But in the end he agreed, because it was true that he would do anything for her, and she knew it.
Now every painter in the seven kingdoms considered long when the news of this commission came to them; although very few painters responded from the kingdom of the sixth king, who had married the girl with thick legs. It was said, scornfully, that this was because, in that kingdom, there was no beauty to inspire the painter's art.
But very many other painters came from the other five kingdoms. Most of all, however, painters came from the queen's own country, from the towns where the king and queen had brought sunshine to harvests and celebrations. All brought drawings they had made over the years of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, for they all had found her an irresistible subject. The highest number of painters from the smallest area, however, came from her uncle's, now her brother's, little fiefdom, and they brought drawings of a raven-haired child and young girl who would obviously grow-up to be the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms.
It was originally assumed that the king would attend the interviews and make the decision, but this was swiftly proven false, for the king did nothing but crouch by the queen's bed, clinging to her hand, and wetting it with his tears, until, sometimes, the queen tired of him, and sent him away. When he first tried to stand after the long hours of his vigil, he could barely walk for his grief, and without aid would have crawled like a beast. The burdens of the queen's desire thus fell upon his ministers, and they shared among themselves, some staying near the king, some hearing the most pressing matters of statecraft, some leafing through portfolios and sending away the most conspicuously inept. The other artists were made to wait, day after weary unbroken day-while their work was shown to the queen herself. And she did not hurry to make her decision.
She ordered the king to leave her while she looked at unfinished sketches and finished portraits; he grew so distraught, she said, that he distracted her. At first he was banished merely to the next room, but the queen could hear him, pacing, muttering brokenly to himself, and she said that even this fatigued her, and that she needed all her small remaining strength for the task at hand. And so the king was sent, stumbling, to a far wing of the palace, till she sent word that he might return.
The queen studied every painting, every fragment, every chalky shred, brought to her; and every one was beautiful, for even awkward artists could not fail to capture some beauty when they set out to portray her. She lay in her bed and stared at paintings till her attendants were exhausted by the intensity of her purpose.
After the first few days, every day or so thereafter she would discard one or another painter; and he would have his work returned to him, be given a coin for his trouble (everyone thought this royally generous, since none of the painters had been under any obligation to answer the invitation), and sent on his way. No one, apparently, thought to remark on the fact that all the artists hoping to paint the queen's portrait were men; although one maid-servant, who worked in the king's kitchens and was rarely allowed upstairs, and who had cousins who lived in every one of the seven kingdoms, did comment that the sixth king's official court painter was a woman. But she was only a maid-servant, and no one found this statement interesting.
The waiting painters began to dread the sight of the majordomo. He would appear with canvas and sketchbook-sized bundles under his arms, or in the arms of an attending footman, and beckon some unfortunate, waiting in the receiving-hall, or in what had been the receiving-hall when the queen had been well and the king had done any receiving. Occasionally, and worse, the majordomo paused in the grand arched doorway with the carved vines twining round and round the bordering columns twice as high as a man's head, and framed by this grandeur sonorously pronounced some name. And then the poor artist had to cross the long shining floor (for the house-maids were kept severely up to the mark however preoccupied the king was) under the eyes of all the other painters, and admit that the work thus displayed as a failure was his.
The selection was down to three at last. Three paintings stood cm three easels at some little distance from the queen's bed in the queen's chamber; and downstairs, very far away, three painters nibbled at the food the impassive servants brought, and fidgeted, and could not speak to each other. Even farther away the king ignored the food his closest, most anxiously loyal attendants brought, and cursed them, and cursed his ministers too when they tried to encourage him to eat, or to engage him in the ruling of his country. He paced, and tore his hair, and cried aloud.
In the queen's chamber something extraordinary happened. She asked her attendants to move the three paintings to stand directly in front of the closely curtained windows; and then she dismissed the footmen who had done the moving, and all her serving-women but one. That one she told to draw the curtains-open; let the sunlight in, to fall upon the faces of the portraits. But the woman was to stand facing out the window, with her back to the room; and she was not to stir till she was told. This woman knew her mistress well, as the queen knew; and would do exactly as she was told, as the queen also knew.
But the woman could hear. And what she heard was the sound of the queen turning back her bedclothes, and setting her feet upon the floor. She had lain there among her pillows for so many weeks that her steps were feeble and uncertain, and the waiting-woman trembled where she stood, for all her training told her she should rush to support her queen. But her training also told her that she must obey a command; and the command was that she remain where she was; and so she did not stir a foot, though her muscles shivered.
The queen stumbled-fell; 'Mistress!' cried the woman, half turning-'Stay where you are!' said the queen in a voice as sharp and strong and unflinching as the fall of the executioner's axe. The woman burst into tears and covered her face with her hands, and so did not hear the queen pull herself to her feet and resume her slow progress toward the windows.
When the woman dropped her hands and sniffed, she could see, out of the corner of her eye as she looked straight ahead of her, the dark narrow bulk of the queen's body, leaning on the back of a chair. The queen moved the chair a little, her hands groping either at her own weakness or at the unfamiliarity of such a task, so its back was perfectly opposed to the waiting-woman's tiny peripheral glimpse of it. Slowly the queen sat down in the chair, facing the last three portraits of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, lit as they were now by golden afternoon sunlight, till they were almost as glorious as the woman herself had been. The waiting-woman saw the shadow of a gesture, and knew that the queen was raising her veil.
The final selection was made, and the other two painters sent on their way-with three coins each, and a silver necklace and a ring with a stone in it, because they had been good enough almost to have been chosen. Although they would not have admitted it, they were at the last relieved that their work had not found favor in the queen's eyes, and that they could go home, and return to painting bowls of flowers for rich young men courting, and dragons the size of palaces being dispatched by solitary knights in gleaming armor for city council chambers, and fat old merchants spilling over their collars and waistbands for their counting-houses and inheriting sons. For they did not like the smell of the place where the queen lay dying of her own will, who had once been the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms; and they had heard that the king was mad.
