[Aztec 04] - Tribute of Death

by Simon Levack

  ‘No, but by the look of you, you aren’t exactly in favour at the moment.’ I noticed he had acquired a couple of prominent bruises since our last meeting. ‘Probably that had some influence on them in there. Maybe if you went home, gave the bruises a chance to heal, lost a bit of weight...’

  ‘Besides,’ Lion added, ‘they’re not wrong. This is Kite’s parish, and if he’s the man I remember, he won’t have anyone else throwing their weight around here as long as he can do anything about it. And telling them you were from old Black Feathers’s household wouldn’t have helped much.’

  Huitztic glowered at us. For a moment he stood where he was, clearly uncertain what to do, but it did not take him long to make up his mind. Slowly, like the flow of blood from a shallow wound, a grin spread itself across his face.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Then you can just go in there and tell them from me that they had their chance. And that they may have more to worry about than the chief minister, for all his power!’

  With that, he shouldered his sword, turned around and walked off into the gathering darkness.

  ‘Now, what was all that about?’ Lion wondered aloud.

  ‘Who cares?’ I said.

  ‘Not me,’ Handy muttered. ‘He’s always been trouble, even when he was bringing me work. Though if there’s any truth in what you told me, Yaotl, about that time you met him, when he got pushed in the canal, then I wouldn’t mind a chance to ask him about it. I’d still like to know just how he knew about my wife and Red Macaw!’

  ‘Come on,’ my brother urged. ‘Let’s see if they’ll let us in.’

  For a man who would defy the chief minister’s servant, Kite presented a wretched figure.

  They had strapped him to something resembling an infant’s cradleboard, so that he could move his arms but everything else seemed to be held fast. He wore no cloak and instead of a breechcloth, his hips were swaddled in bloodstained bandages, from the top and bottom of which wooden splints projected. His skin appeared to hang off his bones, as though he had neither eaten nor drunk in an age.

  The men – a handful of the men of the parish, headed by my old acquaintance, Quail – had placed him by a brazier in the centre of the parish hall’s courtyard, and now hovered about him like moths around a torch, attending to his every need. Hence he appeared comfortable enough, and the voice in which he greeted us, although weak, was cheerful.

  ‘It looks worse than it is,’ he assured us. ‘And I’m allowed to have sacred wine, which is good. Mind you, I’ve been warned not to expect to take any more captives!’

  Lion told us about our encounter with the steward.

  The policeman’s response was a laugh which turned into a dry cough. When he recovered he whispered: ‘He was looking for you, Yaotl, and he wouldn’t have it when my men told him you weren’t here. In the end I lost patience and told them to tell him to sod off. It sounds as if he got the message!’

  ‘It does,’ I agreed, ‘but all the same, I wonder where he went? Back to his master?’

  ‘Who cares?’ Handy replied. He squatted on the ground a little apart from the rest of us, as seemed to have become his habit, at the edge of the circle of warmth from the brazier.

  ‘You ought to,’ Kite remarked. ‘Don’t you rely on him for work?’

  ‘On old Black Feathers, yes, sometimes. But from what you tell me and what we saw out there this evening, I don’t suppose Huitztic has much say in it any more. Besides, we’ve two less mouths to feed now, haven’t we?’

  Nobody could think of an answer to Handy’s bleak statement.

  The sky’s hue deepened from blue to black, while the first stars began to show themselves, and the parish temple, the only nearby building tall enough to be visible above the walls surrounding us, became a vague shadow whose very shape would shortly dissolve into the night.

  There was no sound. The whole vast city spread over the island around us seemed to have gone to sleep; either that, or it was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

  I looked at the prancing shadows thrown against the sides of the courtyard by the brazier’s flickering flame, and felt suddenly uneasy. To calm myself, I talked. ‘It’s funny. Apart from the fire in front of your little temple there, we could be the only creatures alive anywhere.’

  The temple fire was like a star: a little twinkling pale orange light.

  ‘We aren’t, though,’ Handy reminded me. ‘There’s at least one otomi out there tonight. I ought to be getting home, in case he attacks again.’

