Hart's Hope

It was a cruel thing her father did, but Asineth knew that he, too, heard Berry's screams in the night. Berry dwelt in every room of the palace, even though she was dead, and one day, when Asineth was nine, she found her father slumped in a chair in the library, a book open before him, his cheeks stained with half-dried tears. Without asking, Asineth knew who it was he thought of. It comforted Asineth to know that even though Berry had not so much power as she had thought, she had this much: she could make herself unforgotten, and force her lover to live forever with regret. Yet Berry's death itself was still a half-learned lesson, with the meaning yet ungiven, and so Asineth asked her father a question. "Didn't you love her?" asked Asineth.

"Why did you kill her, then?"

"Because I am the King," said Nasilee. "If I hadn't killed her, I would have lost the fear of my

people, and if they do not fear me, I am not King."

Asineth knew then that of the two powers Berry taught her, the stronger power was naming. It was because Nasilee was named King that he had to kill what he loved most. "You did not love Berry most of all," said Asineth.

Nasilee opened his eyes, letting their light shine narrowly out upon his young daughter. "Did I

not?"

"More than her, you loved the name of King."

Her father's eyes closed again. "Go away, child."

"I don't want to go, Father," she said. I loved Berry more than I loved you, she did not say.

"I don't want to see you when I think of her," said her father.

"Why not?" asked Asineth.

"Because you made me kill her."

"I?"

"If you hadn't told me of her treasonous words, I wouldn't have had to kill her."

"If you had merely laughed at the words of a child, she could have lived."

"A King must be King!"

"A weak King must be what other Kings have been; a strong King is himself, and from then on the meaning of the name of King is changed." The words could have been Berry's, for Berry understood these things, and Asineth only still guessed at all that she meant.

"What does it matter?" said the King wearily. "You said the words, the King heard them and had to act, Berry had to die, and now I mourn her and wish that you had died in birthing, and taken your mother with you, by the Hart I wish it, by the Sisters I swear it, now leave me, little girl."

She left him. Until that time, she had been the one person in all Burland who did not fear King Nasilee. Now there was no one left who did not fear him, for he was King, and could break anyone with a word. Asineth's Lesson of Justice and Mercy

The terrible rebel had roused all the people of Burland against the King. With that traitor Zymas he had defeated army after army, not in open battle but by cutting off their supplies, separating, wooing soldiers, troops, whole armies to desert and serve Palicrovol. Now, at last, after fifteen years of a war that had never come to battle, Palicrovol's army was outside the walls of Hart's Hope. Hart's Hope, the great city on the Burring, the capital; and Nasilee looked out and saw no help.

For the last ten years tax payments had fallen steadily, ceasing first in the outlying counties, and finally diminishing to almost nothing. The commerce of Hart's Hope itself had failed, for Palicrovol had built a highway in the west and forced all the river traffic to travel overland, though it raised prices; Hart's Hope was starving, and the people fled. Now Nasilee waited inside the impregnable walls, watched as Palicrovol, a Godsman, gathered his white ba

Asineth also waited. She watched her father consult his wizards—the few that remained. She watched him wander the half-empty halls of the palace, haunted by the knowledge of his own death. Everyone knew that the walls of Hart's Hope could not be breached. They were miles long, rods high, yards thick; even the few soldiers Nasilee had left could hold it against Palicrovol's army, even with Zymas the traitor in command.

But Asineth was afraid. She was old enough now—twelve years old, with her womanhood newly on her—to know that her father was a wicked man, that the people were right to hate him. Asineth knew that Palicrovol was beloved of the people, for even the servants in the palace, loyal as they were, talked wistfully—and quietly—of the freedom and prosperity that Palicrovol brought wherever he conquered. Asineth feared that her father's soldiers would betray him and open the gate for Palicrovol. And so she prayed to the Sweet Sisters. She brought the blood of the moon with her to the altar of women in the secret place, and said, "Make the hearts of these men loyal to my father, so we are preserved from our enemy."

The morning after the night when she burned blood for the Sweet Sisters, the gates of the city swung open, and the soldiers of the outer wall raised the white ba

Asineth took four strong guards with her to the Sisters' shrine, where no man had ever been brought before, and commanded them to break the altar in pieces. They broke in with four blows of a sledgehammer. Inside, the solid rock of the altar was hollow. Like a little pot it held ancient water that had been there since the world first gleamed upon the point of the Hart's Horn. The water spilled upon the floor, and Asineth trod in the water and muddied it with her shoe. "I hate you," she said to the Sweet Sisters.

Now Palicrovol's army held even the city of Hart's Hope itself. Word was that Palicrovol had changed the city's name. Now he would call it Inwit, and he was causing half his soldiers to work on building a great temple to his God. He forbade anyone to offer blood at the shrine of the Hart.

This gave Asineth hope. Even though the Hart was a strange god to her, as to all women, she was sure that the Hart would listen to her. Weren't they allies now? Wasn't Palicrovol an enemy to both of them? She prayed to the Hart, then, to be a shield around the Castle walls. There was no chance of treachery now—only a few guards remained, and King Nasilee himself held the only keys that would open the rooms where the gate could be lifted or the postern door unblocked. But Palicrovol had Sleeve, the greatest wizard in the world, and what no man could do, Sleeve might do. So Asineth prayed to the Hart to protect them.

Asineth ran searching for her father through the labyrinth of the Palace. She looked in every hiding place; she did not know her father as well as she thought. He was not in a hiding place. So she did not find him until the soldiers did, in the Chamber of Questions.

"Father!" she cried.

"Fool!" he shouted. "Run."

But the soldiers knew her at once, and caught her, and held her until Palicrovol came.

I hate you, Hart, said Asineth silently.

They came into the Chamber of Questions within the hour: Palicrovol, tall and strong, with the light of God in his face, or at least the light of triumph. Zymas, the traitor, with arms and legs like the limbs of an ox, and the look of battle black in his eyes. Sleeve, gaunt and ghostlike with his white skin and white hair and pink eyes, drifting like a fog over the floor.

"He should die as so many thousands of his people died," cried Zymas. "Sit him naked on a stake, and let the people spit on him as he screams in agony."

"He should be burned," said Sleeve, "so that the power of his blood is returned into the world."

"He is King," said Palicrovol. "He will die like a King." Palicrovol drew his sword. "Give him your sword, Zymas."

"Palicrovol," said Zymas, "you should not take this risk yourself."