‘Where were you before you came here?’
I sighed. ‘In a cage in Tlatelolco, waiting to be sold! Lily bought me the day we came here.’
‘Do you know what she was doing before that?’
‘Well, no, of course not… Oh, now wait a moment!’ I began to protest, but it was too late.
The man was grinning at me. ‘So she could easily have come here a day or two before she bought you and killed the warrior then, couldn’t she?’
‘No, she couldn’t!’
‘How do you know? You’ve just said you don’t know where she was. You don’t know she wasn’t in Tetzcoco committing murder, do you?’
‘I don’t know she wasn’t in Acolman buying dogs in their marketplace, either!’ I snapped. ‘What kind of a question is that?’
He smiled blandly in response to my outburst. ‘Well, now that we’ve established that…’
‘Established what?’
Wrinkled Face said: ‘Yaotl, wait until you are asked a question!’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Snake Heart. ‘As I was saying, let’s deal with this message. You say it was to do with cocoa?’
‘That’s right.’
'I thought Hare was from the eastern shore of the Divine Sea? They don’t grow cocoa there.’
I hesitated before remembering what Kindly and Hungry Child had said to each other. ‘They do in one place. It’s called Chactemal.’
I was pleased to see him looking momentarily discomfited, but it soon passed. ‘Well, I stand corrected. Where is the cocoa?’
I told you, Chactemal…’
Don’t be obtuse!’ he snapped. ‘I meant the cocoa Hare was trying to sell! Is it at his house? In a warehouse? Well?’
I stared at him. For a moment I felt helpless, and strangely giddy, as if I had suddenly found myself on the edge of a tall cliff and was struggling to keep my balance. ‘I don’t know "where it is…’ I mumbled as I scrabbled inside my imagination for some answer that would back up my improvised lie.
‘Speak up!’ both the judges called out simultaneously.
‘I.… Inspiration suddenly hit me, like a gust of wind blowing me away from the cliff edge and back on to safe ground. Then the words all came out in a rush, tumbling over each other in their hurry to be spoken: ‘I don’t exactly know where. It’s still in the East, and that was the trouble all along, you see, because Hare had bought up so much of the stuff — the year’s harvest for the entire province, basically — and then he found he couldn’t afford the bearers to fetch it home, so he was trying to sell it where it was to save himself the trouble…’ I paused for breath, feeling now a little light-headed. A stroke of genius, I told myself modestly, because there was no way the court would be able to check whether my story was true or not, not without sending somebody all the way to the coast to talk to the cocoa growers.
Sure enough, Snake Heart looked nonplussed, but as before he soon recovered. ‘So you are suggesting that Mother of Light was prepared to buy a consignment of cocoa, sight unseen?’ he said incredulously.
‘That’s what she told me,’ I said.
‘Where did she get the money from?’
‘She was a King’s concubine, I gather. Maybe she saved it up.’
Obsidian Tongue was on his feet again. ‘How can this witness be expected to know about the lady’s finances?’ he asked.
‘He has a point,’ Just Man said. ‘Strike that question from the record.’
Snake Heart looked at me through lowered eyes. ‘Perhaps, then, you might care to tell the court what you do know about Mother of Light.’
‘Almost nothing,’ I said. ‘I met her by accident once, and I wanted to speak to her again to find out what this message Hare had for her was all about.’
‘You are aware that she’s suspected of plotting against the King?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m aware that the King’s spies seem to have their eye on her, but I’ve no idea why. It seems to be a crime around here just getting on the wrong side of them.’
‘Your mistress admits it, though!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘She admits she was conspiring with Mother of Light and her father to take messages to Black Flower! She admits that Hare is a spy too, and now he’s disappeared…’
Obsidian Tongue snapped: ‘Is my friend going to ask a question or not?’
But I was speaking before he had finished. To be told of Lily’s so-called confession was too much for me. ‘What do you mean, she admits it?’ I yelled. ‘She had it wrung from her by torture! Look at her! She barely knows where she is! Look at her hands! She’d have said anything to you bastards just to make you stop, and you have the fucking nerve to throw her so-called confession in my face…’ I took a step forward, only to hear a swift footstep behind me and feel my arms pinned roughly behind my back.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ rasped the bailiff’s voice in my ear.
I stood there, breathing heavily while I watched Snake Heart. He seemed unruffled by my outburst.
‘That’s all,’ he said softly.
Obsidian Tongue was speaking now. ‘My lords, I apologize. As you can see, the witness is overwrought…’
Just Man muttered something that may have been: ‘I’m not surprised!’
‘We will confer for a moment,’ his colleague said.
As the two put their heads together for a brief, whispered conference, I looked once again at Lily. My heart missed a beat. She was no longer looking at the floor. Now her eyes, swollen and red-rimmed though they were, were fixed directly on me.
It was hard to make out what an expression on her drawn, pain-racked features meant. There were so many lines on her brow already that I could not be sure whether or not I had seen a few more, but I thought she was frowning, as if struggling to remember something. I wondered if it might be my name.
‘Obsidian Tongue,’ Wrinkled Face called out, but as
