[Aztec 04] - Tribute of Death

by Simon Levack

  Somebody coughed discreetly. There was an awkward shuffling of feet. Some outlying members of the crowd, sensing that their policeman had ruled that the fun was over, disappeared unobtrusively. The giants who had been so keen to arrest me shuffled uncertainly away. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Spotted Eagle opening his mouth as if to say something, but he thought better of it.

  ‘Now,’ Kite said, ‘I want to know what happened here last night, and what happened down by the lake as well, and I’m not minded to let anybody go anywhere until I get some answers. So who’s going to start? We know what happened to Yaotl. Handy, what have you got to say?’

  The commoner was looking morosely at the hole in the ground where Star’s body had lain so briefly. ‘My wife,’ he muttered thickly.

  Kite’s expression softened at that. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said in a gentler tone. ‘I’m trying to find out, old friend.’ He glanced at Spotted Eagle. ‘What can you tell me?’

  The young man started, as though he had been woken from a dream. After a moment he said sullenly: ‘We were guarding the body. Then this – the slave calls it a monster, but I don’t know what it was – it came out of nowhere…’

  ‘We don’t know where it came from.’ I corrected him. ‘We were all asleep.’

  Spotted Eagle bristled. ‘I may have closed my eyes for a second!’

  ‘While a freak gust of wind blew the torch out?’

  ‘Now listen…’

  ‘Shut up, both of you!’ the policeman bawled. ‘Just tell me what happened after you woke up.’

  ‘We were attacked.’ The youth would not meet his eyes. ‘Yaotl ran off…’

  ‘What did you do? Your father? Flower Gatherer?’

  Handy answered. He was still staring into the empty grave. ‘We all ran,’ he said quietly. ‘We scattered. It was the surprise, and the noise. The scream…’ He shuddered. ‘By the time Spotted Eagle and I came back here, they were gone: Yaotl and Flower Gatherer.’ There was a brief pause. ‘And her.’ I glanced at the grave; I believe we all did, prompted by Handy’s last words. It occurred to me that there was something wrong with the way it looked; quite apart from the obvious absence of a body, I felt there was something else odd or out of place, that I could not quite identify.

  I dismissed the thought as another occurred in its stead. I turned to Kite. ‘Where’s your parish hall?’

  The central meeting place of Atlixco would, I knew, be close by. This was where the parish’s elders gathered, where its records were kept – every birth, marriage and death entered on screenfold books made of stiff bark paper – and where its officials, including the police, would have their headquarters. He indicated a long, low stone building at the far corner of the plaza, right next to the canal.

  ‘How come none of you heard anything?’

  ‘You may well ask! The answer is, we were all at the House of Song, singing to celebrate the war god’s day.’ I remembered the snatches of song that had come to us in the night, after the midwives had left. ‘By the time I was back here it was nearly daybreak. The traders were setting up in the market, and Handy and his son were wandering around in a daze. It seems no-one else had seen or heard a thing, apart from you three, Flower Gatherer – wherever he is – and whoever attacked you.’

  ‘And one other,’ I said. In answer to his questioning look I added: ‘Remember the women thought there were two men following the procession. They got part of a cloak from one of them – a three captive warrior’s cloak.’

  Kite looked thoughtful. ‘Red Macaw’s a three-captive man,’ he recalled.

  Handy looked up then. ‘Red Macaw didn’t have anything to do with this.’

  We all stared at him.

  ‘What makes you say so?’ I said. ‘He was very anxious to be here yesterday. Practically begged you. Why, though?’

  For the first time since I had seen him that morning, Handy became animated. He rounded on me, trembling, and raised his voice: ‘He just wouldn’t, that’s all. I told you not to ask about him, Yaotl.’ He turned to the policeman. ‘Whatever else he might have done, I’m sure he wouldn’t have done this.’

