It was not true that he never slept; it was true that he slept little, lying down for a few minutes or half an hour, till the light flickering against his eyelids brought him awake again, rested enough to work a little longer. But the underlying truth was that he hated the dark, hated it here, in this palace, hated and feared it, which he had never done before; some of his best studies had been done of twilight, or of Moon's image across dark water. But all that seemed to belong to another life, and here if any shadow fell undisturbed by light he would move a candle or call for another one, till there was nowhere he could stand, near his new portrait of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, that did not have many tiny tongues of light flicking across his shadow, the canvas's, and that of the paintbrush that he held in his hand. It was true furthermore that he could not sleep with the queen's brilliant painted eyes upon him; no matter how he set the frame, he felt her eyes, felt her command, her passion, her presence; and so after a very few minutes' sleep he found himself pulled to his feet again, staggering toward the canvas, groping for a brush.

It was done in barely a fortnight. When the servants came in one morning they found him collapsed at the new painting's feet, and they rushed forward, full of dread that his heart had burst from overwork-or from the queen's gruelling beauty-and that the painting would remain unfinished.

But as they came up behind him they saw the painting itself for the first time, for he had guarded it from them before, fiercely, almost savagely. They cried out as they looked at it, and fell to their knees. At the sound, the painter stirred and sat up; and they did not notice it, but he carefully looked away from the painting himself, his masterwork, and looked at them instead; and he appeared to be satisfied with what he saw, and heard. She was, they said, the most beautiful woman not only in seven kingdoms, but in all the kingdoms of the world. What none dared say aloud was: she, this splendid, immortal woman on the canvas, is more beautiful than the queen ever was. Or perhaps they had only forgotten, for it had been so long since the queen had walked among them.

The servants seized the painting. The painter might have protested their handling, but they treated it with the reverence they treated the queen herself with; and someone ran for a bolt of silk to swathe it in. Already they had forgotten the painter, who had not moved from where he sat on the floor after recovering from his swoon; but he did not care.

Dimly it occurred to him that he should wonder if the paint might still be damp enough to smear; dimly it occurred to him that he might wish to protect his masterwork, for himself, or, more, from the wrath of she who had commissioned it, for he feared the queen as much as he feared the darkness in this place where the king was mad. But he did not care. When they had wrapped his painting and borne it away, he stood up with a sigh, and packed his paints and his brushes, walking carefully, for he was more tired than he could ever remember being, tired, he thought, almost unto death.

He walked very carefully around the tall, wide-raking arms of the guttering candles in their candelabra, and the slim shining globes of the oil lamps, none of whose light he disturbed, for all that the morning sun was now pouring through the windows; for even the possibility of shadows in this place was more than he could bear, especially now, as his own fatigue claimed him. Almost it was as if the painting itself had been some kind of charm, even if a malign one, a demon holding off imps by its presence, and he now felt exposed and vulnerable. He rolled up his breakfast in a napkin and made to leave the room he had not left for a fortnight.

He paused to look at the other portrait, that which had won him the commission he knew he had executed better than any other painter could have done it; very rough it looked to him now, rough and yet real, real and warm and joyous. He looked at it, and thought of the canvas under it, that he might lay bare and paint again; but he left it.

He went downstairs with his two bundles under his arms, and his cloak and his extra shirt in a third bundle on his back, and he found his way unassisted to the stables. There he took the horse he had hired weeks ago, scrambled onto it among the harness that had held his canvases, and pointed its nose for home. No one stopped him, for the word had already gone out that the painting was done and that it was a masterwork; but no one stopped him either to praise him for his genius. He rode out through the court gates, and down the road, and at the first river he had a very long bathe, and then lay on the shore for a while and let the sun bake into his skin, while the horse browsed peacefully nearby.

Then he clambered on it again, grateful that he had a horse to ride, for he was too exhausted to walk, though he knew he could not have stayed in that palace another hour; and they kept on, for the horse seemed to be glad to be going home too, or perhaps it was merely bored from standing too long in its stable, however large the box and generous the feed. And though the way was a long one, and the journey back made in a haze of weariness so profound as to be pain, he was not sorry that it was no step shorter, and he was glad that his own country shared no border with that queen and king's.

