by Simon Levack
‘I knew it!’ the old man raged. ‘I knew it, as soon as the midwife said he was stuck in the womb! You couldn’t leave her alone, could you? Now look what you’ve done! My daughter, gone, and all because of you, because you couldn’t keep your filthy hands off her, you animal, you stinking, shit-eating dog!’ He spluttered incoherently into silence for as long as it took to draw breath. ‘And the baby as well! I could kill you with my bare hands for this!’ he shrieked, but as his trembling, swollen fingers clawed the air in fury, Gentle Heart interrupted him.
‘You can’t blame him, Ocelotl.’ she protested, while Handy merely groaned.
‘Yes I can!’ shouted the old man, whose name meant ‘Jaguar’. ‘“Stuck in the womb,” you said! Do you think I don’t know what that means? He was forcing himself on her, wasn’t he, like a beast, even after the fourth month, and we all know what that leads to. That’s why the baby wouldn’t come out, isn’t it?’
‘Well, perhaps, but it is not an easy thing we ask, and for a couple who have conceived ten children…’
‘I always found it easy enough!’ the old man thundered.
‘It’s not true,’ my friend said suddenly, in a dull voice, as though he did not much care whether it were true or not. ‘We knew what was proper. We brought nine children into the world, didn’t we? Do you think we didn’t know how to control ourselves?’
Somebody pushed past me and rushed towards the little group in the middle of the courtyard: Goose, carrying a large pot and with a clean blouse and skirt draped over one arm. She strode boldly up to the old man.
‘Father,’ she said, ‘You can’t help Star now, and you’re just going to make yourself ill if you carry on.’
The man’s face was almost black with rage. ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he snapped, but before he had got the words out his surviving daughter had already turned away from him. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.
‘To wash and dress my sister,’ she said, without turning her head, and ducked into the sweat bath. The midwife watched her for a moment and then turned to Handy.
‘The baby?’ she said simply.
For a moment the commoner seemed to have no idea what she was talking about. Then he looked at the little bundle in his mother-in-law’s arms. ‘I don’t know…’ He looked away again quickly.
Star’s mother spoke, for the first time in my hearing. ‘Put him with his mother for now, in the sweat bath,’ she suggested. Hearing her speak, sounding so much as her daughter might have done at such a time – not unkind, but practical – only added to my own sense of what had been lost.
Handy hesitated in response to his mother-in-law’s suggestion, before making a noise that may have been assent. The old woman and the midwife turned towards the sweat bath. Star’s father made as if to follow them, but he seemed to change his mind suddenly – perhaps realising that what they were about was women’s work – and stalked into the interior of the house instead. He did not spare Handy or me a glance.
The bereaved husband got up off his knees slowly, moving like a man about twenty years older than he was. He and I were now alone in the courtyard.
I was acutely aware of this fact because I looked quickly about in the hope of seeing someone else. Measured against his grief and shock, my errand seemed almost too trivial to be worth troubling him with. However, as there was no-one else in sight and no excuse not to, I made myself go on.
‘Er, Handy…’
He looked at me quizzically. ‘What’s that? Oh, it’s you, Yaotl. I thought you’d left the city.’ He did not sound surprised to see me, nor much interested.
‘I had to come back. Look, I’m sorry about Star.’
He shut his eyes for a moment. ‘Do you think she’s gone, like the midwife said? Gone to Heaven, to join the sun?’
‘Of course,’ I said hastily. I wondered whether to go on, to explain that his wife, dying to bring forth a child, had had a flowery death, the same as a warrior on the battlefield or on the sacrificial stone of an enemy’s temple. She would rise again as one of the Divine Princesses, to greet the sun at midday and escort him toward the western horizon, surrounding him with war cries and dancing feet.
I was still trying to form the words when I sensed he was not listening.
‘We were laughing about the baby only yesterday. She thought he was going to do well, arriving on One Flint Knife – that’s not a bad day to be born, is it? But in the end, he missed it.’
