‘“You must understand,” Jacob said to me, talking softly as if he was protecting Rika, didn’t want her to hear. She was inside, lying there, without movement, or sound. He’d been in, he’d spoken to her, roused her enough that she turned and leaned against him. He took her face in his hands, said something, I don’t know what – I was at the door. Then she gave a shuddering sort of a sob and turned back to the wall. He stayed with her a few minutes, then came back out to me. He said I had to understand that in their world, in this world, it had disturbed the ancestors as well as the living to see Aaron lost to the clan and the gardens and the fertile women. They’d let him go to the new order of government and town, they’d expected knowledge and power to come to them, and instead, this.

‘Of course they were angry,’ Martha says. ‘Why would they not be?’

‘And from Rika’s point of view, why wouldn’t she be?’ Jericho says.

‘Jacob couldn’t get her to understand that it wasn’t her. Not her personally. She was a symbol. That’s what Jacob said. I think that’s what Jacob said, and she hated it just as much.’

Something surges through Jericho – understanding, sympathy, sorrow, he isn’t sure. Unexpected tenderness softens the anger of years, as Martha describes Rika moaning, crawling around the floor, gulping at the air, until she subsided back into silence.

‘Jacob called across to Angel, and she came. Naomi too.’ Martha’s voice is steady and calm. ‘They brought you and Bili. I’ve blamed Angel for a lot of it. She told the women things about Rika she shouldn’t have told. Damaging things. But there she was, with your hand in hers, sweet and kind. You and Bili loved her. She sat beside me, stroking my arm. Naomi touched Rika’s head, gháto, and you went to Rika, your small arms tight around her neck. For you, there was response. She wrapped herself around you and wept, great coursing tears wetting your face until you struggled against her and Bili shouted at her to let you go, hitting at her, a small tornado, and when Rika still didn’t let you go, she bit her arm. Oh, she was angry.’

‘She still is. When she thinks about it, which she doesn’t much, she’s angry.’

‘With Rika?’

‘Yes. With Rika.’

‘Why, do you know?’ Martha asks. Now it’s she who wants detail, not a blurry outline.

‘She felt abandoned – you know how she is. She’d loved Rika, right from the start – or that’s the story – and Rika abandoned her. Pushed her away, and kept me. That’s what Laedi says.’

Martha doesn’t want to admit to her own anger. She doesn’t describe freeing the child Jericho, the sobbing child Jericho, from Rika’s grip. She doesn’t describe Rika hitting her – hard enough that she had bruises the next day. She doesn’t describe Rika spitting out her name, accusing her of being there. Always being there. What kind of an accusation was that? The unfairness of it, when she was there because Rika had asked her to be there.