‘I’m assuming that the reason she was trying to get in here yesterday was that she heard about Hare’s property coming on to the market,’ I said. ‘She’d be hoping that message of his would be among it.’ Not to mention the ring that was meant to pay for it, I thought. And there was yet another mystery. Rattlesnake and Hunter had said nothing about the ring, and so presumably they had not found it. But if not, then who had?
‘And you think these fish sellers might have some of his stuff?’
‘They did yesterday. If she figured it out the same way I did — that the best place to get news of Hare is among the people dealing in produce from his part of the World — then she’ll likely look in the same places. Now — hey! It looks as if I was right! Look over there!’ The last words were called out over my shoulder as I broke into a run.
A wizened old man, his hair glistening white and his back bent over with age, was standing in front of one of the pitches, and the briefest glance confirmed that the man behind it was the one who had sold me a tortilla and told me about Hare’s cape.
As I raced towards him, batting people rudely out of my way with my hands, I called out: ‘Hey! You! We want you! Don’t move!’
The little old man started to turn towards me. At the same time a fist closed on one of my upper arms, stopping me and spinning me around as fast as one of those Totonac acrobats who jump off tall poles on the ends of ropes and pretend to be birds. Suddenly I was staring into the eyes of a grim-faced Hunter.
‘Stop there, you! What’s this about?’
‘The old man!’ I yelled into his face. ‘Look at him! He’s Mother of Light’s father!’
‘What old man?’
‘The one right in front of you, you moron! White hair, bent back, trembling hands. You can’t mistake him!’
‘What are you talking about? There’s no one there!’
I gaped at him for a moment and then whirled around.
A strange sight met my eyes. Approximately half the people I could see, traders, customers and passers-by — were staring at me and the warrior locked in what might have been either a lovers’ embrace or a wrestling bout, and the rest were gazing at something else — or, rather, the absence of something. The space the old man had occupied an instant ago was empty, and the stallholder he had been speaking to wore a bewildered frown.
‘Where did he go?’ I gasped. I shook Hunter off and walked up to the stallholder. ‘That old man…’
‘Weird,’ the man muttered. ‘He just took off. Didn’t look to me as if he had the strength left in his body to go on breathing, but he didn’t half move when you yelled at him!’
Hunter lumbered up after me. ‘Anybody see which way he went, then?’
‘Too quick for me.’
From a neighbouring pitch I heard: ‘He just seemed to slip through the crowd. He could be anywhere.’
I don’t believe it!’ Hunter exploded. ‘The old bugger’s done it again! Are these people all sorcerers, or what?’
The stallholder came out of his reverie and recognized me. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, ‘the one who was asking me about Hare yesterday.’
‘Let me guess,’ I replied. ‘The old man who was here just now, he wanted to know the same thing.’
‘That’s right. But I’ve got a message for you.’
‘For me?’ I repeated inanely, and then suddenly felt sick as I realized what that message must be and that a part of my original plan had fallen into place when I had been half hoping it would not.
The stallholder confirmed my fears. ‘From the man who sold me that cape. Came around early this morning, wanted to know if I’d heard of anyone asking after Hare or trying to buy his stuff. I told him about you, like you asked, and he was really pleased.’
‘I bet,’ I said dourly.
The man lowered his voice and bent towards me like a conspirator. ‘Meet him tomorrow evening, he said, after nightfall, at Hare’s house. He’s got lots of things to sell — even his merchant’s staff, everything. And you can have first pick at all of it!’
11
‘It’s a pity you scared the old man off when you did,’ Hunter grumbled. ‘We must have been about as close to nabbing him as we’ve ever got.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said pessimistically. ‘I have the impression you could be sitting on him and he’d still get away! I don’t understand how he was able to move so fast. He looked as if he’d need help just getting up off his sleeping mat in the morning.’
The Sun was close to the tops of the mountains on the western side of the valley. Soon trumpets would sound to mark his setting, and the dead mothers who escorted him during the afternoon would relinquish him to the care of Mictlan Tecuhtli, the Lord of the Land of the Dead. It had been, from what little I had been able to see of it, a gloriously bright day, which at this time of year would usually mean we were in for a chilly evening, and I had left my cloak behind a statue in the palace.
‘Where are we going to spend the night?’ I asked dubiously.
‘Hare’s house, I reckon. We’ve got this meeting with whoever it is that has his property. That’s good — there may be something in there that will help Rattlesnake get to the bottom of all this, and if Mother of Light wanted something Hare had then it won’t hurt if we can get our hands on it first, will it? But I’d like to go and look the place over again before we have to deal with
