I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. ‘So what about you?’ I asked, something cruel in me stirred by my irritation at his questions. ‘She’s your daughter. Isn’t she all you’ve got left? Why aren’t you running all over the city trying to help her, or tearing your hair out and howling with grief instead of sitting there guzzling sacred wine?’
As if I had just reminded him it was there, he pulled the drinking-gourd out from under his arm and offered it to me. ‘No, I need to keep a clear head.’
He took a pull at the gourd. ‘Me too. Why do you think I need this?’ With a smack of his lips he went on: ‘In answer to your question, there’s not much I can do now but wait. Just like you. I spoke to Obsidian Tongue yesterday, and he told me the trial is set for tomorrow. So we do our business tonight, and then let him do his.’
I wondered whether the old man knew of my argument with the lawyer the previous day. There seemed no point in mentioning it now.
But as for grief…’ He sighed heavily. ‘Young man, I’ve seen and done a lot of things over the years — too many.’
‘Enough to be hardened to losing your only child?’ I asked in a brittle voice.
‘No. Enough to know that you can never tell what is going to happen, in spite of what the sorcerers and soothsayers say.’ He took another drink. ‘Do you know when Lily’s birthday is?’
‘No,’ I said wonderingly, as if this were something I ought to have known.
‘Four Wind.’
‘Oh,’ I said glumly.
The old man gave a cough and a dry chuckle. ‘“Oh,” indeed. I know what you’re thinking. An unlucky day, when they execute adulterers and every doorway and smoke hole in the city is stuffed up to keep out evil spirits, yes?’
‘It couldn’t be much worse,’ I acknowledged. Children born on such a bad day sometimes failed to live just because their parents gave up on them, assuming them to be doomed whatever they did.
‘But you see, Lily’s one of us — a merchant. And for us, Four Wind is a good day. We hold a big feast on Four Wind when we all get blind drunk and brag about our exploits and our wealth. Of course, it’s the perfect time to do it, when all those jealous, greedy warriors are cowering indoors, but do you see what I’m saying? One man’s inauspicious day is another’s festival. Lily’s luck may hold yet, you know — but we won’t know either way until it’s over.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘You know, I do sometimes wonder whether anything the soothsayers tell us about our fates is really worth the breath they expend on it.’
I smiled in spite of myself, thinking that Kindly might equally have cited my own career as Tezcatlipoca’s plaything to prove his point.
‘Now,’ the old man went on, ‘let’s just suppose we survive meeting these old friends of ours. For a start, we’re assuming they’ve got this message along with the rest of Hare’s possessions. How do we get it from them, and what do we do if we can’t?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I haven’t really got any idea beyond trying to get one of the Otomies on his own and maybe beating it out of him… It won’t work, will it?’
‘Not a chance. Any one of those walking slabs of granite would tear you limb from limb before you could ask him his name. And what do you expect to get out of him, anyway? He’s highly unlikely to have this message on him, and as for telling you what it says, well, the chances are none of them can read Nahuatl, let alone Mayan.’ He pursed his lips thoughtfully before adding, in a brighter tone, as if the idea had just occurred to him: ‘No, I tell you what you need. A spy.’
‘A what?’
‘A spy. And why not? This city’s full of them already — who’s going to notice one more? You need someone to get among the Otomies and find out what it is they have got. Someone they don’t already know, naturally…’
‘We can’t send Nimble! He’s risking his life already, just scouting around the house for us. I wish you’d stopped him from going.’
‘You have a better plan?’
‘I just don’t like it… Why don’t I just go and look for Mother of Light again?’
‘What good will that do? You found her once, and by your own account she didn’t say anything useful then. And besides, she’s still looking for the message herself, isn’t she?’
‘I just thought maybe she would have found it by now.’
‘Doubt it. What if she has, though? How would you find her again? I gather you more or less stumbled over her before, and it seems that even Maize Ear’s spies can’t keep track of her for longer than it takes to blink. She and that old man she runs around with, they’ve got some way of flitting in and out through the palace walls which the King himself doesn’t know about. What makes you think you’ve any chance of finding it?’
I opened my mouth, but the retort would not come. Instead, I looked wistfully towards the interior of the house, where for all I knew Little Hen was still sound asleep.
‘I know,’ said the old man gently. ‘She’s a sweet little girl, and I wish she could have told us what we need to know. Maybe she could, if we could only understand her! But she doesn’t seem to have any idea what we’re on about over this message, does she? It’s as if the thing never existed in the first place.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ I admitted grudgingly. As I stared at the doorway of the house, however, I began to feel something stirring at the edge of my thoughts, an idea I could not quite grasp, like hearing a fragment of speech when the speaker is almost
