“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!”