by Simon Levack
I swallowed nervously and found my mouth had gone dry.
‘Nothing to say? That’s not like you.’
‘He had plenty to say this morning,’ growled one of the bystanders.
At last I managed to find my voice. ‘I don’t belong to your master any more, Huitztic. You know that. So does he.’
The grin faded but did not vanish. ‘Of course we know that. Why should we care? That’s what you should be asking yourself.’
The sneer in his voice made up my mind for me. ‘So go away and leave me alone,’ I said defiantly.
He sighed and narrowed his eyes as though something had made him sad, although the grin was still there. The resulting expression was as peculiar as anything I seen on any man’s face. ‘Yaotl! Is that any way to speak to the chief minister’s servant?’
‘No, of course you’re right,’ I said in a meek tone. ‘How about this, then? “Try shoving your head up a dog’s arse and barking!” Any better?’
This time the grin slipped. He took a step forward, with his fists balled, and the crowd stirred expectantly. I wondered whether anyone was placing bets and what odds were being offered on me to win. I was not much fitter than Huitzic and unlike him, I never had been much of a warrior.
The audience was to be disappointed. The man took a deep breath and stopped after that first step. He seemed to hesitate, deliberately looking away for a moment before continuing, speaking through gritted teeth: ‘I’m not going to let you provoke me. What’s the point? You and that oafish friend of yours have worse than me to reckon with, don’t you?’ Suddenly he laughed. ‘Maybe I’ll come along and have some fun with whatever’s left of the two of you!’
I noticed a couple of the men standing behind the steward exchanging disapproving glances.
‘What do you mean by that, Huitztic?’ I asked innocently.
‘I mean I’m not the only one who has a grudge against you and Handy, after what happened in Tlacopan!’ He meant the incident where I had humiliated the captain. The Prick had been there as well, and if anything had come off worse than the otomi, adding a severe beating to the humiliation they had both suffered.
We were gathering a growing audience, whose members were becoming more restive. The steward never had had the sense to know when to shut up.
‘Of course, that other poor fool’s even more pathetic than you are, isn’t he? I mean, for a slave like you, mooning over some merchant’s old ugly daughter’s ridiculous enough, but as for Handy...’
I might have tried my strength against his, just for talking about Lily like that, but even as I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, I knew there would be no need. ‘What about him?’ I hissed.
‘Why, don’t you know? About him and that warrior, Red Macaw?’ He giggled suddenly. ‘You must be the only person here who doesn’t! Why, if it had been me, I’d have...’
I almost regretted it when they threw him in the canal. He hit the water with a deeply satisfying splash, causing the surface to explode, waves and jets flying in all directions as though trying to get away from the wild, frenzied thing thrashing furiously at their centre. All the same, I reflected, as I leaped backwards to avoid being soaked, it might have been good to have heard a little more. It sounded as though he was in on a secret I should have liked to know about.
But then I could not help myself any longer. I started to laugh. Soon the roaring and hooting had spread through the crowd that had gathered rapidly around us.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ someone called out. ‘Why’s he splashing about like that?’
With some difficulty I recovered enough breath between my own bursts of giggling to answer him. ‘He can’t swim!’ I sobbed, remembering what had happened the last time I had seen the steward fall into the water.
‘A man could stand up in that canal!’ cried a small boy.
‘I know! But he hasn’t figured that out yet!’ I gasped as a stitch caught my side. The pain was enough to make me catch my breath and remind me whose servant the man struggling in the water was. As soon as I could speak again I shouted: ‘Huitztic! If they ever fish you out of there, tell your master from me – thanks for looking out for me last night, but if I ever want his protection, I’ll ask!’
With that I turned and walked away, still chuckling at the thought of my old tormentor floundering in the stinking waters of a canal. It was not until I had turned a corner, putting him and the crowd of amused spectators out of sight, that I began to wonder just what my former master’s steward had been doing in Atlixco.
And what did he know about Handy and Red Macaw? Had he somehow learned a secret that not even the parish policeman was privy to?
11
It was getting towards evening by the time I returned to Handy’s house.
I found the courtyard full of members of the commoner’s family. They were close together, as they had to be in the confined space, but they stood, squatted or kneeled in little groups that seemed to have no connection with one another. It looked as though something had pulled them apart: some quarrel, perhaps.
Handy was alone, huddled beside the wall, opposite the sweat bath. He did not look up at me. Spotted Eagle and Snake were talking together in a corner. They both fell silent at my arrival, their eyes tracking me as I searched the courtyard for an empty space to squat in.
Nobody remarked on my absence; nor did anyone express any surprise at my coming back.
