"Leave now, Sarcellus."

The Knight-Commander laughed. "But I need you, Esmi. I need your help . . . There's gold . . ."

"I'll scream. I'm warning-"

"There's life!" Sarcellus snarled. Somehow his hand had clamped about her mouth. She didn't need to feel the prick to know he held a knife to her throat.

"Listen, whore. You've made a habit of begging at the wrong table. The sorcerer's dead. Your prophet will soon follow. Now I ask, where does that leave you?"

He swept the covers away, exposed her to the warm night air. She flinched, sobbed as the knifepoint swizzled across her moonlit skin.

"Eh, old old whore? What will you do when your peach loses its pucker, hmm? Whom will you bed then? How will you end, I wonder? Will you be fucking lepers? Or will you be sucking scared little boys for scraps of bread?" whore? What will you do when your peach loses its pucker, hmm? Whom will you bed then? How will you end, I wonder? Will you be fucking lepers? Or will you be sucking scared little boys for scraps of bread?"

She wet herself in terror.

Sarcellus breathed deep, as though savouring the bouquet of her humiliation. His eyes laughed. "Is that understanding understanding I smell?" Esmenet, sobbing, nodded against the iron fingers. Sarcellus smirked, removed his hand. She shrieked, screamed until it seemed her throat must bleed. I smell?" Esmenet, sobbing, nodded against the iron fingers. Sarcellus smirked, removed his hand. She shrieked, screamed until it seemed her throat must bleed.

Then Kellhus held her, and she was drawn from the tent to the glowing coals of the fire-pit. She heard shouts, saw men crowding about them with torches, heard voices rumbling in Conriyan. Somehow she explained what happened, shuddering and sobbing within the frame of Kellhus's strong arms. After what seemed both heartbeats and days, the commotion passed. People returned to what sleep remained to them. The terror receded, replaced by the exhausted throb of embarrassment. Kellhus told her he would complain to Gotian, but that there would be very little anyone could do.

"Sarcellus is a Knight-Commander," Kellhus said.

And she was just a dead sorcerer's whore.

Naughty whore.

Esmenet refused Serwe's offer to stay with her and Kellhus in their pavilion, but accepted her offer to wash with her laver. Afterward, Kellhus followed her to her tent.

"Serwe cleaned it for you," he said. "She replaced your bedding." Esmenet started crying yet again. When had she become so weak? So pathetic?

How could you leave me? Why did you leave me?

She crawled into the tent as though diving into a burrow. She hid her face in clean woollen blankets. She smelled sandalwood . . .

Bearing his lantern, Kellhus followed, sat cross-legged over her. "He's gone, Esmenet . . . Sarcellus won't return. Not after tonight. Even if nothing happens, the questions will embarrass him. What man doesn't suspect other men of acting on their own lusts?"

"You don't understand," she gasped. How could she tell him? All this time fearing for Achamian, even daring to mourn him, and still . . . "I lied to him!" she exclaimed. "I lied to Akka!"

Kellhus frowned. "What do you mean?"

"After he left me in Sumna the Consult came to me, the Consult Consult Kellhus! And I knew that Inrau's death had been no suicide. I knew it! But I never told Akka. Sweet Sejenus, Kellhus! And I knew that Inrau's death had been no suicide. I knew it! But I never told Akka. Sweet Sejenus, I never told him! I never told him! And now he's gone, Kellhus! Gone!" And now he's gone, Kellhus! Gone!"

"Breathe, Esmi. Breathe . . . Breathe . . . What does this have to do with Sarcellus?" What does this have to do with Sarcellus?"

"I don't know . . . That's the mad part. I don't know!"

"You were lovers," Kellhus said, and she went still, like a child confronted by a wolf. Kellhus had always known her secret, since that night at the Shrine above Asgilioch when he'd interrupted her and Sarcellus. So why her terror now?

"For a time you thought you loved Sarcellus," Kellhus continued. "You even judged Achamian against him . . . You judged and found Achamian wanting."

"I was a fool!" she cried. "A fool!" How could she be such a fool?

No man is your equal, love! No man!

"Achamian was weak," Kellhus said.

"But I loved him for for those weaknesses! Don't you see? That's why I loved him!" those weaknesses! Don't you see? That's why I loved him!"

