Lily said: ‘What about Goose’s and Star’s parents? Won’t they help?’
Handy laughed bitterly. ‘I bet they will – they’ll help so much, by the time they’ve finished I doubt if any of my children will ever talk to me again!’ He scowled. ‘Not that they don’t love their grandchildren. They dote on them, in fact, spoil them rotten.’ For some reason at that point he looked at me, as though he expected me to come up with a response to his next question: ‘Do you suppose that’s why they hated me and Flower Gatherer so much? Maybe it wasn’t that we weren’t good enough husbands for their daughters. I wonder if they just thought our kids deserved better fathers!’
‘That’s not a question I could answer,’ I said shortly. It was not a subject I cared for; I had been no sort of father to my own son.
An awkward silence followed. It was as if everybody was waiting for someone else to speak first, and the fact that we all knew what it was that needed saying did nothing to loosen our tongues.
I looked through the gateway at the void beyond it and saw how the plaza outside had become one featureless, empty expanse of night.
There are times when you can know what you need to do, and have made up your mind to do it, yet find that the impulse to move somehow fails to reach your muscles. I must have willed my mouth to open several times before the words finally came out of it.
‘Come on, then,’ I said roughly. ‘If you’re really intent on going home, I’ll come with you.’
Lily gasped indignantly. ‘Yaotl! What are doing? How dare you! You’re mine, I forbid you to go out there!’
I said: ‘We can’t let Handy go alone. It’s not far and it’ll be safe enough. It’s not as if the captain can take us by surprise.’ I wished I could have made it sound more convincing.
Quail appeared next to me. He was carrying three swords, one of which he handed to me without comment. He gave Handy another and kept the third.
‘Thanks,’ I said, as my hand closed around the weapon. It was not a crude relic like the one Spotted Eagle had given me the day before; its polished shaft gleamed in the firelight and the blades set into its edges were fixed in two unbroken, flawless rows. ‘I’ll try not to hurt myself with this! Who’s the third one for?’
‘I’m coming too, but let’s get this over with, shall we?’ I could not help glancing across at my brother, who still stood beside Kite and the brazier. He was very still, with his head bowed and his fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of his sword. Looking at him more closely, I noticed the white of his teeth, which where clamped rigidly together, and then I realised with a shock why this was: it was to stop them from chattering.
Suddenly he whirled around and strode towards us, walking straight past me towards the gap in the courtyard wall.
Quail stared at him. ‘What...?’
‘He’s afraid of the dark,’ I hissed. ‘Come on. It’s not far. We’ll be fine if we all keep together, won’t we?’
Another figure appeared beside me then. I stared at Lily, aghast. ‘What are you doing here?’
She smiled. ‘We really must get this owner and slave relationship sorted out, Yaotl. I’m supposed to ask you questions like that!’
‘But you can’t come! It’s dangerous!’
‘ “We’ll be fine if we all keep together”,’ she quoted. Then, more firmly, she added: ‘I can’t let you go without me. I have a lot of money invested in you, remember?
We all stood at the gateway, gazing out into the night and hesitating like swimmers contemplating a plunge into icy water.
‘Like the desert out there,’ Lion muttered, ‘only without any owls.’
‘Is it always this quiet here?’ I asked.
‘Nobody likes going out after dark,’ Quail said. ‘But I suppose with all these murders, and all of them at night, and the rumours of what might be out there, it’s not surprising if people are even warier than usual.’
‘I don’t blame them,’ Lion said morosely. ‘Give me a horde of screaming barbarians any day – anything but this!’
‘What if he comes here?’ Lily asked suddenly.
‘Who?’ I replied.
‘The otomi. What if he comes here instead of going to Handy’s house? There are only Kite and a couple of young boys with him to defend the place.’ I had to smile at that description; Lily’s ‘young boys’ were fully grown one-captive warriors, not equal to the captain but still armed to the teeth and able and willing to give a good account of themselves. Only Kite’s direct order had prevented them from joining Handy’s miniature army, and they had shown the greatest reluctance to obey.
‘Why would he come to the Parish Hall?’
‘It’s you he wants, and you’re here.’
‘But he doesn’t know where I am – does he?’ The words were barely out of my mouth when a voice bawled out of the gloom ahead of us and told me just how wrong I could be.
‘Hey! You in there!’
It was the otomi captain.
8
The shock of hearing the captain’s voice turned our brave little band into a flock of terrified fugitives, scattering helplessly, like wild peccaries driven by huntsmen. For a moment fright drove every thought from my head, and in the urge to save myself I forgot Handy, my brother and even Lily. I was only aware of the harsh, mocking calls behind me and the feel of the ground under my bare feet. I was halfway up the steps towards Kite’s rooftop garden before I came to my senses.
The otomi was not running after me. He was still shouting.
