Humility’s anguish was great at the telling of these lies.

“It will take too long.” He made the gesture of impatience. “Disillusionment will come to an old woman when I am long-used soup stock. I cannot wait. I am too old.”

“One week. It will take no longer.”

“You dream!”

Sieen smiled as the prophetess smiles. “I promise you.”

She could see the tension drain from him before he spoke. “I will give him one more week to live.”

She abandoned her stringed instrument. Arms about his neck, smiling, she reached up to kiss him, not as a prophetess but as a lover. “In the meantime, I’m glad to have you all to myself. For the whole of a week!”

He laughed and lifted her feet off the rug by the crotch so that the kissing might be easier for her. He carried her body to the pillows. She squirmed away.

“Some Oza first!”

“Oza! When I have you?”

“It clears your head. It cleans your bile. Besides, it sweetens your mouth so that you are all the more kissable!” While she spoke, she was pouring the Oza on top of a single dew drop of the essence of the blue petals of her Assassin’s Delight. This poison did not survive in the body and so could not contaminate the Funeral Feast. She handed him Kathein’s goblet. Liethe fingers took her own.

“To love,” she said. “May we live long enough to taste all of its pleasures!”

He drank. She drank. He flirted with the jewels at her ankle. She took him in love, knowing exactly how much time she had. Every motion was Liethe perfect, the touches, the pauses, the rhythm, the sighs. Clumsy Kathein had never honored him like this. She straddled him, her hands tender on his carved face, her arms compressing her breasts. “Remember me my love. Remember this heartbeat of time, for in the end it is all we have.”

“My little friend,” he said and pulled her to him, giving her his semen. The union was so complete that in her shudders she felt the very poison in his blood. The tears came and he kissed her eyes.

She was holding his head in her lap, tousling his hair, whispering endless nothings while the fuzziness that he thought was alcohol came upon him. His hands jerked. “Sieen. My heart!”

She found no last words. He died. She bawled. Of what use is the White Mind when you are alone with a dead lover? For a moment she calmed herself enough to remove all evidence of the crime. Then she went back to the pillows and hugged the corpse and did not stop crying.

“Oh Aesoe! Why did you break the rules so often?” Sobs caught her again. She pulled her voice into a half choking, half lecturing tone. “You can break the rules but there are consequences. Didn’t your teacher ever tell you that? Silly man.” She talked to his body, to herself, affectionately patting Aesoe from time to time, pulling the covers over him so he would not get cold, kissing him.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to figure out another way. But no one helped. I didn’t know how. Why do we always use the solutions of our training? You too!” she scolded. “I don’t want to kill people. I want to love them!” She touched her lips to the still-warm lips. “You were a great man and I loved you and I’m mad at you!”

She tried to surround his cooling body with her body to give him warmth.

But in the morning she woke beside a statue of Aesoe done in alabaster, a low relief of symbols carved on its surface. She ran her fingers along the cold stone and there were no more tears.

MOST OF KAIEL-HONTOKAE seemed to be at the Funeral Feast. The tables of food at the Temple of Human Destiny would have ended a famine. The great gongs never stopped sounding. Aesoe was the steaming centerpiece, below the stained glass, skinned, dressed, decorated, roasted, no longer human. The entertainment that whirled around him never ended. His three Liethe danced for him a mourning song that crawled from the blacks and browns of a dirge to the ebullient roses and reds and pinks of birth. Aesoe’s little children fluttered about being important, serving the food, keeping order.

Men gave speeches and men wept, cooks rolled in carts of food, choirs sang, whisky flowed, robed Kaiel flowed about their temple like trapped floodwaters from a sudden melt.

The Queen of Life-before-Death found herself huddled under a table to avoid the crush, savoring her own small strip of Aesoe, dreaming dreams, feeling his strength. She saw a black and purple robe pass by and grabbed at its legs. The wearer of the robe looked down. She peered out smiling.

“I’m Honey — just in case you didn’t recognize me.”

“Who but Honey would be hiding under a table?” grinned Gaet.

“That’s a hat you’re wearing?” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” she asked breathlessly.

“I thought Polite Form required my presence. Travelled my bum off non-stop by skrei-wheel. God’s Laugh if I won’t be bow-legged for weeks! Wasn’t sure it was safe for Hoemei to come. Joesai is in the bush somewhere chasing his tail and Teenae didn’t even want me to come.”

“Did Kathein reach Sorrow safely? Aesoe was so upset!”

“If it didn’t give him heart failure! Kathein’s arrival was a surprise! There will be a wedding when Joesai and I get back. This unfortunate Feast makes it easier.”

Honey pulled Gaet’s head down to her ear level. “You’re such a hypocrite,” she whispered. “Why do you say ‘unfortunate’ when you mean ‘fortunate’!”

“Not ‘hypocrite’; the word is ‘diplomat’,” he corrected. “Let’s get out of here. They’ve run out of meat. Funerals are a pain when there are more than twenty people. Never get enough to eat.”

“May I just go with you? Just like that?”

“I give shelter to the unemployed. Or shall I be your private escort to the hive?”

“Not there!”

“My humble home?”

“God yes. Is it still standing?” she teased. “I thought the Expansionists might have burned it down by now.”

Halfway there she couldn’t resist the question that was dominating her mind. “Do you think they’ll make Hoemei Prime Predictor?” She was clinging to Gaet’s arm.

He grinned and bumped her hip affectionately. “I think you like my brother.” He was teasing.

“I want to know!”

“Yes. It is checkmate. Hoemei was blocked every which way by Aesoe. Aesoe was the key piece. So the Black Queen took him off the board and now it is a new game and I believe Hoemei has control.”

Gaet escorted her through the maran’s darkened city mansion, straight to his room. He brought out gold coin and gave it to her without any preliminaries in repayment for the sexual favors he was obviously expecting. She stiffened. Suddenly their camaraderie was gone and she felt alone in the whole universe. “That’s not the way it is done,” she said coldly. “All money matters are handled by the crones. A gift as bonus might be welcome if I were to please you enough.”

He laughed while he undressed. “I offer my apologies,” he said without being the least contrite. “I’m used to the way wives handle their husbands.”

“I’m not your wife.” She was surprised at her anger.

He was staring at her as if she was a child on the auction block. “You could have been. Hoemei really loved you. He wanted me and Joesai to love you, too. We were very short of a woman then. It is hard for two women to keep up with three men.”