I glanced at the sweat bath, but although I thought I heard muffled voices from that direction it was impossible to tell what was happening in there. I wondered what had gone wrong. Then I dismissed the thought, telling myself that it was beyond mending and was none of my business. I had come here to find out what, if anything, Handy knew about the captain’s movements, and to warn him of the possible danger to himself. Then I wanted to be off straight away. I felt exposed here, in the parishes in the south of the city where I presumed the otomi would be looking for me. The sooner I was at Lily’s house, even if it was only temporarily while we figured out what to do next, the happier I would be.
But then Handy said: ‘Do you know the custom? What we have to do, if… when a woman dies giving birth?’
‘Handy, I’ll come to the point. Lord Feathered in Black… The custom? What do you mean?’
‘I mean what we have to do with the body.’
I frowned. ‘Well, yes, I mean I know what you’re supposed to do, in theory at least, but…’
‘Only, we’re going to need your help.’
‘What do you mean, help? Help with what… Oh, no!’ It suddenly dawned on me what he was going to ask me and the thought of what that ritual would involve filled me with horror. ‘No, look. I’m just passing through, you know. I only wanted to deliver a message…’
‘Only I don’t know whether I can get enough men together right now, at short notice, and as you know we need four for the burial.’
‘I’d like to be there,’ I said insincerely. ‘But I’m very busy just now, and my time isn’t my own, you know – did you hear Lily bought me? As I was saying, when we were in Tetzcoco…’ I made as if to stand up, but only managed an awkward half crouch.
Suddenly Handy became, just for a moment, his old self. ‘What are you talking about?’ he growled irritably. ‘My wife’s dead in the sweat bath and you come barging in, like you were a neighbour come to borrow a pot of honey, spouting some bloody nonsense about Tetzcoco – who do you think you are, anyway?’
‘That’s not fair,’ I said, taken aback by the outburst. ‘I didn’t know what was happening – how could I? I only wanted to give you a warning – and if this is all the thanks I’m going to get, I won’t bother!’
The man suddenly let out a groan, and passed a hand in front of his eyes as if he were brushing away a cobweb. ‘Yaotl, please,’ he continued, in a voice suddenly small and hoarse, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that… It’s the shock, you know? I can’t believe she’s gone, and now there are these things I have to do, and I can’t do them by myself.’
‘I know,’ I said, sympathetically.
For some reason I could not quite bring myself to get up and walk out. I glanced longingly over my shoulder at the doorway that led through the front room of the house to the street, to freedom and peace of mind, but I could not get there because my feet seemed to have glued themselves to the ground.
I made one more effort to talk my way out of this. ‘Look, I’ll come back later – in a few days, maybe. And if there’s ever anything I can do…’
‘There is. I told you, we need help with the burial. Her sister’s washing her now. She’ll be ready before nightfall.’
‘I meant anything apart from that,’ I muttered.
‘Yaotl, I’m just asking you to do one thing. Just one. If you won’t do it for me, can’t you do it for Star?’
And then out of the sweat bath came Handy’s sister-in-law, accompanied by her mother and the midwife. Gentle Heart was carrying
the bowl Goose had taken in with her, but it was covered with a crumpled skirt and blouse.
The women were not weeping, but dark tracks stained both their cheeks. ‘We’ve cleaned her and put a new skirt and shift on her,’ Goose said quietly. ‘Gentle Heart says she has to stay in there, alone, until nightfall. Then you have to bury her.’
‘Yaotl will help,’ Handy said quickly.
Goose gave me a weak smile. ‘Yaotl, thank you. Star would have appreciated that.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ I sat down heavily. I looked at the ground, not out of modesty, but so that I could swear silently without any of them noticing.
‘I’ll be back at sunset,’ the midwife said. She put her bowl down by the doorway. She seemed to hesitate then, as though there were something she wanted to say. Star’s mother went inside the house to look for her husband.
After a long, uncomfortable silence, Goose and the midwife both spoke at once.
