"How can it not?" Constance does not snap. It is too inward-facing to be a snap. "If I absolve her of her wrongdoing, how can it not be because I am compromised? If I condemn her, is it not the same? And what does it say of [i]me[/i], that the brute feels emboldened to say this to me the first time we have seen each other in a year's time? And what does it say of me, that I do not know whether I am frightened or yearning? By the Hunter and the Mother, I do not know if I want to split her in half or if--"

She strangles the words. Her needle flashes like a sword. She can control this; she has done the work before, even by candlelight, working as much by feel as by sight, and as much through experience as either. What she has not done is this. Every mediation between the world and the divine is a performance, more art than skill. You cannot learn how to stand in the place between; you can only learn the skills to do so.

"I am not here for myself," she murmurs. "I am the turning point of the Wheel. I am the door that she must pass through. And that is [i]my[/i] punishment. All I can do-- all I [i]should[/i] do-- is play my part. If I do that, then..."

Then she will be absolved. Then Pellinore's eyes will leave her be. Then she will not see these eyes widen, over and over again, as Robena drives the axe into Pellinore to the very haft; the confusion, the betrayal, the [i]accusation[/i]. That Constance was in collusion; that she was a traitor, a liar, a villain; that she betrayed her very nature as a holy woman. And if part of her believed that Pellinore deserved that death, that the land must be refreshed with the blood of the guilty, then how could she believe anything less of Robena?

"I caused the blow," she says, for the first time. "I cannot give her forgiveness. It is only my place to reveal her heart, that others may judge us. It is only mine to do the task in front of me. That, and nothing more."

A tear blots the delicate fabric; Constance lowers it into her lap with shaking hands.

"Nothing more."