‘Like what?’ I asked sourly, my distaste for what we were doing plain in my voice. ‘If it were a funeral, we’d be burning him in paper vestments and a proper shroud, with his possessions and a brown dog, not stuffing him into a hole.’ I turned my back on the wicker chest, deliberately, not caring to think about what would await the poor man when he found himself, naked and destitute, in the Land of the Dead. He would have no staff with which to defend himself from the serpents or lean on as he crossed the deserts and mountains, no shield or basket to protect him from the obsidian-bladed winds, no dog to carry him across the river, no greenstone to offer in tribute to Mictlan Tecuhtli, the Lord of the Dead. He was destined to suffer for ever and never find rest.
I muttered: ‘Maybe we can come back and do the thing properly once this is all over.’
We went out into the courtyard, intending to go over the back wall as I had the day before. Nimble and I would have to help Kindly along, but we thought it less risky than leaving by the front doorway.
‘Before we go,’ I said, ‘just have a look at this.’ I showed them the doll I had found in the night. Kindly took it from me and studied it, turning it over in his swollen, mottled fingers and pursing his lips thoughtfully.
‘What is it?’ Nimble asked, looking over the old man’s shoulder.
‘It’s a toy, I think,’ I said. ‘It looks too crude and simple to be an idol. Watch out for splinters! I suppose it belonged to the girl who owned those clothes we found in the hole.’
‘Maybe,’ Kindly murmured. ‘It would be interesting if it did, though. This is Mayan.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Look at the face. You or I would call it ugly, but the Mayans think crossed eyes and flat foreheads are signs of beauty. Wonder what happened to the leg, though? Did it get dropped in the hole because it was broken?’
‘I can tell you what happened to the leg. Our deceased friend in there was stabbed to death with it.’ I looked at the sky once more. ‘Let’s go. I’ll tell you what I think happened on the way back to Tetzcoco.’
We managed to get down the hill, into and out of the stream, where we washed the bloodstains off our feet, and back on to the road without incident, save a good deal of cursing and complaining on the part of Kindly, who told us several times and in colourful language that he was too old and stiff to be scrabbling around in the bushes like a boy looking for birds’ nests. Once we were on level ground, however, he was quiet. He wanted to hear what I had to say.
‘I’m assuming Hare surprised the Texcalan warrior we saw the day before yesterday. Only the gods know what he was doing here, but Hare would have taken him for a thief.’
‘Reasonable enough,’ Kindly said. ‘So there was a fight?’
‘Yes, but not a straight one. Judging by the look of them, I think it would have been a pretty one-sided affair, even if the merchant had managed to get his hands on a knife to defend himself with. I think he must have had help.’
‘The girl,’ Nimble said.
‘I’d guess the intruder didn’t see her. While he was confronting Hare, she appeared from nowhere and distracted him. That gave Hare the opportunity to cut his throat.’
‘Neat,’ Kindly conceded. ‘Where did she appear from, though?’
Nimble had the answer to that. ‘She was in the pit, under the chest. She heard the commotion, peeked out of her hiding place and decided to join in.’
I agreed. ‘I’d guess he was standing next to the hole — in a room that size he couldn’t very well avoid it — and he’d have been just within her reach. She could have bitten his ankle, or something like that, or even brought him down by grabbing it and getting him off balance. I doubt if he saw her coming at all.’
‘But,’ Nimble pointed out, ‘that means the girl must have killed Hare, surely?’
‘I know. That troubles me a bit, but there’s no way around it, is there? I’d guess that while he was busy dispatching the other man she crept up behind him and stuck him too. Why she’d have done that, I don’t know.’
We all walked along in thoughtful silence for a few moments before Nimble suddenly announced: ‘She meant to kill Hare all along.’
I glanced sideways at him. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘What was she doing with that sharp bit of wood to begin with? She must have spent time preparing it for something, or rather someone. I don’t know how she sharpened it like that…’
‘She used her teeth, I expect,’ Kindly suggested. ‘Another weird custom those savages have: they have their teeth filed.’
I looked down at the mutilated doll, which I was still carrying. I wondered if it had been a treasured possession, once, and what it could tell us about its owner. ‘What made her do it?’ I wondered. ‘Was she planning to rob him?’ If so, then she had left enough behind for her other victim’s comrades to start selling it off in the marketplace, I thought.
‘Maybe she just hated him,’ Nimble said grimly.
‘Why?’
‘She must be a slave he picked up in Mayan country. He probably didn’t buy her just to sweep out his courtyard every morning.’
Kindly frowned. ‘But those clothes you found — if they were hers, she must be only a child!’
‘So was I, when I came to Mexico.’ The dry, matter-of-fact way my son reminded us what he had done, and what had been done to him, made me shudder.
‘So the girl killed Hare,’ I said. ‘Then she shoved him in the pit. Why did she do that? It must have been difficult for her, if
