Kushiel's Justice (51 page)

And like that, we were off, bound for the palace.

Urist shifted his splinted leg with both hands, grunting. “So,” he said. “Exactly what are we going to tell this Micah ben Ximon?”

I gazed out the window, watching as we passed a Yeshuite temple; a vast affair of white marble. It sported multiple towers, each topped with a gilded dome, and atop each dome, a spire with a golden cross. It looked new and ambitious, and unlike any other Yeshuite temple I’d ever seen.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I truly don’t.”

F
IFTY-ONE

A
S IT TRANSPIRED
, we didn’t have to tell Micah ben Ximon a great deal.

He already knew.

Urist and I were given fine quarters in the palace, with a sitting room and a pair of bedchambers. The tall guard, whose name was Havlik, assured me that word of our arrival would be sent to ben Ximon, who was understandably busy with the news of Fedor’s escape. Doubtless he would see us soon. In the meantime, we were to rest after our ordeal. All our needs would be tended to.

Of a surety, that was true. We were given heavy robes and escorted to a bathing-chamber, where copper tubs were filled with water heated over a massive hearth. It felt unspeakably good to sink into warm water and scour myself clean. I pitied Urist, who had to settle for standing with one foot in a tub, his braced leg propped awkwardly outside it lest the splint grow sodden and warp as it dried, rubbing himself with a sponge and dripping onto the marble inlay.

By the time we returned to our quarters, there was a feast laid; meat jellies, roast goose, soft dumplings, and a boiled grain I didn’t recognize. No wine, but there was beer. We ate until our bellies were groaning, while a steady stream of servants brought clothing for us to peruse. Once I’d finished eating and donned clean attire, I felt nearly human.

A Yeshuite chirurgeon came to examine Urist’s leg. He poked and prodded, then complimented the job we’d done of splinting it and cautioned against removing the splint for at least another two weeks. I translated his comments for Urist, who grunted in disgust.

It was evening before Micah ben Ximon called on us.

In my mind, he was still the young man in the stories I’d heard. It was absurd, of course. I’d been a babe in swaddling clothes when Joscelin had taught Micah ben Ximon to fight with Cassiline daggers. The man who entered our quarters was nearing forty. He had the olive complexion of the Habiru, a neatly trimmed black beard, intense dark eyes, and the air of a man accustomed to being obeyed. How not? He was Tadeuz Vral’s warlord.

“So,” ben Ximon said without preamble, speaking Habiru. He must have learned from the chirurgeon that I spoke it. “I was told you know me. I think this is untrue.”

It seemed the message had gotten garbled somewhere in translation. “Not you, my lord,” I replied. “I know Joscelin Verreuil.” I raised my brows. “Best known in Vral, it seems, as the
angel
who appeared to you in a vision?”

Ben Ximon gave a startled laugh.
“Joscelin?”
His expression shifted into a complicated look I couldn’t decipher. “How?”

“He’s my foster-father,” I said simply. It wasn’t true, strictly speaking, since Phèdre and Joscelin had never wed. But it was true enough.

Micah ben Ximon stared at me. When the guards had asked my name, I’d given it as Imriel nó Montrève. His lips moved, sounding it out. His eyes widened. “You’re
her
son,” he said slowly, switching unexpectedly to Caerdicci.

“Phèdre’s?” I nodded. “Yes.”

“No.” His mouth twisted wryly. “Prince Benedicte’s D’Angeline bride. I saw her unveiled in the Temple of Asherat that day. We didn’t leave La Serenissima until six months after it happened. I spent half my life there. I remember her face. I remember the name of her babe, who went missing that day. You have emerged from a past I would forget, bearing both. And you are telling me lies.”

Urist glanced from one of us to the other, trying to read our tones.

I sighed. “My lord, my full name is Imriel nó Montrève de la Courcel, and I have not lied to you. I was born to Melisande Shahrizai and Benedicte de la Courcel. I was adopted into the household of Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève and her consort, Joscelin Verreuil. It is a very, very long story. But it is a true one.”

“Tell me,” Micah ben Ximon said shortly.

I told him.

He was a good listener. He sat silent, staring at the ceiling, evincing no signs of impatience. When I had finished explaining how my mother had dispatched me to the Sanctuary of Elua, how I had been abducted by slave-traders and ended in Drujan, how Phèdre and Joscelin had rescued and adopted me, he let out a long, weary sigh. “So how is it, Prince Imriel de la Courcel, that you come to be in Vralia, seeking the life of a Yeshuite pilgrim?”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, startled.