  ‘He didn’t come last night,’ I reminded him.

  ‘You’d be better off staying here,’ Lion advised. ‘This must be the most defensible building in the parish. If you set off now you might risk running into trouble in the dark.’

  Handy said: ‘Last night he was busy getting his warrior costume back, and moving Star and Red Macaw.’ He shivered, and shuffled a little closer to the fire. ‘Why did they do that, do you think? And where did they put them? Will we ever get her back?’

  ‘Lord Feathered in Black said there might still be some power in your wife’s remains,’ I recalled.

  ‘Is that true?’ asked Lily.

  ‘Not that I ever heard of,’ I admitted, ‘but then, the chief minister may know more than I do. As Lion said earlier on, he probably has sorcerers of his own.’

  Handy’s face glowed in the firelight. ‘I just want to find her,’ he said simply. ‘When you and Spotted Eagle told me what had happened, I couldn’t believe it. And you were so close!’ His features were briefly wrinkled with pain.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It was all I could think of.

  He sighed. ‘I’m all right, though. But it’s not easy, you know? I keep thinking I’m getting over what happened, and maybe I am, but I’m beginning to realise that it won’t ever be easy.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You know what the hardest part was? It wasn’t this morning, when I learned about the bodies being taken. It was when Slender Neck told us about Gentle Heart. It was a shock. We trusted the woman, and… well.’ He sighed again. ‘Now she’s dead too, and we’re no nearer to knowing who was really to blame. It’s the children I’m worried about. That’s another reason I need to go home, because I’m all they’ve got. And there’s Goose and her brood. Flower Gatherer can’t have been much of a husband to her, of course, but still…’

  Lily said: ‘What about Goose’s and Star’s parents? Won’t they help?’

  Handy laughed bitterly. ‘I bet they will – they’ll help so much, by the time they’ve finished I doubt if any of my children will ever talk to me again!’ He scowled. ‘Not that they don’t love their grandchildren. They dote on them, in fact, spoil them rotten.’ For some reason at that point he looked at me, as though he expected me to come up with a response to his next question: ‘Do you suppose that’s why they hated me and Flower Gatherer so much? Maybe it wasn’t that we weren’t good enough husbands for their daughters. I wonder if they just thought our kids deserved better fathers!’

  ‘That’s not a question I could answer,’ I said shortly. It was not a subject I cared for; I had been no sort of father to my own son.

  An awkward silence followed. It was as if everybody was waiting for someone else to speak first, and the fact that we all knew what it was that needed saying did nothing to loosen our tongues.

  I looked through the gateway at the void beyond it and saw how the plaza outside had become one featureless, empty expanse of night.

  There are times when you can know what you need to do, and have made up your mind to do it, yet find that the impulse to move somehow fails to reach your muscles. I must have willed my mouth to open several times before the words finally came out of it.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said roughly. ‘If you’re really intent on going home, I’ll come with you.’

  Lily gasped indignantly. ‘Yaotl! What are doing? How dare you! You’re mine, I forbid you to go out there!’

  I said: ‘We can’t let Handy go alone. It’s not far and
it’ll be safe enough. It’s not as if the captain can take us by surprise.’ I wished I could have made it sound more convincing.

  Quail appeared next to me. He was carrying three swords, one of which he handed to me without comment. He gave Handy another and kept the third.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, as my hand closed around the weapon. It was not a crude relic like the one Spotted Eagle had given me the day before; its polished shaft gleamed in the firelight and the blades set into its edges were fixed in two unbroken, flawless rows. ‘I’ll try not to hurt myself with this! Who’s the third one for?’

  ‘I’m coming too, but let’s get this over with, shall we?’ I could not help glancing across at my brother, who still stood beside Kite and the brazier. He was very still, with his head bowed and his fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of his sword. Looking at him more closely, I noticed the white of his teeth, which where clamped rigidly together, and then I realised with a shock why this was: it was to stop them from chattering.

  Suddenly he whirled around and strode towards us, walking straight past me towards the gap in the courtyard wall.

