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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."

"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. Weasel 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."

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."

"She'll live," said Urubugala. "Does that comfort you? Beauty won't let Weasel die."

"Her name isn't Weasel," Orem said. "Did you know? The Queen told me. She's really

Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin. The Flower Princess."

Craven and Urubugala looked at each other, and Urubugala laughed. "Did you think to surprise us, Little King? We've been with Weasel from the