Goose came outside with a couple of stale tortillas. ‘We all need to eat,’ she said as if we needed the reminder. ‘Handy, you still have work to do.’
For a moment the man did not react. He remained in his squatting position with his eyes lowered, neither looking at nor touching the bread his sister-in-law had put before him. It seemed at first that he had not heard her, but then he slowly turned his ashen face towards us and peered at us with his shadowed, bloodshot eyes.
‘What?’ he asked quietly.
‘The baby.’
‘The baby.’ He repeated the words dully. ‘Is it still in the sweat bath?’
‘You should bury him.’
The man blinked once, but for all the other emotion he betrayed he may just have got a piece of grit in his eye. ‘I’ll do what’s fitting,’ he confirmed stiffly.
Goose turned to me. ‘What will you do?’ The urgency in her voice contrasted sharply with her brother-in-law’s lassitude.
‘I’m not sure.’ I muttered. ‘I’m sorry about your husband.’
‘I’m worried about him,’ she admitted, with downcast eyes. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do if anything’s happened to him.’ She looked at me again, as though she thought I might have an answer to that. ‘But he’ll turn up, I’m sure. I expect he just got frightened, out there by himself with only the Divine Princesses for company. He’s no warrior, I know. He probably just ran away. After all, if he’d… if anything had happened to him, he’d still be there, wouldn’t he? But there wasn’t anyone except Star. So he must be hiding.’
‘Yes,’ I admitted, although even as I said it, I had my doubts. What would have scared even an undistinguished commoner such as Flower Gatherer into running so far away that even now nobody knew where he was? Yet I dared not voice again the suggestion I had made by the empty grave: that Flower Gatherer may have had a hand in the theft.
‘But what will you do?’ she asked again.
In spite of the misery that surrounded me the repeated question made me smile wryly. How could I answer it when there were so many things that needed my attention? I had to get word to Lily. I had to confront whatever had hunted me in the night – with or without the chief minister’s men watching over me. And I had to help find Handy’s wife, and not just out of compassion for her family. To fail would be to risk incurring the displeasure of beings far more powerful than Atlixco’s parish policeman: none other than the Divine Princesses themselves. The feeling I had had as we walked back from the plaza returned, bringing with it a chill that took the smile from my lips.
Handy lifted his head. ‘We need you here.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But first I have to get a message…’
‘To your mistress. I know. One of the boys can take it for you.’
Goose had sent Snake indoors when we arrived, but he had obviously been listening by the doorway, as he sprang out at the mention of his name. ‘I’m ready,’ he said briskly. A moment later a second youthful head appeared, peering cautiously out of the shadows behind him. I recognised the slightly rounder, heavier features of Snake’s elder brother Mazatl, or Buck.
‘No, I’ll go.’ Buck’s voice had a gruff note: it was in the process of breaking. ‘You went last time.’
Snaked would not spare him so much as a glance over his shoulder. ‘Exactly! So I know the way!’
‘You can both forget it!’ I told them. ‘What story are you going to make up this time?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ the boy said scornfully. ‘I don’t need to lie.’
‘I always tell the truth,’ Buck declared.
‘Only because you haven’t got the brains to make anything up!’
‘That’s enough,’ their father said wearily. ‘If you’re so keen, you can both go.’
‘Handy, there’s no need…’
‘Yes there is, Yaotl. I can’t let you go yet.’
I turned on him, exasperated. ‘I’ve already told you I’ll help you find the thief! What more do you all want? But at the moment I’ve no more notion of who or where he is than you have, not until he sprouts green feathers from his ears and runs through the streets shouting “I did it! It was me all along!”’
I paused for breath and a brief glance at the shocked faces around me: my outburst had stunned the family into wide-eyed silence. In a quieter tone I added: ‘Does it matter so much if I run a simple errand first?’
‘Yes. There’s something that needs doing before anything else.’
‘Anyway, you can’t send your sons. It’s dangerous.’
‘Not for me, it isn’t!’ Snake cried indignantly. ‘It was you the monster was after, remember?’
‘Ask the fishermen how safe they feel!’ I retorted, but it was of no use. I could guess what task Handy had in mind for me, whose urgency was such that it could not wait. The prospect made me want more than ever to be away from here, at least for the moment; but Spotted Eagle was already standing nonchalantly between me and the doorway, as though daring me to try going through it.
‘You have to help us bury my child,’ Handy whispered.
Before I could say another word Snake and Buck had vanished.
Probably the boys’ eagerness to carry my message for me, whether I wanted them to or not, was not entirely selfless. They may well have been reluctant to stay for the dour little ritual that went ahead in their absence.
Handy fetched a digging stick and two spades from inside his house. Then he and Spotted Eagle broke up and shovelled the hard earth by the entrance to the courtyard, next to the maize bins, until there was a shallow hole there.
Children appeared from within the house, although no-one had called them. They may simply have sensed that something important and solemn was taking place. They stood in a loose group, watching
