Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,124

did they see? How did they find out? Did the Speaker tell them? He's so addicted to truth. I have to explain to the piggies why we won't be coming back, I have to tell them.

A piggy always watched them, followed them from the moment they entered the forest. Could a piggy be watching now? Miro waved his hand. It was too dark, though. They couldn't possibly see him. Or perhaps they could; no one knew how good the piggies' vision was at night. Whether they saw him or not, they didn't come. And soon it would be too late; if the framlings were watching the gate, they had no doubt already notified Bosquinha, and she'd be on her way, zipping over the grass. She would be oh-so-reluctant to arrest him, but she would do her job, and never mind arguing with her about whether it was good for humans or piggies, either one, to maintain this foolish separation, she wasn't the sort to question the law, she just did what she was told. And he'd surrender, there was no reason to fight, where could he hide inside the fence, out among the cabra herds? But before he gave up, he'd tell the piggies, he had to tell them.

So he walked along the fence, away from the gate, toward the open grassland directly down the hill from the Cathedral, where no one lived near enough to hear his voice. As he walked, he called. Not words, but a high hooting sound, a cry that he and Ouanda used to call each other's attention when they were separated among the piggies. They'd hear it, they had to hear it, they had to come to him because he couldn't possibly pass the fence. So come, Human, Leafeater, Mandachuva, Arrow, Cups, Calendar, anyone, everyone, come and let me tell you that I cannot tell you any more.

Quim sat miserably on a stool in the Bishop's office.

"Estevão," the Bishop said quietly, "there'll be a meeting here in a few minutes, but I want to talk to you a minute first."

"Nothing to talk about," said Quim. "You warned us, and it happened. He's the devil."

"Estevão, we'll talk for a minute and then you'll go home and sleep."

"Never going back there."

"The Master ate with worse sinners than your mother, and forgave them. Are you better than he?"

"None of the adulteresses he forgave was his mother!"

"Not everyone's mother can be the Blessed Virgin."

"Are you on his side, then? Has the Church made way here for the speakers for the dead? Should we tear down the Cathedral and use the stones to make an amphitheater where all our dead can be slandered before we lay them in the ground?"

A whisper: "I am your Bishop, Estevão, the vicar of Christ on this planet, and you will speak to me with the respect you owe to my office."

Quim stood there, furious, unspeaking.

"I think it would have been better if the Speaker had not told these stories publicly. Some things are better learned in privacy, in quiet, so that we need not deal with shocks while an audience watches us. That's why we use the confessional, to shield us from public shame while we wrestle with our private sins. But be fair, Estevão. The Speaker may have told the stories, but the stories all were true. Né?"

"É."

"Now, Estevão, let us think. Before today, did you love your mother?"

"Yes."

"And this mother that you loved, had she already committed adultery?"

"Ten thousand times."

"I suspect she was not so libidinous as that. But you tell me that you loved her, though she was an adulteress. Isn't she the same person tonight? Has she changed between yesterday and today? Or is it only you who have changed?"

"What she was yesterday was a lie."

"Do you mean that because she was ashamed to tell her children that she was an adulteress, she must also have been lying when she cared for you all the years you were growing up, when she trusted you, when she taught you--"

"She was not exactly a nurturing mother."

"If she had come to the confessional and won forgiveness for her adultery, then she would never have had to tell you at all. You would have gone to your grave not knowing. It would not have been a lie; because she would have been forgiven, she would not have been an adulteress. Admit the truth, Estevão: You're not angry with her adultery. You're angry because you embarrassed yourself in front of the whole city by