Ostensibly, Handy and I were there to attend to our master’s wishes, in case he was tempted by some tidbit. I was more interested in the guests, though. It was easier to look at their feet than their faces, and my eyes roamed the freshly strewn earth on the floor in the hope of seeing, among the calloused, sandaled feet of the merchants and the warriors and their cloaks’ embroidered borders, a more delicate ankle, the hem of a skirt or the tasseled fringe of a woman’s mantle.
In fact there were several women among the guests. Some were merchants’ wives, accompanying their husbands or standing in for them, and some were there in their own right, as directors of the marketplace. Whenever I furtively raised my glance from their feet to their faces, however, I was disappointed. There was no sign of Lily among them.
I had tried to plan what I would say to her if we met, but the words would not come. From my master’s point of view it scarcely mattered: if she saw me here then, hopefully, she would tell Nimble and then Young Warrior would come after me, and that was all his Lordship wanted. But what did I want?
I imagined myself accusing her of letting my enemy into her house to try to kill me, reproaching her for betraying me, demanding to know whether the night we had spent together had meant anything or nothing. I pictured the hurt in her eyes, her head turned quickly away to hide it, the silver streaks in her hair catching the light.
Then I pictured her looking at me blankly, curling her lip in indifference or amused contempt, or laughing out loud.
“You’re a fool, Yaotl,” I told myself.
“You’ve got that bloody right,” rasped a voice I knew very well indeed. “Come here!”
A hand like an alligator’s jaws clamped itself on my arm. “Now you can stand still for a moment. I’m tired of wandering around after you.”
“Hello, brother,” I sighed. “I didn’t recognize you dressed up like that.”
Lion was his old self again. His cloak was brand new, the cloth still a little stiff and dyed a yellow even brighter than the sunflower in his left hand. His freshly trimmed hair was bound up immaculately and a splendid plug of green stone shaped like an eagle and set in gold jutted from his lower lip. His expression was ferocious.
“Don’t try to be funny. What are you doing here?”
“You’ll have to let go of my arm,” I pointed out. “It doesn’t belong to either of us.”
After a brief glance at my master, Lion did as I suggested. “I assume you’re here under orders? Still looking for your master’s precious sorcerers?”
“Of course.”
My brother snorted derisively. “What does old Black Feathers expect to learn from this lot? No one ever says anything useful at parties like this. I don’t know why anyone bothers with them-they always make me want to throw up!”
His vehemence surprised me, but it was easy to forget that for all his status as a great warrior Lion had been born in the same room as I had, and unlike me he had not been schooled alongside nobles in the Priest House. Lion’s home, as the midwife would have told him the day he was born, was on the battlefield, not in some merchant’s courtyard making small talk about the price of cacao and how hard it was to get a cook who knew anything about armadillos.
“Well,” I said, “it looks as if your hosts agree with you, since neither Kindly nor Lily seems to be here.”
“He’ll be preparing for the sacrifice,” Lion reminded me. “Either that, or he’s already too drunk to care. As for her, someone told me she’d been taken ill and had retired to the women’s rooms. Maybe she heard you were coming!”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
“I heard old Black Feathers would be here.” The way he spat the name out left me in no doubt about his feelings. “I’ve a score to settle with that bastard, after what he made me and my men do in Coyoacan.”
I looked at him in alarm. “You’re never planning to …”
“I just want to keep my eye on him, that’s all. If it was your masterwho got those sorcerers out of the prison and then lost them, then I want to be there when he finds them again. I want to make sure at least one of them gets back to Montezuma alive, to tell him exactly what his Chief Minister’s been up to!”
I groaned. “Oh, no, Lion, don’t …”
“So, Yaotl, you’re going to have to make your mind up, aren’t you? Are you with me and the Emperor-or your master?”
I was spared the need to answer by a disturbance in the crowd around us. I turned quickly, half expecting to see Lily emerging into the courtyard to greet her guests, but it was only a server, bearing a bowl of steaming chocolate. Others followed him, carrying gourds and gourd rests and stirring sticks, and suddenly the air was filled with the smell of chocolate and nutmeg and an appreciative silence.
After the chocolate came the sacrifices; then the warriors danced.
As night fell, to the mournful sound of conch-shell trumpets from the tops of the pyramids, the Food of the Gods was served: little mushrooms coated in honey to disguise their bitter taste. After that, there would be no other food till morning, and no need for any, although the chocolate would continue being whisked and poured.
The Governor of Tlatelolco came first into the courtyard, followed by his deputy, the other dignitaries including my master and my brother, the mighty warriors-Shorn Ones and Otomies-and last of all the veterans, the masters of youth, the eagle and the ocelot warriors. As the musicians struck up their song and the dancers shuffled into their places, some already had a detached, faraway look that showed the mushrooms were taking effect.
Fueled by chocolate and mushrooms, most of the dancers would keep going all night. In their own minds, each one would be a proud, graceful, sinuous youth dancing on air to music made by gods. None would see himself staggering drunkenly about, hear himself giggling inanely or notice that none of his neighbors seemed to be following the same tune as he was. I was relieved when my master fell out before the dancing began, to retire indoors to the comfort of a reed mat and whatever magical dreams the gods sent his way.
The merchants did not dance. They sat at the edges of the courtyard, looking on and conversing quietly among themselves. Aroundthem were spread the presents they would give out later, to any of their guests still capable of recognizing them: still more flowers and smoking-tubes, feathers, paper garlands, turquoise mosaics and cloth treated with mica to make it shine.
It occurred to me that, if I ran away now, probably nobody would miss me before the morning. But where would I go? I had asked myself this question before and failed to find an answer. There was nowhere I could think of making a home other than Mexico, and nowhere in Mexico would be safe for long once my master woke up and found I had deserted him a second time. And those two images of Lily’s face, the one shocked and hurt by my words, the other indifferent, still haunted me, and would go on doing so until I found out which was real.
Besides, with the merchants lining its perimeter and the dancers gyrating in its center, there was no straight way across the courtyard to the street. It was going to be difficult enough finding my way to the women’s rooms. I had to slip through whatever gaps I could find, trying to blend into the background as well as my bizarre costume would allow, and hoping that Kindly, at least, would not see me walking right in front of him.
Half blind as he was, he probably would not have recognized me if one of the dancers had not wandered into my path, forcing me to step quickly aside and put my foot in the middle of the neatly ordered display in front of him.