During the days and nights I spent huddled in a remote corner of a slave-dealer’s dingy kennel near the great marketplace of Tlatelolco, I kept Nimble in my head and the thought of him kept me sane. Whatever happened to me, I told myself, he would carry on, and now there was nothing else that mattered.
It was hard to care that much even about Lily. My master might bluster and threaten her and her father, but in the end there was little even he could do in the face of the immense power and wealth of the merchant class. She should be all right, I knew, and when I thought about her that pleased me, but what had happened between us was too complicated for a man being slowly tormented to death to hold it all in his head. We had shared a sleeping mat once, but I could never forget how it had been her own child — that same Ocotl, her Shining Light — who had dragged my son into his dangerous scheme to cheat my master, and so imperilled all our fives. Nor, I supposed, could she ever forget that it had been my brother and I who had killed her boy.
So all the while, as I squatted in the middle of my cage, I kept my sons face behind my closed eyes, and if the half smile that the sight of him brought to my lips only made the jeering warriors outside hit me harder, I was past caring.
2
‘Here.’ I looked up wearily at the sound of the slave-dealer’s voice.
After dragging me away from the old merchant’s courtyard, the Otomies had taken me to a dingy warehouse near the great market of Tlatelolco. The dealers who owned the place seemed to have fallen on hard times, judging by the state of their filthy, frayed cloaks and breechcloths and their constant bickering with one another. Their names were Itzcuintli and Cuetzpallin: Dog and Lizard. My first sight of this surly, snarling pair had seemed to confirm my worst fears. Nobody who bought from them would be overly particular about what he got. The chances were the buyer would not expect his purchase to live long enough for it to matter.
The man standing in front of my cage now was Dog. His tone was the one he used at feeding-time, to warn me that he was about to throw a mouldy tortilla in my direction. Because of the smell coming from my cage, however, he normally stood so far away that as often as not he missed, or else the stale, stiff bread bounced off the bars and landed out of my reach, so that I could only watch hungrily as the rats dragged it away.
This morning, however, he stood directly in front of me, although his nose wrinkled in disgust, and the bread he pushed towards me was soft and still warm from the griddle.‘But this is fresh!’ I croaked, before tearing off a lump and cramming it into my mouth.
‘Yes,’ he confirmed, backing away.
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s a big day for you. Lord Feathered in Black obviously thinks you’ve been here long enough that there’s no chance of anyone buying you for your looks. You’re going on sale!’
I stared at him stupidly, dribbling crumbs.
‘That’s so you can at least stand up,’ he added, indicating the remains of the tortilla in my hand. ‘Otherwise you’ll probably choke when we put the collar on you. Get on with it. We haven’t much time.’
I had barely finished my meal when the stones were lifted from the roof of my cage and I was hauled out and dropped on the floor. When I tried to stand, my legs buckled and my head spun, and I prompdy toppled over.
That earned me a sharp kick in the side. ‘Come on, get up! We’re all waiting for you!’
Somehow I got to my knees and then unsteadily to my feet. I looked wonderingly around me, until I caught sight of my fellow slaves and understood the slave-dealer’s comment about the collar.
I had been kept well away from the rest of the merchandise, presumably for fear that they might catch something from me, and so I had not seen my companions before. There were two of them, both tall men, probably captured warriors. It was easy to see how they had come to be sold off cheaply, because they both had dreadful wounds. One had lost an arm, almost certainly hacked off in battle, and judging by its blood-soaked wrappings the stump had not healed well. The other had gaping, ragged holes in his earlobes and lower lip. I guessed he had been wearing a labret and earplugs when he was taken and some looter had torn them out without taking the trouble to unclasp them first. I wondered what had become of the warrior who had captured him. Perhaps he had died himself. I would have expected him to have guarded his captive jealously, for there was not much prestige to be earned presenting the gods with a badly disfigured offering.
They were attached to each end of a wooden slave-collar, a long pole to which they were fastened by ropes bound tightly around their necks. A third, as yet unused, length of rope dangled from the middle of the pole. I was meant to go between them, but there was one obvious problem.
‘They’re both a head taller than me,’ I protested, while a relatively clean breechcloth was
