A little earlier, right after making camp, one of Emperor Euphrates's Captains of Fifty had approached and thrown himself down before Emperor Euphrates, to complain loudly to the dust under his nose that Si'Wren's beauty was exceeding distracting to the men because of the way they could not help watching her while she consumed her food. He also alleged she was coquettish in her manner and playing the flirt to his men. They could not bear it, he said, and had voiced numerous and bitter complaints to him about such an unconquerable distraction.
Further, he declared that they were justified in their protestations, for behold, were they not all under enforced celibacy because they could not bring along their accustomed camp prostitutes on the long forced march to Noah's land?
Si'Wren, of course, could say nothing in her own defense, but expected that her Emperor might, because he already knew that she was sworn to such higher callings as precluded by their very nature the rottenness of character necessary for her to act in the manner she stood accused of. It was simply beneath her dignity, not to mention her calling. Besides which, her suitably modest behavior did not seem to have displeased Emperor Euphrates or Borla in the past, and this was the first time she had ever heard of such complaints.
But after her Emperor had ordered the Captain to return to his men, to her chagrin, he had commanded Si'Wren that she should retire to her tent whenever eating.
To Si'Wren, it seemed ridiculous, but henceforth she knew that she must comply obediently without question.
* * *
Now, the memory of her indignity was put aside as Si'Wren sat before Emperor Euphrates and inscribed in her tablets her intuitions regarding the Invisible God.
Tonight she was attempting to explain, out of her own ignorance, with but her own trueness of conscience to guide her, that the Invisible God was not the same thing as his creation, the world, and also that, although he was also spirit, or 'wind', he also liked to compare himself in some ways, although not all ways, to water.
For instance, one might venture to 'see' the Invisible God by a most curious trick of the eye, as by the discovered reflection of one's face when looking into the still, motionless surface of any pond or wash basin of water, which was also, after a fashion, invisible. In the same manner that might one 'see' all things by looking obliquely at their reflection in the still water, so also was the Invisible God both 'seen' in his creation, as by reflection upon water, and yet not seen at all, since water was itself invisible.
Emperor Euphrates read this upon her clay tablet, and smiled as he held low before her eyes the mirrored surface of a golden goblet of red wine and suggested, "This also, yes?"