âYou got Skinny into an Amanteca family,' I said.
âYes. That was the only time he asked me to make good on my promise.' He sighed. âHe never asked me to do the same for Idle. I think he'd already given up on him.'
âSo when Skinny asked you to look after the costume, you felt you couldn't refuse?' I made no effort to keep the sceptical note out of my voice. I was having difficulty getting used to the idea that Kindly had a conscience, even one apparently so intermittent and selective; but then, I had not been at Quauhtenanco.
âI wasn't very happy about it, but no â how could I? And it was a simple enough proposition, just to keep the thing for a few days until Skinny was ready to deliver it. But we had to throw this bloody party, didn't we? And somebody seized their chance. From what you tell me, that may well have been Idle.'
âWho got himself killed,' I reminded him. The more I thought about this, the more worrying it became. If Skinny had stolen the costume back from Kindly and killed his brother, as I had thought, then he would have taken it straight back to the house in Atecocolecan. Even if Butterfly had later killed her husband, I thought there was a good chance it would still be there. However, if it had been Idle who had burgled Kindly's house, then there was no telling what he might have done with it. I could only hope that Skinny had caught him, killed him and taken his goods back. I shuddered, as an alternative explanation occurred to me: what if Idle had sold the costume and the buyers had decided to eliminate him, and so save themselves a lot of money and cover their tracks at the same time?
I turned to my son. âYou were here when the costume was taken. What did you see?'
âI don't remember much,' he confessed. âHe got here before me. I found him looking at the knife. I didn't think â I just asked him for it. He went for me. We fought over it â I was desperate to get it off him, and I nearly did. I think I cut his hand, but he didn't let go of it, and the next thing I knew I
was stumbling around out here. Then I was lying on a sleeping-mat, in there' â he gestured towards the room he had emerged from â âwith Lily leaning over me dripping water on my forehead.'
I looked at the woman. She looked away
âWhy didn't you tell me?' I asked. âKindly I can sort of understand, but you? How could you be so â¦?'
âHarsh? Cruel? What do you expect? You thought I could just forget about my son? I know you didn't kill him, but you were there, and if it hadn't been for you none of this might have happened â he might still be alive.'
âIt's not my fault he hated me!' Her words stung me into raising my voice more than I wanted to, but as my cry of outrage echoed around the courtyard I saw the pain crossing my son's face, and that calmed me. âLily,' I said, âthat's not fair.'
âWho said it had to be fair?' she hissed. âYou asked me why I kept what had happened to Nimble a secret, and I told you. Anyway, for once my father was right. He was in no fit state to go anywhere and you would just have come blundering in here and led your master straight to him.'
âDid you hate me enough to turn me over to Lord Feathered in Black? Is that really what you were going to do?' I asked.
There was a long pause.
âI don't know,' she admitted, at last. âOnce you'd escaped, I knew what I had to do, just to save myself, but before that ⦠Yaotl, don't ask. I can't tell you.'
âNone of this,' Kindly reminded me, âgets us any closer to finding the costume, does it? Would I be right in thinking you're as anxious as I am to get it back now?'
âYes,' I said. âBut I don't see how we're going to do it. From what you tell me, the only person who would have known for certain what happened to it is Idle, and he seems to have met
his death pretty soon after the theft. We can try his house again, but there's no certainty we'd find anything there.'
We all squatted or knelt in brooding silence. I believe we must all have been thinking the same thing, that there was nothing for it but to go to the house in Atecocolecan, but none of us could bear the thought of going and coming away empty handed, with the Emperor's threats still hanging over our heads.
Then Nimble spoke. He was quiet and diffident.
âFather, there's something I don't understand.'
âWhat's that?' I beamed at him. I had not got used to being called âFather'.
âWhen you went to see Skinny, on the morning after you came here, you as good as told him you thought he'd sold Kindly the featherwork and stolen it back again.'
I frowned. âThat's right.'
âWhy didn't he just tell you the truth, instead of claiming he wasn't working any more?'