‘Look, Gentle Heart, you mustn’t blame…’
‘I tried to save them both! Believe me, I did all I could! If only…’ Whatever else the woman had been about to say dissolved into a long, desolate howl. She turned and stumbled away from us, finishing up leaning against the courtyard wall with her face buried in her arms.
Goose darted towards her while Handy’s eyes, wide with horror, followed them both.
‘Listen to me…’ Goose was pleading with the distraught midwife, shaking her by the elbow to get her attention. Eventually Gentle Heart turned, slumped against the wall with her back to it and lifted her glistening face to the sky.
‘Why?’ The words were whispered and barely intelligible. ‘I did everything right, I know I did, so why?’ Suddenly she looked down again, and her eyes seemed to bore straight into mine, although I am sure she hardly knew I was there.
‘She was fine, and then she was… sick. And I just don’t understand what went wrong.’
3
Goose had left Handy’s children and her own at a relative’s house. With the youngsters gone, the atmosphere in Handy’s courtyard became more subdued than ever.
It was still early morning, the last of the stars only just gone out, and there was nothing to be done for Star now until nightfall. Handy and I rested against the wall, opposite the sweat bath, while from inside the house a slapping sound told us that Goose was belatedly preparing tortillas. Death might interrupt the daily routine but the living still had to be fed. The moment she had returned, the woman had set about her work in grim silence, giving the dough her undivided attention as she flung it onto the griddle.
Handy stared moodily into the entrance hole of the sweat bath. Much of the time he was silent, and when he spoke it was not always clear whether he was talking to me, to himself, or someone else whom he alone could see.
‘Nothing we could have done,’ he mumbled. ‘What were we supposed to do, wait until a better midwife came along? We couldn’t get hold of Piazticuechtli.’
‘“Slender Neck”?’
‘Star’s midwife – the one she’s always gone to before. I sent one of my girls to her house but they said she was ill. She had to go to the Pleasure House to see if any of the women there could come instead.’ He gave a short, dry, mirthless laugh. ‘Imagine, my daughter had to go to a Pleasure House!’
‘At least she came back again,’ I said unfeelingly. I was not looking forward to the burial, and resented being pressured into helping with it. Otherwise I might have reassured my friend that the marketplaces his female relations all no doubt frequented were probably riskier than the Pleasure Houses. These were the official establishments that our successful warriors were allowed to visit as a reward for valour. The girls were clean and eminently respectable. Some indeed were destined to become concubines or even wives of exalted commoners or even nobles. Others went on to become midwives. The midwives’ profession was centred on the Pleasure Houses, where their skills were naturally much in demand.
Handy ignored me. The big man was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he seemed to be speaking to himself most of the time. ‘Gentle Heart knew what she was about, didn’t she? She came as fast as she could. In fact she must have run all the way, I think, because she was here before my daughter had got back from the Pleasure House. And she did her best.’
I wondered whom he was trying to convince, but I was spared the need to think of an answer by Goose, who had finished her work for the moment and joined us in the courtyard.
‘The bread will be ready soon,’ she announced tonelessly.
I watched her out of the corner of my eye, but I did not know what to make of what I saw. She was kneeling, with her hands together in her lap. She was not looking at us, or at the sweat bath where her sister’s body lay. Her eyes were pointed towards a blank wall, but narrowed slightly, as though inspecting something. They were dry but the effort she was putting into keeping the tears back showed in the thin line formed by her lips.
When she spoke, it was in answer to Handy’s last words. ‘I think Gentle Heart did all she could. Maybe Slender Neck might have done more, but who knows? Gentle Heart tried her best. She thought the baby was stuck.’
‘It wasn’t true!’ Handy suddenly blurted out. ‘What the old man said, it wasn’t true! I didn’t touch Star, not after the fourth month, when Slender Neck told us we mustn’t… Goose, you believe me, don’t you?’
I looked from one to the other, as baffled now as I had been by the scene in the courtyard earlier, when Handy’s father-in-law had stood over him, shouting obscenities. ‘What was that all about?’
