Madame’s smile had a lively, rolling glow, as Hera or Demeter wear in frescoes. “My dear Martin, Dominic I can predict.”

Martin frowned. “I do not exaggerate, Madame, when I say I believe myself to be possibly the most predictable person on Earth.”

“Of course you are, dear Martin,” she answered, “but you can’t keep a secret from Jehovah for five minutes, and only Earth’s greatest fool would dare try to predict what He will do when you tell Him something.”

Martin considered that a moment. “It is certainly true, Madame, that I keep secrets from Domine only in the most extreme situations, but that is because, if Dominus orders or advises something, it is the right thing.”

She shook her head. “What He wants is not always what’s best.”

“False, Madame. Dominus always wants what is best. You raised them thus.”

Spain and Caesar watched in quiet fascination as ever-calculating Martin judged it worthwhile to raise his voice in argument against immovable Madame.

“You flatter me, Martin,” she replied. “Every mother wants to think her child is perfect, but I know it’s not quite true.”

“Perhaps, but Dominus is morally perfect if not absolutely perfect. What they order does not always lead to success, but it is always the best of all possible human actions. If Dominus says we should kill Sniper, we should kill Sniper; if they say we should not, then there are reasons we should not.”

She laughed. “Jehovah isn’t actually infallible, Martin, appropriate as your devotion is.”

“No, Madame, nor are they omniscient, but still I believe no one in the history of the human race has ever erred less. It is not hubris when I say that I am myself reasonably wise, yet observation has proved to me that I am wrong much more often than Dominus. I know therefore that I choose the right thing more often when guided by Domine than when I choose on my own. To ignore or avoid their council, as you have done, Madame, is both irrational and immoral.”

“Dear Martin”—she reached toward him, as if to cup his cheek in her hand—“not even you can think it’s that black and white.”

“In fact, Madame, I do.”

“Martin the Manichean!” I screamed. I screamed it, reader, full force despite the pain, anemia, fatigue, and the utter inappropriateness of a slave interrupting kings. I couldn’t help it. If at an outdoor theatre, with brave Antigone monologuing her last hours, you spotted on the hill above the stage a unicorn, elusive, pure, and real, you too would forget decorum and shout and point to let actor and audience alike enjoy the long-sought vision. “Martin! That’s why our Master calls you Martin!”