But the painter lost nothing for having left his masterwork so cavalierly, for the minister of finance sent six horses with panniers full of gold across their backs after him. And so he never painted another fat merchant again, although it was observed that he never painted a beautiful woman again either, but often chose to paint the old, the poor, the kind, and the simple. But because he was the artist who had painted the most famous portrait in the world, of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, everything he set his name to now and ever after sold easily; and soon he had not only a horse (for the first thing he did when the twelve panniers of gold caught up with him was to buy the horse he had ridden home) but a saddle. And then a house, and a wife, and then children, and he loved his family very much; and so he believed it had been worth it. But it was a long time before he could sleep without leaving a candle lit; and he never ventured across the borders of his own land again.

THREE

THE QUEEN, WHO HAD BEEN THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN seven kingdoms, had her new portrait set by her bed, still wrapped in silk; and she called for the king her husband. And he came, and everyone noticed that while he was thinner, and his face was grey and haggard, he was no longer mad; and he sat down quite gently at the queen's side, and took her hand.

"I am dying," she said, through her veil, and the light cloth rippled with her breathing. The king shivered, and clasped her hand tighter, but he said nothing.

"I want you to promise me something," she said, and he nodded, a stiff, tortured little jerk of the head; and he never took his eyes from where her face was, under the veil. "After I die, you will want to marry again-"

"No," said the king in a cracked whisper, and now his trembling grew worse, and his voice sounded like no human voice, but the cry of a beast or bird. "No. "

"Yes," said the queen, and held up her free hand to silence him: or rather lifted her fingers for a moment from their place on her coverlet, for she had little strength left for movement. "I want you to promise me this: that you will only marry someone as beautiful as I was," she said, "so that you will not always be comparing the poor girl to me in your memory, and be cruel to her for it." There was a strange tone in the queen's voice; were it not so sad an occasion and were she not so weak, it might have been thought that the tone was of triumph.

The king, his head hanging, and his knees drawn up like a little boy's who is being scolded, said nothing. "Promise!" hissed the queen.

The king laughed a little wildly. "I promise! I will marry no one less beautiful than you, I swear it."

And the queen sighed, a long, deep, satisfied sigh, and gestured for the servants to display the painting. They slowly, respectfully unwrapped the long folds, but the silk was thin, so while there were still several turns of cloth over it, the splendor of the painting burned through its swaddling. When its final, perfect glory was revealed the queen stared at it-or so everyone thought, as her face-veil was turned unmoving toward it. Then she turned her head away on her pillow and gave another great sigh, a sigh so vast and profound that it seemed impossible that a figure so slight and wasted as the queen's could have made it; and with that sigh she died.

The king remained with his back to the painting, crouched over his queen's hand; and for a long time the servants dared not disturb him, dared not try to discover whether he knew that he was holding the hand of a corpse.

The funeral was three days later, as she had wished it; and as she had wished it, her body was not washed and dressed and laid out for burial. Still in her veil, her long gown, gloves and slippers, she was wrapped in layers and layers of silk and brocade, and thus laid in her satin-lined coffin. And the first stuff which they lay over her, set next to her still-warm figure, was the thin white bolt that had wrapped her portrait.

But the mourning went on for weeks after that. The whole country dressed in black, and many people dyed their horses' harness black, painted their oxen's horns black, the doors of their houses, their wagon wheels, even their own hair, though their blackened hair never fired red in the sunlight the way the queen's had. The king was quiet and polite, but his eyes were blank, and his ministers steered him through his days.

Expressions of grief and condolences came from far around; the receiving-hall grew crowded with gifts bearing black ribbons, and ministers' aides hired aides of their own to do the list-making and write the acknowledgements, which the king himself never signed, his hands limply on his lap and his eyes turned to empty space.

One king, their nearest neighbor, sent four matched black horses, without a white hair on them; another king sent a black carriage that gleamed like a mirror. The third king sent a heavy rope of black opals, and the fourth sent a cape of the feathers of the ebony bird, the cost of one of. whose feathers would feed a peasant family half a year. The fifth king, who had been twelve years old when the dead queen had married her true love, sent the same lord as had attended the wedding, older now, and the casket he bore this time contained black pearls.

One day two heralds and three horses arrived, all bearing black stripes on their gear (although some noticed that the stripes were of the sort that could be taken off again), and this was an embassy from the sixth king of the queen's seven suitors.

