‘Why?’ he replied guardedly. ‘What kind would you like me to be?’
It was a strange answer. I frowned. ‘There are so many different sorts of curer, aren’t there? Bonesetters, midwives, doctors, soul doctors. Even some sorcerers work as healers, some of the time. I was just wondering…’
‘I’m not a sorcerer,’ he said hastily. ‘A soothsayer, yes, in a small way, but… Sorcerers are different, you know that.’ Sorcerers turned themselves into animals, haunted the streets at night, broke into houses while their inhabitants slept.
They also robbed graves.
‘You’ve been fasting,’ I observed.
‘It’s because of the herbs I have to gather.’
‘Really? Which ones?’ I looked at him with genuine interest, trying to remember, from my priest’s training, what plant could only be gathered by a fasting man. For the moment nothing came to me. My scepticism must have been apparent.
He looked shamefaced. ‘Oh, all right. I’m not really fasting at all.’ He lowered his voice to an anxious whisper. ‘I just try to look that way because it impresses my patients. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’
I should have been more surprised. However, I knew of so many ways to pretend to treat a sick person, from casting an augury by throwing maize kernels into water and seeing if they floated to pretending to suck a stone out of the patient’s body. The thing I had always found odd was that provided the invalid was not obviously dying to begin with, these fake cures often worked, as if one could lie to an illness as easily as to a human being. Or perhaps it was merely Tezcatlipoca rewarding a fellow trickster.
‘I won’t say anything if you give me a reason not to,’ I said.
He looked hard at me. ‘What do you mean?’
I glanced sideways at the midwife, who seemed to have got over whatever had made her so nervous beforehand and was now leading the younger children in some kind of game. There had been something curious about her performance this morning, I decided, and her explanation for her failure to appear the previous night did not ring true. If every midwife refused to attend the funeral of one of her patients, none would ever be buried.
‘Tell me how you know her.’
‘We work together sometimes. When she delivers a baby she recommends my services to the parents, to help them choose his name-day. As I said, I’m a soothsayer. I know the Book of Days, or most of it, anyway. And I supply her with herbs, sometimes.’ He shot a furtive glance at the father and son shoving the last few spadefuls of earth into the hole, and produced a bulging cloth pouch from beneath his cloak. ‘Talking of which… I heard about the bad business yesterday, and last night. I brought something I thought the husband might like to try. Do you think…’
He was interrupted by a loud ‘crack’ from the direction of the maize bins, accompanied by what sounded like a grunt of pain. Turning, I saw that Handy had brought his spade down on the loose earth that covered the stillborn child’s grave so hard he had broken it.
‘I think I’d forget it if I were you,’ I suggested.
‘But these herbs might help him forget.’
I frowned at the soothsayer. ‘It may be he doesn’t want to. Look, I’ve been in this household since yesterday, and I’ve seen how he’s dealing with it. There’s no telling what he’ll say if he thinks you’re trying to use his grief as an excuse to push jimson weed or morning glory seeds on him.’
‘I’m not…’
‘No, I’m sure you’re not.’ I had no wish to spare Handy a row with this fake magician only to get involved in one myself. ‘Maybe some other day. I’ll mention it to him later, if you like.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ He seemed mollified. ‘I’ve a pitch in Atlixco marketplace at the moment – been there for a while now. He can find me there any time.’
‘Were you there this morning? Did you see anything?’ It occurred to me that a trader setting up before dawn might have noticed some clue; maybe even seen the thief making off with Star’s body.
I was to be disappointed. ‘I heard about it. But I arrived late today. I had to see someone first. All I saw was a big crowd by the shrine and that policeman trying to calm everybody down.’
‘You mean Kite? You want to keep on the right side of him. He’s after whoever took the body. If you were to see or hear anything it wouldn’t hurt you to have a word with him – especially if you want to go on trading in his marketplace.’ I looked at him significantly.
Some sorcerers healed the sick, when it suited them. Some curers were sorcerers. I was sure there were others, especially those given to fake fasts and unreliable fortune-telling, who were not above pretending to be sorcerers. I wondered what circles this man moved in, and whether, if I mentioned Kite’s name now, some rumour might find its way to the thief. I had no idea what would happen if it did but I thought it might alarm him, and perhaps prompt him into making a mistake.
‘Oh, sure,’ he said carelessly. ‘I don’t know what you’d expect me to see, though. It’s not as if I know anyone who’s likely to steal a dead mother’s body.’ He frowned. ‘I told you, I’m not a sorcerer. I don’t know any, either, and as for warriors…’
‘I don’t know what you might come across while you’re out looking for peyote buttons.’ I grinned, trying to make a joke of it. ‘Just ask anyone you meet if they happen to have robbed any graves lately!’
‘Whatever you say,’ he muttered peevishly. Then he suddenly brightened. He leaned towards me, like a man about to impart to secret, even while I was turning aside to get my nose
