of talent and adipose tissue and mammalia sufficient to nurse octuplets,
simultaneously, sat erect. She reached comfortingly for her daughter. Soon she
had listened, was out of bed, and beside Hanse. Mignureal had ordered him to
remain on the divan in the shop.
‘That just isn’t Hanse, Mother!’
‘Of course it isn’t. Look on sorcery, and hate it.’
‘Name ofTiana Saviour-it’s awful, seeing him, hearing him this way…’
‘Fetch my shawl,’ Moonflower said, one by one relieving Hanse of his knives,
‘and do make some tea, sweetheart.’
Moonflower held the quaking young man and crooned. She pillowed his tear-wet
face in the vastness of her bosom. She loosed his wrists, drew his hands round,
and held their wiry darkness in her large paler dimple-backed ones. And she
crooned, and talked low, on and on. Her daughter draped her with the shawl and
went to make tea.
The ray of moonlight that fell into the room moved the length of a big man’s
foot while the seer sat there with him, and more, and Hanse went to sleep, still
shivering. She held his hands until he was still but for his breathing.
Mignureal hovered close, all bright of eye, and knew the instant her mother went
off. Sagging. Glassy-eyed. She began murmuring, a woman small inside and huge
without; a gross kitten at her divining.
‘A yellow-furred hunting dog? Tall as a tree, old as a tree … he hovers and
with him is a god not of Ilsig. A god of Ranke – oh, it is a Hell Hound. Oh
Hanse it is not wizard-sorcery but god-sorcery! And who is thi – oh. Another
god. But why is Theba involved, who has so few adherents here? Oh!’