Their own black-robed king was in his receiving-hall that day, for his ministers had determined that it would be good for him to go through the motions of governing, even though each motion had to be prompted by the ministers themselves. He could not even be trusted to feed himself, these days, but someone must sit next to him and tell him to put food in his mouth for every bite. But he was docile now, unlike the first weeks of the queen's illness; and the harassed ministers wished to believe this an improvement. And so it was the king who welcomed the heralds from the sixth king, or, more accurately, it was his ministers who welcomed them and, when prodded, not very subtly, the king who nodded slowly in an acknowledgement he did not feel.

The heralds noticed that his eyes were steady, if dazed, and they thought that if the rumors heard in their kingdom of his madness had been true, they were true no longer; for here was a man made weak and simple by his grief. So they made the correct obeyances, and were graciously granted leave (by the ministers) to demonstrate what gifts they had brought; and so they opened their baskets, displaying sparkling jars of preserves that the queen and her ladies had put up themselves; and some meltingly supple leather from a deer that the king and his huntsmen had themselves shot, dressed out, skinned and tanned, and dyed a flawless black. And, last, there was a small woven basket-pannier, and the herald who handled it touched it with particular gentleness, and when he set it down, and knelt beside it to lift the loop from the pin that held it closed, it seemed to move of itself, to stir where it sat.

When he opened it he reached in to lift something out: and there was a small silver-fawn-colored fleethound puppy who trembled, and struggled to be set down, and as soon as the herald had done so tried to climb into his kneeling lap, and hide her small slender face under his arm.

"The prince's favorite bitch whelped two months ago," said the herald, while the fleethound presented her rear parts to the court and dug her head farther under his arm. "When he heard of your loss, he begged his parents to let him send the princess one of the puppies."

It was the first time anyone of the court had thought of the princess since the queen fell ill.

Her nursemaid had seen to it that they watched the long days in and out of the queen's long decline; and the nursemaid sank deeper and deeper into her grief, and the girl herself grew more and more silent and withdrawn, for her nursemaid had been her only lasting companion for as long as she could remember. And when the queen died, the nursemaid saw to it that the princess had a black dress to wear to her mother's funeral, and a black scarf to tie up her dark soft hair, and black boots for her feet, black stockings for her legs, and black gloves for her hands; and a black cap, gloves, and overskirt for herself. For even in her grief she knew what was required, just as she had seen to it that both she and the princess bathed every day, and had enough to eat, and proper clothing as the season changed. But it did not seem to her strange that the court forgot the princess in its preoccupation with the queen, for she would have forgotten the princess herself, had it not been her job to take care of her. There was no hauteur in her when she made sure of the necessities for herself and the princess.

The two of them had gone to the funeral, quietly, like any other mourners from the vast royal household; and if any recognized them as perhaps having a special place in the affair, no mention was made nor notice taken. The king and queen had absorbed all their people's attention for as long as they had been king and queen; there had never been anything left for the princess. That there might be something odd about this, even wrong, occurred to no one; their king, their queen, were too glorious, too luminous, too superb, for there to be anything wrong with them. That they forgot their child themselves, and distracted their people into forgetting her also, was merely a natural result of their perfections, as was the fact that the princess had no place and no purpose. No one of their people could imagine the country without this king and this queen. The idea that this child of theirs was their heir was incomprehensible; as if someone had suggested that a tadpole might inherit the sea upon the death of water. At the queen's funeral no one was capable of thinking beyond the fact that this was the end of their world.

The nursemaid and the princess stood with the two housemaids who most often attended to their simple needs, and who had helped in making up the princess's mourning clothes. The princess looked around quietly into the faces of her parents'

people, last of all looking in her nursemaid's face, who was as dazed as anyone else in the kingdom-as the king himself. She had worshipped the queen with every breath she took, and had sought the position of caring for her daughter because she was her daughter.

The princess was in a daze also, but her confusion had more to do with perplexity than with sorrow. For what she realized was that her mother's death had no effect on her, but only on those around her. But this was so amazing to her that her amazement looked like grief, had there been anyone to notice.

She had grown up understanding that almost all those around her, chiefly her nursemaid but also the maids and the occasional courtier or minister who thought it politic to visit her, and certainly her parents, on those rare occasions that she was summoned into their presence, desired her to be biddable. For the most part she had acquiesced in this. She knew no other children, and never guessed the noisy games that most children play; and she learned very young that when she cried or was cross she was likely to be left alone; and as she had so little companionship she was unwilling to risk the little. She could not remember her babyhood; her first memories were of her nursemaid telling her stories, stories about her mother and father in the years before she was born; her second memories were of asking for those stories to be retold.

