“Had her adolescent puppy-dog crush on,” corrected Olivenko. “Only I knew that’s what it was and guided her through that phase and out the other side.”
Umbo recognized at once that yes, that was exactly what Olivenko had done. And since Olivenko had now assigned himself to think about kingdom politics, Umbo said, “You could have exploited that. You could have made her devoted to you.”
“For a while, yes,” said Olivenko. “Long enough to get her to marry me, perhaps, though I’m just as common as you. I do know more about the language and manners of the court, but I would have been a liability to her without any timeshaping talents to make up for it. As soon as she realized that, then she’d either be miserable, living with a bad choice of consort—or I’d be thrown away. Or killed. Not necessarily by her or by her order—there would be plenty of courtiers who would understand how embarrassing and useless I was, and would therefore help their queen by discreetly killing her husband. Or catching him in some act of infidelity.”
“But you would never…”
“It wouldn’t matter if I was actually guilty,” said Olivenko. “Lack of truthfulness doesn’t weaken a story if you can get enough people to believe the lie.”
Umbo thought of the comparison between him and Olivenko. “But if they would try to get rid of you, when you know the language and manners of court—”
“You’ll learn them quickly. And even if someone sees you as a problem or an obstacle, you won’t be as easy to get rid of.”
“Because I can go back and warn myself.”
“Or go back and stab the assassin in the back.”
“Ah, but then there’d be two of me,” said Umbo. “Our old system of warning people without actually traveling back in time had the virtue of not creating copies.”
Olivenko nodded. “It would be bad for the kingdom if every time somebody tried to kill you, the number of Umbos doubled.”
“It might get them to stop trying.”
“But what would you do with the copies?” asked Olivenko. “What Ram Odin did, when he found out he had been re-created eighteen times?”
Umbo shuddered at the thought of his own two dead copy-bodies that Odinex had killed the first time Umbo visited his buried starship. “I can see that it makes sense, but I don’t know if…”
“All it takes is one of your copies to decide that he’s the original and the others aren’t necessary. But you see my point. Married to you, Param has you close, where you won’t be starting a rival power center.”
“Instead, my great personal charm will make people want to kill me.”
“You think there won’t be people trying to kill her?” asked Olivenko. “When it’s about power, it’s always a matter of life and death.”
“So another reason for marrying me,” said Umbo, “might be so I’d be close enough to save her from assassins and traitors.”
“Yes,” said Olivenko.
“Also close enough to harm her, if I chose,” said Umbo. “So apparently she trusts me.”
“No matter where you are,” said Olivenko, “you could harm her if you chose. Yes, she trusts you. Or at least she hopes she can trust you, which is about as close to trust as powerful people ever get. There are so many incentives for betrayal. It’s a lonely life. She wants you to share it with her. Partly for reasons of state. Or mostly. But I think she believes it will also be a tolerable thing.”
But the way he said it made Umbo think that Olivenko thought that Param thought that it might be better than tolerable.
“I still have that adolescent crush,” said Umbo. “I’m better at hiding it, that’s all.”
“Not so very much better. Disguising it as surly resentment fooled only two people: Param and you.”
That was the first time it had ever occurred to Umbo that maybe all his feelings of resentment were not really directed at Rigg. They were really there because as long as he thought he could feel sorry for himself because Rigg was always the leader, he didn’t have to feel sorry for himself because Param would never love him.
“I wish I could go back in time and explain to myself why I was so angry all the time,” said Umbo.
“Would you have believed yourself? And even if you did, could you have stopped?”
“If I couldn’t have stopped then, why can I stop now?” asked Umbo.
“Because she asked you to marry her, you fool,” said Olivenko.
“It’s going to be a very complicated life,” said Umbo.
“What do you mean?” asked Olivenko.
“Being married to the Queen-in-the-Tent.”
“Oh? Are you going to be married to her?” asked Olivenko.
“But… she asked me.”
“Yesterday,” said Olivenko. “And since that moment, have you even spoken to her?”
“I don’t… I couldn’t…”
“She asked you to marry her, and after a day you still haven’t answered her.”
“But she didn’t ask me. She just announced it. As if everyone already knew it was going to happen.”
“Was she supposed to kneel and beg you to cross her threshold? Give you the key to her house? Pull a symbolic tent over both your heads? Those are the traditional ways, but can you tell me which of those a princess of the Sessamids should use in asking an ignorant privick like yourself to be her consort? She was asking, and you haven’t answered.”
“So this whole lecture you gave me—”
“I believe I used a series of pedagogical queries—”
“Was designed to get me to tell her yes or no?”
“Absolutely not,” said Olivenko. “If you had been too stupid to understand any of this, I would have gone to her and begged her to rescind the offer.”
“And then what?” asked Umbo. “Would you have killed me for her, to get me out of the way?”
“Don’t ever ask questions that can only be answered one way, no matter what the truthful answer might be. It will make you doubt your friends. And that, in case you were wondering, was a lecture.”
“I was joking.”
“But because you asked it, no matter how fervently I said that I would never kill you and she would never ask me to anyway, you would always wonder. In fact, you’ll wonder anyway. What a stupid thing to do to yourself.”
Umbo saw his point. He felt the point, because the question was already gnawing at him. “I notice you haven’t said you wouldn’t kill me.”
“And I never will say such a stupid thing,” said Olivenko. “Because if you ever posed a real danger to her, I would kill you, if I could. So if I denied it that would be a lie. And you’d know it was a lie. But I tell you this, Umbo. You have earned my trust, and hers too. When she was at her most obnoxious, you never went back in time to harm her. Never did anything that had to be undone—only her brother did that. The whole time she’s known you, you’ve had the power to harm her at any time, and she’s given you plenty of provocation. But you have never raised a hand against her, and never abandoned her. Even when you thought she loved me, you didn’t use your power over time to interfere.”
“I can’t take any credit for that. Rigg would have just gone back and stopped me.”
“Before he had that facemask, did he have the power to do that? If you had wanted to go to war with Rigg, wouldn’t you have defeated him easily, in the days before he learned to go back in time without your help? You were the most powerful, and you’re still more powerful than Param or me or Loaf—have you ever used that power to harm any of us? To harm anyone at all? Can Rigg say as much?”