THREE
• Queen Wilhulmia of Ahabar was no longer young. Her hair was an aged silver and her eyes a mature gold. The robes of state and the heavy Collar of Ahabar did not dwarf her formidable figure. With her great prowlike jaw under a firm mouth, her sizeable nose, and a wide low brow that sloped back to a wealth of flowing hair, she was, so her people said, every inch a Queen—though it was true she was no longer young.
Wilhulmia said sometimes in fits of depression that her youth and beauty had been spent upon the Voorstod Question. “Wasted,” she said, for there had been no profit or return from all her years of effort, and everyone knew it. She was only the latest in a long line of rulers of Ahabar who had spent more time on the Voorstod problem than on all other issues of government combined. Five hundred years before, when the conflicts and confusions of the colonial period had ended and the people had sat down to create a lasting government under which they could live in peace, all had consented to and welcomed King Jimmy and his parliaments-several—except Voorstod That people had never changed since they had come plunging through their illicit Door into the wastes of the peninsula, dragging the Gharm behind and claiming the land for the prophet. “Ire, Iron, and Voorstod. Death to Ahabar,” had been the cry then and ever since.
Luckily for the Voorstoders, they had arrived on Ahabar during a time when that world had been disunited and unprepared for hostilities. Later, after many Gharm had escaped from the peninsula into Jeramish and points south, spreading their stories of what Voorstod really was, Ahabar had wanted to act but was prevented from doing so by Authority. Ahabar would have solved the problem by invasion and war, but Authority forbade it. Authority regarded the conflict between Voorstod and Ahabar as a “possibly religious matter” and referred the matter to the Religion Advisory, who referred the matter to the Theology Panel, who said, well, maybe slavery and cruelty weren’t religious, but possibly they were.
Let us consider, said Theology Panel: “Is Voorstod a slave state, or is it merely pious?” Everyone knew someone(s) on the Panel had been bribed, though thus far it had been impossible to prove.
Each time Ahabar brought itself to the brink of intervention, Authority insisted upon considering the matter afresh. Voorstod demanded the return of its escaped slaves. Ahabar said no, and threatened to invade. Authority forbade invasion while it considered the matter. Should the escaped Gharm be returned as breakers of contract and apostates, as Voorstod demanded? Or should the Gharm be given sanctuary as common sense and good nature dictated? Where did humanity stop and interference with religion begin? Authority couldn’t decide. From time to time, Authority suggested negotiation.
Elsewhere negotiation might have worked. With other religions, it could have worked. Voorstod’s God, however, was a jealous and vindictive deity who ruled by murder, terrorism, and malediction. How did one negotiate with that? Where other Gods might have allowed representatives to talk to the parliaments-several of Ahabar, the God of Voorstod demanded that past insults be revenged by blowing up the parliaments. Where other Gods might have advocated making life a garden, the Voorstod God promised the garden only after death, preferably violent death. Then might the Faithful lie about on the greensward sucking grapes and fucking virgins, so the prophets promised.
As with other peoples who had focused their lives upon wrongs in the past and heaven in the future, Voorstod made an everlasting hell of the present.
All of which led Queen Wilhulmia to cry from time to time, as she did when told by her counselor that Voorstod had some new demand, “What do they want now?”
Old Lord Multron cleared his throat and prepared to say, for the thousandth time, what Voorstod wanted from Ahabar.
“Independence, Your Pacific Sublimity.” He ticked this off on his first finger, holding it up for her to see.
“Forget the Sublimity, Ornice. If we speak of Voorstod, we can forget the Pacific, as well. I am Uriul, whom you have known since childhood. Speak to me.”
“Uri, they want independence.” He waved the admonitory finger, ready for the second point.
“They have independence. We’ve told them ten thousand times we’ll make no effort to rule in Voorstod. We told them that when they squirmed through that damned Door of theirs onto land they had no right to, and we’ve told them ten thousand times since.”
“They want their Gharm returned, as well, Uri. As you well know.” The middle finger marked this demand.
“There, Ornice. You see, you’re doing it, too. Their Gharm, you say, as though you accept ownership.”
He flushed. “One gets in the habit, Sublimity.”
“I don’t. I won’t. I will not say, their Gharm. Is Vlishil Teermot, he who won the Sabarty Prize for poetry, is he one of their Gharm? Is the harpist Stenta Thilion one of their Gharm? Are those horticulturists who have made the valley of the Vhone bloom for the past three generations their Gharm? Shall we round them up and return them to Voorstod to be tortured and executed when their parents and grandparents have been free in Ahabar for five generations or more?”
Ornice merely shook his head at her, as though he were her grandfather. She sighed and fiddled with the Collar of State, thinking it heavier than she liked. “Has your daughter learned anything of interest?”
Ornice looked hastily around himself, laying his finger across his lips. “Her relationship to me is not known, Uri. Lurilile feels I would lose dignity if it were known my daughter is a spy.”
The Queen nodded. The things one had to do as a spy were often undignified. So she had been told. Ornice had not liked the idea of his daughter becoming a spy, but Lurilile had been determined on the matter.
“But you’re a woman!” Ornice had cried, unforgivably.
“So is the Queen!” his daughter had replied, with more relevance. Not only
