“If you’re looking for funerals, then we need to stay a while in Selmouth,” he said, giving the tavern a look over so he was sure he could find it again. It was called the Horn and the Dagger, and the sign showed the one curled around the other.
“Only as long as it takes,” she replied. “The woman who took us to Wander said the Cause was strong here. And in Cloudport, and in Scaery, and in Sarby.”
“Four places?”
She nodded, looking over the roofs which surrounded them. There were towers, many towers. “Let’s walk,” she said.
At the third church they saw a group assembled for a wedding. Sam and Saturday watched curiously as the white-robed bride and her strangely garbed husband left the church under a shower of flung grain. Nothing could be seen of the bride but her eyes, and it was impossible to tell if she was happy about her marriage. At the fourth church there was an old man digging a deep grave. The funeral would be the following day, he said, when they asked him.
“Too deep,” Saturday murmured as they walked away. “We need something shallow.”
At the eighth church they passed, a crypt was open and a group of mourners was leaving together with the black-clad priest. Through the open door of the stone tomb, they could see the coffin upon a bench above a dirt floor. The iron grill that would close across the door stood open, with a huge key hanging from it. Saturday directed Sam’s attention to the key, then engaged a stout, veiled, much-interested bystander in conversation.
“Who died?” she asked.
“Herk Madun’s young wife,” said the woman. “In childbed. The midwife could not save her.”
“Have they no medical people in Selmouth?” Saturday asked.
“Where are you from, girl, to ask such a question?” The woman’s voice was sternly disapproving.
“From elsewhere,” she said. “No offense. Pm only curious.”
“Well, our priest teaches a woman pays for her sin by bearing children. The risk of dyin’ is what balances the books. No medical person would interfere between a woman and God, not here in Selmouth.”
“Her sin? You mean sex?”
The woman flushed and whispered, “Well, of course I mean that. What else is so sinful?”
“What balances the books for the man?”
“Losing his wife, stupid girl. Now he must go to the trouble of finding another, no easy thing, these days.”
Saturday thanked the woman for the information. She and Sam walked back the way they had come.
“Can you pick the lock?” Saturday wanted to know.
“With my teeth, if you like,” he smiled.
“We’ll need to borrow a spade,” she said. “Perhaps there is one at the tavern.”
However, they found the tavern owner ready and eager to move them forward, out of Selmouth.
“We are too weary to go farther today,” said Sam. “In the morning, early, we can leave then.”
“But I’ve got a man to take you now!” The man rubbed his greasy hair and seemed about to cry.
Sam shook his head. “The child is tired. Look at her. She’s worn out. No more travel today.”
The provider grumbled, muttered, glared, and threatened, but Sam was impervious to it all. Before they ever left Hobbs Land, Sam had decided that Saturday was the symbolic equivalent of sword and sandals. She had emerged at the proper time to give him a reason for leaving Hobbs Land and seeking his father. Accompanying her had been “meant.” Therefore, playing out his mystical role included helping her do whatever she thought best. Such roles were frequent in legends. Once that was out of the way, his real quest could begin.
The provider agreed finally that Sam and Saturday might have a room upstairs to rest in until the morning. The room was dirty, but it looked down into a littered yard at the back where they could see odds and ends of tools lying about among the trash. When darkness came, Saturday took a light-wand from her pack and they slipped down the back stairs and out into the yard. There, after Sam had rummaged around to find a rusty spade and some stiff wire, they trotted off down the alleys, stopping now and again to be sure they were headed in the right direction.
The lights in the street threw long shadows across the empty churchyard. To one side of it the silent crypt loomed, mysterious and awesome in the dim light, the iron grating across its door locking away the world of the dead. Saturday had spent too many nights on vigils to be impressed. It was only a tomb, only a door. Sam used the wire to open the lock while Saturday kept watch. It took him no time at all. With the door half-shut behind them, Sam put the dull spade to the hard-packed ground and, cursing under his breath, began to lay the moist, heavy clods aside. Even inside the tomb, the earth was damp, as it seemed to be everywhere in Voorstod.
“Hsst,” said Saturday, laying a hand on his shoulder, and turning off the light.
He stopped digging and held his breath. Outside, along the street, someone was walking toward them. Two figures stopped at the churchyard wall, silhouetted against the glow of the town. They were not dressed as ordinary people. The outline of their heads and shoulders was massive, inhuman.
Said one, “Madun’s woman and child were buried here today. He was up at the citadel, demanding a new wife.”
“There’s no woman to allot him,” the other replied.
“Then he’ll do without. He should have picked one better suited to childbearing. He was told that.”
“He wanted this one.”
“Well, he had her.”
After a time, they walked on. Sam went back to digging the shallow hole they needed. When he had it deep enough, they used the spade to lever up the coffin lid, which had been nailed shut. The woman had not been dead long. There was little smell of corruption. Saturday lifted the shroud from her face and looked at
