He looked startled, and then laughed nervously. ‘No chance! You’re no more keen on braving whatever’s roaming around out there than I am!’
Until dawn we kept a largely silent vigil over the inert form on the path. I reflected that one mystery had been solved, as it looked as if a sorcerer had been involved in robbing Star’s grave. That told me nothing about who he was; nor whose body had been found in the canal by the marketplace, nor who the unfortunate creature that now lay in front of us might be. Above all we had no clue to who or what kind of being this sorcerer’s accomplice might be. All I knew about that was that I had seen it before, following me through the streets after Star’s burial. So, it seemed, had the midwives and the fishermen, and we all agreed on one thing: its form was not human.
Dawn brought Handy out of his house, blinking and yawning in the early morning sunlight of what promised to be a bright, clear day. He stopped and stared when he saw his son and me examining the body.
‘Father.’ The young man leapt to his feet and went to him. ‘Are you all right?’
Handy grimaced and rubbed his eyes. ‘Better for a night’s sleep… what happened out here, though?’
Before Spotted Eagle could say a word, I said to him: ‘You can run and fetch your policeman, now. You’d better warn him this isn’t pretty to look at!’
The dead man lay on his back. He had been wearing a cloak, but it was bunched beneath him, exposing his skin except where it was covered by a breechcloth. In the daylight it did nothing to conceal the full horror of his injuries.
His flesh seemed to have burst open, leaving long, deep gashes whose edges were pink but whose middles were dark with welling blood. Jagged bone and slick organs peeped out of some of them. An arm hung loose, ripped from its socket, and part of it was misshapen, crushed, the flesh torn as if by the claws of some savage beast. The face was almost whole, but blood had poured from every orifice in it: mouth, nostrils, ears, even the corners of his eyes.
Handy and I looked at it together. I let my eyes linger on the face, noting the wide, bloodshot eyes, lips curled back in agony, but searching for more: for some trace of what it might have been in life.
The commoner swore under his breath. ‘What happened to him?’
‘I’d guess he didn’t just trip over and hit his head. You don’t know him, I suppose? He’s not Red Macaw or’ - I looked over towards the house, where I assumed Goose was just rising to attend to her daily chores – ‘or Flower Gatherer?’
‘I don’t know. He could be either of them, or anyone else. The state he’s in, it’s hard to tell.’ He took his eyes off the body and looked at me. ‘What happened?’ he asked again.
I told him. I hesitated when I got to the part about the sorcerer and how he had brandished what I was sure must be Star’s forearm. To my relief he merely shut his eyes and sighed.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t catch him,’ I said.
‘It could have been worse. If I’d lost the boy as well…’ The man shivered.
I regarded the mutilated corpse again. ‘Obviously, it must have been his scream Spotted Eagle and I heard. The creature, or whatever it was, must have carved him up. Your son said it was armed.’
‘Why do that, though? He must have been slashing away long after the man was dead.’
‘He, or it, must have been out of control. Something happened to make it angry.’ I swallowed hard as an unpleasant thought struck me. ‘Perhaps they – the sorcerer and the demon – weren’t expecting this man to be here. They wanted to get into a house, but he surprised them before the sorcerer’s spell could work.’
‘Whose house?’ His hushed tone told me Handy had guessed the answer to his own question.
‘Yours,’ I told him grimly. ‘Somebody stole your wife’s forearm in order to get into your own house!’
He stared at me, ‘Why…?’
Before he could get the rest of the question out, another voice – the last one I would have expected to hear – interrupted him, calling out of the twilight: ‘Where is he?’
I stood and stared and felt my mouth fall open stupidly as the speaker came into view, striding purposefully towards us out of the early morning shadows.
‘Where is he?’ the woman demanded again, and then she was in front of me, and although I should have felt joy and relief, I was too shocked for either.
Lily’s black hair flew wildly about her head, her eyes glistened and her bandaged hands were raised as if to strike someone. ‘What do you mean by this?’ she screamed. The words were barely intelligible. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
I cowered. I took a step backwards. ‘Lily, I can explain…’
‘You were supposed to be here one day! A day! That was two days ago. Do you have any idea…?’
Handy tried to intervene: ‘Didn’t you get our messages…’
‘Of course I got your messages. Why do you think I’m here? That’s not the point!’ Suddenly she kicked me, lashing out with a bare foot and catching my kneecap. I cried out in pain, and then she was in my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. ‘Yaotl, I’ve been so worried. I couldn’t sleep. Why didn’t you come?’
‘It’s a long story,’
