‘I don’t know. I told you before, I was a priest, not a midwife.’
‘Tell us!’ It was Spotted Eagle’s turn to insist. ‘What’s going to happen to my mother?’
There was no policeman about now to restrain the young man and in his present mood I did not trust his father to step in. ‘I’m not really sure,’ I said reluctantly. ‘But I suppose you could be right. If a thief took parts of her body for charms, then some of her power must go into those things. But what do you expect me to do, Handy? If I wanted to help you find her, and I’m not saying I don’t, where would I start looking?’
‘That’s your problem. You heard what Kite said. Help find my wife – and that useless turd of a brother-in-law of mine too, if you must. You can do it. You’re good at looking for things – you found those sorcerers after they escaped from the emperor’s prison, didn’t you, and that featherworker’s daughter from Amantlan. Then you’ll be free to go.’
‘You forget,’ I said drily, ‘I’m a slave. You can’t go around setting slaves free when they don’t belong to you.’
Spotted Eagle let out a growl, which was no doubt intended to sound threatening. He clenched his fists, raised one of them to emphasise his words. ‘If you won’t listen to my father, you’d better listen to me! You do what we want or…’
I barely looked at him. ‘Or what? You’ll beat me up, is that it? Well, go ahead. How will you stop me running away afterwards? And what are you going to do while I’m searching, follow me around the city kicking me every time the trail seems to be getting cold? It won’t work.’
I enjoyed the look of confusion that crossed the young man’s face for a moment, but when I shifted my glance from him to his father I saw an entirely different expression. His cheeks were grey and sunken with fatigue and sorrow, which only made his raw, swollen eyes stand out more. I had not seen or heard him weep since his wife had died, but perhaps he had shed his tears silently in the night when it was too dark for them to be seen. There was no shame in weeping, but I could imagine him wanting to avoid adding to his family’s grief by letting him see his own. Or perhaps he simply wanted to spare himself the sort of well-meaning expressions of sympathy people are prone to utter when confronted with another’s distress. I knew what such misplaced offers of comfort were like, having heard enough of them from my family after I was thrown out of the Priest House. It never does any good to have others tell you how bad you must be feeling, when only you can know the measure of your own suffering. It just makes it worse.
I suddenly realised that all Handy’s bitter words and threatening tone were bluster. He was not truly angry with me or anyone else, although that might come. He had no settled plan to recover his wife’s body, let alone the determination to carry it out or the ruthlessness to force me into helping. What I saw in his face was bewilderment, shock, and a huge, gaping, hollow feeling of loss. And his words to me had been driven by desperation. There was only one thing he could do for his wife now, but he could not see how to do it. I was the only person he could turn to for help, and he thought that all I wanted to do was to get away.
‘We used to be friends,’ I said quietly, for want of anything better to say.
Before he could answer, a woman’s voice from behind me said: ‘Where are they? I came as soon as I could.’
The speaker was Goose, Handy’s sister-in-law. He and his son both started, as I did, at the sound: they had been too engrossed in their argument with me to notice her.
She looked as weary, drawn and haggard as her brother-in-law, and she was breathing heavily and sweating, as though she had run most of the way from Atlixco. ‘I had to make sure the children were all right,’ she explained, ‘but I’m here now. Tell me what happened. Where’s my husband? What did they do with my sister?’
Handy groaned. ‘Goose, didn’t they tell you about Flower Gatherer?’
She hesitated. She looked quickly at each of us in turn, scanning our faces as if searching them for some clue to what we knew, so that she did not have to hear it spoken. Eventually she replied, in a low voice: ‘They told me he was missing. Has anyone found… Is he dead?’ The last word was forcibly ejected from the back of her throat.
‘No,’ her brother-in-law said hastily. ‘No, there’s no more news. I’m sorry.’
She bit her lip. ‘He’s not come home,’ she informed us unnecessarily.
‘Is that unusual for him?’ I asked.
‘It’s never happened before. My husband wouldn’t go wandering off anywhere. It would mean having to fend for himself. He’s never been any good at that!’ She turned to Handy. ‘I want to see the grave.’
She walked towards where the body of her sister had lain. Handy was standing between her and her goal but he moved aside without another word.
We all gathered around her as she stood over the empty grave, with her head inclined. She said nothing, although I could hear her breathing. It was slow and deep as though each breath required an act of will. Glancing sideways, I realised that her eyes were closed.
When she finally turned away it was
