Whatever I might have gone on to add was swept aside by the urgency in the man’s voice. ‘The policeman’s a good man, but he doesn’t know what it was between Handy and Red Macaw, and he’s not going to know, you understand?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘All right, put it this way. Handy’s a well-respected man in this parish. You want to know what I mean? Well, when I walked past his plot – he farms one of the chinampa fields on the edge of the lake, near where I set my nets – I saw someone turning over the soil. I didn’t get a clear look at the man, because I was too far away and it was getting dark, but it wasn’t one of Handy’s sons, because they’re all at home with him, so it must have been a neighbour. What’s more, it looked as though he’d done something to fix up a little hut in the corner, though I know Handy hasn’t troubled to repair the roof in years. Now what I’m saying is this: we’re all busy with our own work, but one of his neighbours took the trouble to go and do that, turn over his field, because it’s near the planting season and Handy would be in trouble if it wasn’t done in time. If he wants to keep a thing to himself, there isn’t anyone in Atlixco who won’t go along with it. Do you see?’
‘Enough to understand that I wouldn’t want Kite’s job,’ I replied. ‘And I get the general idea: no questions about Handy. Well, I’ll pass that on, for what it’s worth. Maybe he’ll tell me what it’s all about one day.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’ Quail stepped away from me, having apparently said what he had wanted to.
I was not prepared to leave it at that, though. ‘What about Red Macaw, then?’
‘What about him?’
‘Is he as popular?’
Quail’s brow furrowed. ‘He’s a fine warrior.’
‘I’ll take that as a “no”.’
‘They keep themselves to themselves,’ the man said defensively. ‘Nobody really knows them that well.’
‘Who’s “they”?’
‘Red Macaw and his mother.’
‘He lives with his mother?’
‘She’s his only family. He never married...’ Quail shut his mouth with a snap, like a man who realises he has said too much already, and took another furtive look around him. ‘Look, I’ve got to go now. Just remember you’re a stranger here, all right? You can’t expect people to tell you everything.’
As I walked back along the canal towards Handy’s house, I felt extraordinarily weary. I found myself dragging my feet, scraping my heels on the hard earth of the path. It seemed that all the events that were happening around me – the mutilated body I had seen this afternoon, the monster that had pursued me in the night, the theft of Star’s body, Flower Gatherer’s disappearance, even in some way Star’s death – all had some connection with this feud between her husband and Red Macaw. I was filled with despair at the prospect of trying to unravel a secret that the people of Atlixo would not share, even with their parish policeman.
It was while I was wrestling with these thoughts, with my eyes downcast so as to avoid the reproachful glances of the people around me, that I met an old acquaintance: one I would happily have avoided if I had recognised him in time.
‘There he is!’
I looked up at the sound of a familiar voice. When I saw the face that went with it, my first thought was: ‘Oh no, not you again.’
It was the old man I had spoken to in the morning, who had urged Kite to lock me up or hand me over to the chief minister. However, I dismissed him from my thoughts the moment I saw who was with him.
The old man was holding a conversation with someone in a canoe. It was that person who had caught my attention. He was looking directly at me. His jaw dropped as he took in my appearance, but he recovered from his surprise quickly, and a moment later he was out of the canoe and striding along the canal towards me. His cloak – a three-captive warrior’s, like Red Macaw’s – flapped around him and his long hair bounced at his temples in time with his steps.
I stared at him, horrified and amazed. He was none other than my former master’s steward, Huitztic the Prick, the same man who had bullied and taunted me relentlessly during the years I had spent in lord Feathered in Black’s household.
He stopped a few paces away from where I stood. The old man he had been speaking to and a few others trailed diffidently behind him, halting a respectable distance away and trying to peer over his shoulder.
The steward stared at me. It seemed to take him a little while to find his voice. ‘Yaotl! What are you doing here?’
Having concluded that he had lied about the men who were meant to be protecting me, I had all but forgotten about my former master. The horror and terror I had experienced since the previous day had all but driven the chief minister and his servants from my mind. But it seemed he had remembered me. It had been inevitable that he would get to hear where I was, ever since I had returned to Atlixco that morning, and found myself the centre of attention. Now I was face-to-face with his steward and had to decide whether to cringe or to defy him.
I swallowed nervously and found my mouth had gone dry.
‘Nothing to say? That’s not like you.’
‘He had plenty to say this morning,’ growled one of the bystanders.
At last I managed to find my voice. ‘I don’t belong to your master any more, Huitztic. You know that. So does he.’
The grin faded but did not vanish. ‘Of course we know that. Why should we care? That’s what you should be asking yourself.’
The sneer in his voice made up my mind for
