The boy pulled some long grass out of the earth beside him and hastily tied a crude knot in the cord. Then what had the shepherd done when the lamb was born? He had tied a knot to stop the blood. Blood flowed freely from the severed ends. He unsheathed his knife, the one he skinned rabbits with, wiped it on his sleeve and, hesitating only for a moment, cut the rope close to the child’s body. But dare he, with a child? The whining suddenly stopped, and he sensed that a decision was now urgent. The boy had watched the birth of a lamb a few days earlier and he tried to remember. The mother and child were bound together by the slimy rope. Had you asked him why, and no one ever did, he would have told you that the tiny fingernails clawing at the crumpled face had worried him. He picked up the slippery little body that lay on the grass between her legs.

He did not need to be told that she was dead.

She was already blue with cold her tired young face looked middle-aged to the boy. He gazed at it for a long, stunned moment, then turned his eyes to the woman. The young hunter dropped his freshly caught rabbits and fell to his knees beside the little creature. Lying between the woman’s legs was a small, pink animal, covered in blood and attached to her by something that looked like rope. He ran quickly to her side and stared down at her belly, too frightened to touch. He had never seen a woman like that before. Then he saw the woman, her dress above her waist, her bare legs splayed. He crept towards the whining, even though he was now out in the open. When he reached the edge of the forest he had a clear line of vision all the way down the valley to the river, and even then it took him some time to realize that the strange cry emanated from no ordinary animal. Never stay in the open, his father had taught him. He moved stealthily towards the river, where the strange noise came from, darting from tree to tree, feeling the protection of the bark against his shoulder blades, something to touch. He hoped it would be small enough to kill at least that would make a change from rabbit for dinner. He edged towards the noise cautiously the scream had now turned to a whine, but it still did not sound like any animal he knew. But he had never known an animal to scream in quite that way before. He turned, sensing possible danger, his eyes searching for an animal that was obviously in pain. The young boy who was hunting rabbits in the forest was not sure whether it was the woman’s last cry or the child’s first that alerted his youthful ears. SHE ONLY STOPPED screaming when she died.

Kane and abel book jeffrey archer