  Kite met his gaze. Then he said slowly: ‘Well, I don’t know. I assume whoever took your wife’s body was after a charm for a sorcerer or a warrior. And Red Macaw…’

  ‘I’m telling you, this has nothing to do with him! We don’t even know that it was his cloak!’ The commoner was sweating and his hands were shaking with tension. The policeman watched him the way a man might watch a trapped snake thrashing about as he waited for the best moment to stoop and grasp it behind the head; but he said nothing.

  I wondered aloud: ‘What about Flower Gatherer?’

  ‘What about him?’ Kite asked.

  ‘Did he run away? Could he have anything to do with what happened to the body?’

  Spotted Eagle snorted loudly. ‘Why would he do anything like that? He’s her brother-in-law!’

  Kite was watching me, saying nothing until I had begun to find his unblinking scrutiny unnerving. Finally he said: ‘You’d better answer the young man’s question.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I’d never met him before last night. He didn’t seem all that keen on what we were doing, though. Maybe he resented being dragged into the funeral and seized the chance to get his own back.’

  ‘He was attacked as well,’ Kite pointed out.

  ‘It could have been faked. Set up to make him look like a victim as well.’

  ‘So where is he now?’ the youth demanded. ‘What did he do with… with what he took? What’s he going to say to my aunt when he comes home?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  The policeman intervened. ‘The trouble is, Yaotl, or whatever your name is, I’d thought of your theory already, but there’s no reason why her brother-in-law would have done anything like that. What the thief took were charms for a sorcerer or a warrior, that seems pretty clear. Flower Gatherer was neither of those. He was just a peasant, and married to the woman’s sister. The boy’s question is a good one. How’s Goose going to react if she thinks her husband was behind this?’

  ‘Is he likely to care?’ I responded. ‘Maybe he’s not planning to come home at all. What other possibility is there?’

  ‘You could have done it,’ Spotted Eagle said shortly.

  ‘What?’ I gasped, so shocked that I could barely get the word out.

  ‘It seems to me,’ Kite said calmly, ‘that there are two possible explanations for Flower Gatherer’s disappearance. I think he ran away, like the rest of you. Either he ran fast enough, in which case he’ll be back eventually, or he didn’t, in which case he’s dead.’

  I frowned. ‘But if that’s so, where’s his body?’

  ‘You tell us,’ spat Spotted Eagle.

  I had to suppress a sudden, hysterical impulse to laugh in the young man’s face. Fortunately I remembered what had happened when I had done that before. ‘You think I did something to Flower Gatherer, and then dug Star up? That’s ludicrous! Why would I have done a thing like that?’

  ‘How should we know?’ replied the youth. ‘I don’t know anything about you. Why wouldn’t you have done it?’

  I sighed. ‘So where would I have put the man’s body? What did I do with your mother?’ I appealed to the lad’s father. ‘Handy, you know me. You don’t really think I had any part in this?’

  He could not look at me. For a moment his glance fell, perhaps involuntarily, on his wife’s body. He turned away with a shudder. ‘I don’t know what to think any more.’

  ‘The slave used to be a priest,’ muttered Spotted Eagle sullenly. ‘He could have done it. He knew what we had to do last night and why it mattered. He knows all about charms and how to make them…’

  ‘No I don’t!’ I was genuinely shocked. ‘I was a priest, not a sorcerer.’

  ‘What if he went away,’ the young man went on doggedly, ‘and then came back and moved the body while his ‘monster’ made sure we didn’t interfere?’
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br />   ‘But… but…’ Outrage reduced me to stammering incoherently for a few moments, until I got a grip of myself and began again. ‘If I’d wanted to steal Star’s body, then why would I have gone to the trouble of walking all the way to the lake and back? Why would I have come back this morning?’ I took a deep breath and looked imploringly at Handy one last time. He appeared as though he was about to be sick. ‘I’m not a thief or a sorcerer, and I’m certainly not a warrior. I liked Star, Handy, you know I did. I’ve no use for her hair or her arm. And what did I do with Flower Gatherer?’