Her first rebellion, although she did not know it, was in learning to read. She learned rather easily, which was remarkable, for the nursemaid was an even worse teacher than she was a scholar. With the curious stark comprehension of children, she knew that her nursemaid's reluctance to read stories from books was because she was not good at it, and that it would be as well not to tell her that it was otherwise with herself. But the princess had seized on this thing not commanded of her, unlike dancing and riding and deportment, and soon came to treasure it; for books were companionable.

Somehow the occasional ladies who wished to pet her-either for her own sake, or for the sake, as they hoped, of their husbands' careers-rarely came to see her more than a few times. The queen, the nursemaid told the princess reprovingly, when she showed signs of missing a very young and playful lady who had contrived to visit her nearly a dozen times before being banished as mysteriously as the rest, was very strict about who might be permitted to cultivate her only child. The young and playful lady had not only taught the princess games that involved running and shouting, but had brought her fresh new storybooks, and helped her to hide them from the nursemaid; and although the princess noticed that this seemed to make the lady unhappy, she refused to fell the little girl why. But the princess had let herself be consoled for this loss, for she was still very young, when the nursemaid look her on her lap and told again their favorite story.

She thought of that lady now; it had been years before she had quite given up the hope that she would see her again (though she never told her nursemaid this) and had looked around her, shyly but eagerly, on such state occasions as she attended on her parents, seeking one face amoung the many faces in the crowds gathered to pay her parents homage. But it was all so long ago now that the princess doubted she would recognize the lady's face even if she did see her again; and she would be older now, and perhaps no longer playful. Then she surprised herself by thinking that if she could remember the lady's name, she might ask for her. The surprise was so severe that any chance that she might recall the name she wished fled forever; and she sat very still, as if she might be caught out at something.

But she knew her mother's death had changed her position in the royal household, though she did not know how. It was enough, for the moment, that she no longer believed in the shining figures of her nursemaid's stories, though she dared not think why.

Something had happened to her the evening of her twelfth birthday, three years ago now, when she sat on the glittering chair and watched her parents dance. Some time during that long evening, after she had sent her prospective dancing-partners away, she had looked thoughtfully at her hands, with their clean nails and soft palms, and at her legs, hidden beneath their long skirt, and she had wondered, as a hero might wonder before stepping across the threshold of a great Dragon's lair, what these hands and legs might be capable of.

It was a question that had returned to her a number of times over the next weeks, making her restless and peevish; but when her nursemaid spoke to her sharply, she subsided, as she had always subsided, for she had no words for what she felt was trying to express itself. There was no outlet for the wondering, nor for the emotions that it caused; and her life did not change, nor had she any idea of how she might make a change, or what she might like that change to be. And so while she was aware of some quiet evolution going on in her heart and brain, she did not know what it was and, to a great extent, did not seek to know, for she could imagine no good coming of it. What the first twelve years of her life had taught her chiefly was patience, and so she held patience to her like a friend, and went on being quiet and biddable. One new pleasure she gave herself, and that was to observe what went on around her; and she began to have thoughts about the palace and the people in it that would have surprised her nursemaid very much.

But then the queen's illness overshadowed all else, and any idea, faint as it had been at its best, of trying to explain to her nursemaid what she was thinking about, what made her uneasy, faded to nothing, and she tried not to pursue these thoughts while the queen lay dying, for it seemed to her that it was disloyal. The fact that it did not feel disloyal to be anxious and preoccupied with her own thoughts while her mother lay dying distressed her; and the distress was real enough, and she clung to it.

She was sitting in a window seat, as she often sat, staring out of the window as she often stared, turning over her bewildering and possibly traitorous idea, and the even more bewildering ideas that fell from it, like sparks from a burning stake, all of which seemed somehow connected with that earlier wondering of what she might be capable of. She still could not imagine uttering any of her musings aloud; and she glanced down at her mourning clothes. The nursemaid sat by the cold hearth, hugging and rocking herself, absorbed in her own grief; dimly aware of the creature comfort of the presence of another human being, assuming that the princess was as mazed by grief as she was-no more and no less. That the princess was the queen's daughter left no special mark on her; all the nursemaid knew was that her own grief was overwhelming, and that she had no attention to spare from it.

