I looked about me and saw scowls and eyes narrowed with recognition. Some of these people must remember me from the morning after Star’s funeral, I realised. ‘Look,’ I said, keeping my voice level. ‘You all know Handy here, don’t you?’ I heard a mutter of assent. ‘We buried his wife not long ago. Now we’re just asking you to help us find the people who caused her death...’
Too late, I realised what I had said. I heard a choking noise from beside me. ‘What?’ Handy cried. ‘Yaotl, what are you saying?’
‘...And crippled your policeman,’ I went on hastily, hoping to carry his questions away on a flood of words. ‘You’ve all heard what happened out at the lake shore yesterday. Now Kite’s injured, likely to die from what I hear. I don’t expect you to do anything for my big brother here and I’m sure you won’t do it for me, but Star and Kite, they’re your own people, aren’t they?’
I looked expectantly at the truculent faces around me while Handy lapsed into a pained silence.
Eventually a small voice – that of a young boy peering between the knees of two of his adult neighbours – replied: ‘There was a lady here asking for Cactus and Gentle Heart too. Why don’t you ask her?’
‘A lady?’ I caught my breath. ‘You mean Tiger Lily?’
A woman, probably the boy’s mother, judging by the way she had hissed at him when he spoke, replied: ‘She didn’t say her name, but she was looking for the same thing you were. We couldn’t tell her anything, even though she knew how to ask nicely,’ She looked significantly at my brother before adding: ‘We’ve not seen either of them for a couple of days now.’
‘Where did she go?’ I demanded.
‘She said she was going to the House of Pleasure.’
4
The House of Pleasure resembled a long, low stone palace, its façade topped with brightly coloured friezes, decorated with blooms in a pattern presumably meant to call to mind Xochipilli, the Prince of Flowers, the patron god of love.
For all the promise of its name and the reputation of the alluring creatures who inhabited it, there was nothing frivolous about the House of Pleasure. It represented part of the reward for valour on the battlefield. For that reason, it was forbidden to any man who had not earned the privilege of being allowed through its doorway, and guarded by hefty-looking warriors who were clearly jealous of their privileges. Even my brother, who might presumably have come here whenever he wished if he were prepared to brave whatever awaited him at home afterwards, had a hard time persuading them to let the three of us in.
Once through the doorway, Handy, Lion and I found ourselves in what might have been another world.
We were in a dimly-lit passageway. There was no-one about: ‘Probably asleep, at this hour,’ Lion suggested. It was early in the afternoon, when many people would be resting. ‘Don’t forget many of the girls will have been up all night! And the midwives and curers may well have been, too. What we have to do is creep about very quietly and hope someone can tell us if they’ve seen Lily or where to find Gentle Heart, before the guards decide our time’s up and come to throw us out.’
The passageway led into a small courtyard, with a pond at its centre, surrounded by greenery: tall yucca plants and wild figs spreading their leaves and dropping them in the water. It was pleasant and shady, and here we were not alone. A number of women of varying ages draped themselves around the sides of the pool or sat on stone benches, chatting quietly in groups of two or three. The murmuring of soft female voices ceased the moment we appeared.
Three pairs of male eyes gazed intently at them.
Some men might have felt a sense of disappointment, perhaps. After all, this was the closest thing to a harem that I had ever seen. I might have expected to be treated to the sight of delicate, bare limbs, smooth skin the colour of honey and flowing like warm honey over soft curves, dark hair glistening like pitch and flashing, perfect, red-stained teeth; however, there was nothing of the kind to be seen here. Some of the women were young and were presumably pleasure girls, but they were dressed like fine ladies, in cotton blouses and skirts, with their hair, most of them, bound up in respectable style, with two loose tufts sweeping forward over their brows, or tied at the back with ribbons.
Yet disappointment hardly sums up the way I felt, looking at them. After all a beautiful woman is still a beautiful woman, even if she is dressed like a matron, and the eyes that looked boldly back into mine held as much promise as their half-naked bodies would have done. Which, admittedly, in my case was probably no promise at all. I had long since got used to the fact that whatever Lily saw in me was invisible to most women.
Handy had been trying to attract my attention ever since we had left Atlixco plaza, demanding that I tell him what I thought Gentle Heart and Cactus might have done. I had done my best to ignore him; now, however, he fell silent, overwhelmed by what he was seeing. I wondered whether his success in taking two captives had ever entitled him to come here.
I searched the faces of all the women as intently as I could without risking insulting them. However, neither my mistress nor Gentle Heart was among them. The fear for Lily’s safety that had gripped me when Handy had told me where she had gone returned: if Gentle Heart was not here, then what was she
