Si'Wren quickly raised the cupped water to her lips as if she had only been drinking it, so as to avoid the risk of offending Emperor Euphrates with the possible idea that she had been casting an evil eye.
Emperor Euphrates seemed to be staring at Borla as if he had suddenly got a burr in his sandal or something, and Borla, unwilling to stoop so low as to risk being mocked over some empty accusation, said nothing. Then, as if thinking better of it, he negligently spat in the dirt at Si'Wren's feet as if she were not the deliberate but only the unintentional target, trading water for water and giving reply to her in such manner as befitted the imagined curse.
Si'Wren stepped back, afraid of political ruin should Borla find the right words to vent his anger upon her. One might as easily have glimpsed the reflection of the sun in any common lily pond, or even a mud puddle. It would only have shown forth all the more clearly, the beautiful symbolism of an Invisible God who created all things, and was above all things. Even the wind, which could be seen in the motion of the clouds and trees and in the waving fields of grain and prairie grass, was of a truth not seen at all. And when the wind blew, did not fire burn so much the more greatly?
Oh, that this supreme, Invisible God, who must be so like water, and fire, and even the wind itself, and who surely hated all stupid idols, might once show himself in all of His eternal glory!
Still Borla paused, no doubt bent upon her destruction for the imagined curse, or at least very real insult, which she had apparently inflicted upon him with a mere handful of water, but it was pointless for him to persecute her merely for so mundane an act as slaking her thirst.
Gaining no satisfaction in any of this, he said to her, "Scribe, thy services are needed. Hand me a tablet."
Obediently, Si'Wren turned to her kit, and fetched out and handed over one of the requested objects to Borla.
Borla took the tablet, which consisted of smooth clay within a split-bamboo frame, and turned it this way and that as he examined it as if cherishing some holy relic in an almost reverent manner.
Then, with a look of perplexity, he turned it face-down and began shaking it vigorously. With a dull series of wet plops, the clay shook loose in a series of irregular pieces and tumbled out onto the ground. He continued shaking it and turning it this way and that and slapping it with his other hand, his dark locks and beard moving rhythmically with the effort until all of the clay had fallen out onto the ground.
Borla observed the empty frame in his hands.