Simon Levack - Shadow of the Lords

‘ Are you going to tell me what’s going on now, Yaotl?’

Handy and I were pushing the canoe ashore. We and the steward had gone by water to the place I had pointed out earlier, where churned-up mud and trampled rushes showed that someone had landed a boat. The Otomies had been happy to walk; I could hear them approaching us, crashing through the reeds, their joyful shouts accompanied by the flapping and splashing of birds and animals scared from their nests and hiding places. The steward had gone on ahead, keen to get his feet on relatively dry land. Since I could no longer hear his teeth chattering I judged he must be out of earshot, provided we whispered.

‘We have to lose those bastards.’

‘Well, I agree with that. What do you want to bring them here for, though? Isn’t this where old Black Feathers’ own boat ended up? The Otomies are right, you know — one man went up this trail, not two. We both saw what happened — your master’s boatman grounded his canoe on purpose and ran away. You don’t have to be a skilled tracker to work out which way he went, but it’s not him we’re looking for, is it? So what’s the idea?’

I had no choice but to let Handy into my confidence. In any event he had seen enough of what had happened two nights before to piece the rest together for himself.

‘We’re not looking for two men. We’re only looking for one, and he’s not who you think he is.’

Handy and I grasped the canoe’s slippery sides and heaved it in among the rushes. We leaned over it, breathing heavily, and stared at each other. The big commoner’s face looked troubled, his brows pinched together in a frown, but then abruptly it relaxed.

‘I see,’ he said heavily.

‘You do?’

‘No, not really. But nothing with you is ever straightforward, I’ve learned that much! Who are we really looking for, then?’

I told him quickly.

‘So your master thinks he’s looking for two men, but actually one of them never existed and the other one is really your son, and you want to convince the Otomies that these two imaginary characters went this way so that they don’t pick up Nimble’s trail and find out where he really went — have I got it?’

‘More or less.’

‘And then you have to lose them afterwards — before they find out you’ve been lying to them?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the knife …’

‘Nimble’s knife, yes. I have to find out why Kindly sent it to me.

He stood up. ‘Well, you’ve excelled yourself this time! How are you going to do all this?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ve got to manage it somehow. You can see how important this is. If the Otomies get to Nimble first, either they’ll kill him or they’ll make him wish he was dead already. You understand — you’ve got sons yourself.’

‘Yes, and I’d like to live long enough to see them again!’Handy looked sick. ‘On the other hand, I suppose we’re stuck with these lunatics, at least until they think they’ve found what they’re after. All right, show off your hunting skills! Just remember who’s going to get the blame when it all goes wrong!’

I was spared having to decide whether to thank him for that or not by the sight and sound of the steward as he burst out of the rushes, panting like a man running from a pack of coyotes. A moment later his pursuers appeared: two breechcloth-clad Otomies, whooping like excited children as they closed on their prey. They would probably have thrown themselves on him if the grotesque features of their captain had not appeared behind them, his voice barking at them to come to order.

He strode towards us, his green-clad arms and legs swinging carelessly, keeping up with his men with no apparent effort. He still carried no shield, but I noticed that he was armed now. From his right hand dangled the most evil-looking sword I had ever seen. Instead of a flat shaft edged with obsidian, this was a long round club whose blades stuck out four ways. I felt sick when I saw it. You could not cut cleanly through anything with a weapon like that: it had been made to crush bones and shred flesh, to maim, not to kill.

As Fox and the other warriors stumbled into view behind him, he turned his eye on me.

‘Well?’ he rasped.

‘A footprint.’

‘I can see that.’

I knelt in the mud with the captain standing over me. I could feel his breath on my neck.

‘Barefoot,’ I said.

‘I can see that too. What does it prove?’

‘The two we’re after weren’t wearing sandals.’

‘Most people don’t wear sandals. Not everyone who does would keep them on in this mire, either, if they didn’t want to spoil them.’ His own, along with the legs of his suit, were splattered with mud, and the ends of their long floppy straps were black from where they had been trailing in it. I assumed he did not mind as he could afford to throw them away. Successful warriors like him were richly rewarded.

‘When are you going to tell me something I can’t see for myself?’ he growled.

That was when I saw where I had been going wrong, and how I might come out of this alive, after all.

The captain wanted me to tell him about something he could not see. What did it matter if I could not see it either? I had only to lie convincingly and I had been doing that all my life.

I tried to remember how the more patient and long-suffering of our instructors at the House of Tears might have behaved when confronted with a particularly doltish novice wilfully refusing to grasp the obvious — me, perhaps, craning my neck and squinting at the night sky and for the twentieth time getting the Celestial Marketplace mixed up with the Ball — Court of the Stars. Imitating him, I uttered a long, weary sigh. ‘Very well. Let’s look at this print again, shall we? Does anything strike you as odd?’

‘No.’

‘Lift your foot up.’

The captain gave me a suspicious look but did as he was told. His leather-shod sole hung uncertainly in the air for a moment, making him look as if he had been frozen in the act of kicking me in the face.

‘Now, look at your own footprint. You’re not exactly little, are you? How come your footprint’s so much shallower than this one?’

He put his foot down again. ‘Is it?’ He bent forward. ‘Hmm. I suppose so’, he added reluctantly. ‘What of it?’

I had to bite my lip to stop myself breathing a loud sigh of relief. The difference in depth between the two prints, if there was any, was imperceptible, but if he convinced himself he could see it and accepted my explanation, I knew I might live through the rest of the morning, at least.

‘Well, obviously there was more weight on this foot.’

‘You mean whoever made this print was bigger than I am? Interesting.’ He stood upright again, rubbing his chin speculatively. ‘This could be more fun than I thought it was going to be!’

I twisted my neck to look up at the towering, brawny figure. ‘That’s unlikely,’ I pointed out. ‘What I think is, this was made by two men. One of them was carrying the other!’

With the Sun peering at me over his shoulder it was hard to make out the man’s expression. I found myself holding my breath while he thought about what I had said.

The thoughtful silence went on and on. The muscles in my chest were taut and straining. I started to feel slightly dizzy. The longer I knelt in front of the captain, looking up at him, the more he seemed like a statue, a great, crudely carved block of granite about to topple over on to my head.

‘Fox!’

I let my breath out in an explosive gasp as the line of men behind the captain stirred. Fox came forward.

‘See these prints? See the difference between them?’ The captain lifted his foot again.