Simon Levack - Shadow of the Lords

‘The older one. No sign of the boy yet.’

‘What?’

My eyes sprang open. I stared at Fox, open mouthed but mute because I could not trust myself to speak.

My son was not the man at the centre of that crowd, being dragged about by the green-suited warrior. I could only thank the gods for that, and wonder who the captain’s victim really was.

‘But … but …’ Handy stammered.

‘Come and see,’ Fox cried, turning towards the marketplace. ‘I think the captain’s enjoying himself!’

As he and the steward set off, I could see Handy’s mouth working and realized he was about to blurt something out that we would both regret. I moved swiftly to one side and planted a foot firmly on top of one of his, converting his next words into a muffled oath.

‘Quiet!’ I hissed. ‘I need to think.’ Aloud I said: ‘How did you catch him?’

‘Oh, easy,’ Fox called out over his shoulder. ‘The captain’sgood at this sort of thing. It’s just like collecting tribute from barbarians, really. You just march into the middle of the marketplace, knock over one or two pitches to get their attention — starting with the potters is best, it makes a good noise, though breaking up a few turkey pens works just as well — and tell everybody exactly what you’re looking for. Once they saw the captain’s costume they couldn’t move fast enough!’ He laughed. ‘What was really funny was how apologetic they were that they couldn’t bring us both of them. Someone produced this pathetic specimen and told us he was the only runaway Aztec they’d seen. I think the captain’s trying to make him tell us where the boy is now.’

We rounded the corner and were at the edge of the almost empty marketplace. I stared across the rows of pitches, the straw mats strewn with merchandise, obviously hastily abandoned, judging by the refuse that lay about them: small change in the form of open bags of cocoa beans, half-eaten tortillas with a couple of bewildered-looking turkeys pecking at them, a water-seller’s gourd spilling its contents on to the dusty floor. In the far corner stood the crowd: the bravest of the local youths, or at least the keenest to show off, no doubt unable to tear themselves away from the spectacle of one Aztec torturing another. Everybody with any sense had run away as soon as they thought the warriors had found what they wanted.

‘Come on!’ cried the steward. ‘We’ll miss the fun!’

He trotted forward, leaving the rest of us behind in his eagerness to watch another man suffering. I wondered whether he was hoping to pick up some tips.

Then I forgot his state of mind as an appalling thought occurred to me.

The captain and his victim were hidden from me by the backs of their spectators and at this distance I could only justhear the familiar bark of the Otomi’s battle-trained voice, but I suddenly knew who his victim was.

What Aztec had run away two nights before, presumably to seek shelter on the western side of the lake?

It could only be my master’s boatman, the one who had abandoned the Chief Minister and his canoe two nights before. He must have gone to ground in the middle of the largest nearby town — just where I had told the warriors to search.

‘The idiot,’ I muttered. ‘Why didn’t he keep running?’

How long did I have, I wondered, before the captain beat the truth out of him? How long before he learned that I had laid a false trail?

An unnaturally high-pitched wail from within the crowd seemed to be my answer.

The steward quickened his pace. I could almost hear him salivating. Fox was close behind him. Soon they were pushing their way into the crowd, elbowing aside young men whose backs parted meekly before them while their eyes remained glued to the fascinating spectacle in their midst. Handy and I, too, found ourselves drawn towards the horror at the centre of the circle of men. We two stopped short of the clear space around the captain, keeping close to the edge of the crowd of his spectators, although Fox and the steward were soon standing next to him, looking down admiringly at his handiwork.

I noticed the blood before I saw the man.

The earth in front of me was covered in it. It lay in streaks and dapples and little puddles, as if jerked out of its victim a little at a time. Here and there among the dark red spots and splashes lay tiny fragments of something hard and white that I struggled to identify until I turned my eyes towards the boatman.

If I had not already worked out who the pathetic figure lying with his legs drawn up to his chest and shivering at thecaptain’s feet was, I would not have recognized him. He had turned his face upward, perhaps in a vain appeal for mercy, but it did not look like his face any more. It was a mask of congealing blood with a hideous, jagged hole at its centre, for the white fragments that lay on the ground around him were pieces of his teeth.

Before he had started working on the man’s mouth the captain had obviously lavished attention on the rest of his face, as the boatman’s nose was broken, his ears were shapeless rags and the flesh around his eyes was a mass of pulp, but it was the teeth which were the worst. He was using a small flint knife, no doubt looted from a nearby stall, to chip away at them, reducing them one by one to jagged, bloody stumps.

‘Now,’ he said conversationally, ‘let’s try again. I haven’t cut your ears off yet, so I know you can hear me. Where’s the boy hiding?’

‘Yaotl, I don’t like this.’ Handy’s voice rumbled close to my ear.

‘Yaotl?’ The captain caught my name and looked up. ‘Good, you caught up with us! You were right, you see? You led us right there. Now I was just showing these Tepanecs how we Aztecs treat people who let us down — do you want to join in?’

I felt the crowd around me shuffle uneasily, and suddenly there was a little space around me and Handy, as if the men nearest to us had realized who we were and decided not to stay too close.

The shattered face turned towards me. The eyes, the only part of it that seemed to have been left mostly intact, rolled in my direction. A movement of the hand holding the captain’s flint knife distracted them for a moment, but they were soon back, thin, pale ellipses fixed unwaveringly on me. The boatman let out a small keening sound, as if he were trying to say something. I did not know whether he was speaking to me orabout me but he plainly knew who I was, and if I did not think of a way of preventing him from telling the captain, I was likely to feel the edge of that bloody little knife myself.

The steward unwittingly saved me.

‘Let me!’ he cried, almost dancing across the space in the middle of the crowd in his eagerness to join in. ‘We’ll show these Tepanec scum what we’re made of!’

The spectators did not like that. I heard muttering and shuffling feet.

The captain glared at the steward. ‘Save your breath,’ he sneered, gesturing angrily with the knife. A drop of blood fell on the steward’s arm. ‘You might need it if you have to run anywhere!’

The Prick looked down at the splash of blood, dark against his skin. He was suddenly very still.

Somebody in the little group of men around me made a low noise at the back of his throat. Fox, who had been standing next to the captain and looking uncertainly from him to his victim to the steward, gave a nervous cough. He could see the spectators getting more and more restive. Whatever they might think about Aztecs, seeing us quarrelling with each other would not make them any more biddable.

‘You can slip away, can’t you?’ I muttered to Handy, out of the corner of my mouth.

‘Why? What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to start a riot. I want you to get a message to my brother. Get him back here with a squad of warriors.’