen, too, will laugh.”

  If the Queen laughs, then do I command her, too? Orem wondered. She had worn her ring with a promise to surrender her will to his. But he did not ask the question aloud. Already he sensed that in this palace a wise man said as little about the Queen as he could get away with. Better not to mention her, because then you could not offend her.

  “Craven,” said Orem. “That is your name? Craven?”

  The old soldier nodded. “It is the name the Queen gave me.”

  “And you,” Orem said to the old woman. “What may I call you?”

  “I am called Weasel, surnamed Sootmouth. It is the name the Queen gave me.”

  As the Queen had named him Little King. “I had a name before she named me,” Orem said. “Didn’t you?”

  “If I did,” Weasel said, “I don’t remember it.”

  “But you must,” said Orem. “Mine is—my name is really—”

  But Weasel put her scaly hand to his mouth. “You can’t say it,” she said. “And if you could, it would cost you dearly. Don’t try to remember.”

  He looked at her wide-eyed. She apparently believed that he could not say his name, or remember it. But he could. Orem, he said in his own mind. Orem Scanthips, or Orem of Banningside. He had only stammered. There had been no magic in his hesitation to speak his own real name. Yet apparently Weasel and Craven were bound by magic and assumed that he was, too. It was a hint to him that perhaps he was immune to the bindings of magic in the palace.

  “May I ask you another question?” Orem asked.

  “Ask anything,” said Craven.

  “Why am I here?”

  Silence, and the two looked at each other. “The Queen uses great magic,” Weasel finally said. “She must pay a price for it.” And then she winced and covered her mouth.

  “She can say no more,” said Craven. “She should not have said that much. You’re lucky you know nothing of magic. Don’t try to learn.”

  “I won’t,” Orem said, and Weasel instantly relaxed, as if a pain inside her head had gone away.

  “Thank you,” Weasel said.

  Orem had another question. “Why don’t you laugh at me?”

  They looked at each other again. Finally Craven spoke. “We can give only a poor answer to that, Little King. We do not laugh at you because we know the ending of—” And then he stopped, gritted his teeth, and moaned in a high voice, quietly, behind his painful smile.

  “Never mind,” said Orem. “Please, I’ll ask you no more questions.” Craven relaxed and smiled, touched Orem’s arm. “Thank you.”

  “Perhaps,” Weasel said, “you would like to be presented to the court.”

  Orem smiled weakly. “I don’t know if I would or not.”

  “I assure you that you would,” Craven said. “Until there’s a presentation, no one will know who you are, and until they know who you are, they won’t pay the slightest attention to you.”

  “Besides which,” Weasel added, “it will be the easiest way for us to fulfill the Queen’s command that we tell the world about you. She wants the word to reach Palicrovol.”

  “What will happen when he hears?”

  Weasel laughed, a hideous sound, and when she bared her teeth Orem saw that many were rotting in her mouth. He had seen teeth like that—he well knew that Weasel’s breath must smell like a gutter at noon in the marketplace. “When Palicrovol hears,” Weasel said, “he will rage to God and all the gods, and he will assemble his pathetic army of fifty thousand men, as he has before. This time his fury will be more terrible than ever, because someone else is sitting in his throne and someone else is called King. He will bring his army to the gate of Hart’s Hope, and there his men will face the Queen’s magic, as they have before. It will strike terror in their souls, so that they believe they face the worst thing they fear in all the world. Despite their courage and their oaths and their self-respect, they will almost all flee. Only a few will stand with Palicrovol at the gate then—maybe a hundred this time. Every other time, Palicrovol has shouted hideous oaths and gone away, hoping to build a braver, larger army. But this time—perhaps this time his hate will be so strong that he’ll launch his silly group of a hundred men, who are stronger than their worst fear, against the gate.”

  “Because of you,” Craven said. “Because you sit on his throne.”

  “And this time, perhaps, all the men will be killed.”

  “Except Palicrovol, of course.”

  “Except Palicrovol,” Weasel corrected herself. “He’ll just be sent on his way again. Or perhaps this time the pain will be enough that he’ll kill himself. I don’t know what exactly the Queen has in mind.”

  “I’m here to hurt Palicrovol,” Orem said, trying to distill the sense from all that they had said.

