‘Probably,’ Obsidian Tongue agreed. ‘She’d be too important, or at least too well known, to proceed against without I some evidence. Lily, of course, very helpfully provided the i police with all the evidence they needed against herself by I stumbling on a freshly killed corpse.’
‘It wasn’t that fresh,’ I said. ‘And they weren’t the police. From what Hunter told me, they must be working for Maize Ear himself.’ I thought for a moment. ‘What if we could prove I the message was entirely innocent? That it was — I don’t know — the current prices for obsidian spear-points down in the jungle or something.’
‘How would you do that?’ the lawyer asked sceptically. ‘Even Lily doesn’t know what the message was about.’
‘Would it help, though?’ I persisted.
‘Well, I suppose it might. It would have to be very convincing, though. As I said, the judges will want to know as little as possible about the message itself, and they certainly won’t assume it was something harmless unless you give them a good reason to.’
‘Right,’ I declared. ‘Then this is what we do. I find Hare and get him to give this thing to me. Since it’s in Mayan, Kindly, you’ll then have to interpret it. Hopefully that’ll give your lawyer something he can use at the trial.’
Obsidian Tongue’s sudden explosive laugh showered me in a fine spray of sacred wine. ‘Is that all?’ he cried.
‘Why, have I left something out?’
‘Yes. How are you going to find Hare? Assuming he’s still in Tetzcoco, which he probably isn’t. This may be a small town compared with Mexico, but it’s not some little village. Are you really going to track down one man in a city of thirty thousand people? Remember the trial has to be up in four days.’
‘He’s still in Tetzcoco. He hasn’t been paid yet, remember? And from what Lily told me, it’s definitely worth his while sticking around until he is. And that’s where you come in. I’ve got to see Lily.’
‘You can’t.’ There was a hint of smugness in his voice as he explained what he thought was the fatal flaw in my scheme.
‘I am the only person who’s allowed to see her.’
Because you’re a lawyer. I thought so. That’s fine. I can be her lawyer too. You go and see her, and I’ll come with you.’
I had to talk to Lily, to find out as much as she could tell me about Hare, and in particular to get my hands on whatever she had been intending to pay him with. Besides, I wanted to see for myself where she was being held, just in case I had to put any of those daft plans to rescue her into practice. More than that, I wanted to see her, and I wanted her to see me, to know that I had not deserted her and was doing what I could to get her out of her cage. It was not as if I did not know what being in prison felt like.
Obsidian Tongue stared at me while sacred wine dribbled, unregarded, out of his wide-open mouth. ‘You?’ he gasped. I ‘Out of the question! You’re a slave and you look like one. In fact, you look as if you’ve been rolled down a mountain. It would get me disbarred. I…’
‘Will do what you’re told, if you want my money,’ growled Kindly. ‘Yaotl’s right. Our best chance of getting my daughter out of this is to find that merchant. And this slave can pass forf one of you if he has to. He used to be a priest, so he can read} and write and knows enough law to get by. He can be Lily’s regular lawyer, hotfoot from Mexico to help with her defence.’
Obsidian Tongue scowled, and for a moment I thought he was going to get up and walk out, but in the end the thought of all the goose quills filled with gold dust that Kindly was about to give him overcame his pride. ‘It’s not really necessary,’! he sulked. ‘I can put together a pretty good defence with what I have…’
‘This is a game to you, isn’t it?’ I said, exasperated. ‘It’s all very well for you to get up on your feet and make a few fine speeches, knowing you’ll be paid whatever happens, but to the rest of us it’s a matter of life and death! Besides,’ I added maliciously, ‘wouldn’t you like to know the truth about this message? I thought the truth mattered to you — or is that all over now?’
That stung him. He frowned at me, looked at the floor and finally took a quick pull at the gourd. ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘If you get caught, though, I’ll say you blackmailed me into it.’
The royal palace in Tetzcoco was, like its counterparts in Mexico, far more than just the place where the ruler rested his head. It served as the seat of government, the military headquarters and armoury, the courts of justice, the zoo and the jail, among other things. At its heart was as large a building as I had ever seen: an immense, two-storey structure whose colonnaded facade stretched so far in each direction that I made myself dizzy trying to see both ends of it.
The palace occupied half of an immense space, enclosed by walls that must have been a thousand paces on each side. The other half was Tetzcoco’s main marketplace. Even in the chilly pre-dawn twilight, this space heaved with buyers, sellers, spectators and others, such as Obsidian Tongue and I, who were just passing through. As we threaded our way among stalls selling everything from turquoise labrets to edible dogs, the lawyer attempted to give me a crash course in his nation’s laws.
‘Our system is a lot more sophisticated than yours in Mexico,’ he
