“You’re too modest,” he said. “I know a little of the healing arts myself. That girl was dying until you came here to treat her.”

“Well, she’s not dying now.”

“You have my deepest gratitude.”

“I’m sure that I do.”

She stared at him a long moment, trying to see behind his words. There were always meanings behind his meanings. Even when he sneezed it seemed somehow devious.

Finding Husathirn Mueri likable was something that Boldirinthe had never managed to do, which troubled her, for she disliked disliking anyone; and he was Torlyri’s son, which made the matter worse. She had loved Torlyri as she loved her own mother. And here was Husathirn Mueri, quick and clever and handsome, and warmhearted, after a fashion, and looking a good deal like Torlyri with those brilliant white stripes running through his black fur; and Boldirinthe couldn’t like him at all. It was his slyness, she thought, and his unbridled ambition. Where had those traits come from? Not from Torlyri, certainly. Nor from his father, that hard and austere Beng warrior. Well, she told herself, the gods have their mysteries. Each one of us is a special mystery of the gods.

Softly Husathirn Mueri said, “You know that I love her.”

Boldirinthe shrugged. “So do we all.”

“I meant in another fashion.”

“Yes. Of course you do.”

His foolishness saddened her. She had no wish to see anyone hurt himself this way. Wasn’t Husathirn Mueri aware how strange she was, the girl he claimed to love? He must at least suspect by now that she had taken Kundalimon as her lover. And that after refusing the best young men the city had to offer. Well, Kundalimon was dead; perhaps Husathirn Mueri no longer regarded him as important. But what would he say if he knew that he had another and greater rival, no less than the Queen of Hjjks? How he would turn away in horror! But he’d have to twine with Nialli Apuilana to find it out, and Boldirinthe doubted that he had much chance of that.

She moved on, slowly, toward the outer door.

“May I have a few more words with you?” Husathirn Mueri asked.

“If you walk with me. Standing in one place is unpleasant for me, now that I’m so huge.”

“Let me carry your satchel.”

“The satchel is my holy burden. What do you want to say to me, Husathirn Mueri?”

She thought it would be something more about Nialli Apuilana. But instead he said, “Are you aware, Boldirinthe, that some sort of cult is already beginning to spring up around the murdered ambassador from the hjjks?”

“I know there’s a shrine of some sort in his memory, yes.”

“More than just a shrine.” He licked his lips nervously. “I have the guardsmen’s reports. The children are praying to him. And not only the children, but it started with them. They’ve got some little bits of his clothing, and things from his room, hjjk things that somehow were taken after he died. Boldirinthe, they’re making him into a god!”

“Are they?” she said indifferently. “Well, such things happen from time to time. As they please. It’ll change nothing for me. The Five remain sufficient for my needs.”

Sourly he said, “I didn’t expect you to start worshiping Kundalimon. But doesn’t this trouble you at all?”

“Why does it trouble you?”

“Don’t you understand, Boldirinthe, they’re setting up a boy who was half hjjk by spirit, or more than half, as a figure of power in the city! They want favors from him. They want guidance. And they’ll confer favors in return. Do you really want to see a new religion get started here? A new priesthood, new temples, new ideas? Anything could come out of that. Anything. While Kundalimon was alive he went around preaching Nest-stuff to them, and suggesting to them that they follow him back to the Nest. And the children loved it. They ate it up. I have absolute proof of that. What if this — this cult — falls under the control of someone who can build on what Kundalimon was starting? Will we all find ourselves loving the hjjks, and begging them to love us? Will Nakhaba and the Five be swept away? You’re too casual about it, Boldirinthe. This will grow only worse, and very rapidly, like fire spreading in the drylands. I can feel it. I’m not without a certain shrewdness in these matters, you know.”

His face was flushed and disquieted. His amber eyes, gleaming with feverish excitement, were like polished glass beads. Something was at work in him, no doubt of that. She could not remember having seen him so agitated, it wasn’t much like Husathirn Mueri to display such open emotion.

It was the last thing she needed right now, this frantic outburst. She was still shaken by the shock of what she had seen in Nialli Apuilana’s soul. What she needed was to return to her cloister and rest. A quiet dinner with dear old Staip, a few bowls of wine, and bed — yes—

Let come what may, she thought. New cults, new gods, anything. I’ve worked hard today. I’m tired. I long for my couch.

Coolly she said, “Perhaps you’re making a great deal out of very little. The children liked Kundalimon, yes. He amused them. He told them interesting stories. Now they mourn him. They bring offerings to his spirit. I saw them at it as I came here today. A harmless gesture, a memorial, nothing more. And in a few days it’ll all blow over. He’ll become part of history, something for Hresh to enter in his chronicles, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“And if you’re wrong? If there’s a revolution here instead? What then, Boldirinthe?” He waved his hands excitedly.

But she had had enough.

She said, “Speak to Taniane if these things bother you, Husathirn Mueri. I’m fat and old, very fat, very old, and whatever changes will come, if they do, will probably come when I’m no longer here to see them. Or if I still am, well, I’ve seen more changes than you can imagine in my lifetime already. I can stand to see some more. Let me go, now. May Mueri give you peace, eh? Or Nakhaba, if you prefer. All gods are one, to me.”

“What? But you are sworn to the Five!”

“The Five are my gods. But all gods are godly.” She made a sign of Mueri at him, and moved slowly onward past him to the door, and down the steps to the waiting wagon.

The boy’s name was Tikharein Tourb. He was nine. He wore the black-and-yellow Nest-guardian talisman on his breast.

The girl was Chhia Kreun. She had the wrist-amulet.

They stood before a congregation of eleven children and three adults. Aromatic boughs were piled high in the little rough-walled basement room, so that the pungent odor of sippariu sap mingled with the sweetness of dilifar needles to make the air almost intoxicatingly strong.

“Hold hands,” said Tikharein Tourb. “Everyone, touch together! Close your eyes.”

Chhia Kreun, standing next to the boughs, was virtually in a trance. She began to chant, unknown words, thick and harsh. Perhaps they were hjjk words. Who could say? They were sounds that Kundalimon had taught them. What they might mean, no one knew. But they had a holy sound.

“Everyone,” Tikharein Tourb cried. “Come on! Everyone, say the words! Say them! Say them! It is the prayer to the Queen!”

The negotiations, such as they were, were stalled. Since the news had come of those murders in Dawinno, Thu-Kimnibol had fallen into some sort of black pit of brooding. Salaman watched him with surprise and growing uneasiness. All day long he paced the halls of the palace like some huge beast, and at the royal feasts each night he said practically nothing.

What was bothering him, so he said, was the lateness of the autumn caravan from the City of Dawinno. It was nine days late arriving at Yissou. “Where is it?” Thu-Kimnibol kept asking. “Why isn’t it here?” He seemed obsessed by its failure to arrive. But there had to be more to it than that. For a caravan to be a few days late wasn’t sufficient cause for so much fretting.