The crones rustled with the girl’s dress for a long time. It was sewn from material that looked very much like Mr. Capulatio’s flag. In fact the girl thought it must be exactly the same. It took her some time to realize they weren’t simply pinning it so they could work on it later: they were sewing her into it. They stitched two panels tightly up the center of her back, pulling mercilessly until she could hardly breathe. To distract herself, finally she gasped, “What are you looking for, Orchid?”
Orchid spun around on her chair and glared. “They were brought in for you. I am not your nursemaid.”
“I thought you were supposed to teach me things.”
A sneer crept across her lips. “You want to learn from me how to be his wife? I’m sure you’re quite good at it already. I can only imagine what has gone on in my absence.” She turned back to the desk, muttering, “O yes, I’m imagining it, have no doubt. If I were not so indebted to the cause I would not stand for this chicanery.”
“Who are the other two queens? She said there were three now.”
Orchid sighed elaborately. “What does he see in you? Your talk. Your face. Your body. You might as well be a yapping dog. I haven’t got time for this.”
Orchid’s every reply made the girl more determined to engage her, although not for any reason beyond bothering her. “What are you doing?” she asked.
Orchid rose unexpectedly. Her slender body was very beautiful, the girl could not help but notice. The strong thighs, her hips, which flared like a carved instrument. “Well, since you insist on being infantile, let us teach you, then. Let us count the queens. First, there’s me: I’ve been his queen-to-be since we were sixteen. That was after my mother, our Prophetess Lois, had … passed from this realm. But I guess he hasn’t told you that story, either, has he?” Orchid looked away, her face betraying nothing. A crone poked the girl and entreated her to remain very still while she finished stitching the back of the dress. “Then there’s the queen inside the palace,” said Orchid. “She’s the second queen, King Michael’s wife, Alyson. She is the daughter of Marvel Parsons, the Hierophant. Terribly spoiled, so they say. I wouldn’t know, personally. We’ve never met.” She said this as though the girl should know there was no chance they ever would have met. “Alyson is the one you will usurp once our uprising begins. You’ll probably have to de-head her yourself. That’s what I’d do. It would make a decent show of authority.”
She came nearer to the girl on her footstool with widened eyes. “But then…” She trailed off and leaned forward, speaking more quietly. “There is another. She’s not a queen, exactly. The Pardoness.” The word hung in the air, changing the room. The crones stopping sewing. They seemed to hold their breath.
“Who is the Pardoness?” the girl asked finally.
“Who is that! She asks who is that!” The old women bubbled with nervous laughter.
At this, the girl felt a frenetic darkening begin inside her, little shadows flitting past at a preposterous speed, but she kept her voice light. “How should I know who she is? I’ve never been here before,” she said carefully. “My mother is a Walking Doctor who abandoned me. She told me only mad people live at the Cape. I don’t know anything about anyone here.”
Orchid nodded. “Poor girl, abandoned by everyone who’s had charge of you. It cannot be your fault they all left you, can it?”
The girl flinched.
“We are all just people, though we may be queens. Me, Alyson, you. The Pardoness is different. She is descended from a man who once visited space. Do you understand that? What that means? She is a living relic. She lives in the palace compound, as has every one of her forebears since before there even was a palace. Kept mercifully apart from the world’s hideousness. Michael houses her high above us all in a tower.” Orchid nodded. “From which she dispenses Cosmic Justice.”
Orchid went to the door of the tent and drew back the flaps. She pointed across Mr. Capulatio’s vast carnival to the tallest and brightest minaret in the palace compound. “In Canaveral Tower. She has lived there since she was a child. We do not dispute her authority as a beacon of justice. David does not intend to dethrone her.” She turned back and spoke flatly. “What we were talking about? O, the queens. And then there’s you, apparently. The third queen. You will be the third queen, after tonight.”
“Why do you accept the Pardoness’s judgments if you don’t like anything else about the Cape?”
Orchid let the tent flap close. “I don’t know why. ‘Why’ is a question most are not fit to ask.” She flung her eyes to the crones like a person tossing a stick for a dog, hoping they might give chase. They all laughed. Orchid said, “Not even me. I don’t even know why you are to be David’s queen.”
“You mean instead of you?”
Orchid met her eyes. “Yes.”
“Can’t we both be queens?”
“O, would you shut up? I’m trying to read, Your Majesty. Perhaps you should be reading about the religion you are so blindly entering as a leader,” she muttered, casting her eyes at the girl’s pile of books. At once her face changed, and the girl knew she’d seen the book Argento had given her, The True King. Orchid leapt to her feet and went into the cage, which stood open now, and snatched out the hardbound volume
