[Aztec 04] - Tribute of Death

by Simon Levack

  ‘He was born nine months after they parted,’ she whispered. ‘He doesn’t know.’

  It was now obvious why Handy and his family had been so reluctant to talk about his relationship with Red Macaw. They had been trying to protect his dead wife’s reputation and hide the truth from the child who believed he was his.

  Precious Light was weeping for her grandson.

  Snake rejoined us, to sit in brooding silence while Kite and I told Precious Light what had been happening in the parish since her son had left. She listened with apparent indifference while we described the bodies we had found and the attack on Spotted Eagle and me during the night.

  ‘So now you’re looking for sorcerers and monsters,’ was all she could find to say when we had finished.

  ‘And a three-captive warrior who lost part of his cloak,’ Kite added. ‘Which is what made us think of Red Macaw.’

  ‘What would my son be doing following a woman’s funeral procession?’ Precious Light snapped. ‘He’d have no use for a warrior’s charm. He didn’t want to be invincible!’

  ‘Still, it needs explaining,’ Kite persisted. ‘Look at it this way. If it wasn’t him the midwives saw, who was it? I’m afraid we have to think about the possibility that it might have been someone or something he’d run into earlier – someone who took his cloak from him, perhaps.’ He paused to see how Precious Light would respond to that suggestion, but she did not so much as flinch. ‘It could be you next,’ he added quietly. ‘Anyone capable of what these creatures have done is a threat to all of us.’

  For the second time she uttered an unpleasant, cackling laugh. ‘Not to me! I never go out at night!’

  ‘You’ve lived here all your life, though,’ I said, ‘and you must know a lot of what goes on. Come to think of it, you do know Cactus, don’t you? I’m not sure about him – he could be a sorcerer.’

  Precious Light looked taken aback. ‘Cactus?’

  Snake broke his silence. ‘You know. You’re a customer of his. My sister met you both in the marketplace.’

  The old woman’s expression cleared. ‘Oh, I remember now. Yes, I buy herbs from him from time to time. They’re for making up poultices, for my back. It’s all those years bending over a spindle! He’s no sorcerer, thought, surely? Just a curer. But he’s very good and very attentive.’

  ‘Cactus, though. It’s a coincidence that you know him.’ I explained to Lily: ‘I met him at Handy’s house.’

  ‘Its not really that odd,’ said Snake. ‘This isn’t a big parish. I’d seen him before.’

  ‘He’s become quite a well-known figure,’ Kite put in. ‘He’s taken to giving away free samples of herbs to drum up business. He’s not done anything wrong that I know of.’

  ‘Curers and sorcerers aren’t so very different, though,’ Lily said. ‘You need to be careful. And if this one is going to start attacking people in their homes, then it doesn’t matter if you never go out.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to fear,’ Precious Light replied scornfully. ‘What have I got to live for anyway? It’s not as if anyone would miss me.’

  She looked down at Snake then, and it was hard for me to read her expression, but I noticed the skin stretching and slackening over her cheekbones as though a range of feelings were chasing each other across her face. ‘We weren’t like your mother and Handy, boy.’ Her voice was calm but suddenly hoarse. ‘My husband and I didn’t have a houseful of healthy children to see us into our old age. We lost most of them while they still lay on their cradleboards. Then my husband died. Only Red Macaw survived. Now he’s gone.’

  Snake made a fist and let it drop heavily into his lap. ‘We won’t see our mother into her old age,’ he said quietly.

  The old woman gave him a thin smile. Perhaps it was intended to look sympathetic. ‘I know,’ she replied.

  4

  Lily was watching Snake. The boy walked quickly in front of us as we made our way back from Red Macaw’s house towards Handy’s. ‘What do you suppose he’s thinking?’ she asked me.

  ‘Do you think he’s guessed about Red Macaw and his mother?’

  She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Yaotl, the only person I know who would be too stupid to guess is you!’ She quickened her pace suddenly and called after the boy. He stopped and half-turned his head.

  ‘What was that about?’ Kite asked me in a whisper.

  ‘No idea,’ I said wearily. ‘I suppose I’m too stupid to guess what she meant!’