  Quail stared at him. ‘What...?’

  ‘He’s afraid of the dark,’ I hissed. ‘Come on. It’s not far. We’ll be fine if we all keep together, won’t we?’

  Another figure appeared beside me then. I stared at Lily, aghast. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She smiled. ‘We really must get this owner and slave relationship sorted out, Yaotl. I’m supposed to ask you questions like that!’

  ‘But you can’t come! It’s dangerous!’

  ‘ “We’ll be fine if we all keep together”,’ she quoted. Then, more firmly, she added: ‘I can’t let you go without me. I have a lot of money invested in you, remember?

  We all stood at the gateway, gazing out into the night and hesitating like swimmers contemplating a plunge into icy water.

  ‘Like the desert out there,’ Lion muttered, ‘only without any owls.’

  ‘Is it always this quiet here?’ I asked.

  ‘Nobody likes going out after dark,’ Quail said. ‘But I suppose with all these murders, and all of them at night, and the rumours of what might be out there, it’s not surprising if people are even warier than usual.’

  ‘I don’t blame them,’ Lion said morosely. ‘Give me a horde of screaming barbarians any day – anything but this!’

  ‘What if he comes here?’ Lily asked suddenly.

  ‘Who?’ I replied.

  ‘The otomi. What if he comes here instead of going to Handy’s house? There are only Kite and a couple of young boys with him to defend the place.’ I had to smile at that description; Lily’s ‘young boys’ were fully grown one-captive warriors, not equal to the captain but still armed to the teeth and able and willing to give a good account of themselves. Only Kite’s direct order had prevented them from joining Handy’s miniature army, and they had shown the greatest reluctance to obey.

  ‘Why would he come to the Parish Hall?’

  ‘It’s you he wants, and you’re here.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know where I am – does he?’ The words were barely out of my mouth when a voice bawled out of the gloom ahead of us and told me just how wrong I could be.

  ‘Hey! You in there!’

  It was the otomi captain.

  8

  The shock of hearing the captain’s voice turned our brave little band into a flock of terrified fugitives, scattering helplessly, like wild peccaries driven by huntsmen. For a moment fright drove every thought from my head, and in the urge to save myself I forgot Handy, my brother and even Lily. I was only aware of the harsh, mocking calls behind me and the feel of the ground under my bare feet. I was halfway up the steps towards Kite’s rooftop garden before I came to my senses.

  The otomi was not running after me. He was still shouting. The sound of it came out of the night, from somewhere beyond the gateway, although it was hard to tell precisely where because of the way it echoed off the sides of the pyramid and the walls of the buildings around it.

  I stumbled to a halt between one step and the next and turned slowly to survey the scene around me.

  Kite and the two men who had stayed with him were still where we had left them a few moments before, the three of them standing or lying in the middle of the courtyard beside the brazier. My flight had carried me right past them. Long, wavering shadows in the firelight told me where three of the others were. Lion and Handy had pulled up short next to the gateway, and were standing on either side of it, while Quail was slowly walking back towards them from the bottom of the steps.

  I could see nothing beyond the walls of the courtyard, but I would have bet that the captain was standing in the middle of the plaza outside, his sword by his side, bellowing out his taunt as brazenly as if he were in the midst of a battle-line.

  I could not see Lily.

  I looked wildly about me. I peered into the shadowed corners of the courtyard, hoping I might have missed her the first time I looked. I ran down the steps, calling her name.

  ‘I’m up here!’

  I spun around and looked up. My mistress stood at the edge of the roof, near the top of the steps.

  At first I was too astounded to be relieved. ‘What are you doing up there?’

  ‘I felt like doing some gardening,’ she shouted over the sounds from outside. ‘There’s a prickly pear here that’s ripe for harvesting – what do you think? I ran, the same as everyone else!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Kite shouted. ‘What are you all doing back here? And who is that out there?’

  The answer came back immediately. ‘You know who I am and what I’ve come for! Is Yaotl in there with you? If he is, send him out here now!’

  Lily ran down into the courtyard, the slap of her feet accompanying the captain’s bellowing like a two-toned drum beating the rhythm of a hymn.