The knock on the door surprised them both, for it was not time for a meal or a bath or a ladylike walk in the formal gardens; and they both started in their seats. The door was flung open after a minute of silence, and a footman stood there. The nursemaid fell out of her chair to curtsey, for this was an upper footman, and he did not look at all pleased with his commission. "Her highness's presence is requested in the receiving-hall. At once." He turned and left immediately. He did not close the door.

"Oh! Oh!" cried the nursemaid. The princess stepped down from tier perch and let the maid flutter around her, still murmuring, "oh, oh ---oh." The princess herself combed her hair, and asked her maid, in a clear, careful voice, to press her black ribbons for her, and shine the toes of her black boots, while she washed her face and put on her new black stockings. She was perfectly composed as she walked out of her chamber, the nursemaid still bobbing after her and murmuring, "Oh!"

The princess walked down the stairs, her boot-heels clicking to the first landing, for the final flight to the nursery was uncarpeted. She had consciously to recall the way to the receiving-hall, for she went there so rarely, and it was down and down long twisting corridors and more flights of stairs. The footman had, of course, not waited to escort her. She paused, hesitating, at a final corner, and looked round, and knew she had come the right way after all, for at the door of the receiving-hall the upper footman stood, still stiff with outrage at having to climb to a region of the palace where the stairs were uncarpeted, and with him were two lower footman and two pages.

The upper footman flung open the door for her without ever looking at her, and entered, and bowed, and stood aside; then the lower footmen entered as a pair, and parted, and faced each other across the doorway. The princess paused, waiting, but decided that perhaps it was her turn next, so she entered, with her chin up, and her steps were quite steady. The pause after the squad of footmen had prepared her entrance had done her no harm in the court's eyes; what she knew was the feeling of their gaze upon her, a feeling not unlike the prickly cling of cloth before a thunderstorm. She felt their awakening curiosity; they were wondering about her for the first time, she thought, wondering who she was and what she was worth. She wondered too. She was just fifteen years old; even her nursemaid had forgotten her birthday in grief for the dead queen.

One herald stood beside the dais where her father and his ministers sat, and one crouched at its foot with something, some pale lumpish bundle, in his lap. She walked calmly forward, not knowing what else to do, nor where the summons had come from, nor to what purpose. She went up to the dais and curtseyed to the floor, to her father; and looked up, and met his eyes. The blankness there parted for a moment, and she saw-she did not know what she saw, but it made her cold all over, suddenly, so cold that the sweat of terror broke out on her body. She stood up from her curtsey too hastily, and had to catch her balance with an awkward side-step.

There was a whisper behind her, among the court: a pity she is not more graceful.

Who has had the teaching of her? Such a drab little thing, such an odd child of such parents.

One of the ministers addressed her. "These heralds are come from King Goldhouse and Queen Clementina to offer their sorrow to us in our ... loss. And their son, the prince Ossin, has sent you a gift."

The standing herald came forward, and bowed to her, and handed her a piece of stiff paper, folded and sealed. She looked at the herald on the floor, and realized that what was on his lap was the rear parts of a dog; the head and forequarters were wedged under his arm. She took the paper and broke the seal.

"To the princess Lissla Lissar, from the prince Ossin, I give you greeting.

I have heard of your great grief and I am very unhappy for it. I do not know how I could bear it if my mother died.

My favorite bitch had her puppies a few weeks ago and I am sending you the best one. Her name is Ash, for her coat is the color of the bark of that tree. There are many ash trees here. She will love you and I hope you will be glad of her.

My highest regards and duty to you and your father. Ossin."

She looked up. She did not quite know what to do. The herald with the dog, who had children (and dogs) of his own, stood up, tucking the puppy firmly under the arm she was trying to disappear beneath. Her legs began a frantic paddling. He supported them with his other arm and slowly drew her out from hiding, turning her round to face the princess. The puppy bobbed in his grasp for a moment, but the princess had, as if involuntarily, taken a step forward, and reached out a hand.

