Lily did nurse me, though, however grudgingly. She changed my bedding, treated my sores with poultices of pine resin and squashed black beetles, and every day forced me to mY feet and drove me into the guesthouse’s dome-shaped sweat bath. After my bath she would feed me, at first with bowls of thin gruel, later with tortillas and dishes of pinole.
I saw litde of Kindly, except at night. I gathered he spent his daVs in the marketplace, looking for old acquaintances and, knowing him, indulging in sacred wine. As a result, Lily and Ispent a lot of time alone together, but we talked little, and most of what we said was stricdy to the point: how my recov-j ery was coming along, and Lily’s plans for dealing with HareJ ‘I know he has a house in Huexotla,’ she told me. ‘It’s not his own, of course. He rented it when he came to Tetzcoco. I’ve not been there. I don’t want to go alone. I need you better so that you can come with me.’
‘Does he know you’re looking for him? Why can’t he come to you? If he’s got something he wants to sell, wouldn’t it be worth his while?’
Lily hesitated. ‘I’d have thought so,’ she conceded eventually. ‘But he’s a strange man — a bit of a recluse. It probably comes of living in the jungle for a few years.’ Suddenly she sighed. I ‘Hurry up and get well, can’t you? I need to have this over and done with!’
Over the next few days I found myself getting stronger, while Lily became more and more anxious. Once I could eat unaided, or potter about in the courtyard by myself, she took to spending time on her own, staring absently out of the doorway leading to the street and plucking nervously at a loose! thread hanging from the hem of her blouse.
‘I don’t know,’ Kindly said when I asked him what he thought was the matter. ‘She looks as if she’s waiting for some- ; thing, as though she’s expecting a messenger to come through j that gateway with bad news. I suppose it’s sitting here all day ’ when there are things to do. You’d better make fast work of your recovery!’
On our fourth morning in Tetzcoco, I awoke to find Lily’s urgent, anxious face peering down at me.
It took me some moments to work out where I was. I was j still so unused to being able to move that, on first waking, it did not occur to me to try getting up, or even to straighten myself out from my huddled posture. Eventually the woman grasped my shoulder and shook it roughly.
‘Come on! Wake up! If this is the sort of service I can expect from you, you’ll find yourself back on the market!’
I managed to haul myself into a sitting position. It hurt, but my groan got no reaction from my new mistress. This was only to be expected: through the doorway, I could see that half the courtyard was bathed in sunlight. I had slept disgracefully late. Aztecs prided themselves on being up and about before dawn, but day and night had had no meaning for me for so long that I still found myself lying awake until well after midnight and then missing the sunrise.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered, throwing off my blanket and reaching for my new cloak. ‘I thought your father would wake me. Where is he?’ The other sleeping mat in the room was empty, except for a rumpled blanket on one corner.
‘Off buying sacred wine, as usual.’
I got painfully to my feet, swaying a little as I stood upright. My calves and thighs still felt as if they were about to turn into water, but I knew they would only stiffen up further if I did not exercise them. A few aches were nothing. I could put up with a good deal of pain and discomfort: as a priest, I had fasted nearly to the point of starvation and taken ritual baths in freezing lake water in the name of one or other of our gods, and lacerated myself all over in order to give them my own blood for nourishment. I knew I was in much better condition than I had been, and that thought by itself cheered me.
What’s the matter?’ I asked.
Nothing. But I’m tired of waiting. You’re well enough to walk now. You can come to Hare’s house with me.’
But…’ I began to protest, but she had already turned to lead the way out of the house. Over her shoulder, she snapped back: ‘I’ve fed you like a baby long enough. Now it’s time for you to earn your keep. Anyway, walking will feel easier than standing still, I should think.’
I might have added that lying down was even easier, but then I remembered that I was still, after all, a slave. With a sigh, I limped out into the daylight.
Huexoda was a suburb of Tetzcoco, a village that had long ago been absorbed into the city’s sprawl. It was not a great distance away, but Lily set a brisk pace and my legs were out of practice.
I gritted my teeth, stumbled along behind her and distracted myself from the pain in my thighs by looking at the people and buildings around me.
The people were a varied lot. Most looked just like Aztecs, the men with their loins wrapped in breechcloths and their cloaks knotted at the throat or over the right shoulder, just as they were worn in Mexico, and the women in blouses worn loose over long skirts, and their hairstyles were familiar: long and tangled for the black-cloaked priests, short and sometimes tonsured for commoners, bound up and tied over the forehead for respectable women. There were many
