‘Not for me,’ Cactus conceded. ‘But you did for one of my customers.’
‘There was an old woman,’ the girl said hastily. ‘She only asked me what was the matter. And I talked to her for a moment, that’s all – just long enough to tell her about mother – and then I went straight to the House of Pleasure. I ran all the way, honestly!’ She wailed the last word before bursting into tears, as though voicing some awful confession.
‘I’m sure you did,’ Goose said soothingly. She laid an arm on her niece’s shoulder, trying to still the violent shivering that had overcome her. She looked venomously at Cactus, who was staring at the girl as if he wanted to say something more. A glance at her aunt was enough to silence him, however.
‘I ran all the way there,’ Osier Twig snuffled, ‘and all the way back.’
Goose squeezed her shoulder. ‘You got there soon enough,’ she said. ‘Look how quickly Gentle Heart came!’
‘She did that,’ I mused. ‘In fact she must have passed you on the way back to the house.’
The girl turned her tear-streaked face up to look at me. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, that’s right. She did.’
‘That’s enough.’ Goose was still trying to soothe her niece but there was an edge to her voice that I took to mean there had better be no more questions. ‘And what happened wasn’t your fault.’ She heaved a deep sigh and looked in the midwife’s direction. ‘Not your fault…’ she repeated under her breath.
Gentle Heart had stopped playing with the children. Now she stood by herself, a few paces away from where Handy and his eldest son were stamping on the child’s grave, flattening the earth so as to obliterate all trace of it. The midwife met Goose’s eye. She seemed to flinch momentarily, but then, gathering her courage, she walked slowly towards us.
Osier Twig proffered the basket unbidden, like a good hostess. Gentle Heart accepted a dough ball and began chewing on it mechanically.
‘Thank you. I haven’t eaten or slept since last night.’ She looked exhausted, her eyes red and their lids puffy. ‘I keep thinking about your poor sister,’ she told Goose, ‘and what I might have done differently, but I just’ – I thought she was going to choke on the mouthful she had taken – ‘I just can’t understand it.’
Seeing her niece’s wide eyes and trembling lip, Goose no doubt thought she was about to burst into tears again. ‘Go indoors, child, and fetch some bread for your father and Spotted Eagle.’
As the girl fled she turned back to the midwife. ‘Giving birth is the woman’s battle,’ she said stiffly. ‘Tezcatlipoca and Cihuacoatl will not always grant us victory.’
‘I tried. You have to believe me. I tried everything I know,’ Gentle Heart said imploringly. ‘Your sister did fight – I fought too – there wasn’t anything I could do!’
‘You could have helped us afterwards!’ Goose hissed. ‘You didn’t come back, last night, when her husband needed you. What were you doing then?’
‘I couldn’t,’ the midwife replied in a voice half-choked with sudden tears. ‘I wanted to. I wanted to say goodbye, to tell her what I’ve told you – that she had fought, that she’d died like a warrior – but I couldn’t. Don’t you understand?’ She looked around at us all, her eyes wide with distress, and something in them moved me to reply. Perhaps it was the eyes themselves, the redness of their rims and the jagged, broken veins that had coated their whites in a pink wash. They reminded me of Lily waking from a bad dream, wanting only to be held.
‘You were afraid you’d get it wrong, that you’d forget the words,’ I said quietly.
‘But she’s got to know what to do!’ Goose said impatiently. ‘You must have had this happen before.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ Gentle Heart protested. ‘I only know what others have told me. I’ve never – Star was the first who’s ever…’ She ended on a sob.
Cactus stepped towards her. ‘It’s all right,’ he murmured. ‘It’s all right. You’ve been through much. Let me help. Look, I can make you feel better…’
He was fumbling for that cloth pouch once more. I told him to keep his bloody weeds out of sight. Turning back to Gentle Heart I said: ‘How long have you been a midwife?’
‘Since I was too old for the House of Pleasure – for the warriors who came there, I mean.’
‘That must have been a few years ago,’ Goose said tartly.
‘And before that?’ I persisted.
She looked at me gratefully. ‘I’m from Chalco originally. But Goose is right – that was a long time ago. I was a tribute slave. I think I was intended to be sacrificed, but someone thought I’d be better employed entertaining warriors in the House of Pleasure than dancing and dying at a festival.’ She seemed a little more composed: the remote past was easier to talk about than the events of yesterday. Goose, by contrast, looked as though she were about to give way to tears again.
‘But you were in the Pleasure House long enough to learn your trade?’
‘We all learned. We helped each other, and the older ones taught us. Some of us ended up as warriors’ wives or concubines to great lords, of course, but we all knew we might have to make our living looking after other women. Many wanted that, anyway. It’s a privilege no man can ever know.’ She sighed. ‘Goose, please try to understand what I’m saying. I know my work, I really do. I know what will happen if a pregnant woman chews gum or looks at anything red. I can tell her when she must accept her husband, to form the baby,