The puppy caught the gesture, and large brown silvery-lashed eyes caught the glance of large dark-fringed amber-hazel eyes, and then the puppy began bobbing in good earnest, her ears flattening, her tail going like a whirlwind. The princess held out her arms, and the herald, smiling, lay the puppy in them, and the puppy thumped and paddled and kicked, and banged her nose against the princess's breastbone, licked her chin, and made tiny, urgent noises deep in her throat.

The princess looked up: hazel eyes met blue, and the princess saw kindness, and the herald saw that the puppy would have a good home, and he was pleased, both because he loved dogs and because he loved his prince; and because he felt sorry for this young girl who had lost her mother. The herald bowed, deeply, and the princess smiled down at her armful. (Which made a dive at her face again, and this time succeeded in grazing the princess's nose with a puppy fang.) The court noticed the smile, and found themselves interested again, despite the clumsy curtsey. "She's a pretty little thing," they murmured to each other. "I had never noticed. She might even grow up to be a beauty; don't forget who her mother was. How old is she now?"

But the princess had forgotten all about the court. She curtseyed again to her father-without raising her eyes from her new friend's face-and requested permission to withdraw, in a voice as steady as her steps had been, before she met her father's eyes. There was a pause, and her smile disappeared, and she stared fixedly downward-she would not look up, remembering without remembering why she had not liked looking at her father before-but the puppy made her smile again and the waiting was no longer onerous. As the court began to wonder if the father was seeing something in the daughter that he, like they, had perhaps overlooked, he moved abruptly in his chair, and without any prompting from his ministers, spoke aloud, giving his leave for her to go.

As she turned away, the herald who had handed her the letter (which was presently being beaten to death by the puppy's tail) stooped to one knee before her.

"I have also instructions for your splendor's new dog's feeding and care," he said.

"May I give them to your waiting-women?"

She had no waiting-women, but she now had a dog; and she thought her old nursemaid would never notice the existence of a dog, let alone remember the necessities of caring for it. Then it occurred to her that she did not want anyone caring for her dog but herself: and this thought pleased her, and banished, for the moment, the memory of her father's eyes. "No, I thank you, you may give them to me," she said. Both the heralds remembered this, to take home and tell the prince, for he too took personal care of his dogs. It never occurred to them that the princess of this great state, much richer and vaster than their own and their king's and queen's and prince's, had no one to give instructions to.

FOUR

THEN BEGAN THE HAPPIEST TWO YEARS OF THE PRINCESS'S LIFE.

It was as if Ash crystallized, or gave meaning to, the princess's tumbled thoughts about who she herself was, and what she might do about it. Being a princess, she recognized, was a decisive thing about her, though it had meant little thus far; perhaps it would mean more if she tried to make it mean more. She did not know for certain about this, and for herself she might have hesitated to try. But now there was Ash, and nothing was too good or wonderful for Ash.

First she had her rooms moved to the ground floor. She had no appetite for breakfast on the day she steeled herself to tell the under-maid who brought them their morning meal that she wished to speak to a footman; and she was glad that she had eaten no breakfast when the under footman presented himself to her and she informed him that she desired to change her rooms.

He disappeared, and an upper footman appeared, and she repeated her declaration, but more firmly this time, for she was growing accustomed to speaking; and because the first footman had bowed, just as the under-maid had. He disappeared in turn, and three more servants with increasing amounts of gold braid on their collars and lace about their wrists appeared and disappeared, and the parade climaxed with the arrival of one of her father's ministers-and not, she thought frowning a little, one of the most insignificant of them either. She preferred speaking to servants; the effects of asserting herself were developing a little too quickly. But she kept her face smooth, and nodded to the man as if she were accustomed to such visits at the top of the flight of uncarpeted stairs.

He had come to look her over. He wanted a closer look at her after her appearance in the receiving-hall. "By the locks on the treasury door," he thought,

"she is going to grow up to be a beauty. All she needs now is a little more countenance-and some finer clothing." Mentally he rubbed his hands together at the prospect of this exciting new pawn venturing onto the gameboard, for he was a mighty player; and it suited him that she should have made the first move, that it should not be quite so conspicuous that he thought of the princess now that the queen was dead and the king showed no sign of recovering his former vitality.