âWhy, because â¦' I stopped in mid-sentence. I had been about to say that Skinny and his wife had no idea who I was, and naturally did not trust me, but then I saw what my son was getting at. âBecause,' I went on slowly, âthe man I saw wasn't Skinny.'
But the man I had seen was the thief. Nimble had confirmed that for me, describing the struggle over the knife and how he had wounded the other man's hand. I had seen the wound for myself.
For a moment I found myself wrestling with the implications of this. If Nimble was right, then the mystery of who had killed the man I had found in the privy was solved. It took me a moment more to work out why he might have done it, but then I saw that, too, and it was so obvious that I had to groan at my own stupidity.
âWhat's the matter?' Lily asked.
âI just realized what this is all about,' I said. âAnd how stupid I've been. If I'd only listened to what Angry said four days ago ⦠No, that's wrong. It's not what he said that's important â it's what he didn't say!'
They all stared at me, faces slack with incomprehension.
âLet me explain â¦'
â
N
ow, you both know what you're meant to be doing?'
Partridge looked doubtful. âYour brother â¦'
âMy elder brother, the Guardian of the Waterfront. And as many of his bodyguards as he feels like bringing â¦'
âAnd a sledgehammer. Got it.'
I would sooner have sent my son to fetch Lion, but it would have been too hazardous. I could not be sure old Black Feathers did not have men watching his house, or for that matter his quarters in the Emperor's palace. Besides, I had another job for him to do.
âYou want me to fetch Angry the featherworker. What if he refuses to come?'
âTell him it's about Marigold. He'll move so fast it'll be all you can do to keep up with him!'
Lily came out into a courtyard with a rabbits-fur mantle which she insisted on tying around the boy's shoulders. âAre you sure you're going to be up to this?' she asked, anxiously. âYou've only just got back on your feet. Why don't you rest, have something to drink first â¦'
âThere's no time, Lily,' the boy said. âLook, I'll be fine. I was up and about two days ago, remember?'
âSo it
was
you I saw, down by the canal,' I said.
âStretching my legs. Lily wasn't happy about it, though. She made me promise not to go out of the courtyard after that.'
âYou could have got yourself killed!' Lily protested. âIf those Otomies had seen you â¦'
âHe won't come to any harm,' I assured her. âI'm not expecting any trouble, you know.' As my son and the slave left, I wondered at my own words. The woman had grown fond of the lad, I could see that. Did he remind her of her own child? I hoped not, considering what Shining Light had done. But I realized with a pang that she had probably seen more of Nimble â and learned more about him, listening to him speak with the candour of delirium â than I had. I knew so little. Perhaps I was fortunate, to have been presented with my son almost full grown and known none of the anxiety, frustration and self-reproach of a parent watching his child grow up. I had been spared the kind of pain my father must have known, and the fear of becoming an angry, bitter, disappointed old man like him. All the same the realization of what I had lost was like looking down and seeing a gaping wound in my flesh that I had somehow failed to notice.
âYou'd better go, too,' Lily said. âIt wouldn't do for them to get there before you.'
âNo,' I agreed. I started to leave, but turned back again. âLily â I'm sorry about Shining Light. I mean it. If I could have done anything â¦'
She hesitated. She looked over her shoulder at her father, but he appeared to have nodded off over his last gourd full of sacred wine. We might as well have been alone.
She walked towards me, stopping only when she was so close I could see my own eyes reflected in hers.
âMy son,' she said in a brittle voice, âwas vermin, worse than a rattlesnake. The World is better rid of him!'
I blinked, confused by what I was hearing. âBut â¦'
Suddenly she let out a huge groan and threw herself forward, and then her head was on my chest, jerking up and
down against it as the sobs racked her body. âWhy do we do it, Yaotl?' she cried in a muffled voice. âWhy do we risk everything for them? You could have got yourself killed, defying your master, and I took a stupid chance with the merchants just to find out what had happened to my son. Why?'
