Suddenly Weasel cried out in pain.
“What is it!” they demanded, but she would not tell.
“Orem,” she said, “you must go to your wife.”
“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.
“Is she inside?” he asked.
“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.
“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.
“Untie my feet,” Queen Beauty whispered. She licked the mucus from the baby’s face. The child cried, and Beauty cuddled him, held him to her breast, guided his mouth to the nipple, then sighed and comfortably crossed her legs. Orem noticed with amazement that her belly was not slack at all, but perfect in form, as if she had never carried a child at all; indeed, she had again the unutterably beautiful body he had loved, and he could not help desiring her again, for all he feared and hated her.
“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.”
“And you’ll do nothing to bar him from knowing me, and loving me, and I him.”
“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.
“Every day I’ll come to see him. He’ll come to know my face, and be glad to see me; I’ll have time enough for that.”
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.
“Are you my judge?” she asked him coldly. “Is that why you’ve come to me, to tell me what I have deserved?”
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.”
(That argument should be familiar to you, Palicrovol. He took my place in the Palace, you said, and so he must pay. Do you then admit that Beauty was just when she punished the bride you brought from Onologasenweev?)
“I see now,” Beauty said. “I see now.” And her face became dark.
“What do you see?” asked Orem, afraid that she saw what he really was.
“I see that she has taken my place again.”
“Yes! She’s bearing the pain of the birth of your child.”
“Once again she has my husband’s love.”
Orem looked at her in disbelief. “For a year you’ve despised me. How can you be jealous of a thing you threw away!” And then he lied quite cruelly to her, thinking he was telling her the truth. “I never loved you.”
She cried out against his words. “You worshipped me!”
“Name of God, woman! I hate you more than any living soul, if you are alive, if you have a soul. You’re three hundred years old and you have no more love in you than a mantis for her mate, and you never—you never—”
“I never what?”
“You never took me to your bed again.”
“If you wanted me, boy, why didn’t you come to me and ask?”
“You would have laughed at me.”
“Yes,” she said. “I laugh at all the weak things of the world. And when you leave me now, and go to Weasel Sootmouth, and comfort her, I will lie here laughing.”
“Laugh at me all you like.” He turned to go.
“But I won’t be laughing at you.”
He stopped at the door. “Who then?”
“At me.”
He turned back to look at her. “You aren’t one of the weak things of the world.”
She smiled viciously. “Not for long, anyway. Not once I’ve finished what I began with you.”
Orem was sure she was hinting at his death.
“Sing to me, Little King. Sing to me a song from the House of God. Surely they taught you songs in the House of God.”
He sang the first thing that came into his mind. It was Halfpriest Dobbick’s favorite passage in the Second Song.
God surely sees your sins, my love,
The blackness of your heart, my love.
He weighs them with your suffering.
Which is the lesser part, my love?
“Again,” she said.
And when he had sung it twice, she made him sing it again, and again, and again, as she rocked back and forth, suckling their son. Despite his hatred for her, Orem had never seen a thing that pleased him so much: his baby drawing from his wife’s breast, as the grain drew life from the soil. He loved his son instinctively, the way Avonap loved his sons and his fields. He regretted every word he had said that might cause her to kill him sooner, and deprive him of an hour he might have had with Youth.
At last she did not murmur “Again” when he finished the song. “Forgive me,” he whispered to her. But she was asleep, and did not hear him.
So he left her, and went to find Weasel, who had born Beauty’s pain at his command.
THE HEALING OF WEASEL SOOTMOUTH
“You can’t come in,” said the servants standing guard at Weasel’s door.
Orem pushed past them. Wease
l lay delirious on the bed, crying out and weeping, calling now on Beauty, now on Palicrovol, and now and then on Orem, too. He thought that meant she loved him as she loved Palicrovol, though in fact she was crying out to save him, not for him to save her.
He questioned the doctors gathered at her bed. “We can find no cause for the pain,” they said.
“Treat her,” Orem said, “as if she had just given birth to a twelve-month child. Treat her as if the birthing broke her loins apart and tore her flesh.”
The doctors looked at him amazed. Only Belfeva, who stood nearby, understood that the Little King might know the problem better than any of them. She strode to the bed, tore the blanket back, and now they saw that Weasel lay in a pool of blood that still flowed from a ghastly rent in her private flesh. And more astounding: there lay the afterbirth that hadn’t come with the child named Youth. “Name of God,” said a doctor, and they set to work.
Orem watched when he could bear it, sat by Weasel and held her hand when he could not. She knew nothing of his presence, only cried out with pain and delirium. At last the doctors finished all that they could do.
“She’s lost so much blood, what can we do?” said one.
“How could this have come to be?” asked another.
Orem only shook his head. He could not explain to them that it was his doing.
The doctors left, but Orem stayed, holding her hand. Once she called out, “Little King.”
“I’m here, Enziquelvinisensee,” he answered. Hearing her own name seemed to soothe her. She slept. He said all the prayers he could remember from the House of God. He knew they were meaningless here in Beauty’s house, but he said them anyway, because he was afraid of what he had done to her.
He must have dozed off, for he awoke suddenly to find that Craven and Urubugala waited with him beside the bed. Out of habit he extended his web to include them, freeing them to speak unheard by Beauty.
“How is she?” Craven wheezed.
“She bore the pain of the birth,” Orem said.
Craven nodded.
“The Queen has been harvested,” said Urubugala. “But what was the crop, little farmer?”
“A boy, named Youth.”