  Lily had caught up with Snake. He acknowledged her without turning his head. ‘What?’

  ‘Snake, are you all right?’

  ‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Lily faltered then, and even I could see that for now, the lad was probably better left alone with his thoughts. Hurrying after them, I asked: ‘Where are you going now?’

  While my mistress glared at me in silence Snake mumbled: ‘I’d better be getting back. They’ll be wondering where I’ve gone. I can find my own way, though. You don’t have to come with me.’

  ‘But we’re going the same way,’ Lily protested.

  ‘What for?’ the boy demanded. His tone was bitter. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?’ His truculence reminded me of his eldest brother.

  ‘Your father doesn’t think so,’ I said.

  ‘What does he know?’ The words burst from him, forced out between the sobs he was trying to suppress. Lily, crouching, extended a wounded hand towards him, but he brushed it aside. ‘He didn’t want me to hear about my mother. So I didn’t, until you took me to that old woman’s house!’

  ‘Nobody took you. We followed you.’

  He took no notice of my interruption. ‘Now you’re going to boast to him about knowing his little secret, I suppose!’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said impatiently.

  He was still flinging words at me. ‘Of course you’ll tell him how sorry you are, how much you understand how he’s hurting, but it’ll be you who’s caused it! All you’ve done with your meddling is make everything worse!’

  ‘That’s enough, boy!’ Kite snapped. He stepped towards him, glowering threateningly.

  However, Lily was standing again now and the policeman found her barring his way, her expression stricken but determined. ‘Be careful,’ she warned.

  The boy darted behind her. ‘You’re no better!’ he cried. ‘Have you done anything to find my mother’s body? Do you have any idea where Flower Gatherer is? I don’t think so!’

  Kite clenched his fists, but there was nothing he could do unless he was prepared to shove the merchant’s widow to one side in order to get at Snake; and Lily was not moving. ‘It’s not his fault either,’ she said, in a trembling voice. ‘Let him be.’

  ‘You go where you like!’ the lad called out, as he ran along the canal path towards his house. ‘But don’t come near me!’

  Lily turned to watch him go. When she took her eyes off him, I thought Kite might spring after the boy, to fetch him a clip around the ear for his cheek, but all he did was let out a low whistle.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ my mistress said without looking around. ‘But you have to let him go.’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ the policeman assured her. ‘But I do have to go back to Handy’s house, anyway. I left my sword there.’ He glanced at each of us in turn, smiling thinly. ‘I hope after all that’s happened we all know each other well enough for me to trust you not to go running off anywhere?’ And with that he stepped delicately past the woman and walked with a measured gait the way the boy had gone.

  As soon as he was out of sight I breathed a deep sigh. ‘Well, that’s that. Where do we go now?’

  Lily stared at me. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Snake’s right about one thing. We haven’t got any closer to finding out what happened to his mother’s body or to his uncle. The trail must be getting colder with every breath we take. And we’re no nearer to learning who’s haunting the streets and terrorising the fishermen, or who the two dead men we’
ve found were. And every moment I stay in Atlixco, I’m in danger. I wonder if we shouldn’t just head back to your house in Tlatelolco.’

  I gave what I thought was an encouraging grin. Lily’s answering look wiped it away the way a large, sandalled foot would scrub out a child’s drawing in the sand. ‘You want to run away.’

  ‘No!’ I replied earnestly. ‘Or at least, well, not exactly. But I can’t see what more I can do here. And if that monster is still looking for me...’

  ‘Then he’ll find you, wherever you are.’ She spoke harshly as she finished the sentence. ‘Yaotl, what kind of a slave are you? You weren’t bought for your strength and the gods know it wasn’t for your looks, so it must have been your brains, yes? Well now bloody well use them! Why did we come back to Mexico to begin with?’

  ‘I’m having trouble remembering,’ I said, with mistimed flippancy. ‘Maybe life in Maize Ear’s retreat was getting boring.’