“Don’t.” Ben Ximon held out one hand, forestalling me. “If you’ve not lied to me yet, I pray you, do not start. It is clear that your tattooed companion hails from Alba. There was a skirmish on the southern border of Vralia some ten days ago, along the pilgrims’ route. It seems a small party of Albans were hunting a pilgrim, asking questions. My men dispatched several of them and sent the rest packing. You are fortunate that I was able to keep the matter quiet. Tadeuz Vral has ties to Skaldia and hopes of trading with Alba. I did not want him to hear of it. I’ve posted a heavy guard along the border lest others follow.”

I felt sick. “What has that to do with me?”

“I don’t know.” His dark gaze was steady. “Tell me.”

I was silent for a long moment. “The man they were hunting killed my wife.”

“I see.” He looked away. “You are sure of this?”

“Yes,” I said.

Micah ben Ximon rose and walked across the room, hands clasped behind his back. I explained to Urist in a low voice what we had discussed. Urist winced at the news of Alban deaths.

“It is a dangerous thing to bring a dream to life,” ben Ximon said without turning around. “Here in Vralia, I have watched my deepest, dearest hopes take shape. And I am not entirely sure I like the shape they have taken.”

“The cross and not the
khai
?” I asked.

“Yes.” He turned to face me. “Your wife’s killer would not be the first criminal to seek refuge in Vralia under the mantle of Yeshua’s name. There have been others; Skaldi fleeing persecution for some petty crime. Tadeuz Vral possesses all the zeal of a true convert. He extends his protection to anyone willing to acknowledge his rule and the divine sovereignty of Yeshua ben Yosef.”

“Including murderers?” I asked.

“Anyone,” he said.

“This is a matter of justice.” I held his gaze. “My lord, the man we seek is guilty. I daresay he would admit it himself if we found him. If nothing else, I ask only the right to escort him back to Alba where he might be tried for his crime.”

Micah ben Ximon shook his head. “Vral will not allow it.”

“Then I will seek justice on my own terms,” I said.

His lips curved. “I would expect such persistence from Joscelin Verreuil’s foster-son.” He paused. “I’m sorry. You must have loved your wife very much.”

My jaw tensed. “Not as much as she deserved.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Vengeance and guilt. A powerful mix.”

“She was carrying our child,” I said. “Nearly full term. She was the niece of the Cruarch of Alba. If our son had lived, he would have been Alba’s eventual heir.”

Another complicated emotion crossed ben Ximon’s face. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. He returned to take his seat, steepling his fingers and thinking. “But even so, I cannot give you aid or sanction,” he said slowly. “And if you are caught, I cannot promise protection. I can only advise you to be careful. Tadeuz Vral is distracted by his brother’s escape. They have been at odds for some years now. If my men do not catch Fedor before he reaches a stronghold—and I doubt they will, since it is rumored there were Tatar tribesmen with swift mounts awaiting him outside the city walls—there may be once again be war in Vralia.”

“Yeshua’s victory proved short-lived,” I observed.

“It’s the damned Tatars,” ben Ximon said.

It wasn’t a sentiment with which I could disagree. “Why do they support Fedor Vral?”

“He admires them,” he said. “Prince Fedor is willing to promise the khans eternal rights to vast tracts of grazing land. To keep them free of pilgrim settlements. To bribe the tribes to leave the eastern trade routes alone.”

“And Tadeuz isn’t?” I asked.

“No.” Micah ben Ximon regarded me. “His head is full of prophecy. He believes that God has chosen him to be the rock on which a new kingdom is founded, and that I am his strong right hand, his sword to carve out a path for Yeshua’s return. The first step is conquering or converting Fedor’s loyalists and the Tatars. He will not treat with them in any other way.”

“What do you believe?”

He shrugged. “Eight years ago, when Tadeuz Vral sent for me, my soul was on fire. I handed him a victory. I saw his heart change and the light of true faith shine from his face. I believed what he believed. Now . . .” He paused. “Already, the face of my people’s faith is changing. In a generation’s time, it may become unrecognizable. Perhaps it is Yeshua’s will. I no longer know what I believe.”