I loved him in truth!

"And that's why you could never go to him . . . To go to him while you shared Sarcellus's bed would be to accuse him of those very weaknesses he couldn't bear. So you stayed away, fooled yourself into thinking you searched for him when you were hiding all the while."

"How can you know these things?" she sobbed.

"But no matter how much you lied to yourself, you knew knew . . . And that's why you could never tell Achamian about what happened in Sumna-no matter how much he needed to know! Because you knew he wouldn't understand, and you feared what he would see . . ." . . . And that's why you could never tell Achamian about what happened in Sumna-no matter how much he needed to know! Because you knew he wouldn't understand, and you feared what he would see . . ."

Despicable, selfish, hateful . . .

Polluted.

But Kellhus could see . . . He'd always seen.

"Don't look at me!" she cried.

Look at me . . .

"But I do, Esmi. I do look. And what I see fills me with wonder wonder."

And these narcotic words, so warm and so close-so very close!-stilled her. Her pillow ached against her cheek, and the hard earth beneath her mat bruised, but all was warm and all was safe. He blew out his lantern, then quietly withdrew from her tent. The warm memory of his fingers continued to comb her hair.

Obviously famished, Serwe had started eating early. A pot of rice boiled on the fire, which Kellhus periodically opened and closed, adding onions, spices, and Shigeki pepper. Ordinarily Esmenet would have cooked, but Kellhus had her reading aloud from The Chronicle of the Tusk The Chronicle of the Tusk, laughing at her rare fumbles and showering her with encouragement.

She was reading the Canticles, the old "Tusk Laws," many of which the Latter Prophet had rescinded in The Tractate The Tractate. Together they wondered that children were stoned to death for striking their parents, or that when a man murdered some other man's brother, his own own brother was executed. brother was executed.

Then she read, "'Suffer not a . . .'"

She recognized the words because of sheer repetition. Sounding out the following word, she said, "'whore . . .'" and stopped. She glanced at Kellhus and angrily recited, "'Suffer not a whore to live, for she maketh a pit of her womb . . .'" Her ears burned. She squelched a sudden urge to cast the book into the flames.

Kellhus gazed back, utterly unsurprised. He'd been waiting for me to reach this passage. All along . . . He'd been waiting for me to reach this passage. All along . . . "Give me the book," he said, his tone unreadable. She did as she was told. "Give me the book," he said, his tone unreadable. She did as she was told.

In a fluid, almost thoughtless motion, he pulled his knife from the ceremonial sheath he wore about his waist. Pinching the blade near the tip, he proceeded to scratch the ink of the offending statement from the vellum. For several heartbeats, Esmenet couldn't comprehend what he was doing. She simply stared, a petrified witness.

Once the column was clean, he leaned back to survey his handiwork. "Better," he said, as though he'd just scraped mould from bread. He turned to pass the book back.

Esmenet couldn't bring herself to touch it. "But . . . But you can't do that!"

"No?"

He pressed the book into her hands. She fairly tossed it into the dust on her far side.

"That's Scripture Scripture, Kellhus. The Tusk. The Holy Tusk!"

"I know. The warrant of your damnation."

Esmenet gawked like a fool. "But . . ."

Kellhus scowled and shook his head, as though astonished she could be so dense.

"Just who, Esmi, do you think I am?"

Serwe chirped with laughter, even clapped her hands.

"Wh-who?" Esmenet stammered. It was the most she could manage. Other than in rare anger or jest, she'd never heard Kellhus speak with . . . with such presumption.

"Yes," Kellhus repeated, "who?" His voice seemed satin thunder. He looked as eternal as a circle.

Then Esmenet glimpsed it: the shining gold about his hands . . . Without thinking, she rolled to her knees before him, pressed her face into the dust.

Please! Please! I'm nothing!

Then Serwe hiccupped. Suddenly, absurdly, it was just Kellhus before her, laughing, drawing her up from the dust, bidding her to eat her supper.

"Better?" he said as she numbly resumed her place beside him. Her whole skin burned and prickled. He nodded toward the open book while filling his mouth with rice.

Bewildered, flustered, she blushed and looked down. She nodded to her bowl.

I knew this! I always knew this!

