"Druuvel dich net!" he said. "I am only thinking. These blackfolk now, these neighbors who were before last night our friends, speak of Light as our bishop at home speaks of Grace. To have it is to have all, to be one with the congregation. If I can find this Light, we and the Sarki and his people can again be friends." Aaron sat down. "I must learn what I have done wrong," he said.
"Other than drink a glass of cider now and then, and make worldly music with a guitar, you've done no wrong," Martha said stubbornly. "You're a good man."
"In the Old Order, I am a good man, so long as no Diener makes trouble over a bit of singing or cider," Aaron said. "As a guest on Murna, I have done some deed that has hurt this Mother-god, whom our neighbors hold dear."
"Heathenish superstition!"
"Martha, love, I am older than you, and a man," Aaron said. "Give me room to think! If the goddess-Mother is heathen as Baal, it matters not; these folk who worship her hold our future in their hands. Besides, we owe them the courtesy not to dance in their churches nor to laugh at their prayers; even the 'English' have more grace than that." Aaron pondered. "Something in the springtime is the Murnan Mother's gift, her greatest gift. What?"
"Blaspheme not," Martha said. "Remember Him who causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth."
"Wife, is the True God less, if these people call Him Mother?" Aaron demanded.
"We are too far from home," the woman sighed. "Such heavy talk is wearisome; it is for bishops to discourse so, not ordinary folk like us."
"If I can't find the light," Aaron said, "this farm we live on, and hoped to leave to our children, isn't worth the water in a dish of soup." He slapped his hands together and stood to pace. "Martha, hear me out," he said. "If a woman be with child, and a man takes her with lust and against her will, is not that man accursed?"