On the way, I asked Kindly how Obsidian Tongue had got on in court that morning.
‘Oh, his application failed,’ he said lightly. ‘As he said it would.’
‘How could you let him do it? And charge you for it?’ Kindly laughed. ‘Oh, his fees? Don’t worry, Yaotl. I’ll swindle the money back out of him in no time! After the case is over I’ll get him drunk and persuade him to invest it in some trading venture. A cocoa plantation somewhere in the hot lands to the South, or something like that. He won’t expect a return for a few years, and by the time he starts getting suspicious I’ll probably be dead!’
I laughed. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? He can’t be much of a lawyer if he’s that gullible!’
‘Oh, yes, he can. In spite of what you may think, he’s actually very good. And let’s face it, he’d better be — right now he’s the only thing that stands between Lily and being strangled.’ He fell silent for a moment, and I looked at him anxiously, but his expression was unreadable.
A moment later he gave a thin smile. ‘But as for gullible — well, you know these clever lawyers. They may know every rule and precedent there is, but outside a courtroom they’re as helpless as babies! Now, are we still being followed?’
I had started taking frequent glances over my shoulder, looking at shady places, the gaps between houses, low walls, trees and bushes, and listening for the sound of a footfall or the rustle of foliage being pulled aside for a pair of prying eyes to peer through. ‘I’m pretty sure we are. What we’ll do is, we’ll split up. He’ll probably follow me, since that’s what he’s been doing all day. So why don’t you go straight on to the house, and I’ll try to lose him?’ I quickly gave Kindly directions, assuring him that it was no great distance, even groping blindly as he would have to, and he would certainly get there before the Sun went down.
‘What if he follows me?’ he asked.
Lacking any satisfactory answer to that, I merely said brusquely: ‘You’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t! Go on. You don’t want to be stuck out here in the chill of the evening, do you?’
Muttering, he gripped his staff and walked off.
I stood in the middle of the road, feeling suddenly lonely and very much out in the open. I was tempted to dash into the shadows and hide, but I told myself that this was what I had planned to do: to make sure my follower saw me and would stick to me and leave the old man to go on alone. I peered into the shadows, trying to catch a glimpse of him, but saw nothing.
‘Well, off we go, then,’ I muttered under my breath, as I turned and headed off after the old merchant.
I remembered a steep track I had taken the day before, when I had climbed out of the stream behind Hare’s house to rejoin the road. I thought I might as well retrace my steps now, in the opposite direction, leading my follower into the tangle of undergrowth and rubbish that covered the hillside. If I moved quickly enough, he would have to reveal himself, and I stood a good chance of being able to hide simply by lying flat on the uneven, overgrown slope. Once it got dark I would be almost impossible to find.
I broke into a trot, knowing that in my current condition I would not be able to keep up the pace for long, but not expecting to have to run very far.
I kept glancing back, but there was still nothing to see. I stopped abruptly a couple of times and listened in vain for footsteps.
By the time I reached my steep path, I was beginning to feel uneasy. I had not thought whoever was following me was so good that I would be unable to spot him even in this quiet, empty road. I wondered whether my plan had, after all, not come off, and he was after Kindly instead. But in that case, I told myself, he would have had to pass me while I was standing in the open.
I darted down the slope.
The hillside was really little more than a high bank with a tiny stream at the bottom that would probably have been dry but for the recent short winter rains. Beyond the stream the ground rose a little, naturally, before levelling out and then dropping again towards the lake. The Sun was almost fully in my eyes as he prepared to set over the mountains, and this made it hard to see much detail in the houses, temples and bare maize fields between me and the lake shore, but what I could not miss was the dazzling expanse of the lake itself, looking like a vast sheet of polished copper, or the shadowed expanse of the great island in the middle of it. From here, Mexico looked a long way off, and, dangerous though the place was for me at the moment, I could not look at it without yearning.
I turned aside from the vision of my home and, crouching low in the hope that any watcher would be unable to see me against the dark background of the houses beyond the stream, I ran along the side of the slope until I found what I was looking for. Then I dropped into a shallow hollow behind a stunted choysia bush, lay as flat as I could and waited.
The Sun went down and the sky darkened. The stars came out. It began to get extremely cold.
I thought I had chosen a good hiding place, but I had positioned myself in it badly. I could see
