Simon Levack - The Demon of the Air

I had already worked out whom the sandal must belong to, and it was as much as I could do not to turn and run down to the lake and all the way along the causeway back to Tenochtitlan.

“It gives us a pretty good idea.” I looked nervously up and down the hillside once more. “This fire wasn’t an accident. And whoever left this strap wasn’t making a social call. We’d better think about getting out of here-the sooner the better.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then look at this strap again.” I waved it in front of him, scatteringflakes of soot. “It’s too big for any sandal you or I are ever likely to wear. Ask yourself who wears sandals with big, floppy straps. Remember the Shorn One we saw on the causeway this morning?”

“The Shorn One,” Handy said dreamily. “They’re the greatest warriors in the army, you know, along with the Otomies.” Abruptly he seemed to wake up. He stared at me with his mouth hanging open in astonishment. “No, wait, you can’t mean …”

His expression hardened as he added, in a dangerous voice: “Yaotl, just what were you expecting to find here?”

I had been dreading this moment. As quickly as I could, and keeping my voice low so that the boys could not hear me, I told him what my brother had told me, adding the story of my abduction and the bird and Costly’s suggestion for good measure. “So you see,” I concluded lamely, “I was hoping to see a sorcerer, really I was, it’s just that I thought something might have happened to him.”

“And now you’ve got us involved with the army! You idiot!”

“Keep your voice down-do you want the boys to hear?”

“Why do you think I’m so angry? What am I going to say to their mother, have you thought of that?”

“I did tell you not to bring them.”

Handy’s answer to that was a furious growl and a stamp of his foot which showered ash over us both. “I knew you were bloody trouble as soon as I set eyes on you,” he muttered. “So what happens now? You reckon they’ll be back?”

“How do I know?” I could almost see the column pounding up the hill after us, the wind ruffling their feathered shields and tunics as they ran, their swords’ obsidian blades glittering in the sunlight, their teeth bared like a hunting animal’s. “I think we should get out of here as soon as we can.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, we’re off as soon as I’ve found our lunch bag. You needn’t think we’re sharing it with you! Buck! Snake! Which of you had the food?”

“He did,” said Buck without looking up from his work.

“Snake?”

“I left it over there,” the younger boy said casually, “under one of those maguey plants, near where Yaotl’s standing now.”

Automatically I peered into the shadow cast by the nearest plant and those on either side of it. “Are you sure? I can’t see it here.”

Handy swore. “I don’t believe this! I tell you boys to do a simple thing …”

“But it was there!” Snake’s voice was an outraged squeal. “I put it there when you went up the hill!”

I stepped over to the row of plants and stood on the edge of the little bank of earth above them. “It’s probably just fallen over into the field below us,” I said, pulling two broad glistening leaves apart and peering into the space between them.

Two round pale eyes stared back at me.

Startled, I stepped back, letting the leaves flop back into place to cover the eyes again. Then I recovered myself, plunging into the foliage once more just as the owner of the eyes began to move. Dropping Handy’s bag, he scuttled along the edge of the field, keeping his head down level with the top of the bank.

“Thief!” I yelled. “There he goes! Catch him!”

The boys liked a live quarry even better than old bones. They exploded out of the wrecked house in a shower of dust and ash and hurled themselves straight at the bank, diving over it to emerge just in front of their prey.

Confused by their joyful cries, he stumbled to a halt. He might have got away if he had turned and fled straight down the hill immediately, since for a moment Buck and Snake were as surprised and disoriented as he was. He left it just too late, though, and even as he was turning to run Handy appeared at the top of the bank, roaring like a bear, and threw himself on him.

“Got you! And if you’ve eaten all our tortillas …”

His captive said nothing, although since the big man was lying across his chest this was not surprising.

I let myself gingerly down the slope and picked up the bag. “I think it’s all here,” I said. “Let’s go!”

Handy began to get up, although he kept one knee on the would-be thief to pin him down. “I want a quick look at this one first.”

Then a strange expression came over the big man’s face. As he looked down at the child he had caught-and he was just that, I realized, no more than nine or ten years old-Handy’s eyes and mouth opened wide, while at his sides his fists clenched and unclenched in a gesture of indecision. He did not seem to know whether to fight or run.

“Handy?”

“Father?” Snake’s voice sounded small. “What is it?”

Abruptly his father seemed to make up his mind about something. Bending down, he scooped the captive boy off the ground and shoved him under one arm like a freshly killed turkey. Before any of us could react, he was off down the hill at a brisk trot, with the child’s head dangling upside down at his side, bouncing so low it almost scraped on the ground.

“Come on, then!” he called out over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here!”

His sons and I could only stumble after him.

“What’s happening?” I called out. “I know we’re in a hurry, but … Wait for us!”

As I caught him up he turned to me and said, without breaking his stride: “Can’t you see the family resemblance, Yaotl? Look at the ears, man! You and I-we killed this boy’s father!”

I saw the family resemblance. Even upside down, flapping up and down as his head dangled from the crook of the commoner’s arm, the boy’s ears were unmistakable. When I had last seen them I had been climbing the steps on the Great Pyramid, and they had protruded from the head of the man in front of me: Shining Light’s Bathed Slave. It was not just the ears. The child had the slave’s scrawny physique and the same air of resignation.

“You’re telling me this boy’s father was Shining Light’s sacrifice? Slow down! What was he doing stealing your lunch?” I gasped.

Handy stumbled and ran toward the causeway, leaving us to keep up as best we could. He ran with the child jammed uncomfortably under one arm. The child’s eyes were open but he made no sound. Either there was something wrong with him, I thought, or he must be very brave. In his place, I would have been howling.

“How should I know? All I know is we’ve found him. We’ve got to get him home. Don’t you see, Yaotl? He can tell us who his father was and where he came from. The merchants will want to know that. They’ll want to know where Shining Light got the Bathed Slave who let them down so badly. There’ll be a reward!”

There might be more than that, I thought, as we raced past the low stone walls marking the outskirts of Coyoacan and onto the broad,flat, hard earth roadway that led out across the lake to Mexico. What would happen, I wondered, if anyone-some passing merchant, perhaps, or a member of my master’s entourage-happened to recognize the son of Shining Light’s offering wedged under Handy’s arm?

Halfway along the causeway I stumbled to a halt and tried to call out to the others, to urge them to throw the boy in the water and forget they had ever seen him.

They ignored me. Either I was too out of breath to make myself heard or they were just not listening.