Wyrms

As she prepared herself, she tried to figure out what King Oruc had in mind for her. There were other interpreters he could use. The choice of Patience was fraught with implications, especially if Prekeptor knew who she really was. There was no circumstance Patience could think of where anything would be helped by using her as interpreter; and she could think of dozens of things that might go wrong, to have the daughter of Lord Peace standing beside the daughter of King Oruc, when the heir to a powerful kingdom came to meet his possible wife.

Patience had been aware throughout her childhood that she was not an ordinary slave in the Heptarch's household.

One of the first lessons a child in King's Hill had to learn was to treat each slave according to the strictest protocols of rank. Whores and chamberslaves needed no more respect than dogs; ambassadors and ministers of state, like her father. Peace, were treated with as much honor as any lord except the Heptarch himself or the heads of the Fourteen Families.

But even among the children of the most noble of the King's slaves. Patience was given special treatment. Adults whispered when they saw her; many of them surreptitiously found opportunities to touch her lips with the back of a hand, as if in a symbolic kiss.

She had told Father of this one day when she was five.

He immediately grew stern. "If anyone does it again, tell me at once. But better than tell afterward, try to stand away from them, and not give them an opportunity."

He was so serious that she was sure she had done something wrong.

"No, child," said Father. "First, do not show me that you are afraid and ashamed. Your face must never show such things."

She relaxed her face, as her tutor, Angel, had taught her.

"And second," said Father, "you have done nothing wrong. But for these adults, who should know better, to do such things is-"

Patience expected him to say something like "wrong" or "sinful," because the priests had been hinting about certain things that people did with children's bodies that were very bad.

So she was startled when he said, "Treason."

"Treason?" How would it injure the Heptarch to touch the lips of the daughter of a slave?

Father studied her calmly, then said, "I have decided you can know, now, or else you won't be able to protect yourself against these thoughtless traitors. Your grandfather was Heptarch until the day he died. I have no brothers or sisters."

She was only five. She knew something of the laws of succession, but it did not occur to her to apply them to herself. Father pointedly glanced toward the parlor, where the servants would be listening. All the servants except Angel were chosen by the King, and frankly spied for him. Father smiled at her and said, "How is your Geblic?'

Then he wrote in Geblic on a piece of paper:

Compose a brief letter to this person: Agaranthamoi Heptest

She had been trained in the protocols of names and titles from her first words. The labyrinthine network of precedence, rank, and royal favor was second nature to her. So were all the ins and outs of the royal titles. The surname of the ruling Heptarch's family was always rooted in Hept; the forename of any person of royal blood was always rooted in Agaranth.

She also knew that only the ruling Heptarch could bear the surname Heptest, and Agaranthamoi meant "eldest son and only child." Thus, Agaranthamoi Heptest by definition meant the Heptarch, who had no brothers or sisters. Since Oruc, the ruling Heptarch, had several siblings, his dynastic name was Agaranthikil. This could not possibly be his name, and to call any living person but Oruc by the surname Heptest was treason.

But the test was not merely to decipher the meaning of the names, she knew. Father had just told her that her grandfather was ruling Heptarch all his life, and Father was his only child. Therefore Agaranthamoi was a perfectly proper forename for him. Father was telling her that he was the rightful King of Korfu.

So she wrote a short letter: Agaranthamoi Heptest, Lord and Father:

Your unworthiest daughter begs you to be discreet, for to utter your name is death.

Humbly, Agaranthemem Heptek

Her hand trembled as she signed this strange name for the first time. Agaranthemem meant "eldest daughter and only child." Heptek meant "heir to the reigning Heptarch." It was a name as treasonable as the one her father had written. But it was her true name. Somehow, in the movement of history, her father had been deprived of his throne, and she of her place as his heir. It was a staggering burden for a child of five to bear. But she was Patience, the daughter of Lord Peace and pupil of Angel the Almost-Wise, and in the eight years since then she had never once uttered either name, or given the slightest sign to anyone, by word or act, to show that she knew what her rank and birthright ought to be.

Father burned the paper with their names on it, and combed the ashes to dust. Ever since that day. Patience had watched her father, trying to determine what his life meant. For King Oruc had no more faithful and loyal slave than Lord Peace, the man who should be Heptarch.

Even in private, even when no one could hear, Father often said to her, "Child, King Oruc is the best Heptarch the world could hope for at this time. In the five thousand years since the starship first brought human beings to the world Imakulata, it has never been more important to maintain a King on his throne than it is, today, to preserve King Oruc."

He meant it. He did everything he could to prove to her that he meant it.

It caused her untold agony of heart, trying to discover why Father gave such love and loyalty to the man who exercised power and received honor that by rights should have belonged to Lord Peace. Was Father so weak that he could not even reach for what ought to be his own?

Once, when she was ten years old, she hinted to him of how this question perplexed her. And his only answer was to place his fingers on her lips, not as some traitors had done, to receive the kiss of blessing from the mouth of the King's daughter, but to silence her.

Then, gazing intently into her eyes, he said for the first time: "The King cares only for the good of the King's House. But the King's House is all the world."

That was the only answer she got from him. In the years since then, though, she had begun to grasp what he meant. That the Heptarch, the true Heptarch, always acted for the benefit of the whole world. Other lords could act to preserve their dynasty or enrich themselves, but the true Heptarch would even give up the Heptagon House and let a usurper rule in Heptam, the capital of Korfu-if, for some unfathomable reason, such a thing was to the greater benefit of the whole world.

What she could never understand was how her father's displacement from his proper place benefited anyone. For as she grew more learned and skillful in the arts of diplomacy and government, observing the great public councils and hearing of the delicate negotiations and compromises that gathered ever more power to Heptagon House, she saw plainly that the most brilliant mind, the prime mover in consolidating King Oruc's hold on Korfu, was Lord Peace.

As always, she had finally had to conclude that her education was not complete. That someday, if she learned enough and thought enough, she would understand what Father was trying to do by working so loyally to keep the usurper in power.

Now, however, she did not face so theoretical a problem.

She was thirteen years old, far younger than the age at which a diplomatic career usually began, and King Oruc had called her to begin service. It was so obviously a trap that she almost believed his purpose might be i