Demansk sat on a nearby couch. “So what’s the problem, then?”
“Stop playing with me, damnation!” Jeschonyk scowled. “I may not be a scholar, but I have read the classics, you know. Wasn’t it Llawat who pointed out that only the virtuous can really plumb the depths of depravity?”
“Prithney,” corrected Demansk. “In the third of his Dialogues. I just reread it last week, as it happens. And ‘depravity’ isn’t really the right term. His point wasn’t that the virtuous are depraved, simply that only the virtuous have the courage of conviction which comes from lack of depravity to carry through a project to the end—regardless of how much depravity results from it.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a subtle distinction, perhaps, but . . . not unimportant to me.”
Jeschonyk gave him a long, considering look. “Yes, I can see where it would be. And? Are you prepared to carry things through to the end?”
It was Demansk’s turn to look away. He suspected his own face was pinched.
He heard Jeschonyk sigh. “That’s what I thought. The gods save us all.”
There was silence, for a time. Then, still without looking at him, Demansk said: “Decide, Ion. You have no more choice in that than I do. We live in a time of decision, whether we like it or not.”
He heard Jeschonyk slurping wine. Long enough, apparently, to drain the entire goblet. At least, the sound of it clinking back down on the tile floor had an empty aura about it.
Empty—but, in its own way, firm.
“Oh, I decided last year. I guess I really came up here just to make sure my decision had been the right one. Of course, that’s not what I told the Council.”
Hearing the old man wheeze as he levered himself back upright, Demansk looked at him again. A bit to his surprise, Jeschonyk was smiling. Almost cheerfully, in fact.
“There’s this much, anyway,” the senior Triumvir chuckled. “My legs and lungs may not be what they used to be, but my brain isn’t rotting. At least, I can still tell the difference between a demon and a direbeast, and figure out which one of them is going to gut the other.”
After a moment, the humor on Jeschonyk’s face faded away, to be replaced by something which might almost be called sadness.
“There is one thing, Verice.”
“Yes?”
Jeschonyk’s lips twisted. “The one other part of my body that still works just fine, oddly enough, are my loins. I’m sure you know about my, ah . . . oh, let’s be honest and call it my hareem.”
Demansk nodded. “Five girls, I’ve been told.”
“Um. Six, actually. I added another two months ago. A luscious little thing I found—ah, never mind. The point is . . .”
He lowered his head and ran fingers through his thin hair. The year before, at the siege of Preble, that hair had still been gray. Now, most of it was white.
“The point’s this, Verice. My wife died years ago and my children are all full grown and long gone. Don’t even see much of them any more. So those girls are really all that matters much to me, personally speaking.”
He looked up, a pleading look in his eyes. “I’m an old lecher, I’ll admit it, but I’m not a pervert. I’ve never demanded anything from them other than—well, you know. The usual. The truth is, I think they’re rather fond of me. I’m certainly very fond of them. So . . .”
“I’ll see to it, Ion. Whatever happens.” Demansk cleared his throat. “Though—I suppose this isn’t really proper, coming from a ‘demon’—I can assure you that I have no intention of doing you any personal harm.” A bit of exasperation came into his voice. “Why would I? Damn it, I’m not a casual murderer!”
Jeschonyk shrugged. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Verice. Who knows what you’ll have to do? But none of it should require involving half a dozen slave girls, most of them illiterate and not one of them older than twenty.” Again, his heavy sensual lips made that wry grimace. “If the word ‘innocent’ means anything at all in this foul world, they are indeed innocent.” His voice grew so low it was almost a whisper. “So. Please.”