We spoke for a while longer, and I translated his words for Urist. In the end, it was agreed that we should stick to the tale I’d concocted. We were adventurers, sent to scout out the prospects in Vralia; Urist as one of the Cruarch’s trusted commanders, and me as a young D’Angeline nobleman whose family had known Micah ben Ximon long ago. Ben Ximon was willing to vouch for us that far, at least.

Due to his injury, Urist would remain at the palace while I explored the land and verified with my own eyes the existence of the fabled river trade routes of Vralia.

And hunted for Berlik.

If I was caught, ben Ximon warned me, he would disavow any knowledge of my true purpose. He might be able to intervene with Tadeuz Vral and save me; or not. He made no promises. Vral was unpredictable.

“Fair enough,” I said. “It’s more than I expected.” I paused. “Why?”

“You remind me of him,” he said. “A little bit, anyway.”

“Tadeuz Vral?”

“Joscelin.” Micah ben Ximon smiled, a real smile. “Single-minded and stubborn as hell.” His smile turned wistful, and for the first time I could see the fierce, idealistic young man he must have been. “He taught me a great deal. I always hoped he would be proud of me if he knew what I’d done with it.”

“I know the feeling,” I murmured.

“And now I hope
I
may be proud of it.” He rose. “The men who were killed, the Albans . . . my men challenged them, and they fought. I’m sorry. Were they companions of yours?”

“Yes.” I relayed his words to Urist, who gave a curt nod of acknowledgment. I daresay the news made the same sick lump in his belly that it did in mine, but neither of us were in a position to do aught about it. “They took their chances.”

“As will you.” Ben Ximon tilted his head. “Is it worth the price?”

“We chose this freely,” I said. “My wife didn’t.”

He sighed. “I wish you luck.”

The meeting left me restless and impatient. My course was set. I knew where I was bound; the village of Kargad, along the Ulsk River, a tributary of the Volkov. That was where Adelmar had told me the pilgrims with whom Berlik was travelling were headed. I would find them and lie to them. Tell them I was sent by his kinswoman, Morwen. That, too, was true enough in its own way. It was her meddling that had set this long nightmare in motion.

And then I would find him, and kill him.

So long as he didn’t kill me first.

Urist and I sorted through our baggage. I picked out the warmest and sturdiest of the clothing Tadeuz Vral’s servants had brought. My sword-belt and blades, my flint striker. The better of the two hunting bows, and four steel-tipped arrows Urist had hoarded. My vambraces. The croonie-stone for remembrance. A blanket. A waterskin. Hugues’ wooden flute. An assortment of D’Angeline and Vralian coinage.

“And this.” Urist rummaged in his packs and handed me a leather drawstring bag, stiff with dried saltwater. “Here.”

I eyed it. “What’s this?”

“To carry his head,” he said. “It was full of lime powder, but it dissolved in the shipwreck. I saved the bag.”

I stowed it in my pack. “My thanks.”

“Boil it down to the bone,” Urist said. “Otherwise it will stink. It’s all right, the skull will be enough. The lime would have done as much.”

“Good to know,” I said.

“So who do you think was killed?” he asked.

“I wish I knew,” I said softly.

“So do I.” Amid the bounty the palace servants had provided us, there was a small stoppered jug of somewhat they called
starka
, a rye spirit flavored with fruits and spices. Urist found a pair of cups and poured for us. “They were men of honor,” he said. “May their spirits rest easily. May all the gods and goddesses of Alba welcome them home.”

We drank.

Urist set down his cup. “I don’t like this,” he said somberly. “Any of it. A zealous prince with a head full of odd beliefs, with no care for our honor. A strange place, a hostile place, and you all alone. That was never meant to be.”

You were all alone, kneeling in a snowstorm, beneath a barren tree . . .

“I’m not so sure of that,” I said.

“Still.” Urist balled one hand into a fist and thumped the outside of his stiff, braced leg. “I would that I were going with you.”

“So do I.” I took another swig of
starka
. It burned. “Believe me, I do. Urist, if I get caught, promise me you’ll do the same as Micah ben Ximon. Promise me you’ll disavow all knowledge of my purpose here.”

He grunted. “I’m done with making promises.”

I refilled our cups. “Please?”

Urist gave me a long, dour look. “Just get the bastard’s head, my prince.”

F
IFTY-TWO

B
EFORE
I
DEPARTED
V
RALGRAD
, I had an audience with the Grand Prince Tadeuz Vral.