  ‘It was for you and your precious family!’ she cried. ‘And now you’re here, and your enemies know it. Whoever attacked you last night and the night before knows you’re in Mexico, and for that matter so does lord Feathered in Black. The very most you’ve managed to do is stir whoever was after you up, so they’re even more likely to want to kill you. If you leave now, what do you think will happen?’

  I held up my hands. ‘I give in! You’re right. They’ll keep trying to break into Handy’s house, and maybe it’ll work, and then I suppose they’ll go to Toltenco and start on my parents. And no doubt if this is a real sorcerer then sooner or later he’ll track me down to Tlatelolco too.’ I groaned. ‘I know all this. I don’t want to drag you into it. And I suppose I thought it might be nice to have a rest, even just for a day. Lily, it was good in Tetzcotzinco, wasn’t it? It felt like the first time in years I wasn’t being hunted or threatened with death! I’m so tired of running away all the time... What’s the matter?’ I stared at her in consternation, for suddenly there were tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Nothing,’ she gasped.

  I held her arm gently. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll go back to Handy’s house. We’ll think of something else. Maybe I can have another word with Cactus. Maybe I can try my brother. Lion might know something. It’s all right. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.’

  Her shoulders were heaving. She bowed her head, and drew the back of a bandaged hand across her eyes to wipe away the tears. Then she gave a loud sniff and turned fully around to face me.

  ‘Do you think that’s it?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Well, isn’t it?’ Trying to grasp her meaning was starting to make my head hurt. ‘Lily, I don’t understand. You don’t want me to run away and when I tell you I’m not going to, you burst into tears! Please tell me what you want me to do.’

  She took two steps towards me so that her face was very close to mine. ‘But I want to know what you want.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m a slave. I can only do what you tell me.’

  ‘That’s exactly the point! Don’t you understand what I’m telling you, you silly man?’ She shouted the words at me from about a finger’s breadth away, and the force of it made me recoil. I nearly fell over. ‘Why do you think I bought you out of the market in the first place?’

  ‘Well, you did say it wasn’t for my looks or my strength....’

  ‘And apparently it wasn’t for your brains either! But for some reason I thought your worthless life was worth saving, when your closest friend – if you ever had any! – wouldn’t have given a mouldy cocoa bean for it!’

  I gaped at her, probably looking as foolish as I felt. Suddenly I knew why she had been weeping, and what the look in her eyes now meant.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked me again, in a much softer voice.

  ‘You’re telling me I have to start thinking for myself,’ I said wonderingly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said hoarsely.

  ‘About you?’

  ‘About everything. Yaotl, you can’t run all your life. Even if we live through this – afterwards – you musn’t be just a slave. I need more than that!’

  Fortunately Kite was long gone and there was nobody about: no-one gardening on the surrounding rooftops or polling a canoe past us on the neighbouring canal. The sight of a middle-aged man and middle-aged woman embracing in the middle of the path, both of them seemingly laughing and crying at the same time, was an unusual one. It would have caused comment.

  When we got back to Handy’s house, we found Kite standing by the canal outside it. He had his sword and was turning it over in his hands, examining it and every now and then stroking one of the obsidian slivers set into its shaft or pinching it between thumb and forefinger. I did not much like the look of that: he seemed to be testing the blades, making sure none of them was loose, and the only reason for doing that was that he expected to have need of the weapon soon.

  He glanced up at Lily and me as we approached. ‘You two look happy.’

  ‘We had a row,’ I said.

  ‘That explains it.’

  Lily had been holding my arm loosely, as best she could with her damaged hand; she detached herself now, although she did not move away. ‘How’s the boy?’ she asked.

  The blades of the sword glittered. ‘As well as you could expect. I understand he stumped into the house and hasn’t said a word to anyone since. He’ll get over it.’ Kite looked at me. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I want you to look at something.’

  He led us a few paces along the canal until we found ourselves opposite a corner of Handy’s courtyard wall. A narrow alleyway separated the commoner’s house from the one next door. Peering into it, I noticed how dirty it was. Little heaps of dust were banked against the whitewashed walls on either side, and I saw a couple of maize husks, the skin of a tuna cactus fruit and several smudges that may have been footprints.