The difference was that Kellhus now knew as well. His presence burned in her periphery. How, she breathlessly wondered, how could she ever look into his eyes again?

Throughout her entire life she'd looked upon things and people that stood apart. She was Esmenet, and that was her bowl, the Emperor's silver, the Shriah's man, the God's ground, and so on. She stood here, and those things there there. No longer. Everything, it seemed, radiated the warmth of his skin. The ground beneath her bare feet. The mat beneath her buttocks. And for a mad instant, she was certain that if she raised her fingers to her cheek, she would feel the soft curls of a flaxen beard, that if she turned to her left, she would see Esmenet hovering motionless over her rice bowl.

Somehow, everything had become here here, and everything here had become him him. Kellhus!

She breathed in. Her heart battered her breast. He scraped the passage clean! He scraped the passage clean!

In a single exhalation, it seemed, a lifetime of condemnation slipped from her, and she felt shriven, truly shriven truly shriven. One breath and she was absolved! She experienced a kind of lucidity, as though her thoughts had been cleansed like water strained through bright white cloth. She thought she should should cry, but the sunlight was too sharp, the air too clear for weeping. cry, but the sunlight was too sharp, the air too clear for weeping.

Everything was so certain certain. He scraped the passage clean! He scraped the passage clean! Then she thought of Achamian. Then she thought of Achamian.

The air smelled of wine and vomit and armpits. Torches flared through the murk, painting mud-brick walls in oranges and blacks, illuminating slivers of the drunken warriors who crowded the dark: a bearded jaw line here, a furrowed brow there, a glistening eye, a bloody fist upon a pommel. Cnaiur urs Skiotha walked among them, through the tight alleys of the Heppa, Ammegnotis's ancient district of revels. He shouldered his way forward, moving intently, as though he had a destination. Laughter and light boomed through wide-thrown doors. Shigeki girls giggled, called out in mangled Sheyic. Children hawked stolen oranges. Laughing Laughing, he thought. All of them laughing . . . You're not of the land! All of them laughing . . . You're not of the land! "You!" he heard someone cry. "You!" he heard someone cry. Weeper! Faggot weeper! Weeper! Faggot weeper!

"You," a young Galeoth man at his side said. Where had he come from? His eyes flashed in wonder, but something about the broken light made his face lurid. His lips looked wanton and feminine, the black hollow of his mouth promising. "You travelled with him. You're his first disciple! His first!"

"Who?"

"Him. The Warrior-Prophet."

You beat me, old Bannut, his father's brother, cried, for fucking him the for fucking him the way you fucked his father! way you fucked his father!

Cnaiur seized the man, yanked him close. "Who?"

"Prince Kellhus of Atrithau . . . You're the Scylvendi who found him on the Steppe. Who delivered him to us!"

Yes . . . The Dunyain. Somehow he'd forgotten about him. He glimpsed a face blow open, like Steppe grasses in a gust. He felt a palm, warm and tender upon his thigh. He began shaking. Somehow he'd forgotten about him. He glimpsed a face blow open, like Steppe grasses in a gust. He felt a palm, warm and tender upon his thigh. He began shaking.

You're more . . . More than the People!

"I am of the People!" he grated.

The man wrenched ineffectually at his wrists. "Pleease!" he hissed. "I thought . . . I thought . . ."

Cnaiur tossed him to the ground, glared at the shadowy procession of passers-by. Did they laugh?

I watched you that night! I saw the way you looked at him!

How did he find himself on this track? Where was he riding?

"What did you call me?" he screamed at the prostrate man.

He remembered running as hard as he could, away from the black paths worn through the grasses, away from the yaksh and his father's all-knowing wrath. He found a clutch of sumacs and cleared a hollow in their hidden heart. The weave of green grasses through grey. The smell of earth, of beetles crawling through damp and dark grottoes. The smell of solitude and secrecy, under the sky but sheltered from the wind. He pulled the broken pieces from his belt and spread them in breathless wonder. He reassembled them. She was so sad. And so beautiful. Impossibly beautiful.

Someone. He was forgetting to hate someone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Shigek

In terror, all men throw up their hands and turn aside their faces. Remember, Tratta, always preserve the face! For that is where you you are. are.

-THROSEANIS, TRIAMIS IMPERATOR TRIAMIS IMPERATOR