He smiled, showing all of his teeth. "Of course, princess. Your rooms shall be seen to today. You are growing up, and your new status should be honored." He cast a quick glance around the shabby nursery and gloated: the girl was young and naive, and would be marvelously grateful to him for the glamorous new chambers he would provide her with-careful that she should understand that his was the hand that provided. Some token from my own house, he thought, something that he could point to that had conspicuously not been produced from her father's coffers, should have a prominent place. He congratulated himself on his foresight in bribing the upper footman to bring him any news of interesting goings-on in the king's household; for it was by this means that he stood here now.

His wits very slightly discomfited by the faint smile the princess was wearing when he looked at her again after his perusal of her room; she should, he thought, be looking timid and embarrassed, tucked away here like a poor relation, like a distant cousin-by-marriage taken in out of charity. He did not know that she was thinking, Because I am growing up! I want rooms on the ground floor because I don't want to run up and down four flights of stairs every time Ash must go out; how can I ever train her about outdoors, if she has forgotten, by the time we get there, what she was scolded about when we began trying to leave indoors?

Again the minister demonstrated all of his teeth, and then bowing low, he backed through the door he had entered by, and left her.

Ash was in her lap, eating one of the black ribbons on her dress. Ash did not fit in her lap very well, for already her length of leg spoke of the dog she would become; but she did not care about this, and neither did the princess. As one or another dangling leg began to drag the rest of the puppy floorward after it, the princess scooped it back into her lap, whereupon some other dog-end inevitably spilled off in some other direction. "Did you see him?" Lissar murmured. "He backed out of my presence-just as if I were . . ." She stopped. She had been going to say "as if I were my father," but she found that she did not want to align herself with her father about this or any other thing.

To distract herself, she concentrated on the silky fur along Ash's back. The ribbon on her dress was beginning to look rather the worse for wear. Lissar thought she should probably remove it from the puppy's joyful attentions. But she didn't.

She didn't care about mourning or about mourning clothes; all she cared about was Ash.

The chambers that the important minister arranged for her were very grand indeed. There were seven individual rooms opening off a great central room like a smaller version of the royal receiving hall; and not, to her startled eyes, enough smaller. Squarely in the center of the big room was a sculpture, that of a woman festooned with a great deal of tumultuous drapery, which appeared to be trying to strangle her. Lissar stopped dead in front of it, momentarily transfixed; and then the minister with the teeth appeared as if from nowhere, very pleased at the effect his chosen art object appeared to be making. The princess, who was growing accustomed to the surprising things her intuition told her since the first profound shock of knowing that she did not care about her mother's death, looked at him, knew what he was thinking, and let him go on thinking it.

Her bed-chamber was almost as large as the room with the alarming statue in it, and the bed itself was large enough for several princesses and a whole litter of long-legged puppies. She discarded it instantly, behind the unbroken calm of her expression, and explored further. In the last of her over-furnished rooms there was a large purple couch which Ash leaped on immediately, and rolled over, gaily, digging her shoulder and hipbone and long sharp spine into its cushions, leaving a mist of little silver-fawn dog hairs behind her. The princess, all of whose black clothing was now covered in little fawn-silver dog hairs, laughed.

To the right of the couch was a door; a rather plain door, after all the princess had recently seen, which she therefore opened hopefully. There was a key-hole in the door, and as she opened it, there was a clatter on the stone flags beyond, where the key, which had been left loosely in the far side of the door, fell out.

She picked it up without thinking, and pocketed it.

There was a flight of three shallow stone steps and then a little round room, and she realized she was standing at the bottom of one of the palace's many towers. The wall, immediately above the ceiling of this little room, began to flare out, to support a much vaster tower above; the walls of this little ground-level room were subsequently very thick.

There was another door, which she again opened. This time she looked for a key in the key-hole, but there was none; perhaps the key to the inner door opened both, for the shape of the lock looked the same. She did not greatly care, and did not pause to try the key she had picked up in this second lock. She stepped through the door and found herself in what once had been a garden, though it had obviously been left to go wild for some years. The official door to the out-of-doors, from a short but magnificent hall off the princess's receiving-room, and through which therefore she would have m take Ash several times a day, led into a formal courtyard with raked gravel paths and low pruned hedges; simple grass was not to be got at for some distance, grass being too ordinary for the feet of a princess who was abruptly being acknowledged as possessing the usual prerequisites of royal rank.

She had looked out over the clipped and regulated expanse and thought that this was not a great deal better than the four flights of stain she was seeking to escape.

