It was done in barely a fortnight. When the servants came in one morning they found him collapsed at the new painting's feet, and they rushed forward, full of dread that his heart had burst from overwork-or from the queen's gruelling beauty-and that the painting would remain unfinished.

But as they came up behind him they saw the painting itself for the first time, for he had guarded it from them before, fiercely, almost savagely. They cried out as they looked at it, and fell to their knees. At the sound, the painter stirred and sat up; and they did not notice it, but he carefully looked away from the painting himself, his masterwork, and looked at them instead; and he appeared to be satisfied with what he saw, and heard. She was, they said, the most beautiful woman not only in seven kingdoms, but in all the kingdoms of the world. What none dared say aloud was: she, this splendid, immortal woman on the canvas, is more beautiful than the queen ever was. Or perhaps they had only forgotten, for it had been so long since the queen had walked among them.

The servants seized the painting. The painter might have protested their handling, but they treated it with the reverence they treated the queen herself with; and someone ran for a bolt of silk to swathe it in. Already they had forgotten the painter, who had not moved from where he sat on the floor after recovering from his swoon; but he did not care.

Dimly it occurred to him that he should wonder if the paint might still be damp enough to smear; dimly it occurred to him that he might wish to protect his masterwork, for himself, or, more, from the wrath of she who had commissioned it, for he feared the queen as much as he feared the darkness in this place where the king was mad.