  ‘Oh,’ said Lily mournfully. I shared her sadness. The litter was only a couple of days’ worth, nothing that could not be shifted with a few moments’ sweeping. Its being there at all was a sign of neglect. Star and the other women of her household would normally have kept the area around their home spotless; it was a duty owed to the gods, as sacred as washing the faces of the idols in their niches every morning.

  I glanced along the canal. Between where we stood and the corner of the next house I saw three smudges like the one in the alley. As I looked at them, Kite said: ‘I don’t suppose either of you happened to notice whether these prints were here this morning?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I squatted beside the nearest of the marks, scratching at it experimentally with a fingernail. ‘But that doesn’t mean they weren’t here. We were all looking at the body.’ I looked at my finger, sniffed at it. ‘This is mud. Dried mud.’

  ‘Interesting, that,’ the policeman said, ‘considering we’ve had no rain lately.’

  Lily was standing behind me as I stood up. ‘Then whoever left these must have come from the lake.’

  ‘Directly from there, and not very far,’ I added. ‘Or else all the mud would have been rubbed off before he got here.’

  We both stared at the policeman. He used his sword to point to the footprints by the canal. ‘If you look at them again you’ll notice these are different shapes. See here? And here?’

  ‘That one was made by someone wearing sandals,’ I said. The flat oblong print was unmistakable. I glanced into the alley again. ‘Did they both go around the corner, or only one?’ I had an unpleasant suspicion that I now knew what Kite was getting at, and why he had been checking his sword so carefully.

  ‘Some of the prints out here, by the canal, were made by bare feet. The ones in the alley are all of sandals. So just one of them went in there, I’d say. They split up.’

  ‘Who?’ Lily asked in a worried tone.

  ‘Whoever attacked me and Spotted Eagle last night,’ I replied grimly. ‘The one who tried to jump on the young man must have gone around the backs of the houses here. That’s why his prints go off into the alley.’ I shivered
as I contemplated the inhuman shape I had seen, perched on a rooftop. What sort of monster wore sandals? ‘The sorcerer stopped here. In fact this is about where I met him last night.’

  ‘If they did come from the lake, that’s pretty suggestive,’ Kite said, ‘considering what’s been happening to Quail and the others.’

  ‘Have you been able to follow these back to where they started?’ I asked.

  ‘Not yet. The pathways around here have been cleaned since this morning, except in this spot. But I agree with you that the pair of them must have taken a pretty direct route from the lake. So what I thought we could do, is try to retrace it. We’ll take the shortest path to shore and see if we can pick any more of these prints up along the way.’

  ‘“We”?’ Lily and I repeated simultaneously.

  He hefted the sword. ‘I mean Yaotl, me and Spotted Eagle. What do you think I was waiting here for?’

  I was speechless for a moment. I felt Lily’s hand rest on my arm again. ‘You can’t take my slave,’ she said firmly.

  The policeman sighed. ‘Madam, I have to. He’s seen the makers of these footprints. He seems to have been the reason they were here in the first place. He must know more about them than anyone else...’

  ‘I don’t,’ I objected. ‘And it’s hardly my fault if they happen to know me, is it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ Kite said darkly, ‘and what if you know more than you think? You might get a surprise if you come face to face with one of them in daylight.’

  ‘I doubt if surprise is quite the word for it!’

  ‘Yaotl can’t go,’ my mistress asserted. ‘He’s a slave. His tribute obligations were discharged when he sold himself and he only obeys me. And I’m a merchant, remember?’ Her voice wavered slightly as she said this, but her words were clear, and moreover, she was right. It was one of the curious ways in which I, as a slave, was freer than most men. I could not be compelled to fight in the army, form part of a work detail or perform any of the other tasks that an ordinary commoner might be made to do at the behest of the emperor or anyone else. Only my owner could give me orders. And my owner was a merchant, from Tlatelolco. The merchants of the city’s northern quarter were a law unto themselves. They had their own police, their own courts, and emperor Montezuma’s special favour, in return for the wealth and intelligence they brought him. Even here, on his own ground, Kite had no power over Lily or anything belonging to her, and she knew it.