‘So what you’re saying is, the victim had been dead for days before you and Lily saw his body,’ Obsidian Tongue said.
Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve no idea who cut his throat.’ So much for eating earth, I thought, hoping the gods would forgive my impiety.
And as far as you know, Lily had not been to the house before?’
The other lawyer jumped up. ‘There’s no way the witness can answer that!’ he protested.
Before Obsidian Tongue could reply, I said: ‘Yes, I can! She told me she hadn’t!’
‘What the prisoner told the witness isn’t evidence!’
‘Rubbish!’ I said. ‘She was really worried about going there at all — she told me she didn’t want to go on her own. Besides, she was with me practically all the time from the day we arrived in Tetzcoco until she was arrested. If she’d managed to get to Hare’s house and back in that time, she must have been bloody… Um, sorry… very fast.’
‘Cemiquiztli Yaotl,’ Wrinkled Face said sternly, ‘you have not been asked a question! Scribe, please strike what the witness just said from the record.’
Scowling, the man scored the page in front of him with a single pass of his brush. I wondered how he could possibly record what I had been saying in pictures. Perhaps he had drawn a body lying inside a house, with the spike on the floor beside it, and lines of bloodstained footsteps leading away from it.
Obsidian Tongue heaved an audible sigh and then asked me how often I had seen the prisoner between our arrival in Tetzcoco and our visit to the merchant’s house.
‘But didn’t I just tell you that?’ I asked, bewildered.
‘Please just answer the question,’ he said in an imploring tone. I stared at him for a moment, but then I saw Snake Heart smirking over his shoulder, and that made my mind up for me. Meekly, I repeated what I had said before. ‘It takes the best part of a morning to get to Hare’s house,’ I added, ‘and Lily didn’t look like someone who’d been out on the road all day, even if she had had the time to go there, kill a man and come back. And if she’d had anything to do with what happened to that warrior she’d have been covered in blood, wouldn’t she?’
‘Just answer the questions,’ Obsidian Tongue said heavily. He was smiling, however, and I had the impression that he was not too displeased by what I had said. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘what did you come to Tetzcoco for?’
‘Lily came here to…’
Snake Heart was on his feet again. ‘The witness wasn’t asked what the prisoner was here for!’ he cried. ‘He was asked why he was here!’
‘Oh, all right,’ I said, before either of the judges could reply. ‘I was here to help Lily deliver a message. Some merchant was looking for…’ I thought furiously, and then suddenly remembered what Kindly had told me on the way to Hare’s house, days ago, about his scheme to trick Obsidian Tongue into giving him his money back. ‘Looking for someone to take a load of cocoa off his hands. Lily had to put him in touch with a buyer, some woman from the palace — I can’t remember her name…’
‘Mother of Light!’ cried Snake Heart triumphantly ‘My lords,’
Obsidian Tongue protested, ‘my friend will have his opportunity to question this witness presently! Until then, I must ask him not to interrupt!’
‘Don’t interrupt, Snake Heart,’ said Just Man in a bored voice. ‘However, I have a question. Yaotl, are you really suggesting that the secret messages your mistress apparently confessed to being a party to carrying were all part of some trading venture?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘And the woman at the palace — was she this mysterious Mother of Light, as Snake Heart said?’
My lord, I don’t know why she’s thought of as mysterious. She lives in the palace, I think. I saw her here, and in the marketplace. I even saw her in the middle of a crowd of people, reciting poetry to each other.’ I looked up at him boldly. ‘I don’t call that mysterious! Just because the King’s spies, or whoever they are, couldn’t keep track of her…’
‘All right,’ the judge said, settling back in his seat. ‘That’s enough about that! Obsidian Tongue, do you have any more questions?’
‘No, my lord.’ As he squatted, Snake Heart rose to his feet, as though the two men were at opposite ends of a seesaw. The prosecutor glared at me balefully.
‘When did you come to Tetzcoco?’ he demanded curtly.
I told him. ‘It was four days before we went to Hare’s house.’
‘And the man you found at Hare’s house, how long had he been dead?’
Obsidian Tongue jumped to his feet. ‘My lords! The witness is not a doctor! How can he be expected to answer that?’
‘He already has answered it,’ Wrinkled Face reminded him. ‘When he was telling us what happened at the merchant’s house, in answer to your question. You didn’t object at the time. He said… Scribe, remind us what he said.’
The man unfolded a page of his book and quoted Obsidian Tongue’s words to me: “‘The victim had been dead for days.’” Snake Heart asked me: ‘How many days?’
‘I should think at least three,’ I said, frowning.
‘It couldn’t have been five?’
‘I suppose it could. As Obsidian Tongue said, I’m not a doctor.’ I caught a look of horror passing across the other lawyer’s face, but before it really had time to register, Snake Heart was speaking again.
‘So the man may
