The King, who had been staring at me open-mouthed, suddenly laughed. It was a wry chuckle, not like the high-pitched giggle that people said was how his uncle expressed amusement, and it reminded me that he was descended from Hungry Child’s father as well as Montezuma’s. ‘Well done! You sound as though you were there at the time.’
I allowed myself a thin smile. ‘My lord, I at least have an alibi! But it was the ring that convinced me eventually. When I was there with her, Lily didn’t have time to hide the ring properly before Rattlesnake and Hunter found her. She could only have done it during a previous visit to the house. But she told me she’d never been there before!’
Lily lifted her head from her father’s shoulder and turned her tear-stained face towards me. ‘I couldn’t tell you the truth,’ she said huskily. ‘Before we went to Hare’s house I thought I could just get the ring and no one would know what had happened. Afterwards, we were never alone.’
The King sat in thoughtful silence, his eyes shining in the moonlight as he looked at each of us in turn.
Kindly said, in a voice that sounded more than ever like a very old man’s: ‘She was trying to protect herself and the child. Can that be a crime?’
I felt sick. I had no idea what the law of Tetzcoco might have to say about the matter, but if it was the same as in Tenochtitlan then a master would not be allowed to ill-treat a slave, but an occasional beating probably would not count. However, to intervene, in the way Lily had, would surely be murder. As for trying to protect herself, I could imagine Snake Heart demanding harshly why she had not simply run away. ‘Interesting,’ Maize Ear said slowly.
‘My lord…’ I began, but he held up a hand to silence me. ‘The old man has overlooked something. The merchant’s body was not found until this afternoon. Lily has not been charged with his murder. I have not been asked to determine whether she did it or not. I can’t very well convict Lily of a crime she hasn’t been accused of!’
I felt my jaw drop. I was too amazed even to feel relieved, and I listened to the rest of his speech in breathless silence.
‘Now, I do have to decide what to do about the charges that have been referred to me — against both of you, slave, you and your mistress,’ he added severely.
I swallowed nervously as a gesture from Maize Ear drew a servant, bearing a piece of paper, to his side.
‘My judges have left it to me to rule on the charges against Tiger Lily,’ he said formally, ‘that she murdered an unknown man at a house occupied by Hare, the merchant, and that she plotted against me by passing secret messages. And there is the matter of her slave, Yaotl, accused of carrying out or participating in the killing of… seven?—’ he looked at me quizzically over the paper ‘—seven men at the same house, last night.’
Then, in a gesture that was far from formal, he seized the tough bark paper in both hands and tore it in half with a single violent jerk.
As the two pieces drifted to the ground, I heard him mutter contemptuously: ‘Lawyers!’
Lord Maize Ear sat silently in his high-backed chair and stared out over the lake shining far below in the distance and at the dark, irregular blot in its centre.
The rest of us were too shocked to say anything. Only Little Hen and Lily could be heard, the one singing quietly to herself, the other still weeping, but more calmly now than before.
In the end it was the King’s father who broke the silence.
‘My lord, what will you do with the child?’
At first, his son seemed not to have heard him, and when he responded he seemed to be answering another question entirely.
‘I don’t know how it got like this, Father. I wanted to rule as you did, and my grandfather, Lord Hungry Coyote. I wanted to be remembered as a law-maker and a poet and a warrior…’
‘You were unfortunate in your choice of uncle,’ Hungry Child said bluntly.
‘I was that! But I grew up down there. What else could I have done? If only Black Flower…’
‘Montezuma should have known better than to try to place you on the throne. This isn’t Mexico. The people don’t treat the King as if he were the next best thing to a god, and the chances always were that they’d rebel if they didn’t accept him. So you and he ended up with half a kingdom.’
‘And that half full of spies and torturers who do whatever they want in my name, but on my uncle’s orders.’
I felt a sudden chill, realizing what that meant: Rattlesnake and Hunter and their sinister comrades had seen themselves all along not as their own King’s men but as Montezuma’s.
‘As for the child — I suppose I should send her to Tenochtidan, shouldn’t I? With a full report of everything she has said, for my uncle’s soothsayers and sorcerers to pore over.’ Little Hen played with her doll and sang to herself, blissfully unaware that her fate was being discussed. I felt a pang of dread on her behalf, and out of the corner of my eye I saw my son tense.
‘Your uncle would put her in a cage,’ Hungry Child said coldly. ‘Or more likely, have her killed out of hand to prevent word of what she has seen getting out and causing still more panic. And I haven’t yet learned all she has to tell me.’
‘He
