Two warriors had Shield’s arms pinioned behind him before he could move. He seemed unable to speak. He stood staring down at his chief’s body, open mouthed, the colour draining from his face even as I watched.
‘Fox,’ the captain said, ‘you are so clumsy Who’s going to clear up that mess?’
Shield was still struggling to find his voice. ‘You …’ he gasped.
‘Forget it.’ The captain thrust his brutal, ravaged face into the policeman’s. ‘Sorry to hear about your colleague’s unfortunate accident. The Chief Minister sends his condolences. It’simportant you remember that. “Accident” and “Chief Minister” — got it?’
Shield made a noise that the captain was obviously willing to take as assent, as he turned to me.
‘Now, as for you.’
He raised the four-bladed sword. I watched the glittering black razors set into its edges, one by one, as they swept past my face on the weapon’s upward swing. I felt my stomach lurch and I squeezed my eyes shut to spare myself the sight of the blow coming.
Nothing happened.
I opened my eyes again.
The handle of the weapon ended in a heavy wooden knob. That was the last thing I saw, filling my vision as it was driven down between my eyes like the head of a mallet, before everything went dark.
2
My head was an ear of maize. The back of it lay on a grinding-stone and someone was bearing down on my forehead with a stone roller. My skull was the husk they were going to split as their hard surfaces scraped against each other.
I screamed, rolling over to escape the stones’ relentless pressure, and my face came up against a sandalled foot.
‘Ah,’ said a voice I knew and hated, an old man’s voice that I had somehow hoped I might never hear again, ‘he’s awake.’
‘I said he was, my Lord. I know how hard I hit him. He was shamming.’
‘Well, perhaps.’ The old man heaved a regretful sigh. ‘So hard to get reliable slaves, these days.’
‘Would you like me and my boys to teach him to behave himself?’ The sound of a man with not much more than half a mouth smacking his lips with relish is not one I would wish to hear again.
‘Thank you, Captain.’ The old man paused, no doubt wanting to let the Otomi’s suggestion work its way through my brain and down into my guts before continuing. ‘However, I think I would just like you to get him on his feet for now. Then why don’t you and your men have something to eat? You must be tired and hungry after your search. I’ll send for you if this slave needs … well, if I want anything further.’
‘Thank you, my Lord. You’re too kind.’
The captain’s way of getting me on my feet consisted of grasping me around the throat, which he could easily do with one massive hand, and yanking me upright. I made a strangulated noise while my feet danced about, looking for the floor. My eyes opened but everything was a blur, slightly tinged with pink.
‘If you don’t stand up,’ the big warrior hissed, ‘you’ll choke.’
I managed to get both feet on the ground. They could just about reach it, but it took some of the pressure off my neck. That felt stiff and sore, even when the hand released it to leave me standing, unsupported, swaying slightly but still upright.
My stomach made an unpleasant sound.
‘I advise you not to throw up in front of Lord Feathered in Black, Yaotl,’ said another voice portentously. ‘You’re in enough trouble already’
I turned my head slowly towards the speaker and forced my eyes to focus on him. My master’s steward, Huitztic the Prick, was squatting a few paces away, his eyes respectfully downcast in our master’s presence. He looked strange, and after a moment I saw why. Partly faded, yellowing bruises covered his arms and legs, and the ear I could see was badly swollen.
I remembered how I had left him, surrounded by a hostile crowd of Tepanecs. ‘You look a bit rough,’ I said. ‘Been in a fight?’
‘Yaotl,’ my master said evenly, ‘shut up.’
As I swivelled my head towards him I heard him admonish his steward. ‘When your advice is needed I will tell you. In the meantime, perhaps you would care to show the captain and his men where they can rest, and find them some food. Now, as for you …’
The old man’s high-backed, fur-covered wicker chair had been placed in one of his favourite places, on the raised patio on the roof of his palace, beneath the magnolia tree that hisfather had planted. From here he could look towards the Sacred Precinct of Tenochtitlan, the Heart of the World, its temples soaring towards the sky just beyond the canal at the front of his palace. He was looking that way now, probably indulging himself with a vision of me being dragged up the steps of a pyramid towards the sacrificial stone at the top.
I squinted painfully, forcing my eyes to focus on his face so that I could try to judge his mood now. To look a great lord in the eyes was the kind of impudence that would normally have got me a severe beating, but I felt as if I had had so many of those lately that it scarcely mattered. The back and front of my skull were still competing over which hurt most, but the bruises the Otomi’s finger had raised on my neck were catching them up fast.
His Lordship was dressed casually, for him, in a pale green cape with a border of shells, a matching breechcloth with golden tassels at its ends and real shells dangling from his ears. A mother-of-pearl lip-plug completed the ensemble. I thought it a little vulgar but I knew he would change if he wanted to go out anywhere and he would almost certainly never wear any of it again. The plumes in his hair were only heron, but they were the longest, whitest heron feathers you could get.
He looked me over slowly. His fingers, long swollen and crippled by arthritis, lay in his lap. He had no tobacco tube or chocolate bowl by him, but the moment he needed either he would have it almost before he could ask. All I wanted then was a drink of water, but I did not expect any graceful serving girl to slip a gourd into my hands at the merest gesture.
‘I don’t suppose,’ he began heavily, ‘that there’s much point in my asking you for an explanation, is there?’
I swallowed. ‘My Lord, I …’
‘I could ask you to give me a good reason why I shouldn’t just take the Otomi up on his suggestion. I gather he has atalent for dentistry that any curer would envy’ I shuddered at the memory of what I had seen in Tlacopan. ‘But what’s the point? You’ll only lie to me, and anyway, I know perfectly well what you’ve been up to. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do instead.’
I tensed, feeling my mouth go dry with fear as I waited to learn my fate. A flicker of something that may have been amusement crossed my master’s face, and he moved a cracked, leathery hand once in a barely perceptible gesture.
A moment later a girl was at his side, presenting him with a steaming bowl. The aroma of chocolate and vanilla filled my nostrils, and a sudden sharp pain in my stomach reminded me how long it was since I had eaten or drunk. As his Lordship sipped delicately at his drink I tried to take my mind off my fear by wondering how they managed to serve him freshly whipped chocolate at just the right temperature so quickly. I supposed a drink must be kept just outside the room, to be poured away and replaced if it was not called for, but what if he had wanted a different flavouring — honey or green maize or pimentos instead of vanilla?
I got so absorbed in this nonsense that it took me a moment to realize that my master had started speaking again.
‘Of course, you have run away Whatever happens, you know I can’t overlook that. I shall have to admonish you. That will be for the second time. Once more and you know what will happen.’ Of course I knew: I could lawfully be sold, and having been marked out as obviously useless, could expect to be bought for only one purpose.