***

M's sister had been buried beneath a great rock near the cemetery, a tiny baby girl in a gem-encrusted box made by their father. And now M's ninety-year-old body, burned, turned to ashes and poured into an urn fashioned by his grandson, was set to be lain by that box. A procession of long-limbed boys and thick-fingered men moved through the gardens, made its way bewitchingly through the headstones, each figure bound to the other by a white rope. The leader of this procession, M's nephew and the eldest of the family, held M's clay vessel majestically aloft in his be-ringed artisan's hands, a wild spark in his green eyes, emeralds set in a silver mask.