I mumbled hastily through an account of the expedition I had made with Kite and Spotted Eagle in the afternoon. The only interruption came when I described the policeman’s wound.
‘I know Kite,’ Lion said anxiously. ‘He’s a good man. Is he going to be all right?’
‘I don’t know. Last I heard he was with a curer.’
‘Get on with it,’ the chief minister snapped.
There was a pause after I had finished.
Banner asked nervously if anybody would like anything to eat, but was ignored.
‘Why don’t you just tell me why I’m here?’ I said at last.
‘You know what Ollin found,’ said Lion.
‘He didn’t find very much, by the sound of it.’
‘Precisely,’ my former master responded. ‘And I know you will have worked out what that means.’
I had known the answer to that as soon as Ollin had first spoken to me. ‘The otomi’s still around, and probably angrier than ever. He managed to retrieve his uniform. Don’t know why he took the bodies, though.’
‘There may be more power in them than we know about,’ lord Feathered in Black said darkly. ‘But in any event, we have to work out how to protect ourselves from this madman. That’s why I had your brother summon you here.’
‘“Ourselves”?’ I echoed. ‘Why do you need protecting? It’s me he’s after.’
My brother said: ‘Don’t pretend to be stupid. Old Bl.... The chief minister is concerned that the otomi may blame him as well as you for his misfortunes.’
‘I can’t tell you how distressing I find that!’
My former master appeared to be examining his fingernails. ‘What your brother means, of course, is that the captain may seek to avenge himself on me after he’s finished stripping the hide off your miserable, writhing, shrieking flesh!’ He ended on a shout that made all the men present flinch and Banner burst into tears. The chief minister ignored them all, leaning towards me while his hands gripped the arms of his chair. ‘Now do you understand?’
I quailed. ‘My lord, yes, of course, but what do you want me to do?’
‘What you were supposed to do at the outset, before you allowed yourself to get distracted over some commoner’s dead wife. Go after him. Get him before he gets you.’
‘You must be joking!’
‘I never joke,’ growled lord Feathered in Black dangerously. ‘What else will you do, wait for him to attack you again? How long will your luck hold? You will go in search of him. In spite of everything I still think you have a better chance of finding him than anyone else!’
‘Thanks. You’re probably right, if he’s looking for me anyway. But if I get killed how is that going to help you?’
‘You won’t be killed,’ he said airily, ‘because you’ll have an escort, one of the finest warriors in the city, and he won’t be confined to skulking in the shadows either. I plan to have him stick to you as if you’d been glued together with bat guano. When your enemy comes, he’ll have to take you both on at once.’
‘Brilliant!’ I cried. ‘So now I’m going to have to go looking for a deranged otomi accompanied by the kind of rash idiot who thinks he can fight him! So who is this poor lunatic? Is he here?’ I made a show of looking around me until my eyes lighted on my brother’s grim visage and it dawned on me that I had my answer. ‘Oh, no...’
‘Oh, yes, brother,’ Lion assured me. ‘It seems I’ve been given the job of saving your skin once again!’
Banner’s nerve finally broke. She hid her face in her hands and fled.
Lord Feathered in Black watched her go with a ghastly half-smile on his face. ‘What’s the matter? Does she imagine you won’t come back?’
‘Surely not,’ I said drily. If I thought she might have been seized by panic at the thought of organising the catering for her husband’s wake, I was not about to say so.
‘It’s not as if you’re going to be entirely alone, anyway.’ lord Feathered in Black’s smile broadened into a quite cheerless grin. ‘I’ll send Huitztic along too – once I’ve made sure he’s recovered his memory of that little incident you were telling me about!’
3
Lion and I went back to Atlixco in the canoe that had brought me to his house, although he insisted that I take the pole. It was unthinkable for the Guardian of the Waterfront to do the work while a mere slave lounged about in the bows as his passenger. He had his image to think about.
‘Why can’t we bring your bodyguards along?’ I asked, as we set off.
He sat with this sword propped between his knees and looked morosely down into the bottom of the boat. ‘They’re needed elsewhere. Watching my house, watching our parents’ house.’
‘Couldn’t old Black Feathers have spared us some more of his men? Huitztic will be as much use as a wax oven. And he worships the otomi – the captain’s the only man he knows who’s more mindlessly vicious than he is.’
He laughed bitterly. ‘You don’t get it, do you, Yaotl? The chief minister doesn’t want us to succeed. How likely do you think it is that even the otomi could get near him, secure in his palace – even with a sorcerer on his side? His lordship probably has sorcerers of his own to protect him anyway. You and I, we’ve been set up. If we do kill the captain, I dare say the old bastard will be pleased enough. But remember he’s no love for either of us. He’s probably tired of his steward too. If we all get hacked to pieces in the process I wouldn’t count on him to go into mourning!’
Standing up in the stern of the canoe, I looked down on his greying head with concern.
Lion and I had fought continuously as little boys, until fate