  The commoner seemed beyond speech. He seemed to sway as I spoke to him, the way he might if my words had been blows. He let out a groan and stretched out a hand towards Spotted Eagle, who seemed about to launch into another tirade. Quietly he said: ‘That’s enough, boy.’

  The policeman was staring into the open grave. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he confessed without turning around. ‘What happened to the woman is one thing. She’s already dead – I’m sorry, Handy – but there’s this monster or whatever it is in the marshes, and even if I don’t believe a word this stranger tells me, the fishermen are obviously afraid of something. And what about Flower Gatherer?’ He seemed to be thinking aloud. ‘Someone’s going to have to find out what happened.’ He looked at me. ‘I still don’t know about you. Handy tells me you’re a slave, and you’ve been in trouble before. So I wonder if I shouldn’t think about putting you in a cage until Star’s brother-in-law turns up. A cage…’

  A cage: he let his tongue linger over the word, while my imagination conjured up the image of a tiny wooden box, barely big enough to crouch in, inside a damp, stinking, dark prison. Did he know how well I knew such places? The dread of being put in one, of never getting out or even being able to get a message to Lily, made me catch my breath.

  ‘I want them found,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not arresting anyone just yet. But until the missing man turns up and someone tells me who the thief is, I may change my mind at any time.’ His eyes swept the faces surrounding him. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone here who doesn’t understand what I’m saying.’

  The crowd had largely broken up, but those who remained understood him, and would pass the word to others, and if I knew my city’s parishes and their inhabitants, every man in Atlixco would comply – at least until their local official told them he had changed his mind.

  I was to be left alone for the time being, but what the policeman had said was that I was still a suspect, and I had better take care, and not think about leaving Atlixco at any time soon.

  Unless, of course, I could help him find the answers he wanted.

  4

  ‘We have to take her home.’

  ‘I have to get another message to Lily.’ It was about midday. The crowd had dispersed, and now Handy and I were holding two separate conversations. He just wanted to attend to his wife’s body. I wanted to reassure my mistress. I wondered whether she had got any sleep during the previous night. And I wanted just as much to escape whatever was haunting the lake shore, but I knew that was not going to be easy, if the locals were watching my every move and reporting it to the police. I thought of what my mother had said, how I had to find the otomi. However, if he had somehow turned himself into the monster that had attacked me, there was less chance than ever of convincing him to see reason.

  I knew I had been set up. I did not think the policeman really believed I had had anything to with killing Flower Gatherer or stealing anything from the grave. However, the idea had got into the crowd’s mind, and he had been happy enough to let it stay there, giving me a powerful incentive to help find the real thief. I wondered what had made the policeman think I would be of any use to him. Perhaps Handy had told him of previous occasions when I had found – or stumbled over – the solutions to mysteries.

  The commoner spared me only the briefest of glances before turning to his son. ‘We need to go home. There are things to do. There’s still the baby…’ He swallowed once, before continuing: ‘There’s still the baby to be buried.’

  ‘You can’t have heard me,’ I replied. ‘I need to tell Lily where I am. She’ll be worried.’

  Handy suddenly seemed to lose his temper. ‘Don’t you ever think about anyone or anything except yourself?’ he cried, taking a step towards me and stooping so that his face was close to mine and I could feel his breath on my cheek. ‘You want to run away, don’t you? You brought this thing with you, and now you want to go crawling back to your mistress and beg her to save your lousy skin. Never mind what might happen to the rest of us!’

  ‘That’s absurd! I didn’t know what was going to happen. How could I have done?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you didn’t know.’ His voice cracked and I could see that he was on the verge of tears. ‘You never do, do you? As long as I’ve known you, you’ve been surrounded by complete and utter mayhem, but of course it’s never been your fault. But see what’s happened here…’

  ‘This is where we started this morning,’ I started to protest. ‘It’s not as if I did it!’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ muttered Spotted Eagle sceptically.

  His father continued: ‘What happens to a woman like Star if a thief or a sorcerer gets her body, do you know that? What happens if she loses her hair and forearm? I don’t think she’s going to be greeting the sun at noon until she’s buried again – whole. Now you know about these things – tell me I’m wrong.’

