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The deaths of Libo and Pipo in past years had been bad enough. But they had been scientists, working among the piggies. With them it was like airplane crashes or starship explosions. If only the crew was aboard, then the public didn't get quite so upset-- the crew was being paid for the risk they took. Only when civilians were killed did such accidents cause fear and outrage. And in the minds of the people of Lusitania, Quim was an innocent civilian.
No, more than that: He was a holy man, bringing brotherhood and holiness to these undeserving half-animals. Killing him was not just bestial and cruel, it was also sacrilege.
The people of Lusitania were every bit as pious as Bishop Peregrino thought. What he forgot was the way pious people had always reacted to insults against their god. Peregrino didn't remember enough of Christian history, thought Valentine, or perhaps he simply thought that all that sort of thing had ended with the Crusades. If the cathedral was, in fact, the center of life in Lusitania, and if the people were devoted to their priests, why did Peregrino imagine that their grief at the murder of a priest could be expressed in a simple prayer service? It would only add to their fury, if the Bishop seemed to think that Quim's death was nothing much. He was adding to the problem, not solving it.
She was still searching for Grego when she heard the bells start to toll. The call to prayer. Yet this was not a normal time for mass; people must be looking up in surprise at the sound, wondering, Why is the bell tolling? And then remembering-- Father Estevao is dead. Father Quim was murdered by the piggies. Oh, yes, Peregrino, what an excellent idea, ringing that prayer bell. That will help the people feel like things are calm and normal.
From all wise men, O Lord, protect us. ***
Miro lay curled in a bend of one of Human's roots. He had not slept much the night before, if at all, yet even now he lay there unstirring, with pequeninos coming and going all around him, the sticks beating out rhythms on Human's and Rooter's trunks. Miro heard the conversations, understanding most of them even though he wasn't yet fluent in Father Tongue because the brothers made no effort to conceal their own agitated conversations from him. He was Miro, after all. They trusted him. So it was all right for him to realize how angry and afraid they were.
The fathertree named Warmaker had killed a human. And not just any human-- he and his tribe had murdered Father Estevao, the most beloved of human beings after only the Speaker for the Dead himself. It was unspeakable. What should they do? They had promised the Speaker not to make war on each other anymore, but how else could they punish Warmaker's tribe and show the humans that the pequeninos repudiated their vicious act? War was the only answer, all the brothers of every tribe attacking Warmaker's forest and cutting down all their trees except those known to have argued against Warmaker's plan.
And their mothertree? That was the debate that still raged: Whether it was enough to kill all the brothers and complicit fathertrees in Warmaker's forest, or whether they should cut down the