Huitztic glowered at us. For a moment he stood where he was, clearly uncertain what to do, but it did not take him long to make up his mind. Slowly, like the flow of blood from a shallow wound, a grin spread itself across his face.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Then you can just go in there and tell them from me that they had their chance. And that they may have more to worry about than the chief minister, for all his power!’
With that, he shouldered his sword, turned around and walked off into the gathering darkness.
‘Now, what was all that about?’ Lion wondered aloud.
‘Who cares?’ I said.
‘Not me,’ Handy muttered. ‘He’s always been trouble, even when he was bringing me work. Though if there’s any truth in what you told me, Yaotl, about that time you met him, when he got pushed in the canal, then I wouldn’t mind a chance to ask him about it. I’d still like to know just how he knew about my wife and Red Macaw!’
‘Come on,’ my brother urged. ‘Let’s see if they’ll let us in.’
For a man who would defy the chief minister’s servant, Kite presented a wretched figure.
They had strapped him to something resembling an infant’s cradleboard, so that he could move his arms but everything else seemed to be held fast. He wore no cloak and instead of a breechcloth, his hips were swaddled in bloodstained bandages, from the top and bottom of which wooden splints projected. His skin appeared to hang off his bones, as though he had neither eaten nor drunk in an age.
The men – a handful of the men of the parish, headed by my old acquaintance, Quail – had placed him by a brazier in the centre of the parish hall’s courtyard, and now hovered about him like moths around a torch, attending to his every need. Hence he appeared comfortable enough, and the voice in which he greeted us, although weak, was cheerful.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ he assured us. ‘And I’m allowed to have sacred wine, which is good. Mind you, I’ve been warned not to expect to take any more captives!’
Lion told us about our encounter with the steward.
The policeman’s response was a laugh which turned into a dry cough. When he recovered he whispered: ‘He was looking for you, Yaotl, and he wouldn’t have it when my men told him you weren’t here. In the end I lost patience and told them to tell him to sod off. It sounds as if he got the message!’
‘It does,’ I agreed, ‘but all the same, I wonder where he went? Back to his master?’
‘Who cares?’ Handy replied. He squatted on the ground a little apart from the rest of us, as seemed to have become his habit, at the edge of the circle of warmth from the brazier.
‘You ought to,’ Kite remarked. ‘Don’t you rely on him for work?’
‘On old Black Feathers, yes, sometimes. But from what you tell me and what we saw out there this evening, I don’t suppose Huitztic has much say in it any more. Besides, we’ve two less mouths to feed now, haven’t we?’
Nobody could think of an answer to Handy’s bleak statement.
The sky’s hue deepened from blue to black, while the first stars began to show themselves, and the parish temple, the only nearby building tall enough to be visible above the walls surrounding us, became a vague shadow whose very shape would shortly dissolve into the night.
There was no sound. The whole vast city spread over the island around us seemed to have gone to sleep; either that, or it was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.
I looked at the prancing shadows thrown against the sides of the courtyard by the brazier’s flickering flame, and felt suddenly uneasy. To calm myself, I talked. ‘It’s funny. Apart from the fire in front of your little temple there, we could be the only creatures alive anywhere.’
The temple fire was like a star: a little twinkling pale orange light.
‘We aren’t, though,’ Handy reminded me. ‘There’s at least one otomi out there tonight. I ought to be getting home, in case he attacks again.’
‘He didn’t come last night,’ I reminded him.
‘You’d be better off staying here,’ Lion advised. ‘This must be the most defensible building in the parish. If you set off now you might risk running into trouble in the dark.’
Handy said: ‘Last night he was busy getting his warrior costume back, and moving Star and Red Macaw.’ He shivered, and shuffled a little closer to the fire. ‘Why did they do that, do you think? And where did they put them? Will we ever get her back?’
‘Lord Feathered in Black said there might still be some power in your wife’s remains,’ I recalled.
‘Is that true?’ asked Lily.
‘Not that I ever heard of,’ I admitted, ‘but then, the chief minister may know more than I do. As Lion said earlier on, he probably has sorcerers of his own.’
Handy’s face glowed in the firelight. ‘I just want to find her,’ he said simply. ‘When you and Spotted Eagle told me what had happened, I couldn’t believe it. And you were so close!’ His features were briefly wrinkled with pain.
‘I’m sorry.’ It was all I could think of.
He sighed. ‘I’m all right, though. But it’s not easy, you know? I keep thinking I’m getting over what happened, and maybe I am, but I’m beginning to realise that it won’t ever be easy.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You know what the hardest part was? It wasn’t this morning, when I learned about the bodies being taken. It was when Slender Neck told us about Gentle Heart. It was a shock. We trusted the woman, and… well.’ He sighed again. ‘Now she’s dead too, and we’re no nearer to knowing who