  ‘I don’t know. I told you before, I was a priest, not a midwife.’

  ‘Tell us!’ It was Spotted Eagle’s turn to insist. ‘What’s going to happen to my mother?’

  There was no policeman about now to restrain the young man and in his present mood I did not trust his father to step in. ‘I’m not really sure,’ I said reluctantly. ‘But I suppose you could be right. If a thief took parts of her body for charms, then some of her power must go into those things. But what do you expect me to do, Handy? If I wanted to help you find her, and I’m not saying I don’t, where would I start looking?’

  ‘That’s your problem. You heard what Kite said. Help find my wife – and that useless turd of a brother-in-law of mine too, if you must. You can do it. You’re good at looking for things – you found those sorcerers after they escaped from the emperor’s prison, didn’t you, and that featherworker’s daughter from Amantlan. Then you’ll be free to go.’

  ‘You forget,’ I said drily, ‘I’m a slave. You can’t go around setting slaves free when they don’t belong to you.’

  Spotted Eagle let out a growl, which was no doubt intended to sound threatening. He clenched his fists, raised one of them to emphasise his words. ‘If you won’t listen to my father, you’d better listen to me! You do what we want or…’

  I barely looked at him. ‘Or what? You’ll beat me up, is that it? Well, go ahead. How will you stop me running away afterwards? And what are you going to do while I’m searching, follow me around the city kicking me every time the trail seems to be getting cold? It won’t work.’

  I enjoyed the look of confusion that crossed the young man’s face for a moment, but when I shifted my glance from him to his father I saw an entirely different expression. His cheeks were grey and sunken with fatigue and sorrow, which only made his raw, swollen eyes stand out more. I had not seen or heard him weep since his wife had died, but perhaps he had shed his tears silently in the night when it was too dark for them to be seen. There was no shame in weeping, but I could imagine him wanting to avoid adding to his family’s grief by letting him see his own. Or perhaps he simply wanted to spare himself the sort of well-meaning expressions of sympathy people are prone to utter when confronted with another’s distress. I knew what such misplaced offers of comfort were like, having heard enough of them from my family after I was thrown out of the Priest House. It never does any good to have others tell you how bad you must be feeling, when only you can know the measure of your own suffering. It just makes it worse.

  I suddenly realised that all Handy�
�s bitter words and threatening tone were bluster. He was not truly angry with me or anyone else, although that might come. He had no settled plan to recover his wife’s body, let alone the determination to carry it out or the ruthlessness to force me into helping. What I saw in his face was bewilderment, shock, and a huge, gaping, hollow feeling of loss. And his words to me had been driven by desperation. There was only one thing he could do for his wife now, but he could not see how to do it. I was the only person he could turn to for help, and he thought that all I wanted to do was to get away.

  ‘We used to be friends,’ I said quietly, for want of anything better to say.

  Before he could answer, a woman’s voice from behind me said: ‘Where are they? I came as soon as I could.’

  The speaker was Goose, Handy’s sister-in-law. He and his son both started, as I did, at the sound: they had been too engrossed in their argument with me to notice her.

  She looked as weary, drawn and haggard as her brother-in-law, and she was breathing heavily and sweating, as though she had run most of the way from Atlixco. ‘I had to make sure the children were all right,’ she explained, ‘but I’m here now. Tell me what happened. Where’s my husband? What did they do with my sister?’

  Handy groaned. ‘Goose, didn’t they tell you about Flower Gatherer?’

  She hesitated. She looked quickly at each of us in turn, scanning our faces as if searching them for some clue to what we knew, so that she did not have to hear it spoken. Eventually she replied, in a low voice: ‘They told me he was missing. Has anyone found… Is he dead?’ The last word was forcibly ejected from the back of her throat.

  ‘No,’ her brother-in-law said hastily. ‘No, there’s no more news. I’m sorry.’

  She bit her lip. ‘He’s not come home,’ she informed us unnecessarily.