  Weasel and Craven glanced at each other again.

  “Then there’s something else, something more than that.” Orem tried to find answers in their eyes, but they said nothing.

  Until Weasel laughed again. “Come with us. Let’s go to the stewards and have them send the invitations for a party tonight.”

  “Tonight? Who could come, hearing of it only today?”

  Weasel touched his arm. “When the invitation says that the Little King invites them, there’s not a soul in Hart’s Hope who would not come, if he could. Don’t you realize, Little King? You’re the most powerful man in the city.”

  Orem shook his head. “I don’t even know what to command people to do. What use do I have for power like that?”

  Craven looked at him bitterly. “You’ll learn.”

  They left the room together, walking slowly so that Craven could keep up with them. Orem thought of helping the man, giving him support. But he decided against it. Feeble as he was, Craven did not seem the kind of man who would lean.

  And as they stood waiting for the stewards all to memorize the invitation so Weasel could assign the lists, Orem closed his eyes and went searching in the magic of the palace. He did not want to find the Queen; it was just as well, for there was nothing in the mists of power to hint where she herself might he. Wherever his attention went, he knew that a small amount of the magic disappeared. He waited, tensely, expecting to feel at any moment the Queen’s anger, the stab of—what, pain?—that immobilized the others when they crossed her will. But there was nothing. He became more daring and yet more careful; he began to spread his influence, draw off more of the power, yet he also took his attention beyond the palace, out into the city of Hart’s Hope, where the feeble fires of the wizards burned coldly. He tasted one, put it out, and waited. Nothing.

  Why had he expected it to be any different? His gift was not magic, it was the absence of magic. At worst, the Queen could only know that here or there she was blind. She did not know where the blindness came from; he left no thread that could be followed. The only way she would discover what he was, he decided, would be if she were to try to work magic on him directly, for she would surely notice if the spell did not work.

  So far, Orem thought, so far I am safe.

  “The Queen called you a fool. Do you have to prove her right?” Orem opened his eyes, startled, to see Craven looking at him with cold criticism in his eyes.

  “I’m—sorry. What did I do?”

  “Have the good sense to keep your eyes open, Little King. You’ve stood here while the mistress of housekeeping instructed her stewards, and yet you haven’t listened, you haven’t learned. Do you intend to go blind through your sojourn among us?”

  Orem shook his head. “I’m sorry. There’s—other things on my mind.”

  “Then take them off your mind and concentrate. Do you think this is going to be a country party tonight? Do you think you’ll dance to the scree and maybe have a willing little girl behind a cowshed?”

  “I don’t know what I think.”

  “I know what I think,” Craven said. “I think the Sweet Sisters played us no pleasant prank when they dreamed you into the Queen’s life.”

  “Be easy on him,” Weasel said. “He’s new to this.”

  “He’ll wreck himself too soon,” wheezed the old soldier, “if I’m easy on him now.” He turned back to Orem. “Go with Weasel. The Queen has damned you to be a laughingstock, but you needn’t leap into the role with such perfect assurance. Let it at least be magic that makes a fool of you, and not your innate inabilities. There is the matter of manner. There is the matter of courtesy. There is also the matter of the abominable slouch you have that gives you the look of a halfwit?”

  “Craven,” Weasel said, from the comer where she talked with the stewards, “I said be easy.”

  Craven glared at her. He muttered, so she couldn’t hear, “Go break mirrors somewhere else.”

  Surely Weasel had not heard his words, Orem thought, for he had barely heard them. But still she answered sharply, “Haven’t you even the courage to speak your insults openly, Craven?”

  Craven seemed to wither before her eyes. Where Orem had begun to forget his weakness and be a little frightened of him, he now saw him as the frail, powerless man he really was. Craven looked at him and must have seen the pity in his eyes. “So your cock has filled a Queen, boy? Bloody lot of good may it do you.” And Craven laughed—but still led Orem out of the room to instruct him in the manners of the court and what would be expected of him at the party. Orem looked back helplessly at Weasel, who did not watch them go. Why did he expect help from her? She was no better than Craven—a monster—and God only knew why Queen Beauty kept such hideous creatures around her and treated them with such cruel respect.