“What about you, Param?” asked Olivenko.
“What about me? You heard Rigg’s plan. Noxon’s plan.”
“Either it will work or it won’t,” said Olivenko. “When Noxon goes to Earth, you’ll still be here. What then?”
Param shrugged slightly. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“I think you need to gather an army, destroy General Citizen, and depose your mother,” said Olivenko.
“Why?” asked Param. “So I can prove myself incompetent to rule in her place?”
“Maybe you can find a better way. You’ve read the histories—of Earth, of all the great eras of Odinfold. The cruelties of the Sessamids and the insanities of the People’s Revolutionary Council aren’t the only choices.”
“Mother made sure I was never trained to run a household, let alone a kingdom. I’m unskilled at every labor.”
“So what? You wouldn’t have wanted to learn her way of governing, would you? Figure out another.”
Param put a hand in front of her face. “I think we’ve all seen how well I handle problems.”
“I think we’ve all grown and changed,” said Olivenko. “And we’re not done yet. You’re going to need a general to lead your troops.”
“And where will she find one?” asked Loaf.
“You,” suggested Umbo.
Loaf shook his head. “Nobody will follow this face into battle. And even if my original face is finally restored, I’m a sergeant at best. A commander of twenty or a hundred, not of ten thousand. And before Umbo makes some joke about my lack of ambition, it isn’t just a difference in scale. Commanding great armies is a matter of planning and logistics. What I know how to do is lead a few men into combat. And drag them home from brothels between the wars.” Loaf then turned to Umbo, as if he were somehow the next logical candidate for the job.
“At least you know what the job is,” said Umbo. “I’m not even sure I could lift a man-sized sword. Or give great stirring speeches.”
“You could learn,” said Olivenko.
“I have no talent for it,” said Umbo. “And no interest in it. I don’t want to lead people.”
“Well, you certainly don’t want to follow anybody,” said Loaf cheerfully.
Umbo shook his head and looked away. That’s why he couldn’t even imagine leading people—those who knew him best had no respect for him.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” said Olivenko. “I’m going to go somewhere with a library—Odinfold, or maybe the starship in Vadeshfold or Larfold—and I’m going to study military history and theory until a week or so before the end of the world. Then one of you time-shifters is going to come and get me, and if I’m not ready to lead an army, you’ll take me back and I’ll work for another couple of years in a different starship.”
“Why not the same one?” asked Noxon. “Then you could have really interesting conversations with the different versions of yourself.”
“Since I don’t know anything,” said Olivenko, “I have no interest in having discussions with myself. From Loaf I could get the common soldier’s perspective. That would be helpful. But even if I have to pass through the same two years ten times over, there’ll come a time when I might actually be useful to you, Param. If not as a general, then at least as a judge of other possible generals. As a counselor. Whatever scholarship and philosophy can make of me, I’ll become, and then I’ll lay my sword at your feet.”
Umbo felt an irresistible thrill at his words. Olivenko had spoken simply, but Umbo could hear how much fire lay behind his offer, and he saw how Param rose within herself and straightened her back. How Olivenko’s offer made her more queenly.
“I will never be worthy of such service,” said Param.
“Yet there is no other possible candidate but you to displace your mother and General Citizen,” said Olivenko. “If you don’t try, at least, then their tyranny continues. Or Ramfold descends into chaos.”
“It’s a good plan,” said Rigg. “I don’t know what I’ll find in the other wallfolds. It may be that Ramfold is the most dangerous, most aggressive civilization. If you can become mistress of that wallfold, Param, then a world without Walls might be safe. Or maybe there will be more dangerous places, and we’ll need the warlike character of the Sessamoto armies to curb the ambitions of even-more-dangerous peoples.”
“It’s too much for me,” said Param.
“If I can make a military counselor out of myself, why can’t you become a queen in fact as well as title?” asked Olivenko.
“We don’t know that you can become what you say you’ll become,” said Param.
“I know I can become far more than I was as a scholar serving your father in the Great Library. Far more than the city guardsman who set out on this journey. Rigg and Loaf with their facemasks, all of you with time-shifting, you aren’t the only ones who can learn and change and grow into something useful.” Olivenko’s voice became even softer, and his gaze at Param was intense. “The very fact that you doubt yourself, my lady, is proof of how much you have learned, and how greatly you have grown.”
At those words, Param burst into tears and covered her face.
But she did not slice time. She did not disappear.
“Thank you for staying with us,” said Loaf softly.
“We all have so much work to do,” said Noxon.
Except me, thought Umbo. Nobody has any plan for me, except to be Loaf’s character witness when he returns to Leaky.
Not fair, he told himself. They don’t dare find jobs for you, because you’re so childish and prickly they know you’ll take offense.
Yet a part of him—the childish, prickly part—still insisted, inside his mind: They aren’t finding a job for me, because now that Rigg has a facemask, and then another copy of himself, there’s no particular need for me at all. “I should get a facemask,” Umbo murmured.
Everyone fell silent.