Star’s sister looked at the knees she had folded under her. ‘If the baby was stuck, that can mean… I’m sorry, Handy, but…’
He sighed. ‘I know what the midwives and curers say: we already had nine children, remember. Your father thought Star must have been accepting my seed after we had finished forming the baby – after the fourth month. But I’m telling you I didn’t touch her!’
I said: ‘Don’t take too much notice of your father-in-law. He’s probably forgotten what it’s like!’
‘I’m telling you we didn’t!’ Handy snarled. He turned back to his wife’s sister. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Goose hesitated. ‘When it all started to go wrong, and she thought the baby was stuck…’ She let out a long, shuddering breath. ‘Oh, Handy, are you sure you want to hear this?’
‘Go on,’ he said, in a strained voice.
‘She was trying to turn him in the womb, but he wouldn’t move, and Star was getting weaker. She was struggling hard, and then not so hard… Gentle Heart said she tried everything, grasping her by the neck and shaking her, kicking her, shouting at her – we heard her, until long after midnight…’
‘“Shouting at her”? Is that normal?’
‘Childbirth is the woman’s battle, Yaotl. Ask any mother. She has to have the courage and strength of a warrior. And my sister fought.’ This with a note of pride, her face upturned, as though defying either of us men to argue. ‘She fought! I saw the bruises. But the Giver of Life would not grant her her victory. Have you ever heard a midwife speaking to a woman, when she salutes her after the birth? “Now our lord hath placed thee upon the eagle warrior reed mat, upon the jaguar warrior reed mat. Thou hast returned exhausted from battle, my beloved maiden, brave woman…”’ Goose got up abruptly, turned sharply away from us, and ended in a voice we could barely hear: ‘Only she didn’t, did she? She didn’t return, never got to hear the words… not this time.’ She began walking away. ‘I’ve got to see if those tortillas are ready.’
Handy watched his sister-in-law dumbly.
I hesitated over what I was going to say next. However, I still had my message to deliver. For all the danger it implied for himself and his household, I wondered whether it might not do the grieving husband good to have something else to think about.
Diffidently, I began to describe lord Feathered in Black’s visit. At first Handy seemed not to be listening, but eventually he turned his eye
s towards me, and by the time I asked him whether he knew anything about the captain and his movements, he was frowning.
‘I’ve not seen anything. I’ve heard the rumours, of course, but then so has everyone else. But as for the otomi – to be honest with you, Yaotl, I’m not sure I’m the right man to ask. I carry messages and run errands for old Black Feathers, but he doesn’t take me into his confidence, and I haven’t seen the captain since that business in Tlacopan.’ His frown deepened. ‘Do you really think he’d be after me, on account of that?’
‘According to the chief minister, yes. He ended up looking a fool on account of what I did, and you were with me, and to his mind that’s enough.’
He curled his lip. ‘Doesn’t seem fair,’ he said indifferently, as though his present troubles made the prospect of meeting an inhumanly strong, sword-wielding psychopath look insignificant. ‘I mean, I can imagine him wanting to skin you like a rabbit.’
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled. ‘I never knew you had that much imagination!’
His frown cleared a little as he thought of something else. ‘I’ll tell you who you do need to watch out for, though: lord Feathered in Black’s steward.’
I snorted derisively. ‘I’m not going to worry about him!’
‘He’s a three-captive warrior, Yaotl.’
‘So what? He took his last prisoner ten years ago, at least. Now he’s a sad, fat old man full of wind. What’s more he’s so stupid he can’t pick his nose unless he’s looking in a mirror. I can deal with him, don’t worry about that.’
‘Well, you may have to. That’s all I can say.’
‘Thanks,’ I said neutrally. I felt that I had come here in vain. Handy did not seem to care about the captain, and had nothing to tell me about him. And for this I had burdened myself with the horrible task of helping to bury a dead mother. I wondered what my chances were of getting back to Lily’s house before the next morning.