“It’s a good plan,” said Rigg. “I don’t know what I’ll find in the other wallfolds. It may be that Ramfold is the most dangerous, most aggressive civilization. If you can become mistress of that wallfold, Param, then a world without Walls might be safe. Or maybe there will be more dangerous places, and we’ll need the warlike character of the Sessamoto armies to curb the ambitions of even-more-dangerous peoples.”

“It’s too much for me,” said Param.

“If I can make a military counselor out of myself, why can’t you become a queen in fact as well as title?” asked Olivenko.

“We don’t know that you can become what you say you’ll become,” said Param.

“I know I can become far more than I was as a scholar serving your father in the Great Library. Far more than the city guardsman who set out on this journey. Rigg and Loaf with their facemasks, all of you with time-shifting, you aren’t the only ones who can learn and change and grow into something useful.” Olivenko’s voice became even softer, and his gaze at Param was intense. “The very fact that you doubt yourself, my lady, is proof of how much you have learned, and how greatly you have grown.”

At those words, Param burst into tears and covered her face.

But she did not slice time. She did not disappear.

“Thank you for staying with us,” said Loaf softly.

“We all have so much work to do,” said Noxon.

Except me, thought Umbo. Nobody has any plan for me, except to be Loaf’s character witness when he returns to Leaky.

Not fair, he told himself. They don’t dare find jobs for you, because you’re so childish and prickly they know you’ll take offense.

Yet a part of him—the childish, prickly part—still insisted, inside his mind: They aren’t finding a job for me, because now that Rigg has a facemask, and then another copy of himself, there’s no particular need for me at all. “I should get a facemask,” Umbo murmured.

Everyone fell silent.

“Maybe with a facemask I could see the paths like Rigg,” Umbo added.

“We already have twice as many pathfinders as we need,” said Noxon. “That’s why I’m getting out of town.”

“Off the planet, you mean,” said Olivenko.

“We need all the pathfinders we can get,” said Umbo. “And even if I couldn’t see paths, the facemask would make me better at the things I can do.”

“You’re just assuming you have the will to master the facemask,” said Loaf.

“Umbo,” said Param softly, removing her hands from her face. “How can I possibly marry you if you have a facemask? The people would never accept you as their king, if you looked like that.”

CHAPTER 3

Under a Tent

Noxon and Param began their mutual training the obvious way, with Param trying to teach Noxon to develop an ability like hers by teaching him the way the Gardener had once taught her. It kept the two of them away from everyone else for hours at a time.

At first Umbo watched them from a distance, trying not to think of what Param had said. Did it really amount to a royal proposal of marriage? And if it did, why did she completely ignore him now? Instead of thinking about Param, Umbo wished he could be more like Rigg—like Noxon—in the way that he seemed to have endless patience when he needed it.

Rigg had learned his patience by being schooled every waking moment by his father—by the expendable called Ramex—while they tramped in solitude through the forests of Ramfold. Rigg knew how to listen, how to concentrate on what he was hearing, how to analyze and process it.

I’m quiet too, sometimes, thought Umbo. I hold my tongue, I don’t say everything that comes to mind.

And that’s the difference, he realized. Rigg learned to concentrate on what Ramex was saying, and devoted himself to memory and analysis. While I, in my silences, I’m thinking of all the things I’m going to decide not to say.

No, I’m storing up things to complain about later.

Is that all I am? No wonder everyone looks to Rigg for leadership—he thinks through ideas, while I think of nothing but myself. How could anyone respect me? I don’t even have ideas that are worthy of respect.

“I wonder if you’re mooning over the princess,” said Olivenko, “or resenting Noxon for having so much time with her.”

Umbo was immediately filled with fury. But, trying to learn a lesson from Rigg, he curbed that first impulse. “I was wishing I had Rigg’s patience.”

“That was a good step, then, to answer me so mildly.”

“You were trying to goad me?”

“Yes,” said Olivenko. “Because it seems to be the only way to get your attention.”

Umbo thought: By hurting my feelings? But he said, “You have it.”

“I think she does like you, Umbo. She’s overcome some of her snobbery and seen you for a good man trying to be better.”

“You think of me as a boy,” said Umbo, “so when you call me a man it sounds like mockery.” But he said it mildly, because it was simply true.

“I’m talking about how Param thinks of you,” said Olivenko. “No matter how she feels, she’ll marry for reasons of state.”

“Thank you for telling me,” said Umbo. He did not say, By no means should you let me nurse the delusion that she might have fallen in love with me.

“If you’re going to marry her, you not only have to know how she thinks, you have to learn how to think the same way. The needs of the kingdom come before your personal desires.”

This time Umbo couldn’t keep the resentment out of his voice. “How would marrying me serve the needs of the kingdom?”

“No, I won’t answer that, because you already know the answer.”

“I say I don’t,” said Umbo.

“And I say that you already have enough information to figure it out.”

“And I say I don’t need a schoolmaster.”

“I think you do,” said Olivenko. “And since Loaf already stands in for your father, being your schoolmaster gives me a way to be useful to you. Or do you think you alone have nothing to learn?”

“On the contrary,” said Umbo. “I know so little that there’s no point in teaching me.”

“Nobody knows more than can be learned in a single lifetime,” said Olivenko, “and you already know more than you realize. Prove me wrong. Try to answer my question, and when you fail, I’ll know you were right about what a hopelessly ignorant privick you are.”

Umbo knew that Olivenko was deliberately challenging him in order to provoke him into accepting him as schoolteacher, if only to prove him wrong. So the proper answer was to walk away from him, saying nothing at all.

Proper answer? Why would that be proper? Umbo imagined himself doing it and then realizing, after about ten steps, that the only person he injured by refusing the offered education was himself. But then pride would forbid him to return and ask for Olivenko’s help after all.

Only this time, Umbo hadn’t walked away the moment he realized that would be the “right” way to prove he couldn’t be manipulated or controlled by anyone. This time he had stayed long enough to think of why he should stay.

He thought back to what Olivenko had challenged him to do: Think of how Param’s marrying this privick boy would serve the needs of the kingdom.

“Maybe she’d marry me to prove that she wants to elevate the common people,” said Umbo.

“That will be a very good thing for her to tell the common people, in order to try to cement their loyalty, but she’d better not let the great families of the Sessamoto Empire think that’s why she did it,” said Olivenko.

“Why not?” asked Umbo.

“No, you tell me why not,” said Olivenko.

“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.”