I held her awkwardly. âI don't know,' I murmured.
I could have added that I knew an old man who might have told us. His love for his daughter had induced him to take terrible risks as well, and dragged him into an unspeakably vicious plot. I pitied that old man because I could imagine the anguish he had been through already and the horror he was about to witness, on account of that love.
But that was not going to stop me using it to destroy him.
Â
The labourers working on the plot at the back of the house in Atecocolecan had started hammering again, raining blows upon the wooden piles around its edge more fiercely than ever. It looked as if the weight of the rocks and mud they had piled up in the middle of the plot had made some of the piles collapse, and now they had had to pull some of them out of the bottom of the swamp and reset them. I grinned at the thought of the curses and arguments that must have started flying about when that had been discovered.
I was still grinning when I entered the house.
Butterfly knelt in the courtyard, alone. On the ground beside her was a plate, empty but for a few crumbs. On her other side were a jug and a small bowl half full of water. Her hair hung loose and tangled over her shoulders and she wore no make-up. The courtyard had been tidied and swept, as though she had belatedly remembered her obligations to the gods.
I noticed that Xolotl's statuette was still missing from its
plinth. I wondered whether Butterfly had got rid of the broken pieces yet.
She did not get up when she saw me. She smiled thinly. âHello, Yaotl. I thought you'd come back. I was told you were dead, but I didn't think I'd seen the last of you. You're just like me, aren't you? You'd live through anything.'
âWho told you?'
âWhy don't you sit? That policeman from Pochtlan â what's his name, Shield? He told me about the Otomies. He was upset about what happened to his colleague. He didn't mean to tell me about it, but I got it out of him.' She giggled. At one time the sound would have enchanted me; now it seemed grotesque. âMen usually end up telling me everything I want to know! He seemed to think it would help him if he found some featherwork that he thought I was hiding. Of course, he didn't find it.'
âHe wouldn't,' I said. I jerked my head in the direction of the narrow room, the one that had been forbidden me, and which I had tried to search, on the night when I was knocked out and had that strange dream, which had hardly been a dream at all. âDid you let him look in there?'
âOh, no. I just told him, very sweetly, that he could look at anything he liked.' She giggled again. âHe was out of the house in no time!'
Even now, just looking at the innocuous-looking, curtained-off doorway was enough to make me break into a sweat. âAll the same, I think we might go in there now, don't you?'
She yawned and stretched so that the cloth of her blouse and skirt flowed and tightened suggestively across her body. Then she looked at me, wide eyed, and deliberately curled her tongue around the outside of her mouth.
âWhy, what did you have in mind?'
My patience snapped. I stepped towards her, bent down and seized her by the arm.
âYou know why I came here, Butterfly, and it wasn't to play games! There are three people dead, maybe four, because of your scheming, and if I don't get what I'm here for there will be a lot more by nightfall, and you'll be one of them! Now, we're going into that back room and you can show me what it is you've really been hiding in there all along!'
I hauled her to her feet and began to drag her towards the doorway She did not resist. She smiled, as if convinced that, whatever it was I thought I knew, nothing I could do or say would hurt her.
For the moment, at least, she was right.
The cloth had been hung over the doorway again. I had just got a corner of it between my thumb and forefinger when a strong, harsh voice called out, âStay there!'
Angry strode through the entrance to the courtyard. A sword swung from one massive fist, an old one, with some of its blades missing, obviously not used in years but still deadly. His nephew trotted behind him with the nervous air of a small dog unsure whether it was about to be petted or put in a cooking pot.
Nimble was not with them. I realized they must have been on their way here already, even before I had sent him to fetch the featherworker.
I dropped both the door covering and Butterfly's arm. The woman sprang away from me, and then hit me, slapping me across the face with enough force to send me staggering into the door post.
In two steps Angry was next to me, with the sword poised under my chin. âMove away from her,' the old man growled, âor I'll cut your throat. Are you alone?'
âYes.'