“Maybe with a facemask I could see the paths like Rigg,” Umbo added.
“We already have twice as many pathfinders as we need,” said Noxon. “That’s why I’m getting out of town.”
“Off the planet, you mean,” said Olivenko.
“We need all the pathfinders we can get,” said Umbo. “And even if I couldn’t see paths, the facemask would make me better at the things I can do.”
“You’re just assuming you have the will to master the facemask,” said Loaf.
“Umbo,” said Param softly, removing her hands from her face. “How can I possibly marry you if you have a facemask? The people would never accept you as their king, if you looked like that.”
CHAPTER 3
Under a Tent
Noxon and Param began their mutual training the obvious way, with Param trying to teach Noxon to develop an ability like hers by teaching him the way the Gardener had once taught her. It kept the two of them away from everyone else for hours at a time.
At first Umbo watched them from a distance, trying not to think of what Param had said. Did it really amount to a royal proposal of marriage? And if it did, why did she completely ignore him now? Instead of thinking about Param, Umbo wished he could be more like Rigg—like Noxon—in the way that he seemed to have endless patience when he needed it.
Rigg had learned his patience by being schooled every waking moment by his father—by the expendable called Ramex—while they tramped in solitude through the forests of Ramfold. Rigg knew how to listen, how to concentrate on what he was hearing, how to analyze and process it.
I’m quiet too, sometimes, thought Umbo. I hold my tongue, I don’t say everything that comes to mind.
And that’s the difference, he realized. Rigg learned to concentrate on what Ramex was saying, and devoted himself to memory and analysis. While I, in my silences, I’m thinking of all the things I’m going to decide not to say.
No, I’m storing up things to complain about later.
Is that all I am? No wonder everyone looks to Rigg for leadership—he thinks through ideas, while I think of nothing but myself. How could anyone respect me? I don’t even have ideas that are worthy of respect.
“I wonder if you’re mooning over the princess,” said Olivenko, “or resenting Noxon for having so much time with her.”
Umbo was immediately filled with fury. But, trying to learn a lesson from Rigg, he curbed that first impulse. “I was wishing I had Rigg’s patience.”
“That was a good step, then, to answer me so mildly.”
“You were trying to goad me?”
“Yes,” said Olivenko. “Because it seems to be the only way to get your attention.”
Umbo thought: By hurting my feelings? But he said, “You have it.”
“I think she does like you, Umbo. She’s overcome some of her snobbery and seen you for a good man trying to be better.”
“You think of me as a boy,” said Umbo, “so when you call me a man it sounds like mockery.” But he said it mildly, because it was simply true.
“I’m talking about how Param thinks of you,” said Olivenko. “No matter how she feels, she’ll marry for reasons of state.”
“Thank you for telling me,” said Umbo. He did not say, By no means should you let me nurse the delusion that she might have fallen in love with me.
“If you’re going to marry her, you not only have to know how she thinks, you have to learn how to think the same way. The needs of the kingdom come before your personal desires.”
This time Umbo couldn’t keep the resentment out of his voice. “How would marrying me serve the needs of the kingdom?”
“No, I won’t answer that, because you already know the answer.”
“I say I don’t,” said Umbo.
“And I say that you already have enough information to figure it out.”
“And I say I don’t need a schoolmaster.”
“I think you do,” said Olivenko. “And since Loaf already stands in for your father, being your schoolmaster gives me a way to be useful to you. Or do you think you alone have nothing to learn?”
“On the contrary,” said Umbo. “I know so little that there’s no point in teaching me.”
“Nobody knows more than can be learned in a single lifetime,” said Olivenko, “and you already know more than you realize. Prove me wrong. Try to answer my question, and when you fail, I’ll know you were right about what a hopelessly ignorant privick you are.”
Umbo knew that Olivenko was deliberately challenging him in order to provoke him into accepting him as schoolteacher, if only to prove him wrong. So the proper answer was to walk away from him, saying nothing at all.
Proper answer? Why would that be proper? Umbo imagined himself doing it and then realizing, after about ten steps, that the only person he injured by refusing the offered education was himself. But then pride would forbid him to return and ask for Olivenko’s help after all.
Only this time, Umbo hadn’t walked away the moment he realized that would be the “right” way to prove he couldn’t be manipulated or controlled by anyone. This time he had stayed long enough to think of why he should stay.
He thought back to what Olivenko had challenged him to do: Think of how Param’s marrying this privick boy would serve the needs of the kingdom.
“Maybe she’d marry me to prove that she wants to elevate the common people,” said Umbo.
“That will be a very good thing for her to tell the common people, in order to try to cement their loyalty, but she’d better not let the great families of the Sessamoto Empire think that’s why she did it,” said Olivenko.
“Why not?” asked Umbo.
“No, you tell me why not,” said Olivenko.
“An excellent method of teaching—make me answer all my own questions. Using that method, you don’t actually have to know any of the answers yourself.”
“I’m waiting for you to think about Param’s political situation, instead of your own educational one.”
