‘Or me. They must have followed us to Tetzcoco on the day I bought you. Partridge probably told them where we were going. We didn’t hire him for his courage!’
‘No, it was the Texcalans who told them. They overheard you mentioning Hare, and Tetzcoco, while Lion was cutting them loose. You realize that was what old Black Feathers had in mind all along, don’t you? The crafty old bastard must have insisted on the three of us being sold together just in case things went wrong and I was bought for something other than a sacrifice. They must have gone running to the Otomies the moment they were free. Then they seem to have teamed up together.’
‘Why? The Otomies, I can understand, but what have the Texcalans got against us? If it wasn’t for us, they’d probably both have ended up under a flint knife by now.’
‘Or worse,’ I confirmed. ‘But that’s exactly it. I think they were looking forward to being sacrificed!’
Lily groaned. ‘I should have guessed. Texcalans, Aztecs, it doesn’t matter — men are all the same!’
‘The trouble is,’ I mused, ‘that even if the Otomies don’t know what it is, they’ll have guessed that there was something in that house that we wanted. And now they’re using it as bait.’ We lapsed into thoughtful silence. I wondered whether the Otomies were still working for Lord Feathered in Black, or whether this was all being done on their own initiative — the captain’s way of getting revenge on me for slipping from his grasp. I thought it might well be the latter, because I doubted that even the Chief Minister could have paid them enough to adopt their present guises, with their hard-earned clothes and haircuts cast aside. Only real hatred could have induced them to do that.
‘What puzzles me,’ Lily mused, ‘is why the disguise? It’s not as if either of us is likely to have any trouble recognizing the captain.’
‘No, and it wouldn’t be his style anyway. He’s not one for sneaking up on people. He likes to give his victims something to look forward to. That’s probably why they made so much noise at the guesthouse, just to let us know who was after us. So it’s not us they’re hiding from.’
‘It’ll be the authorities here in Tetzcoco. People are resentful enough about having Montezuma’s nephew pushed on to them as King without a bunch of ferocious Aztec warriors running around scaring the populace and breaking things. I With any luck, somebody will report them for what they did last night.’
‘No chance. They’ll have made it pretty clear what will | happen to anyone going to the police. Besides, that wouldn’t i help us, would it? We have to find them in order to get our hands on that message. That won’t be any easier if they’re driven into hiding.’
We were both quiet again. I wondered what Lily’s guard : made of the spectacle of his inmate’s lawyer squatting in front of her cage with his bowed head pressed against the bars, ' saying nothing. I thought I should either adopt a more professional demeanour or go away. I did not want to leave Lily, but I I could think of nothing to say to her, and she seemed to have j the same problem. Everything that came to mind sounded j either trite or heartless, or merely recalled how hopeless the j woman’s situation was. We both knew that if I found the Otomies, or rather if they found me, it was far more likely that they would kill me than part with Hare’s message, and even if I did manage to get hold of it, there was no certainty that it would do Lily any good.
‘Lily . . I mumbled, unsure what I was going to say next.
‘Hush,’ she said, in a voice so low I barely heard it. ‘You’d better go. Haven’t you got things to do outside?’
I had to go to the marketplace and get back on the track of the Otomies: an easy enough task, I thought ruefully, if they were looking for me. I plodded glumly and silently through the palace’s labyrinthine corridors, following a guide who, like his predecessor the day before, had waited for me outside the prison, not wishing to breathe the tainted air around the cages.
He was a dwarf, one of the malformed creatures that kings and emperors liked to have in attendance upon them. They ran errands and entertained their masters with jokes and tricks, and were sacred, not unlike slaves, although they were fed and treated like lords. Life for a palace dwarf was pleasant enough, but subject to abrupt termination. If the King died, or the Sun was eclipsed, or some other sufficiently inauspicious event took place, they were all liable to be sacrificed at once to placate the angry gods. Of course, they knew this, and so tended to affect a determined cheerfulness, as though intent on making the most of every moment without a care for a future that might never come. As the little man stumped along ahead of me, chattering brightly, I reflected that I might have a lot to learn from his view of the World, provided it were only myself I had to worry about.
‘This isn’t normally my job, of course, but we’re always short-handed these days.’ He paused, waiting for me to break my moody silence by asking why. Since I refused to oblige, he carried on: ‘So, how do you get to be a lawyer, then?’
‘By talking a lot.’
‘Oh, well, that wouldn’t suit me! No, really, there must be more to it than that?’
Since I had no idea what men such as Obsidian Tongue did to earn their position, I changed the subject. ‘Why are you always short-handed?’
He glanced about him quickly, as though afraid of eavesdroppers lurking in the shadows, and lowered his voice. ‘Well, it’s hardly a secret. All the warriors are away keeping an eye on Black
