“Thank you,” they said.

“What are you thanking me for? I am only doing my job.”

Still she came to perch briefly on Chih’s shoulder before fluttering up to glide from branch to branch above them, and Chih made their way to the water.

There were two buckets waiting at the spring and a whittled yoke left there to carry the water back. In another time, Chih would have been very curious over the people who had carved their names into the yoke’s shaft, a kind of guest log for the shelter, but now they only filled the buckets and made their way back quickly.

By the time they returned, Sang and Wei Jintai had found a place to bury the poor man they had found, and Lao Bingyi and Khanh were digging a grave for him. They hit rock too soon to make it very deep, and after Lao Bingyi had washed the man’s face and hands with the water, they laid him in it with a cloth provided by Khanh to cover his face.

Chih realized that everyone was looking at them as the man lay in his sad grave, and they hastily straightened up. They wanted to say that they weren’t really that type of cleric; Singing Hills tended to stand apart from the other abbeys in Anh for a number of reasons, and their work had a great deal more to do with history and politics than it ever did with easing the passage from life to death or ministering to the spirits of people on either side of that divide.

From the expectant looks from Lao Bingyi and Khanh and the troubled looks on Wei Jintai and Sang’s faces, however, they knew that wouldn’t do, and they took a deep breath.

“We commit ourselves to the virtue and mercy of a thousand hands—”

It was hard to go wrong with a prayer to the Lady of the Thousand Hands, and it worked here, for all they had no idea who the man in the grave was. Very few people couldn’t get behind the idea of a goddess of profound sacrifice and mercy, and by the fifth round of chanted praises, Sang and Wei Jintai looked a little easier and Khanh and Lao Bingyi murmured in satisfaction.

Chih felt a little as if they had passed a test when they finished, and Lao Bingyi nodded.

“All right. Khanh and I are going to get a fire and some food going. You three can build a cairn, can’t you?”