‘I don’t understand,’ he said slowly. ‘I didn’t sent Huitztic to fetch you. He was supposed to give you a message, but he told me he couldn’t find you. What’s this about?’ He half turned his head to glower over his shoulder.
I almost felt sorry for the Prick then. His adam’s apple bobbed up and down spasmodically. ‘I’m sorry, my lord... I, er, I must have forgotten to mention it...’
I laughed. ‘Forgotten to mention you were thrown in a canal for insulting one of the locals? The water must have got in through your ears and softened your brains! And for that matter…’
‘That will do!’
Infirm he may have been, but my former master had had many years’ practice at imposing his will on others, and he managed it now by rapping out a few words. ‘I will find out what happened between you and Huitztic later, Yaotl, but for now you might wonder what made me send my steward to Atlixco just to deliver a warning to a creature whose life I’d normally value about as much as a cockroach’s.’ He paused for breath. ‘I take it he did manage to tell you what had happened?’
Momentarily subdued, I lapsed into silence. This was unfortunate, because I had been about to add that it was odd if Huitztic had been ordered to find me, since he had seemed so surprised to see me when we met. If I had said that it might have cleared up a number of mysteries in one go. It might even have saved a life or two.
‘Well?’ the old man said impatiently.
‘He didn’t tell me anything.’ I added defiantly: ‘Though I don’t suppose I’d have believed anything he said anyway. After all, you told me you were going to have your men follow me, and that was a lie, wasn’t it?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Yaotl....’ My brother was about to warn me that I was going too far, but I was more interested in what the chief minister was saying now. There was an odd lack of indignation in his denial, as though he did not much care whether I believed it or not.
‘It must have been a lie. If it wasn’t, how come I didn’t see them?’
‘Because,’ the old man said, as if he were talking to a child, ‘you weren’t supposed to see them. They were two of the most experienced spies in the city. And for all your famous ability to figure things out you obviously weren’t smart enough to notice either of them when they were standing just a few paces away from you!’
I stared at him for a moment before, inevitably, whirling around to look behind me. ‘So where are they, then?’ I asked, bewildered.
‘Dead,’ he replied laconically. ‘Unfortunately they seem to have met someone with better eyesight or more brains than you have.’
‘But that must mean... no, wait a moment... when did all this happen?’ An unpleasant suspicion had begun to dawn on me, which I was about to have confirmed.
‘One of them vanished three nights ago: the night your friend Handy buried his wife. We lost the other one the night before last, while he was watching your friend’s house. The first of them turned up the day after he disappeared, when the parish authorities in Atlixco fished him out of a canal. I understand you found the second.’
‘They were yours?’ I cried, as though we were talking about a missing pair of sandals.
‘That’s what I’ve been telling you.’
‘But... they didn’t look like warriors!’
‘My understanding is that by the time they were found, neither of them even looked like men. What did you expect? They were spies, you idiot. They would have been dressed to pass for locals, commoners or even slaves.’
My mind reeled as it tried to grapple with what I had heard. It made sense enough: two bodies had turned up in Atlixco, but had not been identified, and even in their mangled state that almost certainly meant they were outsiders. Also, so far as I knew there was only one native of the parish missing: Handy’s brother-in-law, Flower Gatherer. ‘So that’s two mysteries solved, but what happened to Goose’s husband?’
‘Who?’ lord Feathered in Black asked sharply. I tried to explain, but it soon became clear that he was not interested. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about some commoner,’ he snapped, ‘Or even my men. What I want to know about is what happened last night.’
‘He means your adventures by the lake yesterday,’ my brother added.
‘I understand one of the fishermen told you about that,’ I said to him. ‘It’s good to know your network of informers is functioning well.’
My brother shot a baleful glance at lord Feathered in Black. ‘Mine isn’t the only one, it seems! I sent Ollin there with a couple of men to investigate. They came back here to report, but they didn’t have time to scrape the mud off their boots before his lordship heard about it.’
The chief minister smiled thinly. ‘I am the emperor’s eyes and ears. He looks to me to protect the city from its enemies.’
‘Even if they happen to be your own servants?’ I suggested.
‘Even so,’ he said indifferently. ‘Though the otomi was never exactly my servant. More a tool.’
‘Then it’s a good job you’re a noble rather than a carpenter!’
‘Yaotl, please!’ my brother almost howled. His wife took a step backward, bumping into one of her women. She looked about her in confusion, plainly torn between the desire to stay and listen and be noticed by the chief minister, and the urge to run away and hide.
Lord Feathered in Black said: ‘Just tell us what happened to you yesterday. And before you’re tempted to utter any more witty remarks,
