The woman who stood up to speak to us was one of the older ones. Looking at her, it was hard to find any trace of the lovely creature she must once have been. Her hair was grey and the skin on her face was thin and mottled, and seemed to hang loosely off her bones as though she had lately lost a great deal of weight. One arm looked stiff and swollen. She got to her feet slowly, as though it required an effort.
‘Gentlemen,’ she croaked, ‘You weren’t expected, but please make yourselves comfortable. You have expended your breath to get here,’ she added, more formally. ‘You have come far, you are tired. Please rest and have some food. Right, now what’s the meaning of this? How did you get past the guards?’
Lion and Handy both looked at me.
‘We’re looking for Gentle Heart,’ I called out. ‘And a merchant’s widow named Lily, who came here to talk to her.’
Nobody answered the question, but I sensed a stirring among the women and heard the faint rustle of material as one or two sat up and stared. Most were looking at the woman who had greeted us, as though they expected her to respond.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
‘My name’s Yaotl. I’m Lily’s slave. This man is Lion, the Guardian of the Waterfront.’
‘Lion! We know you by repute, but this is your first visit, isn’t it? We are honoured!’
My brother coughed awkwardly. I continued: ‘And this is Handy. His wife was Gentle Heart’s patient.’ After a brief glance at Handy I looked significantly at the woman and added quietly: ‘She died.’
Her reply left me speechless. ‘I know. She was my patient also.’
I stared dumbly at her while Handy answered for me: ‘Slender Neck?’ he said hesitantly. ‘Is it you? What happened to you?’
She replied with a dry chuckle. ‘Didn’t recognise me, eh? Well, I’m not surprised.’
I looked from one to the other of them in confusion, eventually managing to stammer: ‘You were Star’s midwife? Her regular midwife?’
Slender Neck did not reply straight away. Instead she lowered herself into the position in which we had found her, as slowly and painfully as she had got up. Once she had settled herself she said: ‘Yes, although Star hasn’t been a patient of mine in a long time. It must be, oh, at least two years, I should think. But I told this to your mistress, Yaotl.’
‘She wanted to speak to Gentle Heart,’ I reminded her. ‘Did she find her?’
‘I’ve no idea. She wouldn’t have found her here, and I told her that as well.’
‘Gentle Heart’s a midwife, though.’ Lion put in. ‘Where else would anyone look for her, but here?’
Handy added: ‘When Star’s time came, I had to send my daughter here to look for someone, because you were ill…’ His voice trailed off into uncertain silence as the same thought occurred to him as it just had to me.
I put it into words. ‘Osier Twig did find Gentle Heart here, didn’t she?’
Slender Neck said: ‘I can’t tell you about that. As this man said, I was ill. Very ill!’ She closed her eyes for a moment as though the effort of keeping them open were threatening to overwhelm her. ‘But what I heard was that a young girl had called here, asking for a midwife to attend Star, and then later someone else came to tell us she was not needed after all.’
I frowned and looked again at Handy. ‘Who would that have been, then?’
‘I don’t know. A friend of Gentle Heart’s, maybe.’
‘It must have been her, or someone she sent,’ the commoner added, speaking to Slender Neck. ‘If Gentle Heart works from here, wouldn’t she send a message to say what she was doing, and whether she needed any help?’
The woman gave him a pitying look. ‘Gentle Heart doesn’t work from this house, because she isn’t a midwife, and never has been.’
A sound broke from Handy then: a long, low, anguished moan; a great, deep sound that, perhaps, had been waiting for its chance to come out ever since I had let slip Lily’s and my suspicions about the woman who had attended his wife.
Alarmed, I watched him swaying as though caught by a blow or a strong gust of wind, and I stepped towards him with my hand outstretched to stop him if he fell, and all the time the woman was still talking: ‘I don’t mean she doesn’t work as a midwife. In fact I believe she does straightforward deliveries, and some of my colleagues use her as an assistant at times. I’m sure she’s perfectly competent, but she was never examined by the midwives, and never admitted among us.’
‘My wife,’ Handy muttered, through clenched teeth. ‘What did that woman do to her?’
‘You couldn’t know,’ I said soothingly. I turned to the woman. ‘What do you mean? You talk as though you know about her, but she’s not one of you – why not?’
‘Because she was expelled from the House of Pleasure while she was still a young woman. She was found to have been somewhat too particular with her favours.’
‘You mean she was living with one of the warriors.’
‘I think he was a Master of Youths. They beat him, singed the warrior lock off his head and expelled him from the House of Youth.’ I thought I detected a note of satisfaction in Slender Neck’s voice as she described the customary penalty for getting too close to a courtesan from the House of Pleasure, whose body should have been equally available to all whose warrior prowess merited it. I could understand the midwife’s attitude: after all, the girl’s punishment would have been to be slung out with nothing more than the clothes she stood up in.
‘Not a real midwife,’ Handy gasped.
‘I don’t say she was no good,’ Slender Neck said sympathetically. ‘There are plenty of unofficial curers and midwives, and many of them are excellent. She made a mistake once, as
