The splashing had resumed, in a firm, steady rhythm that told us Handy had taken over the paddle. We both looked at the approachingcanoe and its occupants: the sturdy commoner, the vile old man scowling in the stern, and between them the pale face of the woman. She was too far away for me to see her expression, but I could imagine it: the tight-lipped, impassive, distant look she had worn when we had first met.
“He’s going to get away with it, isn’t he?” My brother had eyes only for my master, and his voice was full of venom.
I did not reply. I was not much interested in the Chief Minister; tomorrow would be a good time to worry about him. It was the woman I was looking at, her pale features exaggerated and made angular by the night’s deep shadows, as the boat brought her closer to us. What was going through her mind?
We had each lost a son. Was it worse, I wondered, to bring your child up, nurture him, love him for his faults and virtues and see him dead at your feet, or to find a child you had never known you had, only to lose him again that same night?
I barely noticed the thump as the canoe came to rest against the great boat’s side. Handy scrambled aboard with a rope, and he had to greet me twice before I answered him.
All I could see or hear then was my son, out there somewhere, running for his life.
The murderer is cruel, a dog at heart-a dog indeed. He is a hater of people, a troublemaker, a killer, a spy, a tempter. Daring, he is rash, brutal, disorderly. He bears false witness; he accuses people; he hates, slanders, calumniates, libels them. He strikes, he charges at them; he kills, he leaves his mark on them. He is a demon of the air-a demon. He sheds blood.
The Florentine Codex, Book X