"The dream had shown me that you could not have the offspring of your heart's desire; and then there was me, with you as the objective of love, to my own heart's desire, calling me to your bed. But, in my dream I saw that you had wed me. With the union between us and my own desires towards you, we produced many children of godly quality!" she looked up at him as he turned away from her to wipe himself, and she cried. "What now, Eckma?" asked Manguino in a voice oddly resembling a distant compassion, as never before heard coming from his lips. "I know that a marriage with you could never be. Forgive me for even thinking such a thing." she said and looked at him, right into his eyes. "You may do with me to your pleasure." Manguino stood there for a moment and looked at her lying on the bed, her eyes closed and her large legs lying slightly apart. He thought, what an odd feeling it was to have a living human woman love him so. He imagined what a love from a beauty would be like and he envied his now dead brother, because of his wife, and he envied all the wedded couples in the whole world. He had never given consideration to such a union, but he thought, maybe it is time? Maybe that is what was necessary, for him, to have proper children? Manguino went over to his chamber doors and pulled a small rod out of the wall, summoning a servant to attend to him, and then he went over to Eckma and took her naked cankerous body into his arms and kissed her mouth, smearing some of her pus onto his own lips. "You will be my wife, Eckma and I will love you, and make love to you, with more intense passion than I have ever, with anyone." Soon, an attendant knocked on the door and Manguino ordered him to enter. When the servant saw his god lying by that unearthly ugliness and passionately caressing her, he very nearly fell faint but he looked to the floor and waited to be ordered. "Seek Cardinals Levy, Tohm and Jordas and bid them prepare the chapel for my wedding, and have the Rogjans announce this from the city spires!" The servant couldn't say a thing. He just nodded then backed out through the doors, closing them after him. Immediately, he ran to the dispensary and vomited violently into a duct there, and Polis, the physician, gave to him a drink of medicine that stopped the lad's affliction. He explained to Polis about Manguino's strange taste, and his even stranger request, then he went off and rounded up the three Cardinals; conveying the message and telling them who the bride was to be. "The Almighty had made his choice. Let us abide with his requests!" suggested Cardinal Tohm, and they went to prepare for the ceremony. Throughout the afternoon and evening the Rogjans sang out the news to Pomperaque, and for the first time in years, since the executions of Brook and Dearborne, did the people laugh and rejoice for their Almighty ArchBishop -- and his misfortune.