As Handy seemed incapable of any coherent speech I replied: ‘You’ve no idea how it could have happened?’
‘There are four hundred things that can befall a woman in childbirth. But as for Star herself – as I told you, I haven’t seen her in a long time. She always seemed robustly healthy to me, though. You don’t bear nine children if you’re a weakling.’
‘I suppose not, but what I’m asking is whether you think that maybe she didn’t die solely because the birth went wrong.’
She hesitated, as if she had not considered this possibility and needed time to think about it. When she replied, it was with another question: ‘What possible reason could a woman have for killing another woman and her baby?’
I hoped she was right. However, Lily’s idea had planted itself firmly in my mind by now, and put down roots, and was growing strongly. It was all too much: the new midwife who just happened to be there when she was needed, Star’s death, the plundering of her body. If Star had not died by accident, then Gentle Heart must be the culprit. The only alternative I could see was magic, which might act at a distance; but magic performed by whom?
Lion was trying to comfort Handy, in his own rough fashion, by grabbing his shoulders and shaking him vigorously. ‘Come on, man. How will this help? There’s nothing you could have done. Snap out of it.’
‘My wife,’ the big commoner groaned again. ‘If only that stupid girl had just done what she was told. Why didn’t she just come straight here?’
‘Well, she didn’t. You can’t change it. It was fate, Handy, it was ordained by the gods…’
‘It was bloody Cactus, wasn’t it? That’s what you didn’t want to tell me about before! My daughter told him, and he sent for that woman!’
I was still looking at Slender Neck when he said this. I could not miss the way she suddenly stiffened and what little colour there was in her cheeks drained away.
‘Did he say “Cactus”?’ she whispered. Her hands had contracted spasmodically into fists.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He heard about Star’s being about to give birth from her daughter, and got word to Gentle Heart… Why? Do you know him?’
‘I’ve met him,’ she responded grimly.
‘What happened?’
‘He was peddling herbs, remedies for everything you could think of. He came to see me with a selection of things he said he thought I could use. He showed me the women’s herb, so he said, and the opossum tail,’ the woman added. ‘Of course they were no such thing. I mean, they looked right but they didn’t smell right or feel right, do you understand that? And when I tried to get him to tell me where he’d picked them, he wouldn’t give me a straight answer. I didn’t believe he’d gathered them himself at all: I thought someone else must have given them to him. Either that, or else he thought that if I knew where his herbs came from, I’d realise they weren’t what he claimed they were.’
‘He knew you were Star’s midwife,’ I said, talking mainly to myself in a voice that sounded hollow, even to me. ‘He must have picked that much up in the marketplace. Or maybe he learned it from Red Macaw, who been told by Snake.’ I heard a sharp intake of breath from Handy. Ignoring him, I explained: ‘We know Red Macaw and Cactus knew one another: the curer was a regular visitor to Red Macaw’s house. And yes, Handy, I’m sorry, but Red Macaw befriended your son – it wasn’t Snake’s doing, though, and I don’t think the lad learned anything from Red Macaw that you wouldn’t have wanted him to know.’ As the big commoner looked stonily at me, I went on: ‘Red Macaw made Snake keep him up to date on the news from home – including Star’s pregnancy. There was no way the boy could have known that what he said would go straight to Cactus.’
‘So it was that bastard Red Macaw, is that what you’re saying? He told Cactus everything. He as good as killed Star himself!’ Handy was twitching with anger now, and the colour was draining from his face.
‘He may have,’ I said carefully. ‘But, Handy – listen to me! – he was duped as well, don’t you see? As far as he was concerned Cactus was just a curer, a friend. He didn’t know what the man was going to do with the information he was giving him.’
But what had the curer done with the information? I asked myself. Had he made use of it himself, or merely passed it on to another – such as Gentle Heart?
Slender Neck said: ‘I told Cactus to go away, which he did, cheerfully enough. I thought nothing of it at the time – unfortunately.’
‘Why “unfortunately”?’
‘Because the next day, when I was coming back from the marketplace, someone bumped into me. I didn’t see who it was. I felt a sharp pain in my arm, as though I’d got a thorn stuck in it, or been bitten by something. Then my arm felt as though it was on fire. When I looked I saw the marks, a couple of tiny wounds. I knew what had happened then, because the bleeding from them wouldn’t stop. By the time I got home, I was shivering and wanted to throw up. The next thing I knew it was the next day, when I woke up here with every part of me feeling as if it was burning up and a mouth like a dried-up river bed.’
‘I don’t understand – are you saying you were poisoned?’
‘Was I poisoned? Look at me now! It’s no
