“Holy one,” said Wang-mu.

It was as though Qing-jao's joy were made of glass, and Wang-mu had deliberately shattered it. Didn't she know that when a ritual was interrupted, it had to begin again? Qing-jao rose up on her knees and turned to face the girl.

Wang-mu must have seen the fury on Qing-jao's face, but didn't understand it. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she said at once, falling to her knees and bowing her head to the floor. “I forgot that I'm not to call you 'holy one.' I only meant to ask you what you were looking for, so I could help you search.”

It almost made Qing-jao laugh, that Wang-mu was so mistaken. Of course Wang-mu had no notion that Qing-jao was being spoken to by the gods. And now, her anger interrupted, Qing-jao was ashamed to see how Wang-mu feared her anger; it felt wrong for the girl to be touching her head to the floor. Qing-jao didn't like seeing another person so humiliated.

How did I frighten her so much? I was filled with joy, because the gods were speaking so clearly to me; but my joy was so selfish that when she innocently interrupted me, I turned a face of hate to her. Is this how I answer the gods? They show me a face of love, and I translate it into hatred toward the people, especially one who is in my power? Once again the gods have found a way to show me my unworthiness.

“Wang-mu, you mustn't interrupt me when you find me bowed down on the floor like that.” And she explained to Wang-mu about the ritual of purification that the gods required of her.

“Must I do this also?” said Wang-mu.

“Not unless the gods tell you to.”

“How will I know?”

“If it hasn't happened to you at your age, Wang-mu, it probably never will. But if it did happen, you'd know, because you wouldn't have the power to resist the voice of the gods in your mind.”

Wang-mu nodded gravely. “How can I help you, … Qing-jao?” She tried out her mistress's name carefully, reverently. For the first time Qing-jao realized that her name, which sounded sweetly affectionate when her father said it, could sound exalted when it was spoken with such awe. To be called Gloriously Bright at a moment when Qing-jao was keenly aware of her lack of luster was almost painful. But she would not forbid Wang-mu to use her name– the girl had to have something to call her, and Wang-mu's reverent tone would serve Qing-jao as a constant ironic reminder of how little she deserved it.

“You can help me by not interrupting,” said Qing-jao.

“Should I leave, then?”

Qing-jao almost said yes, but then realized that for some reason the gods wanted Wang-mu to be part of this penance. How did she know? Because the thought of Wang-mu leaving felt almost as unbearable as the knowledge of her unfinished tracing. “Please stay,” said Qing-jao. “Can you wait in silence? Watching me?”

“Yes, … Qing-jao.”

“If it goes on so long that you can't bear it, you may leave,” said Qingjao. “But only when you see me moving from the west to the east. That means I'm between tracings, and it won't distract me for you to leave, though you mustn't speak to me.”

Wang-mu's eyes widened. “You're going to do this with every grain of wood in every board of the floor?”

“No,” said Qing-jao. The gods would never be so cruel as that! But even as she thought this, Qing-jao knew that someday there might come a time when the gods would require exactly that penance. It made her sick with dread. “Only one line in each board in the room. Watch with me, will you?”

She saw Wang-mu glance at the time message that glowed in the air over her terminal. It was already the hour for sleep, and both of them had missed their afternoon nap. It wasn't natural for human beings to go so long without sleeping. The days on Path were half again as long as those on Earth, so that they never worked out quite evenly with the internal cycles of the human body. To miss the nap and then delay the sleep was a very hard thing.

But Qing-jao had no choice. And if Wang-mu couldn't stay awake, she'd have to leave now, however the gods resisted that idea. “You must stay awake,” said Qing-jao. “If you fall asleep, I'll have to speak to you so you'll move and uncover some of the lines I have to trace. And if I speak to you, I'll have to begin again. Can you stay awake, silent and unmoving?”

Wang-mu nodded. Qing-jao believed that she meant it; she did not really believe the girl could do it. Yet the gods insisted that she let her new secret maid remain– who was Qing-jao to refuse what the gods required of her?

Qing-jao returned to the first board and started her tracing over again. To her relief, the gods were still with her. On board after board she was given the boldest, easiest grain to follow; and when, now and then, she was given a harder one, it invariably happened that the easy grain faded or disappeared off the edge of the board partway along. The gods were caring for her.

As for Wang-mu, the girl struggled mightily. Twice, on the passage back from the west to begin again in the east, Qing-jao glanced at Wang-mu and saw her sleeping. But when Qing-jao began passing near to the place where Wang-mu had lain, she found that her secret maid had wakened and moved so quietly to a place where Qing-jao had already traced that Qing-jao hadn't even heard her movements. A good girl. A worthy choice for a secret maid.

At last, at long last Qing-jao reached the beginning of the last board, a short one in the very corner. She almost spoke aloud in joy, but caught herself in time. The sound of her own voice and Wang-mu's inevitable answer would surely send her back to start again– it would be an unbelievable folly. Qing-jao bent over the beginning of the board, already less than a meter from the northwest corner of the room, and began tracing the boldest line. It led her, clear and true, right to the wall. It was done.

Qing-jao slumped against the wall and began laughing in relief. But she was so weak and tired that her laughter must have sounded like weeping to Wang-mu. In moments the girl was with her, touching her shoulder. “Qing-jao,” she said. “Are you in pain?”

Qing-jao took the girl's hand and held it. “Not in pain. Or at least no pain that sleeping won't cure. I'm finished. I'm clean.”

Clean enough, in fact, that she felt no reluctance in letting her hand clasp Wang-mu's hand, skin to skin, without filthiness of any kind. It was a gift from the gods, that she had someone's hand to hold when her ritual was done. “You did very well,” said Qing-jao. “It was easier for me to concentrate on the tracing, with you in the room.”

“I think I fell asleep once, Qing-jao.”

“Perhaps twice. But you woke when it mattered, and no harm was done.”

Wang-mu began to weep. She closed her eyes but didn't take her hand away from Qing-jao to cover her face. She simply let the tears flow down her cheeks.

“Why are you weeping, Wang-mu?”

“I didn't know,” she said. “It really is a hard thing to be godspoken. I didn't know.”

“And a hard thing to be a true friend to the godspoken, as well,” said Qing-jao. “That's why I didn't want you to be my servant, calling me 'holy one' and fearing the sound of my voice. That kind of servant I'd have to send out of my room when the gods spoke to me.”

If anything, Wang-mu's tears flowed harder.

“Si Wang-mu, is it too hard for you to be with me?” asked Qing-jao.

Wang-mu shook her head.

“If it's ever too hard, I'll understand. You can leave me then. I was alone before. I'm not afraid to be alone again.”

Wang-mu shook her head, fiercely this time. “How could I leave you, now that I see how hard it is for you?”

“Then it will be written one day, and told in a story, that Si Wang-mu never left the side of Han Qing-jao during her purifications.”

Suddenly Wang-mu's smile broke across her face, and her eyes opened into the squint of laughter, despite the tears still shining on her cheeks. “Don't you hear the joke you told?” said Wang-mu. “My name– Si Wang-mu. When they tell that story, they won't know it was your secret maid with you. They'll think it was the Royal Mother of the West.”