"
Nelatha giggled, and Si'Wren smiled also.
It must be a joke, of course.
Si'Wren and Nelatha both loved to privily mock the moneymakers. The
wheelers and dealers must provide their own fare, and were much
obsessed with money-making schemes in the market place. They were
shrewd cheats, long accustomed to swapping not only goods, but lies and
lives, and often resorted to savage ambushes and bloodlettings after
dark. There was ample reason to be fearful of the night. Hence, they
deserved not only to be feared, but mocked on occasion.
Nelatha giggled because the artificers who made the idols always acted
so godly and superior, and were so full of the greed of dogs but could
never seem to suspect the similarity of themselves to such lowly
creatures. It seemed to the two girls like Heaven's well-deserved gift
of madness to such evil ones.
At least, that was Si'Wren's unspoken opinion. However, it would never
do for a mere slave girl to be so blunt as to speak with such open
foolishness. Si'Wren always guarded her thoughts. For as the wise men,
who ever sat in the city gates, were fond of repeating so often and so
well-deservedly, 'What is foolishly uttered in private, will surely be
regretted openly in public'.
Wise counsel dictated that one such as Si'Wren must not criticize
others more important than herself (which was virtually everybody),
even if she saw cutthroats setting up their gods of greed under every
green tree, with which to furnish themselves an imagined, perpetual
divine approval of their moral filth and wickedness.
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