I rather liked him.

I hadn’t expected that.

The summons came in the morning. It was a hasty affair—he was, as Micah ben Ximon had indicated, primarily concerned with his brother’s escape. But he had heard the news and made time to meet with me in his chambers while he broke his fast.

“Sit,” he said when I was ushered into his presence. “Eat.”

I sat.

Tadeuz Vral studied me curiously. I studied him back. He was clean-shaven, with the same rugged bones I’d come to associate with Vralians, the skin stretched taut over the cheeks. Brown hair, lively brown eyes. No older than Micah. He grinned at me. Strong, white teeth. “Terre d’Ange, eh?”

I nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

He said somewhat in a rapid spate of Rus. I shook my head, perplexed. Prince Tadeuz Vral reached across the table and took my chin in his hand, slapping my cheek lightly with easy familiarity. I was so startled, I didn’t have time to take offense at it. “Your people are born long ago from
angels
, eh? So Micah says. Very nice. You make believers.”

“In Terre d’Ange?” I asked, bewildered.

“Here. Yeshua’s blood, yes? The Rebbes say angels walk the earth and talk to chosen people. Very beautiful like you. Maybe God sent you, too. I pray it is so.” He beckoned to an attendant, who stepped forward and opened a sizable purse. Vral took a careless handful of coins from it and bestowed them on me, then made a shooing gesture with both hands. “Go, go! Go explore. Is a bad time, with my brother. Come back. We talk.”

I went.

I didn’t know what to make of Tadeuz Vral. There had been a warmth there; somewhat human. I’d thought to find him more like the Mahrkagir.
He’d
had a head full of odd prophecies, all right. And they’d damn near come true. If it weren’t for Phèdre, they would have. Angra Mainyu, and ten thousand years of darkness. This felt very different.

I took my leave of the palace and made my way to the wharf, my battered saddlebags slung over my shoulder, the hunting bow and four arrows lashed to the strap.

I was alone.

I was well and truly alone, for the first time . . . well, since Daršanga, really. There had been isolated moments in Tiberium, but they were only moments. It felt strange.

There was a small market at the wharf. I bought strips of salted beef, hard biscuits, and dried fruit for the journey; staples that wouldn’t spoil. There was a vendor selling luck-charms; pendants with flared crosses. I noticed a number of sailors wearing them. I purchased one, an inexpensive affair of painted wood and cheap gilt. With a twinge of guilt, I strung it around my neck. The vendor nodded in approval. I glanced toward the city, where the spires of the temple were visible.

“Forgive me, Yeshua,” I murmured. “I mean no blasphemy.”

There was no reply, no sense of presence. I wondered what Yeshua ben Yosef, the Habiru prince who had been the One God’s son incarnate on Earth, would have made of these new followers of his.

I found passage to the southeast with a handful of taciturn fur-traders led by a fellow named Jergens. It was a small ship, smaller than the one that had brought us to Vralgrad, but when I pointed and asked, “Kargad?” they beckoned me aboard. They had room, having sold their goods in the city, and I reckoned the rivers wouldn’t be as dangerous as the sea.

We were three days on the Volkov before we reached the Ulsk tributary. When we first cleared the wharf, Jergens surreptitiously tossed somewhat over the side of the railing, muttering under his breath. He caught me watching him and glared.

“You not tell,” he said, pointing to my cross pendant.

“Tell what?” I asked.

It took a while before he could make himself understood, and Jergens wasn’t a talkative man, but there wasn’t much else to do on a small ship. It had been an offering to the
vodyanoi
, the water-spirit of the Volkov; a piece of superstition banned by Tadeuz Vral. People were not punished for keeping the old faiths, at least not overtly, but it was discouraged. If it became known that Jergens and his fellows did, merchants in Vralgrad would be reluctant to buy their next shipment of furs.

I thought about that on our journey. Thought about the speed with which Vralia was changing, and the way Vralia was changing the face of Yeshuite faith. About Alba and the Maghuin Dhonn, and how they had feared the old ways would be lost. About the vision of my son, Dorelei’s and my son, who would have brought about that very thing.

And I wondered for the first time . . . if I were Berlik, if I had seen that future stumbling toward inevitability, what would I have done?

It was a chilling notion.

