Somehow, women always came after a death. In the past, I had been among them myself, tended to a stricken mother, gently loosened her hold on the corpse she cradled. Plagues, poxes or accident; it was not an uncommon thing to lose a child. I felt the soothing touch of gentle hands, heard the murmurs, the words I had probably said myself to another mother, in another life.
