The Tortured Trees

They brought him to the palace in a twelve-wheeled carriage drawn by eleven horses, but he didn't think to count. Though he was still not fully strong again after his ordeal in the Gaols, he was dazzled by the wonders of the Palace, and gazed out the window at the mosaic-covered walls, the gilt minarets, the turquoise roofs, the bright-painted sculptures that grew in profusion beside the whitestone drive. The history they depicted was lost on Orem, but he recognized the perfection of these works of human hands.

But when he saw the sculptured garden in the circle of the palace drive, he was disturbed.

Others had seen the trees and bushes growing to form elephants and giant roses and had admired them. The cleverness of the lovers grown in leaves; the heroic sculpture of the Battle of Greyling Mountain—Orem did not think they were clever or noble. He had enough of his mother in him to hate the violence done to the trees; he had enough of his father to be profoundly disturbed to see this verdure in the cold of early winter.

Then came the hands of the servants, so many hands silently touching him, lifting him weak and flexible from the carriage. "Don't the leaves fall here?" he asked.

"For a week, whenever the Queen chooses," said an oldish man. "Autumn pleases her from time to time, if only to have spring again the following day."

It was then that Orem understood the power of the Queen. He marveled that he had ever dared to challenge her. Whatever punishment she meted out to him, he knew now that there was no hope of resistance. He had been a shark trying to gnaw away at the shore, sharp-toothed and dangerous, yet unworthy of his adversary.