"Are you the Man of Sorrows?" she said.

The fruit peeler shrugged. "Isn't everybody tonight?" he said, tossing the uneaten fruit away.

The cretin leapt down the steps and snatched it up, pushing the entire thing into his mouth so that his face bulged and the juice ran from his lips.

"You're the cause of this," the peeler said, jabbing his knife in Quaisoir's direction. He glanced around at the Oethac. "She was at the harbor. I saw her."

"Who is she?" the Oethac said.

"The Autarch's woman," came the reply. "Quaisoir." He took a step towards her. "You are, aren't you?"

She could no more deny this than she could take flight. If this man was indeed Jesu, she couldn't begin her pleas for forgiveness with a lie.

"Yes," she told him, "I'm Quaisoir. I was the Autarch's woman."

"She's fucking beautiful," the Oethac said.

"What she looks like doesn't matter," the fruit peeler told him. "It's what she's done that's important."

"Yes," Quaisoir said, daring to believe now that this was indeed the Son of David. "That's what's important. What I've done."

"The executions ..."

"Yes."

"The purges ..."

"Yes."

"I've lost a lot of friends, and you're the reason."

"Oh, Lord, forgive me," she said, and dropped to her knees.

"I saw you at the harbor this morning," Jesu said, approaching her as she knelt. "You were smiling."

"Forgive me."

"Looking around and smiling. And I thought, when I saw you—"

He was three paces away from her now.

"—your eyes glittering—"