Still, I thought, change is not always bad. Of a surety, Terre d’Ange had changed when Elua and his Companions made it their home. In a few short generations’ time, they had set their stamp on us, permanently and irrevocably. On our hearts, our minds, in our very blood. We were D’Angeline.

But it hadn’t happened at the point of a sword.

What I’d said to Sidonie—the words she had quoted back to me, my mother’s words—was true. Blessed Elua cared naught for thrones or crowns. Those were mortal ambitions. Nor did he care for glory or power or the fulfillment of mysterious prophecies or, insofar as I knew, aught but love, desire, and the myriad pleasures with which life was filled. I understood that in a way I never had before.

I thought about Yeshua ben Yosef, too. I wished I knew more about him. I’d never read the books of his life, the Brit Khadasha. But I’d heard Eleazar ben Enokh speak of him. I didn’t think that the Yeshua he worshipped, a god of forgiveness and compassion, wished to carve out a kingdom with steel and blood. Still, after a lifetime of study, even Eleazar could not say for certain what this passage or that passage had meant.

That was the problem, Urist had said, with trusting to the written word. There was a truth to his claim; but I wasn’t sure trusting to the spoken word and the chain of memory, as the Cruithne did, was any more reliable. When it came to the Maghuin Dhonn, the truth was Drustan had told me was not the truth the harpist Ferghus had sung for us. We were human, mortal and fallible. We forgot, we made errors, argued ambiguities, and twisted meanings to suit our own ends.

And in so doing, mayhap we reshaped the gods themselves.

Now
that
was a thought made me shudder to the bone. I wondered if it were true, and if it were, what would happen when some deity bent out of true by mortal ambition returned to set the record straight.

I wished there was someone with whom I could discuss such matters—who knows, mayhap Jergens would have taken a surprising interest—but my Rus was too poor for such heady conversation. So I sat with my thoughts in silence, huddling in my thick woolen coat when the wind blew, gnawing on salt beef, stale biscuits, and dried figs, taking a turn at the oars when we were becalmed, until we reached Kargad.

It was a pleasant little village, situated on the bank of the Ulsk. Men in fishing boats trawling for eel or trout glanced curiously at us as we headed for the narrow wharf. Habiru faces, for the most part. This was a settlement, not a trading post.

My arrival was unceremonious. Jergens didn’t even bother to secure the ship, merely drew abreast of the dock, hovering long enough that I could toss my pack ashore and leap across the gap. He gave me a brief wave of farewell, and that was that. For the fur-traders it was out oars and back to the river, eager to set their traps before the snow fell. When all was said and done, I supposed I was lucky to be travelling with such an incurious crew.

I shouldered my bags and set about finding Berlik’s pilgrims.

It was, in truth, a good deal easier than I’d feared. Thanks to Adelmar of the Frisii, I knew I was looking for the families of Ethan of Ommsmeer and his wife. There were several women haggling with fishermen over buckets of eels along the wharf. I took the simplest approach, and asked one of them, speaking in Habiru. I picked the prettiest of the lot, a young woman who’d been stealing glances at me since I arrived, a small toddler clinging to her skirts.

“Your pardon, my lady,” I said politely. “Do you know the house of Ethan of Ommsmeer?”

She blushed. “I do.”

I stooped, balancing my pack, and picked up her bucket. “Will you show me?” I asked. “I’ll carry your . . .” I didn’t know the Habiru word for “eels.” “. . . your long fish.”

Her blush deepened. “I will.”

Elua knows what she thought of me. I’d not given much consideration to Tadeuz Vral’s words; that my face, my heritage as a scion of Elua and Kushiel, would lend credence to the mythos of Yeshua. In Terre d’Ange, as in other civilized nations, our presence is taken for granted. I imagined most Yeshuite pilgrims would know this, coming as they did from other lands. We are, as Eamonn always teased me, a pretty folk. But by the way my guide looked at me, uncertain and daring, I guessed she was unsure of my origins.

She couldn’t have been any older than Ravi. I wondered if she’d been born in Vralia. She led me through a narrow maze of streets, carrying the toddler.

“Here,” she said outside a wooden stoop. “Ethan’s home.”

“My thanks.” I inclined my head and hoisted the bucket. “And yours . . . ?”

“No, no!” She shifted her child, snatching the bucket. “It is not needed.”

