‘Well, let’s just say that he walked into the house, and he was carried out. I don’t suppose the two warriors who took him away had been left there just to offer guided tours.’
They were probably Rattlesnake and Hunter, I realized, or colleagues of theirs, and they were almost certainly looking for me. Remembering the bump on the head I had given Hunter, I suspected they would find the man they caught something of a disappointment.
‘Are you going to light this fire or what?’ Kindly demanded. ‘It’s all right for you youngsters, but I’d like to be able to feel my feet at least once more before I die!’
‘It should be safe enough now,’ I agreed. ‘If there’s anyone out there they’ll probably be too frozen to notice the smoke.’ Nimble obliged, and again I was struck by how much my son had learned in the years when he had been lost to me. Much of that time he had spent wandering, alone, in the mountains, and sparking fife into a loose heap of kindling was something he must have had to do often. We were soon gathered around a healthy blaze. This cheered Kindly so much that he even offered his sacred wine around, although I preferred to share Nimble’s gourd full of water instead.
‘What beats me,’ the old man said, ‘is how our tail knew where to come.’
‘The same way I did,’ my son told him. ‘This house is probably the worst-kept secret in Tetzcoco now. I was only in the marketplace half the morning before two people told me exactly where it was.’
‘But why were you looking for Hare?’ I asked. ‘What are you doing in Tetzcoco at all?’
‘I came after you, of course.’
‘But…’
‘Look, I still know plenty of people in Tlatelolco marketplace. I heard what happened to you. I wished I could… well, I wanted to do something, but Lily did it for me, didn’t she?’
I grinned at the memory. ‘Just as well. I don’t suppose you have a hundred and five large cloaks to your name!’
‘I guessed Lily might bring you here. I managed to see Partridge and he told me where you were staying. Of course, when I got there, you were all out and Lily had been arrested.’
‘So you started making your own enquiries.’ I could understand why. Lily had nursed my son back to health after he had been badly injured at her house. He owed her as much as I did.
‘I thought I’d have a look at the place. But when I got here…’
‘Someone was here ahead of you.’
‘Yes, and I thought there was something strange about them, so I decided to keep an eye on the place, just to see what would happen.’
‘And then we turned up,’ mused Kindly.
As I began to thaw out, I remembered what I had originally come for. Plucking a burning log out of the fire to use as a light, I said: ‘Since we seem to have the place to ourselves, I’m going to take a look inside. You needn’t get up,’ I assured Kindly hastily, remembering Lily’s warning. I wanted to look for the ring without being observed.
‘I won’t,’ the old man answered gruffly. ‘Just mind you don’t fall into that bloody great pit, won’t you?’
I looked at him, mystified. ‘Pit? What pit?’
‘There’s a big hole in the floor. What, you mean you didn’t notice it?’
‘It must have been covered up.’
‘Oh, yes, with an empty wicker chest. Nearly walked right into it, I did, and then I thought, why would somebody leave this in the middle of the floor instead of standing it over by the wall, out of the way? So I started shoving it to one side. I thought that was a bit curious, because you wouldn’t put something like that where you can trip over it, would you? And that’s when I saw the hole.’
‘I’ll show you,’ Nimble offered. ‘It’s pretty deep. You could get hurt if you stumbled into it.’
‘Is there anything in it?’
Kindly said: ‘I know what you’re thinking. The first thing you do when you go into a merchant’s house is check for places where the owner may have hidden things. But I only saw a few old clothes at the bottom. That, and a nasty smell, which rather put me off poking around in there.’
I hesitated to let Nimble follow me into the house, in case he came across Lily’s ring, but I could not think of a good excuse for keeping him out. Then I reasoned that if the ring was still there then it must be too well hidden for anyone to pick it up unless he was looking for it. Besides, I was curious to see what Kindly had found.
The smell of blood that had hung over the place the day before had largely dispersed outside the house, but inside was a different matter: the floor was still black with the stuff, and the place reeked like a temple after a particularly intense round of sacrifices. However, there was something else besides dried blood in the air: something still more unpleasant that should have left the room when the Texcalan’s body was taken out.
Something made me talk in whispers. ‘I think we’d better take a look in that hole.’
In the poor fight cast by my improvised torch, the pit Lily’s father had found was a featureless black square in the middle of the floor, almost as large as the chest that had covered it.
‘I suppose he’d have hidden his valuables in there,’ Nimble offered.
‘Well, it hasn’t done him much good. If there was anything worth taking in there, it’s gone by now.’ I held up the torch, so that we could both see what lay in the bottom: just a small pile of plain clothes. I thought I recognized a woman’s blouse and skirt, and a mantle, presumably worn against the cold. There was something curious about the way they were heaped up. I was trying to work out exactly what it
