"I'm much more at peace," she said. "And I know, for what it's worth, that my rage at you was unrighteous."
Ender was glad to hear the sentiment, but surprised at the terms she used. When had Novinha ever spoken of righteousness?
"I've come to see that perhaps my boy was fulfilling the purposes of God," she said. "That you couldn't have stopped him, because God wanted him to go to the pequeninos to set in motion the miracles that have come since then." She wept. "Miro came to me. Healed," she said. "Oh, God is merciful after all. And I'll have Quim again in heaven, when I die."
She's been converted, thought Ender. After all these years of despising the church, of taking part in Catholicism only because there was no other way to be a citizen of Lusitania Colony, these weeks with the Children of the Mind of Christ have converted her. I'm glad of it, he thought. She's speaking to me again.
"Andrew," she said, "I want us to be together again."
He reached out to embrace her, wanting to weep with relief and joy, but she recoiled from his touch.
"You don't understand," she said. "I won't go home with you. This is my home now."
She was right--he hadn't understood. But now he did. She hadn't just been converted to Catholicism. She had been converted to this order of permanent sacrifice, where only husbands and wives could join, and only together, to take vows of permanent abstinence in the midst of their marriage. "Novinha," he said, "I haven't the faith or the strength to be one of the Children of the Mind of Christ."
"When you do," she said, "I'll be waiting for you here."
"Is this the only hope I have of being with you?" he whispered. "To forswear loving your body as the only way to have your companionship?"
"Andrew," she whispered, "I long for you. But my sin for so many years was adultery that my only hope of joy now is to deny the flesh and live in the spirit. I'll do it alone if I must. But with you--oh, Andrew, I miss you."
And I miss you, he thought. "Like breath itself I miss you," he whispered. "But don't ask this of me. Live with me as my wife until the last of our youth is spent, and then when desire is slack we can come back here together. I could be happy then."
"Don't you see?" she said. "I've made a covenant. I've made a promise."
"You made one to me, too," he said.
"Should I break a vow to God, so I can keep my vow with you?"
"God would understand."
"How easily those who never hear his voice declare what he would and would not want."
"Do you hear his voice these days?"
"I hear his song in my heart, the way the Psalmist did. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want."
"The twenty-third. While the only song I hear is the twenty-second."
She smiled wanly. " 'Why hast thou forsaken me?' " she quoted.
"And the part about the bulls of Bashan," said Ender. "I've always felt like I was surrounded by bulls."
She laughed. "Come to me when you can," she said. "I'll be here, when you're ready."
She almost left him then.
"Wait."
She waited.
"I brought you the viricide and the recolada."
"Ela's triumph," she said. "It was beyond me, you know. I cost you nothing, by abandoning my work. My time was past, and she had far surpassed me." Novinha took the sugar cube, let it melt for a moment, swallowed it.
Then she held the vial up against the last light of evening. "With the red sky, it looks like it's all afire inside." She drank it--sipped it, really, so that the flavor would linger. Even though, as Ender knew, the taste wa
s bitter, and lingered unpleasantly in the mouth long afterward.