Well, and so. I watched her hurry away down the streets of Kargad, carrying her child and her bucket, then raised my fist and knocked on the wooden door.

The woman who answered my knock didn’t look surprised to see me. A Habiru woman, although by virtue of her rounded cheeks and the stray locks of reddish-blonde hair escaping her kerchief, I daresay there was some Flatlander blood there, too. She stood silently in the doorway, regarding me.

“I’m looking for Berlik of Alba,” I said humbly. “I bear a message for him.”

“Ja.”
She studied me for a moment without saying anything further, then opened the door wider. “We have been expecting you. Come in.”

It wasn’t a response I’d been anticipating, but I kept my mouth shut on that fact and entered. The house was a tiny one-room affair, divided by a hearth in the center that was the sole source of heat and, at the moment, light. There were beds built into niches in the walls. A young boy sat on the upper bunk, swinging his legs and staring at me with wide, dark eyes.

“Go fetch your father, my heart,” his mother said gently to him. “You know where he is? Working on the cow-byre with Uncle Nisi?” The boy nodded vigorously and scrambled down the ladder on short, sturdy legs, leaving the door ajar in his haste. His mother smiled after him, closing the door in his wake.

“A good-looking boy,” I ventured.

“He takes after his father,” she said. “But it was Berlik saved his life.”

“Oh?” I kept my tone neutral.

“Ja.”
She pointed to the area beyond the hearth, where a table and chairs stood. “Please, sit. Ethan will be here soon. There is pottage if you are hungry, or I can make griddle-cakes.”

The thought of hot food made my mouth water. “No thank you, my lady.” I set down my pack and took a seat. “How did Berlik come to save your son’s life?”

“You should eat. You have come a long way.” She withdrew a bowl from a neat little cupboard and ladled a serving of pottage into it, setting it before me. “We were crossing a bridge over the Voorwijk when the harness broke. The cart tipped. A great deal happened at once, and we did not see that Adam had fallen into the river.” She placed a tin spoon beside the bowl. “Berlik was travelling the road behind us. He saw. He plunged into the river and rescued him.”

I took a bite of pottage. “That must have been terrifying.”

“It was.” She sat opposite me and offered nothing further. I ate in silence. The sound of my spoon scraping the bowl seemed loud.

“Thank you, my lady,” I said, finishing. “How shall I call you?”

“Galia,” she said briefly.

“Galia.” I nodded. “I am Imriel.”

“Im-ri-el.” She said it slowly. “The eloquence of God.”

There was a noise at the door; her husband entered, stooping low to cross the threshold, his son on his shoulders. A whiff of cow-dung entered with them. He swung the boy down and set him on his feet. I rose in acknowledgment. “So you have come,” Ethan of Ommsmeer said gravely. “As Berlik said you would.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. “Will you sit and drink a cup of beer?”

I shrugged. “If it would please you.”

He didn’t answer that, either, but went to wash his hands at the basin. I wondered if he was stalling for time. Galia fetched a pair of porcelain cups, filling them from a small keg in the corner, then took the boy and went into the front portion of the house, sitting beside the hearth and sewing quietly. Ethan took the seat opposite me at the table, and I sat again.

“Berlik is a good man, I think,” he said at length. “A good man who has done a bad thing.”

“Did he tell you that?” I asked.

“In time.” Ethan sipped his beer. “At first he did not speak our tongue, although he learned it swiftly. But I knew. I could see the shadow of guilt that haunted his eyes, strongest of all when he gazed at Adam.”

“And yet you trusted him with your son,” I said.

Ethan met my eyes. His were dark, like his son’s; quiet and soulful, set in a worn, gentle face. “He saved Adam’s life,” he said. “He traded his robe to buy us goods we could scarce afford. Adam thought him wondrous. I persuaded him to stay, to travel with us, for the boy’s sake. Yes. I trusted him.”

“And in time, you spoke,” I said.

“Yes.” He looked down, turning the cup in his hands. Strong hands, laborer’s hands, engrained with dirt that a single scrubbing wouldn’t remove. “He told me he had done a thing too terrible to speak of. That he must flee as far as he might, carrying its curse on his shoulders, carrying it far, far from his people.” He glanced up at me. “And as he learned our tongue, I spoke to him of Yeshua ben Yosef, who lived and died in the flesh that he might take the sins of all mankind on his shoulders and bear them for eternity. All men, even such a man as Berlik.”