The laughter came again. ‘Oh, this is priceless!’ the one- armed warrior cried, slapping his thigh. ‘Did you hear that?’ he called across to his companion. ‘Did you hear what we’re roped to? A failed priest, a failed drunk and failed slave! We’re in good company here, aren’t we?’
‘And you two are doing so much better for yourselves, of course!’ I spat back at him resentfully.
‘That’s war,’ the Texcalan replied indifferently. ‘One day you meet a man who’s bigger or luckier than you. So what? We’ll get a flowery death, we’ll dance around the Sun as he rises every morning and then we’ll come back as hummingbirds or butterflies. That suits me. What have you got coming to you?’
I hung my head. He was right. What was going to happen to him and his comrade was only what all warriors anticipated: death in batde or under a sacrificial knife. If they had not been so badly disfigured they might have been able to look forward to a last fight, too, against hand-picked Aztec warriors at the Festival of the Flaying of Men. Even with their wounds, it was hard to see what they were doing among such a crowd of weary, broken wretches.
And what a crowd we were! There were many forms of slavery, and Aztecs submitted to it for many different reasons. A field hand or labourer might find himself short of work and food, for example, while a family with too many mouths to feed might sell a child’s services on the understanding that they would redeem him or replace him with a younger brother or sister when he grew up. In every case a fair bargain was struck and the slave or his parents got something out of it, such as the twenty large cloaks I had received. Discerning customers were prepared to pay well for a sturdy, healthy, intelligent worker.
The briefest glance at their stock-in-trade was enough to confirm to me that Dog and Lizard were not in that sort of market. I was surrounded by a miscellaneous collection of failed gamblers being disposed of by their creditors, thieves being sold to recover the value of what they had stolen, and foreigners, captives, like the two I was roped to, too clumsy or ugly to be of much use even as sacrifices.
There were some, especially merchants, who would pay as much as forty or sixty large cloaks merely for the privilege and prestige of having a fine-looking slave dance and die for them at an important festival. I doubted the lot of us would fetch more than thirty at most.
I was watching a young girl trying to show off her skills with a spindle. She was trying to balance it on end in a little clay bowl while she wound the coarse fibre on to it, but it kept toppling over. Every time this happened, one of the dealers would lean over and clout her ear, eliciting a little sob of pain and frustration. The customer, an elderly woman, decided there were no bargains here after all and walked away.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Dog snapped, hitting the unfortunate girl again. Her borrowed skirt and blouse — put on her for show, and to be stripped off her again the moment she was sold — were too large and made her look smaller and more wretched than ever as she huddled inside them, shrinking in silence from the blows and rebukes. ‘At this rate we’ll never get rid of any of you! What is it? Do you like your cage so much you want to be put back in it? I can…Oh, what do you want?’
The last words were addressed to someone standing in front of the slave-dealers’ pitch, looking curiously at their wares. I could just about see him between the backs of two of the men on sale in front of me. I caught a glimpse of a nondescript face, shoulder-length, unornamented hair and a short, plain cloak before I saw the stranger’s eyes and noticed with a start that they seemed to be staring straight into my own.
The man had the look of a commoner, or perhaps a well- treated slave. There was something familiar about him, but I could not remember where I might have seen him before.
Lizard elbowed his partner aside. ‘Idiot,’ he muttered. ‘Is that any way to talk to a customer? Sir, what can I interest you in? I’ve got spinners, embroiderers, labourers. You want someone cheap to help manure your fields, I’ve got just what you need here…’
‘How much for that one at the back?’
‘Dancers? I’ve got dancers… My drummer’s gone off to buy himself a bowl of snails, but as soon as he’s back I’ll put them through their paces… Which one?’
‘Over there, tied to the collar, between the one-armed man and one with all the scars. How much?’
I caught my breath as I realized what was happening. The transaction that was going to seal my fate was about to take place.
Lizard gave an embarrassed cough. ‘For him? Um… He’s not for sale, he’s… er, the three of them, they come as a set. Special purchase.’
I stared at him. What was he talking about? I could not understand what the Texcalans and I could possibly have to do with one another.
The customer was undeterred. ‘Well, all right. What do you want for the three of them, then?’
Dog butted in. ‘No, you don’t understand. We can’t let them go to just anybody, because — well — because…’
His voice tailed off, but I could have completed the sentence for him. I had just worked out what was going on. I was supposed to be bought by some
