Over her shoulder I said: ‘Someone gave Gentle Heart and Cactus the same treatment as Slender Neck!’
Lily mumbled thickly: ‘I was afraid the poison would get you too!’ She turned to look at Lion. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffed, ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Gentle Heart?’ Handy repeated. ‘But…’ He stepped across to the body. He pulled a foot back as if to kick it, and then seemed to change his mind, recoiling and turning away in disgust. ‘Why? If she was the one who killed my wife, then who...?’
‘How long have they been dead?’ I asked.
Lily said: ‘I don’t know. A couple of days? They’re still quite stiff.’
Lion began inspecting the bodies. ‘A couple of days is right, I’d say. Not easy to tell, of course.’
‘She was alive when we buried the baby,’ Handy reminded us.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘She must have died soon afterwards, though. Remember what they told us in the marketplace – neither of them has been seen for couple of days.’ I thought for a moment. ‘We know the sorcerer, whoever he is, was with the otomi yesterday. Maybe he finally took off with him after he did this.’ I cursed suddenly. ‘But why wasn’t it Cactus? It would have made sense if it had been! We know he was trying to kill you, Handy, with those herbs he wanted to give you. And he’s such an obvious fraud, he’d have been a perfect fake sorcerer!’
Lion frowned. ‘You mentioned those herbs once before. It seems strange, that. Seems an oddly half-hearted way to try to kill someone. And didn’t he give up rather easily?’
‘I just put it down to him being a devious bastard,’ I admitted.
My brother said mournfully: ‘I suppose there’s no way he could have taken his own poison by accident?’
‘Or on purpose?’ Handy suggested.
‘I don’t see how, or why,’ I replied, ‘Which means we’ve got to start all over again – and look for someone else altogether!’
6
Lily had found Gentle Heart and Cactus as we had seen them. She had examined them herself, as best she could in the relative gloom of the midwife’s room, and had been considering what to do next when she had heard us outside.
‘I hid out here and waited.’ We had come into the house’s tiny courtyard, and now squatted or kneeled on the well-swept earth floor, taking deep breaths of fresh air that smelled of nothing worse than the city’s cooking-fires. ‘I didn’t want to show myself in case you were the killer, come back to make sure they were dead, though I should think he’s done that already, long since. I was just checking, peeping around the edge of the doorway before showing myself, when I saw you touching the stuff in that bowl. I was afraid you were going to try tasting it.’ She shivered. ‘I nearly made that mistake! If I had…’
‘What do you suppose it was?’ Lion asked. ‘Snake venom?’
‘I doubt if it was that,’ I said. ‘Whatever it was, it killed them both fairly quickly.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘They were clinging to each other. Do you suppose they were lovers? Maybe it was just for comfort. But the thing is, if the poison – whatever it was – hadn’t hit them both at pretty much the same time, they wouldn’t have been like that, would they? They’d have gone their separate ways. Cactus might have gone home. She might have gone out to deliver a baby or collect someone’s washing or whatever she did to make ends meet. And even if they’d both felt ill, how long would they have gone on holding each other while it ran its course? And the bowl’s still there, right beside them. Whatever it was, it worked a lot faster than snake venom.’
‘I can guess what it was,’ my mistress said. ‘Tobacco juice.’
I looked at her with interest and a little concern. ‘Pardon?’
‘Tobacco juice. You press the leaves and leave the juice to evaporate in the sun. What’s left will knock you out in moments and stop your heart before the day’s out. But it tastes bitter – so you mix it with chocolate.’ She returned my stare. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked weakly.
She gave me a thin smile. ‘My father told me. He learned it in the lowlands, while he was trading there.’ Suddenly she laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Yaotl! How often do you think I’m likely to offer you chocolate?’
‘With these ingredients, once would be enough!’
‘I’ll remember this next time I want my pipe,’ said Lion drily.
‘Someone obviously gave it to them, mixed with the chocolate,’ I suggested. ‘The question is, who?’
‘Gave it to them – or one of them.’ Lily glanced over her shoulder into the house. ‘I bet it was Cactus who was the lucky recipient. He was supposed to be the curer, wasn’t he? The one who could get the herbs she needed to ply her trade?’
I took up the idea. ‘But if he was the fake I think he was, then someone must have given the stuff to him. Slender Neck thought so. He was just a middleman, really. So whoever his supplier was must have decided it was time to get rid of him – with poisoned chocolate. But he chose to share the treat with his girlfriend Gentle Heart.’
‘Poor woman,’ Lily said softly.
‘“Poor woman”?’ Handy had settled himself against the wall of the house, a little apart from the rest of us, and up until now had squatted there in morose silence, keeping his thoughts to himself. Now that he chose to voice them, it was as an outraged cry. ‘“Poor woman”, you say! That poor woman killed my wife!’
‘Did she, though?’ I said thoughtfully.
‘You know she did! You were there, you heard what Slender Neck told us. You were the one who said she and Cactus were in it together. And what about
