“Yes. Very easy. Tell me, Captain. Are you also prepared to die?” Aspe picked a paper up and pushed it across the table. “Read that,” he said. “Read it aloud.”

It was a letter. It said:

I want a criminal—Thanakar Starbridge, of your staff—convicted in this city of adultery, murder, and attempted murder. Deliver him to the bearers of this letter. Do not thwart me in this. It is my jurisdiction.

Do not thwart me.

Chrism Demiurge

Kindness and Repair

Spring 8, Oct. 42, 00016

“I thwarted him,” said the colonel grimly. “The bearers of this letter—I stuffed their mouths with excrement and sewed them shut. I handcuffed them to their horses and sent them back.”

“It wasn’t their fault,” said Thanakar.

“It was their risk, serving such a master. It doesn’t matter. They came this morning. That’s why I sent for you. You are free to go.”

“Thank you for warning me.”

“No. It was a debt I didn’t want to think about again. You tried to save my family. Only, for the love of Angkhdt, why couldn’t you have been in time? Why couldn’t you have ridden faster? Then I would have paid your debt with my heart’s blood.” Aspe paused, his expression mixing rage and misery, the scars standing livid across his eyelids and his cheeks. Then he continued in a lower tone, deep in his throat.

“That was the end of me, that day. That was the end.”

“I tried,” said Thanakar stiffly. “Some wouldn’t have bothered.”

“What good is that?” shouted Aspe, rising to his feet. Upright, he seemed to take up the whole tent. He loomed above Thanakar, surrounded by shadows. “Tried!” he said. “That’s worse than useless. I tried too, to save your worthless life. Yes, and I succeeded. It is my habit. Go—the debt is paid. Take a horse and go. Ride north. There is . . . beautiful country that way, beyond the river Rang.”

“No. I’ll go back to the city.”

“You see?” cried Aspe. “And you, a doctor. Yet you wouldn’t ride a mile to save such a worthless life.”

“No,” said Thanakar. “It’s not that. I have things I must do. Dependents.”

“Barbarian! Your tail hangs down your leg. I give you freedom, and you think about your slaves.

Barbarian. It will mean your life.”

“Perhaps. But what did the letter say—‘adultery’?”

“Ah,” replied the colonel, softening his tone. “Does every man have some face that keeps him from himself? Even you?” He reached down to the table, to finger his childish drawing of the bishop’s face.

* * *