“I don’t need to believe in Yissou and the rest of them in order to see that you’ve touched another world just now. And I’m not as godless as you think. I tell you, the light of the gods is in your eyes. Shining as brightly as the light of a lantern-tree on a night without a moon.”

“Not godless?” Thu-Kimnibol repeated, frowning. “You say you aren’t godless, after all?”

“I have my own sort of worship,” she said, feeling increasingly uncomfortable at this turn in the conversation. “After my own fashion, a kind of worship, yes. At least I look upon it as worship, though others around here might not. But I don’t like talking of such things. Faith’s an extremely private matter, don’t you think?” She managed a dazzling smile. “I’m happy for you, that Boldirinthe was able to give you the comfort you needed.”

“Boldirinthe!” he said, and laughed a little. “Boldirinthe lives now with one foot in the past and the other in the next world. It wasn’t easy for me to keep her attention on the task. But finally she got to it, and I felt the presence of the gods, indeed. They were there right in front of me, the Five were. A great comfort they’ve been to me, too, in my time of mourning. A great comfort they’ve always been to me, and always will. I wish the joy of them upon you also some day, Nialli Apuilana.” Thu-Kimnibol indicated the tray and flask she carried. “Going to visit your hjjk, are you? Bringing him some special treats?”

“Kinsman!” she cried, chiding him. “Don’t call him a hjjk!”

“Well, if he isn’t a hjjk, they say he sounds like one. He speaks only in gargles and spittings, or am I wrong?” In an amiable way Thu-Kimnibol made harsh rough noises far back in his throat, a crude parody of hjjk speech. “To me somebody’s a hjjk if all he speaks is hjjk. And wears hjjk talismans around his neck and thinks hjjk thoughts and carries himself hjjk-style. You know, walking around as though he’s got a long pole rammed up his rump.”

“If living as a captive among the hjjks makes a person a hjjk, well, then I’m a hjjk too,” Nialli Apuilana said, putting some severity into it. “Anyway, Kundalimon has started to learn our language very nicely indeed. The words come back to him. He’s beginning to remember that he was once one of us. It’s wrong of you to mock him. Or me, through him.”

“Indeed.”

“Thu-Kimnibol, why do you hate hjjks so much?”

“Do I?” Thu-Kimnibol said, as though the idea were new to him. “Perhaps I do. But why is that? Let me think.” A look of irritation flickered in his eyes. “Could it be because they’d like to pen us down in a small part of the world, when we should have the whole thing? And that I resent this restraint that they put upon us? Perhaps that’s it, eh? Or is it, maybe, a simpler matter, a personal thing, having to do with the fact that one day long ago a band of hjjks came to the place where I was living, in the north, the very place I’ll be setting out for in just a little while, and fell upon the handful of innocent people who lived there, and killed some of them. My own father was one of those they killed, you know. Maybe that’s it, eh, Nialli Apuilana? A petty little grudge of mine, a simple hankering for revenge?”

“Oh, no, Thu-Kimnibol. I didn’t mean to say—”

Thu-Kimnibol shook his head. He reached down from his great height and let his hands rest tenderly on her shoulders for a moment. “I understand, Nialli. All that happened long before you were born. Why should you have given it a thought? But let’s keep the peace between us, shall we? We oughtn’t to bicker this way. Go to your friend, and bring him his wine and meat. And pray for me, will you? Pray to whatever god it is you pray to. I’m leaving for the northland tomorrow. I’d like to have your prayers go with me.”

“They will,” she said. “And my love also, kinsman. A safe journey to you.”

If she hadn’t been so laden with burdens she would have embraced him. That surprised her. She had never felt such warmth toward him before: until this moment he had been only her great robust mountain of a kinsman, half as big as a vermilion and scarcely any brighter; or so he had always seemed to her. Suddenly she saw Thu-Kimnibol now in a different way, as someone rather more complex than she had imagined, and more vulnerable. Suddenly now she feared for him and wished him well.

It must be the god-light flowing from him that does this to me, she thought. Perhaps I should go to Boldirinthe for a communion too. I might finally find the gods speaking even to me.

“A safe journey, yes,” she said again. “And a happy outcome, and a swift return.”

Thu-Kimnibol thanked her, and went on his way. Nialli Apuilana continued up the hill toward Mueri House.

The guard on duty at the gate was Curabayn Bangkea’s youngest brother, Eluthayn, a meaty flat-faced man wearing a gaudy, preposterous helmet. As Nialli Apuilana approached him he said to her, “He’s been waiting for you, the one from the hjjks. Been asking all morning why you’re so late today. At least, I think that’s what he’s been saying. Not that I can make much sense out of that arglebargle way he speaks.” Eluthayn Bangkea loomed toward her, so close that she could smell on his breath the sharp kharnigs he had had for his morning meal. Astonishingly, he leered at her in an offensively intimate way. “I can’t say I blame him. I wouldn’t mind being locked up in there all afternoon with you myself.”

“And what could we possibly say to each other, if we had to spend a whole afternoon in each other’s company?”

“It isn’t what we’d say, Nialli Apuilana.”

And he leered again, more exaggeratedly than before, rolling his eyes, whipping his sensing-organ about, thrusting his face practically into hers.

He was too much the fool to be taken seriously. This sort of ponderous unasked attention must be more of a joke than anything else. But if it was a joke, it was a coarse one. How dare he? He’d be grabbing her, next.

Her anger rose abruptly and she spat at him with sudden ferocity, leaving a gobbet between his wide-set eyes.

Eluthayn Bangkea gaped at her incredulously. Slowly he wiped his face. His forehead was furrowed with consternation and barely contained wrath.

“Why did you do that? You didn’t need to do that!”

She drew herself up. “Your kind is tiresome to me.”

“My kind ? What do you mean, my kind? I’m me. The only me there is. And I meant you no harm. There was no call for your doing that.” He lowered his voice. “Listen, would it be such a terrible thing if we went off and coupled for an hour, Lady Nialli? A guardsman can give pleasure even to a chieftain’s daughter, you know. Or don’t you think coupling’s a pleasure? Could that be it? Too proud to couple, are you? Or too frightened? Which is it?”

“Please,” she said in disbelief. It was as though she were dreaming this. How humiliating it all was! She was angry and stunned and close to tears, all at once. But it was important to remain strong in the face of this kind of thing. She glared at him. “Enough. What a vulgar clown you are.”

“You’ll have me punished, I know. Won’t you? But I’ll tell them you spat in my face. And I never laid a hand on you. I never did anything but wriggle my eyebrows at you.”

“Get out of my way and let me go upstairs,” Nialli Apuilana said fiercely. “And may I never see you again!”

Giving her a sullen bewildered stare, he opened the gate for her. She brushed past him, eyes averted, and passed within the building. Once she was safely beyond him she paused, shivering. She felt shaken, she felt soiled and violated, as though he had been the one to spit on her, and not the other way around. Her whole body was taut with fury and shock. She took a couple of deep breaths and felt her pulse begin to slow a little. In a calmer state, she ascended the stairs to Kundalimon’s third-floor room and knocked.

Instantly the door opened. Kundalimon peered out. He smiled shyly. His green eyes, which often were so icy and remote, seemed bright and warm today; and Nialli Apuilana felt such a rush of innocence and sweetness coming from him that it went a long way in only a moment to wipe away the stain of that sorry encounter down below.