He looked about him. âI don't believe you're that stupid.' He turned to his nephew, who was looking at each of us in turn with a baffled expression that made it plain he had no idea what all this was about. âCrayfish, go out and watch the street. Yell the moment you see anything!'
âBut, Uncle â¦'
âShut up and do as you're told!' the big man roared, and the sword twitched in time with his words. The boy jumped, and then, without a word, turned and ran through the front room and out of the house.
His uncle turned back to Butterfly and me. For a moment he seemed unsure of what to say, or, perhaps, which of us to say it to. When he spoke his voice was surprisingly soft.
âYou know why I'm here.'
Butterfly said nothing.
âI heard a rumour in the marketplace, and I checked with the parish police. They told me Skinny was dead. Discovered floating in a canal, yesterday morning. They found nothing with the body â nothing. I came here the moment I heard.'
The woman maintained her silence. A hint of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. She seemed to be enjoying herself. I knew why: she had something the featherworker wanted, and that gave her power over him.
âNow, where's my daughter?'
Still Butterfly had nothing to say. I jerked my head in the direction of the second room, the one she had tried to keep me out of. âIn there,' I said.
Angry's jaw dropped. Then, without a word, he reached towards me with his empty hand, seized the knot of my cloak and yanked me towards him until my face was pressed against his and I could smell his breath.
âI don't have to cut your throat straight away,' he hissed. âDo you think I don't know how to use this sword? I could skin
you alive. Any more jokes about my daughter and I'll make a start right here!'
âAngry,' I gasped, âI'm not joking!'
âI've been in that room! There's nothing there but garbage!'
âI'm telling you, I know where she is!'
âAngry,' Butterfly said, in her most reasonable tone of voice, âthis is a stupid charade. You'll get your daughter back, but listen to me â there's something we have to do first. The costume is missing! We have to find it now. What do you think Montezuma will do to us if we don't? We daren't waste any more time on this slave. He knows too much anyway Just kill him!'
Helpless in the big man's grip, I could not react, but my mind was reeling. If the costume was missing, how was I going to get it back to the Emperor?
For a moment Angry seemed to have no idea what to do. He and Butterfly were not friends. Only terror, desperation and blackmail had made them temporary allies, and it would not take much to set them at one another's throats.
âMissing? But Idle â¦'
âIt's like the police told you â there was nothing with the body! Now get rid of the slave, and then we have to talk.'
Droplets of sweat glistened on the featherworker's forehead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his sword blades flashing in the sunlight as the weapon shook in his hand. The grip on my cloak tightened convulsively, and then loosened a little.
âNo,' he muttered, âI want to find out what he knows.'
He shoved me away from him, at the same time raising the sword. He could have struck down either me or Butterfly in an instant, but instead he gestured with the weapon towards the forbidden doorway. âIn there, you say? Go on, then, both of you. If you're lying, slave, you know what to expect!'
We crammed ourselves into the room, which was so much
smaller than it looked from the outside. I looked around me quickly, wondering whether Angry was really so stupid that he could not see what I could, before reminding myself that I had missed it myself at first. The unpleasant mixture of smells still hung in the air, the nastiest of them, the blend of blood and putrescence, stronger than ever. Even that was not enough to tell the featherworker what he so badly wanted to know.
âAngry, listen, the costume â¦'
âShut your mouth, woman!' He waved the sword in front of my face. âNow you, talk, before I cut your nose off!'
I opened my mouth to speak, but hesitated. I could tell him what he wanted to know straight away. I wanted to, out of revulsion for what Butterfly had done, and pity for her victim, but I did not know what the featherworker would do after he had learned the truth. Would he just kill both me and the woman out of hand?
Too clever by half again, Yaotl, I told myself. I had sought this confrontation, but it had got out of my control. I had hoped to face Angry with Lion and a squad of warriors beside me. The featherworker had thwarted me by arriving early. All I could do now was to spin this out for as long as I could, and pray that Partridge had convinced my brother of his mission's urgency.