  ‘We have to get Kite up onto the roof,’ she cried breathlessly as she came up to me.

  I stared at her.

  ‘Yaotl, listen! He can’t run or fight. His only chance is if we get him up there and barricade him in somehow while someone else gets help. Do you understand?’

  I understood. I turned to the two young soldiers and between us Lily and I managed to convince them of what they had to do, ignoring their chief’s protests.

  ‘Forget it!’ Kite said angrily. ‘I can stay here. I’m not skulking on the roof while that madman makes free with my parish!’

  Beside the door, my brother raised his own voice in answer to the captain’s. ‘And if he isn’t here?’

  ‘Then you tell me where he went. Or it’ll be the worse for you!’ Lion seemed to think about that for a moment. He turned to me and beckoned with a sharp gesture. I ran towards him while Lily supervised Kite’s short journey up the steps.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ came the voice from outside. ‘Do I have to come in there and look for him?’

  I had only half the courtyard to cross to join my brother by the gateway, but it seemed much farther. Every step that took me closer to the roaring man in the square felt as though it might be my last. I seemed to be walking slowly, and when I looked about me I was like a dying man filling his sight with familiar things for the last time: the small square space of the courtyard, the brazier at its centre, the flat-roofed rooms surrounding it on three sides and the gateway to the plaza on the fourth side. The brazier’s flickering light made the entrances to the rooms look like the mouths of caverns. The doorways opened out into the central space, including one on either side of the stairway. At the top of the steps, crowning the rooms and so overlooking the courtyard from three sides, was Kite’s well-planted patio, whose owner was now, under protest, being settled among his cacti and succulents.

  I was tempted to make a dash for it, run indoors and cower behind a large clay pot or a wicker chest, but I did not. I knew the captain would not leave or give up now until he had found me.

  ‘He’s in there, isn’t he?’ the captain yelled. �
�I’m going to count to twenty, and you’d better send him out before I’ve finished!’ There was a brief pause before he began, in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the Valley of Mexico: ‘ONE!’

  Handy, standing beside the far gatepost, muttered an oath. ‘Why’s he want to drag this out?’

  ‘TWO!’

  I looked at Lion, and he looked back at me, with his eyes hard and unblinking and his mouth set in a grim line. Now that his enemy had come out to confront him, he longer showed a trace of fear. ‘Yaotl…’

  ‘THREE!’

  ‘All right,’ I gasped. Somehow I managed to drag one foot in front of the other. ‘I’m going. Sorry about all the trouble, but…’

  ‘FOUR!’

  He seized my arm, gripping it so hard that the pain cut through my misery and fear, making me flinch. ‘You stay there!’ he snapped. ‘You’re no good to anyone as a corpse!’

  ‘FIVE!’

  I gaped at him but he was not looking at me now. He beckoned to Quail and Handy. ‘We can’t just stand here waiting for him.’ The observation met with a growl of approval.

  ‘SIX!’

  I looked about me as if waking from a dream. ‘But…’

  ‘SEVEN!’

  ‘I wish he’d pack that in!’ Lion said, to no-one in particular. He turned back to me. ‘You’re going nowhere. Forget that you’re my brother. I wouldn’t give that bastard what he wants, even if he were demanding old Black Feathers’ liver fresh from the griddle.’

  ‘EIGHT!’

  ‘We could rush him,’ Handy suggested.

  ‘NINE!’

  I stared at the commoner. ‘You’re crazy! We can’t take him on! Don’t you know what he…’

  ‘TEN!’

  ‘Of course I do,’ he replied. ‘But we can’t just stand and wait.’

  ‘ELEVEN!’

  Lion said: ‘Handy’s right. It’s all we can do. Yaotl, get back up on the roof. Tell Kite and Lily what we’re about and send those two lads down here.’

  I stared stupidly at the top of the building.

  ‘Go on, move! If he attacks first then we’ll hold him off down here as long as we can. If he shows himself out there first, we’ll charge him. He won’t be expecting that. If we can at least wing him...’