wherever they happened to be when the pangs started and gave birth unassisted?Masha could not have supported herself, her two daughters, her invalid mother,or her lazy alcoholic husband. The money she made from doing the more affluentwomen's hair and from her tooth-pulling and manufacture of false teeth in themarketplace wasn't enough. But midwifery added the income that kept her and herfamily just outside hunger's door.

She would have liked to pick up more money by cutting men's hair in themarketplace, but both law and ancient custom forbade that.

Shortly after she had burned the umbilical cord of the new-born to ensure thatdemons didn't steal it and had ritualistically washed her hands, she leftShoozh's house. His guards, knowing her, let her through the gate withoutchallenge, and the guards of the gate to the eastern quarters also allowed herto pass. Not however without offers from a few to share their beds with her thatnight.

'I can do much better than that sot of a husband of yours!' one said.

Masha was glad that her hood and the daricness prevented the guards from seeingher burning face by the torchlight. However, if they could have seen that shewas blushing with shame, they might have been embarrassed. They would know thenthat they weren't dealing with a brazen slut of the Maze but with a woman whohad known better days and a higher position in society than she now held. Theblush alone would have told them that.

What they didn't know and what she couldn't forget was that she had once livedin this walled area and her father had been an affluent, if not wealthy,merchant.

She passed on silently. It would have made her feel good to have told them herpast and then ripped them with the invective she'd learned in the Maze. But todo that would lower her estimate • of herself.