Since Olivenko was urging him to analyze a situation outside himself, and that was exactly what Umbo had just realized Rigg could do and he could not, he swallowed his rebellious responses and forced himself to think about the new question. “The great families don’t want her to have the love of the common people.”
“Close,” said Olivenko. “They don’t mind if she has their love. They only worry about what she plans to do with it.”
Now it became clear to Umbo. “They’re afraid that she’d be playing for the love of the common people so she would no longer need their support.” Now a further insight occurred to him. “The great families need her to need their support. So they don’t have to fear the royal power.”
“Now you’re thinking more like a ruler’s consort,” said Olivenko. “Back to the original question.”
Umbo had to think for a moment. Oh, yes. Why she needed to marry Umbo for reasons of state. “I’m a poor privick from as far upriver as you can get. I can’t think of any other reason.”
“Is that all you are?” asked Olivenko.
“Isn’t that bad enough?” asked Umbo.
“I’m asking you to think of why she needs to marry you for the good of the kingdom. Not for reasons why she should find the idea disgusting.”
That had been what he was doing, hadn’t it? “All right,” said Umbo. “What else am I, besides a person of such low standing that . . .”
No, Umbo thought. That was the kind of self-denigration that Olivenko was telling him to stop.
What am I, besides poor and ignorant and annoying?
“I’m the only other timeshaper besides her brother Rigg,” said Umbo tentatively.
Olivenko’s answer was sarcastic enough to show Umbo how obvious he thought the answer was. “You finally noticed that, did you? Why would that lead her to need to marry you?”
“I’m the only timeshaper who isn’t in the royal family. And my abilities run rings around hers. But not around Rigg’s.”
“Oh, yes, her brother Rigg, the one with the facemask, so ugly and strange that she had better keep him out of the public view,” said Olivenko, “because he’ll make people afraid. You’re the timeshaper who can show his face. And in case you didn’t notice—and you obviously haven’t—you’re a rather good-looking young man, now that you’re getting some height on you, and when you aren’t pouting, you can be downright likeable. Maybe even charismatic. People might want to associate with a handsome young man who can go wherever he wants in time and space.”
For the first time Umbo realized that while the people in this little traveling society of theirs might not have much respect for him, he could really dazzle strangers.
“Oh, now you see it,” said Olivenko. “It’s to your credit that you never even thought of it before. But it worries me that you now find the idea so attractive.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I saw your expression of resentment and impatience turn into happy contemplation. I didn’t have to have a facemask to see that transformation.”
Umbo wondered briefly if Olivenko resented the fact that Loaf now had facemask-enhanced abilities. But in the meantime, his mind was still caught up in analyzing Param’s situation.
“If Param became Queen-in-the-Tent,” said Umbo, “and a more-powerful timeshaper—me—was out there, I could easily become a focus for discontent in the kingdom. Her enemies might gather around me, want to follow me.” And then, remembering who her enemies were likely to be, and how they were likely to regard a privick like him, he said, “Or more likely they’d try to get control of me and use me.”
“Or both,” said Olivenko. “There’ll be as many different motives for people to gather around you as there are people doing the gathering.”
“But none of those motives will make them friends of the Sessamids.”
“Add to that her keen awareness of how quick you are to resent her, especially because she’s treated you badly in the past, and it should be clear that in order to keep you from being a divisive force in the kingdom, she either has to marry you . . .”
“Or kill me,” said Umbo. “I suppose I should be grateful that she decided on marriage.”
“It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t also like you. I said you were good-looking and likeable, and she’s not oblivious to that. Plus, you used to be her puppy dog, you were so in love with her.”
“She got rid of those feelings soon enough.”
“No she didn’t,” said Olivenko. “You’re still devoted to her. Only now you know her well enough that it’s not the beautiful princess that you have an adolescent crush on, it’s the woman she’s turning into, the woman who has stopped treating you badly—”
“Stopped treating me badly in order to neutralize me as a threat to her kingdom.”
“No. Wrong lesson,” said Olivenko. “Her change in feelings toward you happened during a time when nobody thought of her going back into Ramfold. When for all she knew she would go on wandering with us forever.”
“It’s you she fell in love with,” said Umbo.
“Had her adolescent puppy-dog crush on,” corrected Olivenko. “Only I knew that’s what it was and guided her through that phase and out the other side.”
Umbo recognized at once that yes, that was exactly what Olivenko had done. And since Olivenko had now assigned himself to think about kingdom politics, Umbo said, “You could have exploited that. You could have made her devoted to you.”
“For a while, yes,” said Olivenko. “Long enough to get her to marry me, perhaps, though I’m just as common as you. I do know more about the language and manners of the court, but I would have been a liability to her without any timeshaping talents to make up for it. As soon as she realized that, then she’d either be miserable, living with a bad choice of consort—or I’d be thrown away. Or killed. Not necessarily by her or by her order—there would be plenty of courtiers who would understand how embarrassing and useless I was, and would therefore help their queen by discreetly killing her husband. Or catching him in some act of infidelity.”