And, standing on the wide shallow marble steps, she had wondered what the high wall to the left was, with ivy and clematis creeping up it so prettily; but she had not cared much, for she was already rejecting the minister's exotic suite in her mind.

When she had gone back indoors through the receiving-room, past the statue, she had begun, between the sixth and seventh rooms, to arrange what she would need to say to the minister to get what she wanted. That was before she found the tower room, and the wild garden.

But now she was changing her decision, standing on the other side of the high mysterious wall. Great ragged leaves on thick stalks stood shoulder-high on that side; yellow sunbursts of flowers erupted from them, and shorter spikes of pink and lavender flowers spilled out in front of them. A small graceful tree stood against the wall, over which rioted the ivy and clematis so tidily cut back on the other side. In the center she could see where paths had once been laid out, to demarcate, she thought, an herb garden; she could smell some of the herbs growing still, green and gentle or spicy and vivid, though she could not give names to them. One path looked as if it led to the small tree; perhaps there was a door in the wall there, buried under the tiny grasping hands of ivy and the small curling stems of clematis seeking purchase. The garden was walled all around; against the wall opposite the one she had seen from the other side a tangle of roses stood, leggy as fleethound puppies, sadly in need of some knowledgeable pruning.

Perhaps this was something she could learn: to prune roses, to recognize herbs from weeds and cultivate the one and pull up the other. Between the herb garden and the flower beds there was plenty of room for rolling and leaping and the chasing of balls, even for a dog as large and quick as Ash was becoming; Lissar wondered why such a lovely garden had been neglected for so long. But it did not matter.

For the moment she looked at the high wall around her garden with satisfaction; Ash was no more than half grown and already she could leap higher than Lissar's head. The little round room, for her, and the big walled garden, for Ash, made her new chambers perfect. The other rooms mattered little, but ... it would probably be wise not to ask that the statue be removed; she could learn to ignore it. And perhaps a few pillows could stun the purple of that couch.

The minister had been trying to break into her reflections for several minutes; she'd heard a grunt of suppressed protest when her hand had first touched the plain door next to the extravagant sofa. She turned to him gravely as Ash disappeared into the undergrowth, waving stems marking her passage. She was now willing to hear, and to pretend to listen, to what he might have to say, now that she had found what she was looking for.

"I am terribly sorry, princess," said the minister. "I wished you to see your new rooms at once, and so the work of preparation was not complete; the door to this place was to have been closed off."

"I am very glad it was not," said Lissar. "I will want the little round chamber set up as my bedroom, and this garden is perfect for Ash. It is for Ash that I wished to move to the ground floor, you understand," she explained, kindly, as he had obviously not taken this in the first time she spoke to him. "Ash is only a puppy, and it will make her training much easier."

The minister's jaw dropped. He looked toward Ash, who had re-emerged from the shrubbery, and was defecating politely by the side of one of the overgrown paths, flagged with the same rough-surfaced stone as the three small stairs down to the base of the tower. He jerked his eyes away from this edifying sight, and worked his lips once or twice before any words emerged.

"But-princess-" he said, or gabbled, "the tower chamber will-it is very small, and it will be damp, and there is only the one window, and the ceiling is so very low, and the walls are not smooth, and enormously thick, they will be very oppressive, and surely one of your waiting-women can-er-attend your dog out-of-doors?"

Lissar refrained from laughing. She had, it was true, acquired waiting-women with her new rooms, or so it-or rather they-appeared; and the minister wished delicately to claim their assignment also. But Lissar knew that he had not been the only one looking her over, and knew also that he would not have been able to arrange for her new rooms entirely by himself and in secret. Some of the waiting-women were ladies, and had assigned themselves; some had been maneuvered into position by other ministers. Since the presence, and hypothetical usefulness, of waiting-women appealed to Lissar about as strongly as did the statue in the hall, it was not a point she felt compelled to dwell on.

"The bed-chamber you so beautifully set up for me is too large," said Lissar firmly, "and while I thank you very much," here she dropped a tiny curtsey-"the round room will suit me much better. I want a bed only so wide that my hands can touch either side simultaneously. And the rough walls can be hung over with rugs and drapes, pink, I think, because I like pink, which will also brighten it despite the one window and thick walls. These, with the fire that will be in the grate, will take care of the dampness. My waiting-women, perhaps, can make use of the bed-chamber."