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“An excellent method of teaching—make me answer all my own questions. Using that method, you don’t actually have to know any of the answers yourself.”
“I’m waiting for you to think about Param’s political situation, instead of your own educational one.”
Since Olivenko was urging him to analyze a situation outside himself, and that was exactly what Umbo had just realized Rigg could do and he could not, he swallowed his rebellious responses and forced himself to think about the new question. “The great families don’t want her to have the love of the common people.”
“Close,” said Olivenko. “They don’t mind if she has their love. They only worry about what she plans to do with it.”
Now it became clear to Umbo. “They’re afraid that she’d be playing for the love of the common people so she would no longer need their support.” Now a further insight occurred to him. “The great families need her to need their support. So they don’t have to fear the royal power.”
“Now you’re thinking more like a ruler’s consort,” said Olivenko. “Back to the original question.”
Umbo had to think for a moment. Oh, yes. Why she needed to marry Umbo for reasons of state. “I’m a poor privick from as far upriver as you can get. I can’t think of any other reason.”
“Is that all you are?” asked Olivenko.
“Isn’t that bad enough?” asked Umbo.
“I’m asking you to think of why she needs to marry you for the good of the kingdom. Not for reasons why she should find the idea disgusting.”
That had been what he was doing, hadn’t it? “All right,” said Umbo. “What else am I, besides a person of such low standing that . . .”
No, Umbo thought. That was the kind of self-denigration that Olivenko was telling him to stop.
What am I, besides poor and ignorant and annoying?
“I’m the only other timeshaper besides her brother Rigg,” said Umbo tentatively.
Olivenko’s answer was sarcastic enough to show Umbo how obvious he thought the answer was. “You finally noticed that, did you? Why would that lead her to need to marry you?”
“I’m the only timeshaper who isn’t in the royal family. And my abilities run rings around hers. But not around Rigg’s.”
“Oh, yes, her brother Rigg, the one with the facemask, so ugly and strange that she had better keep him out of the public view,” said Olivenko, “because he’ll make people afraid. You’re the timeshaper who can show his face. And in case you didn’t notice—and you obviously haven’t—you’re a rather good-looking young man, now that you’re getting some height on you, and when you aren’t pouting, you can be downright likeable. Maybe even charismatic. People might want to associate with a handsome young man who can go wherever he wants in time and space.”
For the first time Umbo realized that while the people in this little traveling society of theirs might not have much respect for him, he could really dazzle strangers.
“Oh, now you see it,” said Olivenko. “It’s to your credit that you never even thought of it before. But it worries me that you now find the idea so attractive.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I saw your expression of resentment and impatience turn into happy contemplation. I didn’t have to have a facemask to see that transformation.”
Umbo wondered briefly if Olivenko resented the fact that Loaf now had facemask-enhanced abilities. But in the meantime, his mind was still caught up in analyzing Param’s situation.
“If Param became Queen-in-the-Tent,” said Umbo, “and a more-powerful timeshaper—me—was out there, I could easily become a focus for discontent in the kingdom. Her enemies might gather around me, want to follow me.” And then, remembering who her enemies were likely to be, and how they were likely to regard a privick like him, he said, “Or more likely they’d try to get control of me and use me.”
“Or both,” said Olivenko. “There’ll be as many different motives for people to gather around you as there are people doing the gathering.”
“But none of those motives will make them friends of the Sessamids.”
“Add to that her keen awareness of how quick you are to resent her, especially because she’s treated you badly in the past, and it should be clear that in order to keep you from being a divisive force in the kingdom, she either has to marry you . . .”
“Or kill me,” said Umbo. “I suppose I should be grateful that she decided on marriage.”
“It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t also like you. I said you were good-looking and likeable, and she’s not oblivious to that. Plus, you used to be her puppy dog, you were so in love with her.”
“She got rid of those feelings soon enough.”
“No she didn’t,” said Olivenko. “You’re still devoted to her. Only now you know her well enough that it’s not the beautiful princess that you have an adolescent crush on, it’s the woman she’s turning into, the woman who has stopped treating you badly—”
