“Did you now? I told you you were no longer a missionary. I haven’t changed a bit from those days at the academy, Dradin. You didn’t recognize me because you’ve changed, not I. I’m the same. I do not change. Which is more than you can say for the weather around here.”

It was time, Dradin decided, to take control of the conversation. It was not enough to counterpunch Cadimon’s drifting dialogue. He bent to his knees and gently placed the rest of the lilies in Cadimon’s lap.

“Sir,” he said. “I need a position. I have been out of my mind with the fever for three months and now, only just recovered, I long to return to the life of a missionary.”

“Determined to stick to a point, aren’t you?” Cadimon said. “A point stickler. A stickler for rules. I remember you. Always the sort to be shocked by a Living Saint rather than amused. Rehearsed rather than spontaneous. Oh well.”

“Cadimon…”

“Can you cook?”

“Cook? I can boil cabbage. I can heat water.”

Cadimon patted Dradin on the side of his stomach. “So can a hedgehog, my dear. So can a hedgehog, if pressed. No, I mean cook as in the Cooks of Kalay, who can take nothing more than a cauldron of bilge water and a side of beef three days old and tough as calluses and make a dish so succulent and sweet it shames the taste buds to eat so much as a carrot for days afterward. You can’t cook, can you?”

“What does cooking have to do with missionary work?”

“Oh, ho. I’d have thought a jungle veteran would know the answer to that! Ever heard of cannibals? Eh? No, that’s a joke. It has nothing to do with missionary work. There.” He patted the last of the lilies and rose to sit on the bench, indicating with a wave of the hand that Dradin should join him.

Dradin sat down on the bench next to Cadimon. “Surely, you need experienced missionaries?”

Cadimon shook his head. “We don’t have a job for you. I’m sorry. You’ve changed, Dradin.”

“But you and my father…” Blood rose to Dradin’s face. For he could woo until he turned purple, but without a job, how to fund such adventures in pocketbook as his new love would entail?

“Your father is a good man, Dradin. But this mission is not made of money. I see tough times ahead.”

Pride surfaced in Dradin’s mind like a particularly ugly crocodile. “I am a good missionary, sir. A very good missionary. I have been a missionary for over five years, as you know. And, as I have said, I am just now out of the jungle, having nearly died of fever. Several of my colleagues did not recover. The woman. The woman…”