I lean over the shaft. Gilded by lamplight, Coriander stares up into a darkness in which she cannot see me. “I’m coming down in a moment. Stand away.”
I secure the climbing rope around the air shaft and slip on the harness, then rappel down the tomb wall to the outside alcove to gather up the bundled clothing and the jug. I lower it all down to Coriander. Although it is a risk to have the rope tied around the air shaft, where someone might see it from outside, I need to be able to show Coriander she has a way out in order to ensure her cooperation. As I descend hand over hand down the narrow shaft, my shoulders bumping the bricks, a muffled cry drifts eerily out of the tomb like the lament of the dead. Its timbre agitates me until I realize it is a newborn’s startled wail. The baby’s cry ceases just as I reach the floor.
Cook speaks in a voice of such calm cheerfulness that I marvel at her generous courage. “That’s right, Doma. See how strongly she suckles!”
“What happened up there?” Coriander’s gaze sears me. I never understood that her blank servant’s expression hid so much dislike.
“We have to keep quiet until Lord Kalliarkos returns. He’s going to free your brother.”
“I should just climb the rope and leave,” she says, chin jutting forward as if to dare me to forbid it.
“You still can. But I hope you will wait and help me get the others out.”
She frowns at her hands, then glances into the central chamber. “For Doma Kiya’s sake I will.”
Maraya continues to support Mother against the stone bier. She has rallied enough to become absorbed in the baby suckling at her breast.
Cook now has the knife and is cutting the afterbirth into small pieces. “Mistress, you must eat a bit of placenta to strengthen yourself.”
“I’m too tired to eat,” says Mother in a murmur that dies away as her eyes flutter closed.
Maybe I gasp at this sign of her intense weakness. Coriander touches me on the arm with a flash of unexpected compassion, then pulls back her hand and rubs it over her scalp. I wonder who gave her the scars on her head.
“How did my mother rescue you?” I ask.
“That is not your story to know since you never bothered to ask before now.” She sets the lamp beside the oracle’s chest and like a tomb robber opens it and begins rifling through its contents.