To think how he had finally found what was, to himself and her alone,
in this awful, accursed paradise, the true meaning of spiritual life.
That he had found it through the notorious persecutions and
back-bitings of others, preying viciously upon her nonidolatrous
beliefs.
For others had hated her, she knew, and talked behind her back. It was
by means of such spiteful, privily expressed hatred that the details of
her God had been so published abroad as to eventually reach his ears.
Others in their malice had spoken against Si'Wren for her beliefs, but
in their restless evil had only served God's good.
This was how, she was certain, that this lone man, this common foot
soldier, hearing of how evil she supposedly was, had dared to question
that spirit of unthinking hatred, and eventually believed also, and
paid the ultimate price for his beliefs while she had gone on about her
own business, blissfully unaware of his peril while she in her lofty
station had remained perfectly immune to all reproach.
This thought tore at her as nothing else. Now, she would suffer also,
for the sake of his memory and what he had believed and suffered and
died for. At least, she had made sure his cairn, that the largest of
wild beasts might never violate the grave.
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