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The representative of the seventy judges, the Septuagint, called the gathering to order and asked that the
details of the case be presented.
"Son of David," Renold said, "I have come to contest your betrothal to Kisa, daughter of Jake."
"I hear," Jeshua said, taking his seat in the defendant's docket.
"I have reasons for my challenge. Will you hear them?"
Jeshua didn't answer.
"Pardon my persistence. It is the law. I don't dislike you I remember our childhood, when we played
together but now we are mature, and the time has come."
"Then speak." Jeshua fingered his thick dark beard. His flushed skin was the color of the fine sandy dirt
on the riverbanks of the Hebron. He towered a good foot above Renold, who was slight and graceful.
"Jeshua Tubal Iben Daod, you were born like other men but did not grow as we have. You now look like
a man, but the Synedrium has records of your development. You cannot consummate a marriage. You
cannot give a child to Kisa. This annuls your childhood betrothal. By law and by my wish I am bound to
replace you, to fulfill your obligation to her."
Kisa would never know. No one here would tell her. She would come in time to accept and love Renold,
and to think of Jeshua as only another man in the Expolis Ibreem and its twelve villages, a man who
stayed alone and unmarried. Her slender warm body with skin smooth as the finest cotton would soon
dance beneath the man he saw before him. She would clutch Renold's back and dream of the time when
humans would again be welcomed into the cities, when the skies would again be filled with ships and God-
Does-Battle would be redeemed
"I cannot answer, Renold Mosha Iben Yitshok."
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The Venging
"Then you will sign this." Renold held out a piece of paper and advanced.
"There was no need for a public witnessing," Jeshua said. "Why did the Synedrium decide my shame was
to be public?" He looked around with tears in his eyes. Never before, even in the greatest physical pain,
had he cried; not even, so his father said, when he had fallen into the fire.
He moaned. Renold stepped back and looked up in anguish. "I'm sorry, Jeshua. Please sign. If you love
either Kisa or myself, or the expolis, sign."
Jeshua's huge chest forced out a scream. Renold turned and ran. Jeshua slammed his fist onto the railing,
struck himself on the forehead and tore out the seams of his shirt. He had had too much. For nine years he
had known of his inability to be a whole man, but he had hoped that would change, that his genitals would
develop like some tardy flower just beyond normal season, and they had. But not enough. His testicles
were fully developed, enough to give him a hairy body, broad shoulders, flat stomach, narrow hips, and
all the desires of any young man but his penis was the small pink dangle of a child's.
Now he exploded. He ran after Renold, out of the hall, bellowing incoherently and swinging his
binoculars at the end of their leather strap. Renold ran into the village square and screeched a warning.
Children and fowl scattered. Women grabbed their skirts and fled for the wood and brick homes.
Jeshua stopped. He flung his binoculars as high as he could above his head. They cleared the top of the
tallest tree in the area and fell a hundred feet beyond. Still bellowing, he charged a house and put his
hands against the wall. He braced his feet and heaved. He slammed his shoulder against it. It would not
move. More furious still, he turned to a trough of fresh water, picked it up, and dumped it over his head.
The cold did not slow him. He threw the trough against the wall and splintered it.
"Enough!" cried the chief of the guard. Jeshua stopped and blinked at Sam Daniel the Catholic. He
wobbled, weak with exertion. Something in his stomach hurt.
"Enough, Jeshua," Sam Daniel said softly.
"The law is taking away my birthright. Is that just?"
"Your right as a citizen, perhaps, but not your birthright. You weren't born here, Jeshua. But it is still no
fault of yours. There is no telling why nature makes mistakes."
"No!" He ran around the house and took a side street into the market triangle. The stalls were busy with
customers picking them over and carrying away baskets filled with purchases. He leaped into the triangle
and began to scatter people and shops every which way. Sam Daniel and his men followed.
"He's gone berserk!" Renold shouted from the rear. "He tried to kill me!"
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The Venging
"I've always said he was too big to be safe," growled one of the guard. "Now look what he's doing."
"He'll face the council for it," Sam Daniel said.
"Nay, the Septuagint he'll face, as a criminal, if the damage gets any heavier!"
They followed him through the market.
Jeshua stopped at the base of a hill, near an old gate leading from the village proper. He was gasping
painfully, and his face was wine-red. Sweat gnarled his hair. In the thicket of his mind he searched for a
way out, the only way now. His father had told him about it when he was thirteen or fourteen. "The cities
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