Simon Levack - Shadow of the Lords

Or had Xolotl been venerated here for some other reason? It suddenly crossed my mind to wonder whether Skinny and his brother might have been twins, and what it might mean if they were. But if so, I thought, then why had the idol been broken?

I would have to think about that later. Now I had more pressing problems. The first was how to get out of the courtyard without having to go through the room leading to the street, where I might run into Butterfly or Skinny or both. Then I had to find a way of avoiding the Otomies. I tried not to think about what came after that. Kindly’s property and my son were still as elusive as ever.

I thought the best thing I could do would be to clamber up one of the walls and leave the way I had come in. A stout climbing plant, like a mature gourd vine, would do, just something to give my hands and feet some purchase.

I had a quick look at the walls at the back and sides of the courtyard but found nothing. I turned to the front, but could not see anything there either, because there was someone standing in the way.

He was tall. My eyes were on a level with his chest. As they travelled upward, I tried very hard not to believe what they were telling me. Unfortunately there was no mistaking the short, plain, functional cloak tied at the throat, the grim mouth with its lips pressed firmly together, and the hooded eyes, the piled-up hair and the sword whose handle projected over one shoulder, ready to be seized and brought into use in an instant.

I took a step back. ‘Up … Upright?’ I spluttered. ‘This … this isn’t your parish. What are you doing here?’

‘No. But it is theirs.’ The policeman jerked his head once across his shoulder to indicate the men behind them. At the same time all three of them stepped forward. One was his own deputy, Shield. The others, judging by their thickset forms and harsh faces, were policemen too: at a guess, the parish police of Atecocolecan.

‘I … I was just leaving,’ I said.

‘Quite right, you were.’

In one fluid movement Upright reached behind him, plucked his sword from its harness and had it poised over my head. Quick glances to the left and right told me his companions had done the same, and moreover that the two local men had stepped forward so that I was effectively surrounded.

‘Now, Yaotl, we can do this the easy way where you come with us on your feet, or we can do it the hard way …’

‘Where you have to carry me because I can’t walk with both legs broken. Right.’ I sighed. ‘Look, you don’t understand … No, wait, what did you call me?’

‘We don’t need to understand,’ growled the bear on myright. ‘Look, Upright, we’re here, it looks like you’ve got your man, why not just bash him over the head and get going? We’ve got work to do.’

‘But my name isn’t …’

‘We know perfectly well what your name is, you murdering little bastard! The woman went and reported you to the local lads here.’ Shield suddenly jabbed me with the blunt end of his sword, not hard enough to hurt but with enough force to make me stagger. ‘And this time there’s no wealthy widow to back your lies up with her own. You didn’t think my boss was joking, did you?’

‘No,’ I cried hastily, as the sunlight flashed off four sets of cruelly sharp obsidian blades. ‘No, but you said … you called me a murderer — I had nothing to do with Idle, I tell you. I swear it, I will eat earth …’

‘Idle?’ To my amazement Upright laughed. ‘You don’t think we still care about Idle, do you?’

‘You mean there’s someone else?’

‘Oh, this is pathetic!’

The end of the sword hit me just below the rib cage, knocking the breath out of me so that I could not cry in pain but only collapse, doubled over and gasping vainly for air.

I barely heard what Upright said next, but I managed to follow it somehow.

‘You’re such an idiot, Yaotl. If you’d stopped with Idle I don’t suppose anyone would really have given a toss. Certainly I wouldn’t. I gather his family might even have paid you for getting rid of him. But you had to go on, didn’t you? You didn’t seriously expect the Amanteca to overlook the death of someone like Skinny, did you?’

There was an argument over whether or not to search the house. Upright wanted to, but the local men wanted to leaveand were not prepared to let the men from Pochtlan have the place to themselves. It was not a prolonged or heated discussion, since Upright and Shield were convinced they had got their man. It would be easier and more fun, they assured their colleagues, to get any evidence they needed by beating it out of me rather than breaking up the courtyard or rifling through wicker chests full of old skirts and breechcloths.

By the time this was settled I had got my breath back enough to be frog-marched through the empty front room to the canoe the two men had brought with them. At least, I told myself as I was bundled into the swaying craft, I would be spared the walk back.

Shield took up the pole. As he pushed us away from the shore he let his eyes linger on his two local colleagues as they turned their backs indifferently and walked away along the side of the canal.

‘Get a warm welcome around here, don’t you, boss?’

Upright grunted. ‘We wouldn’t like it if a couple of strangers turned up on our patch and started telling us what’s what.’ He leered at me. ‘Maybe we should have told them our suspect was from Tenochtitlan. They wouldn’t have minded then. Round here I don’t suppose they like Southerners any more than we do.’

‘We didn’t know …’

The constable shot a warning glance at his deputy but it was too late to stop me from picking up his meaning. ‘You weren’t out looking for me, then?’ I asked innocently.

Upright looked suddenly sick. ‘Mind your own business!’

‘Only, if you weren’t, then who were you after? What made you connect me with whatever’s happened to Skinny?’

‘The fact that you did it!’ rumbled Shield dangerously. He was taking out his annoyance and embarrassment on the pole, stirring up the muck at the bottom of the canal and cleaving adark wake through the weeds and scum on its surface. I hoped he might be furious enough to capsize us or run us hard aground and give me a chance to run, but he was too skilful for that.

‘We just came here to tell Skinny’s wife the bad news,’ his superior said. ‘Of course, we called on the local police on the way, and what did we find? The newly widowed Butterfly tearing her hair out and babbling about finding you, of all people, trying to burgle her house. Wouldn’t you say that’s a bit suspicious? Especially since you’ve never answered for what happened to Idle. And we know the story you and Lily came up with was a pack of lies.’

‘Did you ask Kindly about it?’ As soon as I posed the question I realized it was pointless. Whatever Kindly may have said scarcely mattered since the truth, at least about who I was, had come out anyway. I had a vision of the merchant’s daughter striding into Howling Monkey’s courtyard, her skirt flowing around her and the sound of her sandals striking the floor, and was suddenly aware of the risk she had taken and the fact that, for whatever reason, it had not come off. ‘And what about Lily?’ I asked, in a small voice.

‘What about her?’ Upright grimaced. ‘Like father, like daughter, aren’t they? And she had a son who was just as bad. If any of that family told me my own name I’d have to run home and ask my mother, to check!’ He laughed shortly. ‘Don’t worry, she set the record straight. After you did a runner — wasn’t I surprised when that happened! — she went and told your master what had happened.’

‘What?’

Shield gave an unpleasant chuckle. ‘Old Black Feathers himself! The Chief Minister!’