Sandoz held up his hands, the braces dull in the shade. "That's a movement that's going to pass me by. Unless someone wants to make a market for putting pebbles into cups."

"Well, it's long gone anyhow. You're doing better with those," John told him, motioning at the braces with his thimble. Only a few months ago, Sandoz had almost sweat blood just to close his hand around a stone the size of his fist.

"I hate these things," Emilio said flatly.

"You do? Why?"

"At last. A simple question with an easy answer. I hate the braces because they hurt. And I am tired of pain." Emilio looked away, watching bees service daylilies and roses in the bright sunlight beyond the arbor shade. "My hands hurt and my head is pounding and the braces bruise my arms. I feel like hell all the time. I'm sick to death of it, John."

It was the first time John Candotti had ever heard the man complain. "Look. Let me take them off for you, okay?" He stood and reached across the table, ready to unfasten the harnesses. "You've done enough for today. Come on."

Emilio hesitated. He hated also that he could neither put on nor take off the braces himself and was dependent on Brother Edward to do this for him. He was used to that and to worse, with Edward, but had rarely allowed anyone else to touch him since leaving the hospital. It was a struggle to permit it. Finally, he held out his hands, one after the other.

There was always more pain when the pressure was released, the blood moving back into cramped, exhausted muscles. He closed his eyes and waited, stiff-faced, for the sensation to ease and was startled when Candotti picked up one of his arms and began to massage some feeling back into it. He pulled away, dreading that someone might see them and make some insufferable remark. The same thought occurred to Candotti perhaps, for he didn't protest.

"Can I ask you something, Emilio?"

"John, please. I already answered a thousand questions today."

"It's just—why did they do this to you? Was it torture? I mean, it looks like such a neat job."

Sandoz let out an explosive breath. "I am not entirely sure I understand it myself. The procedure was called hasta'akala." Draping his hands on the rough wood of the table like a merchant displaying a length of cloth for a buyer, he stared at them without evident emotion. "It wasn't supposed to be torture. I was told that the Jana'ata sometimes do this to their own friends. Supaari was surprised by how bad it was for us. I don't think Jana'ata hands are innervated as extensively as ours. They don't do much fine motor work. The Runa do all that."

John said nothing, chilled, but stopped stitching and listened.

"It might have been an exercise in aesthetics. Maybe long fingers are more beautiful. Or a way of controlling us. We didn't have to work but then again, we couldn't have. There were servants to take care of us. After. Marc Robichaux and I were the only ones left by then. It was supposed to be an honorable estate, I think." His voice changed, harder now, the bitterness coming back. "I'm not sure to whom the honor accrued. Supaari, I suppose. It was a way of showing that he could afford to have useless dependents in his household, I think."

"Like binding the feet of aristocratic Chinese women."

"Perhaps. Yes, maybe it was something like that. It killed Marc. He never stopped bleeding. He—I tried to explain to them about putting pressure on the wounds. But he never stopped bleeding." He stared at his hands a while longer but then looked away, blinking rapidly.

"You were hurt, too, Emilio."

"Yes. I was hurt, too. I watched him die."

Somewhere in the distance, a dog started barking and was soon joined by another. They heard a woman shouting at the animals and then a man shouting at the woman. Sandoz turned away, bringing his feet onto the bench, and lay his forehead on his drawn-up knees. Oh, no, John thought. Not another one. "Emilio? You okay?"

"Yeah," Sandoz said, lifting his head. "Just an ordinary headache. I think if I could just get some unbroken sleep…"

"The dreams are bad again?"

"Dante's Inferno, without all the laughs."

It was an attempt at humor but neither of them smiled. They sat for a while, lost in their own thoughts. "Emilio," John said, after a time, "you told us that Marc began eating the native foods at the beginning, while you and Anne Edwards were still acting as controls, right?"

"Shit, John. Give me a break." He stood to leave. "I'm going down to the beach, okay?"

"No. Wait! I'm sorry, but this might be important. Was there anything you ate that Marc didn't?" Sandoz stared at him, his face unreadable. "What if Marc Robichaux was developing scurvy? Maybe that's why he died. Maybe because he'd been eating their food longer than you, or maybe you were getting vitamin C from some food he didn't eat. Maybe that's why he didn't stop bleeding."

"It's possible," Sandoz said finally. He turned away again and had walked a few steps into the sunlight when he jerked to a halt with an involuntary cry and then stood still as a pillar.

John got up instantly and moved around the table, squinting in the dazzle as he went to Sandoz. "What? What's wrong?" Sandoz was bent over, breathing hard. Heart attack, John thought, frightened now. Or one of the spontaneous bone fractures they'd been warned about. A rib or a vertebra simply shattering without warning. "Talk to me, Emilio. Are you in pain? What's wrong?"

When Sandoz spoke, it was with the precision and clarity of a linguistics professor explaining something to a student. "The word hasta'akala is a K'San compound probably based on the stem sta'aka. The suffix ala indicates a similarity or a parallel. Or an approximation. The prefix ha makes the stem take on an active aspect, like a verb. Sta'aka was a kind of ivy," Emilio said, his voice regulated and even, his eyes wide and sightless. "It was very pretty. It would climb on larger, stronger plants, like our ivies, but it had branches with a weeping growth habit, like a willow." He held up his hands, the fingers falling gracefully from the wrists, like the branches of a weeping willow, or sta'aka ivy. "It was symbolic of something. I knew that, from context. Supaari tried to explain, I think, but it was too abstract. I trusted him, so I gave my consent. Oh, my God."

John watched him labor to bring this new understanding to light. It was a bitter birth.

"I gave consent for Marc, as well. And he died. I blamed Supaari, but it was my fault." Bleached and shaking, he looked at John for confirmation of what he took to be an inescapable conclusion. John resolutely refused to follow Emilio's logic, unwilling to assent to anything that would add to the burden of guilt the man carried. But Sandoz was relentless. "You can see it, can't you. Hasta'akala: to be made like sta'aka. To be made visibly and physically dependent on someone stronger. He offered us hasta'akala. He took me to the garden and showed me the ivy and I didn't make the connection. I thought he was offering Marc and me his protection and hospitality. I thought I could trust him. He asked my consent and I gave it. And I thanked him."

"It was a misunderstanding. Emilio, you couldn't have known—"

"I could have! I knew everything then that I have just told you now. I just didn't think!" John started to protest, but Sandoz wouldn't listen. "And Marc died. Christ, John. Oh, Jesus."

"Emilio, it wasn't your fault. Even if you'd understood about the ivy, you couldn't have known that they'd do this to your hands," John said, gripping the man's shoulders, helping him control the fall, dropping to his own knees as Sandoz went down. "Robichaux was probably already sick. You didn't cut up his hands, Emilio. You didn't make him bleed to death."