Simon Levack - Shadow of the Lords

I went on counting sparks, listening to the singing and feeling the weight of the knife in my palm, until I passed into the land of dreams.

While I was there, it all seemed to come together: all the little things I had seen and heard, in the days since the knife had first been passed to me, all bloody and wrapped in its bundle. By the time I woke up, I thought I knew everything: who had killed Idle and Skinny and why, where the costume was, where Marigold had gone, and the solution to the most important mystery of all — what had become of my son.

It all seemed so simple and so obvious then that I hardly knew whether to laugh or weep with frustration at my own stupidity, for not working it all out sooner.

As it turned out, I got some of it right. If I had only paid closer attention to what Kindly the merchant and Angry the master featherworker had told me, and been a little less susceptible to Morning Glory seeds, I might have got it all.

‘Wake up!’

A slap struck my cheek and forced my head sideways.

‘Come on!’ snarled a voice, very close to my ears. ‘Wake up!’

I blinked, clearing the fog from my eyes and bringing my father’s face into focus. It was twisted with rage.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked groggily. I found I was lying down. I propped myself up on my elbows.

‘You fell asleep during the vigil,’ my mother told me reproachfully.

‘I told you we shouldn’t have let him stay,’ rasped my father. ‘Now look what he’s done. What will the gods do to us all now? Suppose the whole city is plunged into drought, or the crops are blighted, or the lake floods or nobody can light their fires, and it’s down to us?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ replied my mother. ‘It’s not the gods I’m worried about, it’s him!’ She glanced at the young priest, who was looking intently at his conch-shell as if he were wondering how he could get it to blow louder next time. ‘We’re really sorry about this,’ my mother continued, her tone somewhere between threatening and wheedling. ‘It’s never happened before. We didn’t know our son was going to be here, you know.’

‘He’s not going to be here any longer, either,’ my father added.

The young man muttered something about how it did not matter, it happened all the time.

I thought it was time I said something. ‘I’m sorry I fell asleep. If you knew what had happened to me yesterday …’

‘I don’t care what happened to you!’ my father snapped. ‘I’d rather see you being eaten by vultures than littering my courtyard!’

‘Oh, thanks!’

My family had gathered around me the way a crowd of stall-holders in the marketplace might surround a suspected thief. As I looked from one to another, the thoughts that had assembled themselves in my head while I had been asleep came back to me, and I felt a broad grin starting to spread itself, unbidden, across my face.

That earned me another open-handed blow from my father. This one was so hard it left my ears ringing.

‘Think this is funny, do you?’ he shouted. ‘You miserable slave, get out of my house! Get out, now!’

I stood up. My legs wobbled a little but in a moment I was towering over my father, who was still stooped in a position from where he could deliver repeated blows to the face of a man lying in front of him. His knee would not allow him to kneel.

As he straightened himself, moving slowly to spare his elderly spine, I realized what an advantage I had over him. His back was to the fire. One good shove and he would be in it.

I took one step towards him and held out my arm.

He was plainly used to having something to grab hold of while he pulled himself upright: one of his other sons, presumably, or perhaps one of his grandchildren by now. He took my arm instinctively before he remembered who it belonged to.

I seized his wrist with my free hand, pulled hard and twisted, and spun the old man around until he was facing the fire, tottering on his good leg while his bad one was doubled uselessly and painfully under him. He squawked in alarm.

‘Yaotl!’ my mother screamed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Let me go!’ the old man cried. ‘Glutton, the rest of you — get him off me!’

‘Don’t move!’ I shouted. ‘Remember how you used to hold us over burning chillies and make us breathe the smoke for the smallest thing, Father?’ I took another step forward, shoving him towards the fire while taking great care not to let him fall in it. ‘Care to find out what it was like?’

He started to cough. ‘Help!’ he cried hoarsely.

It suddenly seemed to occur to my brother Glutton that he ought to do something. He got up and started to lumber towards me, but he had to circle the bonfire and sidestep the hired priest first, and by the time he had done that, Handy was in his way

‘Wait a moment,’ Handy said.

‘But he’s my father!’

‘And the other one’s your elder brother. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing,’ the big man added, with more conviction that I could have managed.

My brother-in-law Amaxtli was on his feet as well, but to my amazement Jade put out a restraining hand as he passed her. I heard her hiss at him: ‘Mind your own business!’ Then she turned to me. ‘Yaotl, have you gone raving mad?’

‘Of course he’s mad!’ cried my father. Desperation made him sound like a wild pig squealing. ‘What’s the matter with you all? Get him off!’

‘All right,’ said Handy mildly. ‘Yaotl, let go of him. What’s all this about?’

I took two steps back from fire, dragging the old man with me so that he was out of the smoke, although I was not ready to release him. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I don’t seem to have had much luck getting your attention up until now. If you’ll listen to what I’ve got to say, I’ll make it as quick as possible, and then I’ll go.’ I looked at Jade and Handy. ‘Is that all right?’

Neither of them said anything, but neither of them moved either. I seemed to be surrounded by life-sized statues, Handy and my brother on one side, Jade and her perplexed husband on the other, and just next to me the priest, who looked on the point of tucking his conch-shell under his cloak and going home.

‘You won’t come back?’ my father muttered.

‘Not if you don’t want me to, no.’

He grunted something that may have been assent. I relaxed my grip, and he did not at once turn around and try to kick me in the groin with his good leg, and so I decided I was safe for the moment.

‘Now, I’m going to tell you all a story,’ I began.

The young priest interrupted me. ‘Excuse me, but this is supposed to be a vigil!’

‘So we’re awake,’ growled Handy. ‘You can still blow your trumpet, if it makes you feel any better!’

‘May the gods forgive us,’ my mother whimpered fearfully.

I looked from one to another of them in bewilderment, before deciding I might as well carry on. ‘As I was saying …’

‘ You probably heard most of this from Handy, while I was away with Lion.’

‘I told them everything you told me,’ the commoner replied. ‘They know about your son, and the business with Kindly, the featherwork.’ He shot a brief, nervous glance at Jade. I grinned sympathetically. Jade was capable of extracting gossip from an oyster.

‘All right. So most of the story you know already. Here’s the rest of it.’

I told them about Skinny and Idle; how their father had done some service for Kindly and how the merchant, in return, had arranged his talented son’s adoption into a family of featherworkers from Amantlan. I told them how the lad had prospered at first, and how it had all started to go wrong.