I may have passed out for a moment. There may have been other blows, but if there were I did not feel them.
The next thing I knew, a hand was pulling on mine, in an j effort to tug me to my feet, and a fine-sounding female voice was urging me to get up.
I smelled blood.
‘Come on, you idiot! If you don’t move you’ll be in as much trouble as we will!’
Somehow I managed it. I stood, blinking stupidly at the beautiful woman, while I waited for my surroundings to stop spinning long enough for me to look at them.
‘What… what happened?’ I mumbled thickly.
‘You nearly got yourself killed over nothing!’
I shook my head, wincing at the blinding pain at the back of my skull. I realized I must have hit it hard on the ground when I was knocked over. ‘Hope that man won his bet,’ I muttered inconsequentially.
‘What?’
I tried looking down. I seemed to be in one piece and was not, to my surprise, covered in blood, although I could still smell the stuff. Then I looked to one side and saw the man who had hit me.
He was on his knees, with his head bowed. One hand was on the ground, propping him up. The other was clamped to his side, trying to stanch the flow that was feeding a growing dark pool underneath him.
There was no sign of his partner in crime, or of the old man.
I looked up at the woman again. ‘What…?’
‘My father stabbed him,’ she said matter-of-factly.
I gaped at her.
‘Look, he’s an old man. He’s vulnerable, especially when I’m not around to protect him. What would he do if he came across a couple of young warriors with their bellies full of sacred wine and spoiling for a fight? So he carries this obsidian knife under his cloak. Of course, he wouldn’t have had to use it if it hadn’t been for your stupid stunt!’
Sorry,’ I said. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ I looked at the injured pedlar again. He had not moved, but had started moaning softly to himself. ‘Will he be all right?’
Oh, fine. Father won’t have hurt him that much.’
I suppose I ought to thank him,’ I said, remembering my banners. ‘Where’s he gone?’
She sighed. ‘After the other one, of course. He gets carried away. I’ll tell him you said thank you.’ She turned towards the marketplace and started walking.
‘Wait a moment!’ I hobbled after her as best I could, considering how difficult it was to stand up straight. ‘I don’t even know who you are! And who’s your father?’ I was loath to let this fine-looking woman go without at least finding out her name.
‘My father?’ She laughed, without turning her head. ‘He’s only a serf, don’t mind him!’
With that she strode through the entrance to the marketplace, leaving me staring speechlessly at her back.
Just before she vanished from my sight, she brushed past an insignificant-looking man in a plain cloak. He turned and stared after her for a long time and then glanced at me. For a moment our eyes met, and for once I was sure: he was the man who had been following me all morning.
Then I blinked, and both he and the woman were gone.
7
Kindly did not seem much interested in my encounter with the woman and her aged father, but he paid close attention to my account of my nondescript shadow.
‘You’re still being followed?’
‘I should think so,’ I admitted. ‘But I reckon I can lose him, come nightfall.’
‘Really?’ he said sceptically. ‘Well, I hope you can. Sounds as if your tail knows what he’s about, though. It’s a funny town, this, isn’t it? Spies everywhere. And it seems there’s no way of telling which lot you’re up against. I mean, is this one working for Maize Ear, like the two who picked Lily up, or for his half-brother?’
I had no answer to that. Instead, with a sigh, I got up. ‘Where are you going now?’
‘Back to Hare’s house. I want to look for… to see if I can find any clues. To where he’s gone or what happened to him.’ I recalled what Lily had told me, how nobody must know about the ring she had left there. I knew from experience that file last person Lily would trust with any secret was her own father, so I thought it best to say nothing about it.
Kindly rolled his filmed-over eyes and groaned loudly. Then, to my astonishment, he began to get up. ‘I suppose I’d better come too, then. Just in case you find that message and need me to tell you what it says.’
‘You?’ I had never known the old man exert himself for any reason other than to pick up a drinking-gourd that had rolled out of his reach.
‘Who else do you know who knows any Mayan? Just let me get my staff and then let’s get a move on. It would be good to be there before nightfall.’
He stumped towards our room, leaving me staring after him and thinking that his daughter really ought to see this.
The afternoon was already well advanced when we set out on the road to Huexotla.
The old man could not move as fast as I would have liked, and so to begin with, as we made our way through the busy streets of central Tetzcoco, I had to be content to assume we were being followed. It would have been an easy matter for anybody to keep an eye on us without being seen, slipping in and out of the crowds pouring out of the palace and the
