She knelt down beside the sobbing mother, but was immediately rebuffed by her.
"Get away from me, you filthy idol-breaker!" the woman screamed, wildly slapping Si'Wren off. "Get away!"
Shocked and mute, Si'Wren looked on numbly as the sobbing woman raised herself up and, stricken with grief, stumbled in a hysterical staggering traipse across the yard to fall down at the feet of a half-finished idol in the workshop, wailing desperately to it to bring back her daughter, or give her a son to replace the daughter who was lost.
Si'Wren knew that she had not broken the other idol, that dismembered thing of glistening green jade and jeweled eyes. It was Sorpiala who had cleverly broken the idol earlier, and only blamed it on poor Nelatha. But she also knew that it was beside the point who had broken it; idols -she now knew- deserved to be broken.
Anyways, it did not matter so much anymore. She was as guilty in their eyes as if she had. What mattered the most now, was that it was Sorpiala by whose evil machinations brave Habrunt, former Slavemaster, now lay a beaten and broken-spirited man on that blood-stained sleeping rack in the slave quarters.
Si'Wren turned away. She must go to him, and help wise old L'acoci tend to his wounds.
Chapter Four - Emperor Euphrates
Si'Wren turned away from the sobbing mother whose daughter had been sacrificed. The fact that she could do nothing for the poor woman left her with a twisting feeling in her gut. As she walked away, bitter tears stung her eyes as she began weeping hopelessly.
Si'Wren jerked suddenly as a flying pebble struck her on the cheek. Stunned, she looked up to see a group of dirt-streaked children gathered around. They had approached her so unexpectedly that she had been unaware of their presence.
As they jeered and threw more pebbles and small stones at her she put up her arms in self-defense, although a larger boy managed to cast some larger rocks that bruised her badly when they struck her shoulders and forearms.