Obsidian Tongue squatted again. I caught his eye and saw, to my surprise, that he was smiling. I wondered what this meant.
I had thought the judge’s dismissal of him somewhat ominous, but he seemed to have taken it differently, as if it were an expression of approval.
‘We are troubled,’ the judge was saying, ‘by the prisoner’s confession.’
Snake Heart looked down for a moment, perhaps so as to hide the puzzled frown that crossed his face. When he looked up again, he said: ‘My lord, you have already found there was no evidence that she was tortured.’
‘Doesn’t mean she wasn’t, though,’ the other judge growled.
His colleague glanced at him and scowled briefly. ‘No, we cannot find she was tortured. This court acts in the King’s name, and it cannot accuse him or his… his agents of anything like that. You know this.’
‘Then…’ began Snake Heart, but the judge had not finished.
‘That does not alter the fact that the prisoner has clearly been wounded and is in great pain. What we still have to establish is whether her testimony can be relied on. Perhaps she was deranged by her injuries, however they were caused. Did she know what she was saying? That’s what we have to decide. Can you help us with that?’
The lawyer squirmed visibly. He shot a brief glance at the woman, whose eyes were still fixed on me, the way a starving man in the desert might stare at smoke rising from a distant cooking fire. He swallowed. ‘My lords, she spoke clearly enough when I cross-examined her…’
What you mean,’ Just Man said from his seat, ‘is that she repeated faithfully every word you said to her! She might have been talking to anyone. I don’t think she even knew who you were.’
‘There is evidence besides the confession. She has no alibi for the time before the slave arrived in Tetzcoco, even if you believe what he said about her movements afterwards. And she was found at the scene of the murder!’
There was a long silence. The two judges looked at one another, and then Wrinkled Face said: ‘Thank you, Snake Heart. We have made our decision.’
‘We have made our decision.’
The judge’s words fell on me like a blow. I felt as if I had been stunned. It was as if the room I was in and the people around me, even the bailiff who was still holding me firmly by both arms, had become part of a dream in which time did not pass and the interval between one heartbeat and the next could be measured in years.
When he spoke next, his voice seemed to come from an immensely long distance off, and I had to strain to hear the words, as though my ears were reluctant to take them in.
The prisoner is accused of the murder of an unknown Person at the house of Hare the merchant and of plotting to aid the King’s enemy, Black Flower. We have heard the evidence, which has been her own confession and the testimony of her slave. Unfortunately, the prosecutor has been unable to call any witnesses of his own. Moreover, it has been suggested to us that the prisoner’s confession was made under duress. We cannot agree with that….’
Just Man coughed loudly.
‘But we are unhappy about the prisoner’s state of mind. On the other hand, these are very serious charges, which cannot be dismissed lightly.’
I found myself wishing that he would get on with it and get it over with, whatever he was going to say. When he did, it was so astonishing that I had to restrain myself from tearing myself free of the bailiff’s tight grip and running into the middle of the room to protest. After all I had heard that day it seemed so unfair.
‘We cannot decide this case. We are referring the evidence to the King, the Great Chichimec, Maize Ear, Lord of the Acolhuans. He will rule on it tomorrow. Now we will withdraw until the next case is ready.’
And with that, both judges got to their feet, and once more everybody else threw themselves face down on the floor, the bailiff encouraging me to join in by shoving me roughly on to my knees.
Again, there was silence, save only for the sound of the judges’ sandaled feet moving across the floor. I gritted my teeth and thought that Lily had been through all this only to be put through it all again the next day. And what more, I wondered, might she have to endure during the intervening night?
A sudden commotion brought me up on to my knees, my head jerking around to follow the noise. The judges had not left yet, but I saw that everybody else in the room was doing the same. Even Lily was looking towards the doorway I had first come through, the first sure sign I had seen that she was aware of anything happening around her.
Someone was shouting, just outside the room. I thought immediately of Kindly, clamouring to know the outcome of his daughter’s trial, but although I thought I had heard the voice somewhere before, it was not his.
Three men burst through the doorway. The bailiffs ran towards them, but stopped with a scraping of sandal-soles against the stucco of the floor as they took in the strangers’ appearance. When I realized just what I was looking at, I felt the blood drain from my face.
Two of the three newcomers were new to me. They looked like warriors, with their elaborately piled-up hair and powerful physiques, but they wore short capes whose folds covered their arms, the dress of messengers or envoys. They had been doing something more than delivering a message or a summons today, however. They were sweating and grimy and their capes and skins were soaked and smeared with drying blood.
The third man was propped up between them, his legs trembling as
