“You want me to dress the child for the journey?” But she held her tongue, knowing that it was not the moment to mention such things. Again there was a carelessness about his actions that angered her. She saw how the pool was muddied, its precious liquid sullied. She went out and stood against the rail, watching as Gehn crouched by the pool, washing. “You poor thing,” she whispered, kissing its neck, feeling it relax against her. She stood over it a moment, staring down at its pale blue eyes, then picked it up, cradling it against her.
She crossed the room and ducked inside as its cries grew louder. Stretching, she stood, then went down the narrow steps, ducking beneath the stone lintel into the interior. But he had come too late.Īnna raised her head, hearing the baby’s cries. Knowing his wife was ill, he had remembered his mother’s healing powers. He had not wanted to come, but desperation had shaped his course. He had come only because there was no one else to turn to. Why come when there was nothing she could do to help?īut she knew the answer. She looked down at her unwashed hands and slowly shook her head. She knew herself how that felt-to lose the focus of one’s life, the meaning … No, for she knew what he must be feeling. She watched him crouch beside the pool, unable in her heart to be angry with him-for all he’d done and said. Almost belligerently, he stomped across the surface of the garden, churning up yet more of her precious growing space, oblivious, it seemed, to the significance of what he did. His answer was a terse shake of the head. He turned, finished, and looked up at her, no love in that cold, penetrating gaze. She had died with a sigh of relief.Įven now, in the silence of the dawn, she could hear Gehn’s howls of anguish, his hurt and angry ranting could hear the words of blame which, at the time, had washed over her.
She had done what she could, but the girl had clearly been ill for some months and the exertions of childbirth had eaten up what little strength remained to her. Now, as the dawn’s light slowly crept over the sands to touch the cleftwall twenty feet above, he covered over the young girl’s body, his pale cream desert clothes smeared with her blood and with the dark earth of the cleft.įrom the steps above Anna watched, exhausted after the long night. At one end of the garden, beneath a narrow out-crop, he had dug a shallow grave. G EHN’S BOOTPRINTS LAY HEAVY AROUND the tiny pool, the lush, well-tended green churned to mud.
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