I took my bag with me. Martel asked me why and I said it was because the church was always unlocked and some things had been stolen before. He seemed to think that was fair enough and left me with my heart going fast.
In a rush I wanted just to get back to Azangaro and go home. I felt burned through. I’d have to tell Minna what had happened and Sing would need to know about Martel but after that I could sleep without thinking someone might kill me.
But then I’d be packed off to the parsonage in Truro if it was still tenantless. Sing would lose his job. The army would come to Bedlam and trample it. I had to shut my eyes for a second. I’d told Raphael through the wall at Martel’s house that I’d rather be shot by a quinine supplier than leave. I’d nearly been joking, but not really. Whatever Raphael meant to do, whether it was a bullet in the head or real help, it was going to be better than home.
Aquila had dug a grave on the far side of the border. It was a Latin mass, short, because everyone was standing and it was bitterly cold in the shade of the trees. It was a while before I noticed it was raining, and another lag before I realised how odd that was, when outside in the open, where the trees didn’t reach, snow was still coming down. Just as I did, though, other people noticed too and looked up, hands open. A heavy drop landed on my sleeve. It wasn’t water. It was liquid silver and the impact sprayed the big drop into lots of little ones that skittered away, off my arm altogether or under the cuff of my sleeve, shuddering. When I searched the ground, trying to follow one, the pine needles were covered in silvery beads. They were sinking into the earth, but for now it looked like someone had sprayed molten mirror over the whole graveyard.
‘It’s mercury,’ Inti said. ‘It comes from the trees. They drag it up from the graves and when it’s cold they weep.’
I stared upward, because it shouldn’t have been possible. Mercury, even if there had been pools of it underground, should have vapoured off through the tiny capillaries in leaves or pine needles, but the air was full of it. Inti caught a handful to show me how it juddered and ran.
‘Lucky to see it,’ she said. ‘The forest must like Mr Markham. It’s very lucky for the quicksilver trees to cry at a funeral.’
‘I don’t – how is there mercury?’ I said helplessly.
‘Oh, from the miners. You know Huancavelica? The mercury mine. Anyway, if you work with mercury enough, it gets into you. Drives you mad, kills you. Years and years ago a doctor set up a pilgrimage route so that miners who had served out their labour draft could come here and recover. Or die. Once they’re buried, the bodies rot away but the mercury in them just runs downhill and hits the glass. It pools right around the roots of the trees. And – quicksilver rain.’
‘But it shouldn’t . . .’ I gave up and sat down on a root of the nearest tree, next to a screaming face.
‘It doesn’t work with other kinds of tree,’ she offered. ‘Just whitewoods. That’s her, by the way.’ She pointed at the graveyard markayuq.
‘What?’
‘The doctor who brought the miners. That’s her. She doesn’t move much. There’s something wrong with her. Mercury poisoning probably, Ra-cha thinks.’
‘Oh . . . right.’
After the service, I made my way over to St Thomas, where Raphael was waiting among people praying or heading across to the other markayuq with salt and glass shells and knot cords. The clinking of the salt vials dropping sounded higher, because the amphorae were fuller than before. I put one in too, slowly, not sure what I was praying for. Past me, Raphael was watching Martel, Quispe and Hernandez going back to the church, where the men they had brought were taking down the tents. Quispe had stuck close to Raphael all morning, but he had eased back for the mass with a respect for the ceremony that made it clear he would have been unhappy, trying to keep a priest in a firm grip on holy ground. Once they were out of sight, Raphael caught my eye and nodded along the border, towards the river path, still blocked by snow.
‘Have a walk that way. I’ll come and find you.’ He crossed the salt where we were, as if he were going to clean the graveyard markayuq. Where his steps left marks in the frosty grass, the mercury welled in the shape of his soles.
I did as he said and walked close to the salt where the snow was thinner. Nobody noticed, or if they did, they must have thought it was natural enough for me to want to walk by myself for a little while. He ghosted with me on the other side about thirty yards in. The pollen trail was faint and I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been looking for it. He was moving slowly to match me, and slower movement meant less of a pollen flare.
Once we were around the bend, he came back over the salt for me. Even such a short distance from town, everything was silent. The snow had muffled any noises from the woods and there was nothing except the sigh of the river, four hundred feet down the cliff. Most of it was frozen, but the three stripes of lensed sun in front of the stacks had melted it. Where it had run through to the other side and refrozen, the ice was mirrory.
‘Right,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve got something to help you walk. It’s from Inti. She measured you for it on that first morning.’
He lifted a wooden band out of his backpack. It was hinged and it had a bronze clasp, and carvings of dragons chased each other through vines and trees all around it. He held it straight between both hands, then let it go in the air. Instead of falling, it spun softly between his fingertips, as if he were holding a pair of magnets. He wasn’t. He let his hands drop to show me. The gilt eyes of the dragons winked as the band moved.
‘It’s whitewood? But nothing in town . . .’ I trailed off when I remembered the baby’s toy horse, then Inti’s sawdust.
He touched the tree beside us. ‘These trees are young. That wood is from further into the forest. Fewer forest fires in there. The older the tree, the better the lift. It’s how the gantries in town bear the weight of all the buildings. I don’t know what’s in it, but it works. Ready?’
I nodded.
He took it from the air again and held out the rifle. ‘Take that.’ He knelt down in the snow. ‘When it’s on, it will take your weight on this side. You have to lean into it or you’ll fall over.’