‘Not a hare,’ I said impatiently. ‘A man named Hare. A merchant.’
‘You should have said.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘No,’ the policeman replied, before suddenly remembering that he had urgent duties to perform elsewhere and leaving me to it.
I swore once, and then started to work my way along the row of stalls.
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Do you mean Rabbit? There are lots of people called Rabbit…’
‘We sell seafood here. If you want a hare…’
As the morning wore on and I neared the end of the row, I found myself becoming more and more dispirited. This had seemed one of the most promising places to look for a merchant who specialized in goods from near the coast, but nobody seemed to have heard of him.
I was also getting hungry. I had never spent much time in this part of any market, assuming that it would be a revolting, malodorous quarter full of slimy things that no self-respecting Aztec would even want to look at, let alone eat. As my eyes tendered over the goods on display, however, I realized it was not like that. In front of me were sea creatures of every shape, from strange flat things to the long, narrow, silvery forms that I thought of as fish, crabs and lobsters, piles of scallops and clams in their shells and even a few turtles, some still alive, judging by the heavy, forlorn waving of their flippers. The dead creatures were mostly packed in ice scraped from the mountains so that they did not smell too much, and the air around them had a sharp, salty tang that was not unpleasant Kindly had given me some money before I came out that morning, and I handed over a small bag of cocoa beans in return for a tortilla stuffed with chillies and crab meat.
‘How do you keep it so fresh?’ I asked wonderingly. ‘It must take ages to get fish here from the coast.’
‘About two days, at most,’ the vendor told me proudly. ‘There are chains of runners, you see. They operate day and night, just like royal messengers. The moment the fish is landed, it gets taken up by the first man in the chain and it goes from hand to hand all the way here.’
All the way from the jungle, I reflected, up into the mountains, taking the long way around to skirt enemy territory around Texcala and Huexotzinco, and then down into the valley. ‘Impressive system. I don’t suppose you know anything about a merchant called Hare, who used to trade with the Mayans on the coast?’
The man frowned. ‘Never met him.’
‘Never mind,’ I said, turning away. ‘Thanks anyway. Good food!’
‘Wait a moment.’
I stopped with my jaws poised around my tortilla.
‘I don’t know anything about Hare, but I think I may have something of his.’
I looked around at once. The stallholder was facing away from me, bending over as he rummaged for something at the rear of his pitch. When he stood up and turned around, he had a heavy cloak, lined with rabbit’s fur, draped over one arm. It looked like the sort of garment a merchant might well take with him to keep him warm on his travels.
‘I was given this, this morning,’ he said. ‘There was a man hawking these along this row. I took this in exchange for a measure of clams.’
I stared at the cloak. ‘What makes you think it’s Hare’s?’
‘The man who gave it to me said he was acting on Hare’s behalf. I had the feeling Hare himself doesn’t want to show his face around here for some reason.’
‘Did he say anything else, this man? What was he like, anyway?’
‘Big bloke, built like a warrior, with enough scars too, but without the haircut. I thought maybe he was a labourer, a quarryman, something like that. All he told me was that Hare had given him this to sell, and there was more stuff if I was interested. Why do you want to know?’
I took a thoughtful bite at my tortilla before answering. ‘I may be interested too. What sort of stuff?’
‘Clothes, mostly. A few pots and plates, obsidian knives, that sort of thing. Oh, and a merchant’s travelling staff. Sounds as if it may be everything the man owns, as though he’s trying to raise money in a hurry.’
‘Do you think he’ll be back, the man who gave you the cloak? Only, I’d like to meet Hare anyway, and if he’s got things to sell…’
The trader grinned as he turned aside to put the cloak away again. ‘You’re thinking you’d like to get your hands on some of them to cover what he owes you, right? Well, I’ll keep a lookout. If the big man comes back, I’ll ask him. I suppose I don’t mention your name?’
‘Better not.’
I wandered back along the row of stalls, munching thoughtfully on my tortilla and trying to decide what to make of what I had just been told.
Hare might have been disposing of his property, as the man had said, perhaps with a view to converting it into something portable and taking it out of Tetzcoco as quickly as possible. I could well see why he would have done that, considering what we had found at his house, but there was something about it that did not ring true. I was sure that no merchant, no matter how desperate he was, would ever willingly part with his travelling staff. It was sacred to the merchants’ god, Yacatecuhtli, Lord of the Vanguard, and was supposed to remain with its owner until they were buried or cremated together.
If whoever was selling Hare’s property was not Hare himself then who was he? I wondered about the man who had sold the market trader his cape. A man built like a warrior. The body we had found at Hare’s house had been a warrior’s. Perhaps two warriors had pillaged the house, one of them had been killed, and the other was now trying to sell off
