‘Calm down, and don’t talk so loudly! I couldn’t keep it on me — someone would have been bound to find it by now. Look, if Rattlesnake and Hunter are anything to go by, Maize Ear’s men may not have found it. I jammed it into the wall, in a gap by one of the doorposts. You’ve got to find it.’
‘Well, yes, all right, but as I was saying…’
Lily looked up again, her manner suddenly brisk. ‘No. Listen to me, Yaotl. Nobody must know about this ring. Nobody! Mother of Light told me when she gave it to me — if it falls into the wrong hands or if word of it gets out, it means death to everyone who’s had anything to do with it. And don’t expect to get a trial first!’
‘But…’
‘Careful. Here comes the guard again.’
I swore under my breath as Mouse came lumbering towards us, with a slave trotting at his heels. The slave peered critically! through the bars at the almost empty pot. ‘Hardly anything in it,’ he complained. ‘Do you think I empty these things for fun?’
The guard looked reproachfully at Lily. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said meekly. ‘I haven’t got used to this yet.’
‘I’ll come back later.’
As the slave trotted off again, obviously keen to spend as little time in the prison as he could. Mouse said: ‘I hope you two haven’t been plotting anything while I was away.’
‘I was just explaining something to my client,’ I said stiffly, while wondering what Lily had been talking about. Obviously she wanted me to go back to the house and retrieve a ring. With Mouse standing next to me I could not ask her why, or why it was such a secret. I would just have to add it to a growing list of mysteries, of which the most pressing, from my point of view, was what in the Nine Regions of Hell had the Texcalan been doing there? Who had killed him?
‘Well, carry on,’ Mouse said encouragingly. ‘Don’t mind me!’
I hesitated, trying to find a way of outlining my plan in a way that could safely be overheard. ‘The man who owned the house — assuming it wasn’t him who was found dead on the floor there — we have to find him, don’t we? Any ideas about where I can look for him, or someone who knows him?’
Lily held my gaze for a moment and opened her mouth as if there were something she wanted to say, but then, after a quick, nervous glance at her jailer, she lowered her eyes. ‘I don’t think it will work,’ she said softly.
‘Well, maybe not, but we have to try. I heard he was a merchant, from the hot lands on the coast. Is it worth asking the people who trade in the stuff they produce there? What would that be?’
‘Chocolate, seashells, fish,’ she mumbled automatically. Yaotl, please, don’t waste your time on him. It won’t help.’
‘Well, it’s all I can think of,’ I said sharply. I was a little hurt to have my scheme dismissed so hastily. ‘Do you have a better idea?’
No. I’m sorry, it’s just that… Well, I don’t know how to say it…’
She plucked a few times at the hem of her blouse, which I recognised as an old nervous habit. As she looked at the floor of her cell, her dark, silver-streaked hair, unbound now, fell over her forehead. I had a sudden impulse to reach into the cage and touch it with my fingers, the way you might stroke a Pet dog to reassure it during a thunderstorm.
‘We’re doing everything we can, you know,’ I told her.
‘I know,’ she whispered. When she looked up, I was surprised to see tears in her eyes. ‘And I know you shouldn’t really be here. Thank you.’
I wondered whether she meant that I should not have come to the prison in the guise of her lawyer or was echoing my own thoughts of the day before, when I had toyed with the idea of running away from the city altogether. Either way, I could not think of a reply. We both fell silent, until, concerned that her guard might start to become suspicious, I got to my feet and mumbled a gruff goodbye.
‘Conch shells, scallops, crab meat, turtle, stuff like that? Try any stall in this row.’
After leaving Lily I had decided that, whatever she might say, I had to follow my original scheme and find Hare. I would try to find the ring she had told me about as well, but it made sense to begin with the merchant. The obvious place to look for a merchant was in the marketplace, and that was right in front of the palace.
Now I looked in dismay at a line of pitches, most of them nothing more than reed mats strewn with merchandise, which seemed to stretch the entire length of the marketplace. It was going to take a long time to search this part of the market alone, and then I had to look for the chocolate sellers and anybody else trading in goods from the hot lands: dealers in exotic feathers, amber, tobacco, cotton and so many other thing? Every type of merchandise had its own space, with dealer! specializing in it grouped together. It made it easier for customers and traders alike, as well as for men like my informant, one of the policemen who patrolled the aisles between the stalls, keeping an eye out for thieves and short measures. I supposed, I admitted to myself, that it made it easier for me too — at least I knew to ignore the traders in slaves or obsidian spear-points or cochineal, for instance.
‘What were you looking for, exactly?’
‘Hare,’ I said absently.
The policeman frowned. ‘No, no. You’re in the wrong place entirely. You want dealers in game, don’t you? Mind you, it’ll be a bit stringy at this time of year. You want to wait until summer,