Jaguar, Star’s and Goose’s father, stood beside the sweat bath, directly across the courtyard from his son-in-law, and glared silently at him. The old man’s wife kneeled between two of the younger children, whispering to them. It looked as though she was telling them a story. She seemed distracted, though: she kept looking across at her daughter, and fidgeting, as though trying to resist the impulse to get up and go to her. And it was her daughter on whom my eyes rested finally.
Goose appeared to have been weaving, as a backstrap loom lay beside her. However, both the threads and the strap that had gone around her back to support the loom were in such a tangle that it looked as if she had thrown it aside in a hurry. The woman herself lay in a trembling heap on the floor. The hand I could see was formed into a fist that opened and closed spasmodically.
Suddenly her mother, after a brief glance at her husband, stood up and crossed the courtyard to where Goose lay. She put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t grieve, love,’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘We don’t know it was him. We don’t know what happened.’
Goose said nothing, only shaking a little more violently. It was her father who responded, barking harshly at his wife: ‘Leave her be, woman! Of course we know. It was Red Macaw’s body in the canal, and Flower Gatherer ran off somewhere. Now stop making such a fuss, both of you, and get back to your work!’ Clearly the story of what had been pulled out of the water had run ahead of me.
All her father’s words did to Goose was to make her shudder. Her mother, however, looked up and scowled. ‘How can you say that? She’s just lost her sister and now her husband!’
‘No, I told you: he’s run away. He’ll be back. Not that she wouldn’t be better off without him! Besides, you’ve no higher opinion of him than I have. He’s a good-for nothing, useless, improvident dolt.’ As an indignant afterthought he added: ‘And don’t talk back to me like that, in front of others!’
‘I’ll talk however I like!’ She put an arm protectively around her daughter’s shoulders, squeezing them so hard that her own body convulsed in time with Goose’s sobs. ‘Whatever else he may have been he was – is – her husband. And we don’t know whose the body in the canal was. You only want it to be Red Macaw’s so that people will believe either Flower Gatherer or Handy killed him!’
The old man’s red-rimmed eyes glistened as he stared at his wife. ‘After what that beast did to our daughter, you can defend him?’ he gasped.
‘I’m not defending anybody.’
Handy himself said nothing. He barely stirred, even at the m
ention of his own name. He seemed too wrapped up in his own thoughts to care what anyone said.
His sons, Snake and Spotted Eagle, were another matter, both starting forward and speaking at once. Snake cried: ‘Father didn’t do it!’ while Spotted Eagle shouted: ‘He couldn’t have – look at him!’
Handy looked up through dull eyes, and mumbled: ‘It isn’t true. What you said about me and Star – it isn’t true.’
Jaguar responded with a contemptuous snort.
Spotted Eagle turned on me then. ‘And what about him?’ With the exception of Goose, everyone looked in my direction, fixing me with glances that ranged from hostile to curious.
There was a long silence. I broke it hesitantly. ‘I don’t know whose body it was, in the canal. But I gather you all know Red Macaw is missing too.’
‘He went to join the army,’ said Spotted Eagle coolly.
‘That’s what he told the policeman,’ I replied. ‘You obviously know as much as I do about that. But there’s another thing. Handy, I ran into an old friend of ours.’
I told him some of what had transpired between me and Huitztic. Nobody laughed when I got to the part when he fell in the canal. Handy merely grunted: ‘What do you think he was there for?’
‘I’ve no idea, and I don’t care either. It certainly wasn’t to ask after my health. In fact he seemed surprised to see me. Maybe he was here for you – you run errands for lord Feathered in Black, don’t you?’
‘His steward comes here to give me orders sometimes. I don’t think he’s ever had any other reason to be in Atlixco,’ the commoner admitted. ‘But I’ve not seem him lately.’
Spotted Eagle said: ‘He was probably here to gloat over what’s happened. He’s always been jealous of you, father, ever since lord Feathered in Black started trusting you to carry his messages.’
‘Huitztic’s jealous of everyone,’ I added. ‘Before the chief minister put me up for sale his steward did all he could to make my life a misery. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I could count to twenty without having to sit down and stare at my toes!’ Then I thought about what Spotted Eagle had said. ‘You could be right, about him wanting to gloat. He said something about your father...’ I hesitated. As I recalled the steward’s words, I hesitated, realising that it would mean broaching a dangerous subject. However, I had said too much already.
Spotted Eagle took a step towards me and leaned forward, bringing his face near to mine. ‘Go on, then. You’d better tell us what he said.’
I looked at Handy. ‘I didn’t understand it. It was something about you and Red Macaw.’
Since his wife had died, there seemed to be only one way guaranteed to provoke a response from the commoner, and that was any mention of the three-captive warrior’s name. Handy was still slumped against the wall of his house, but a tremor ran through his body as though he had been stung. He looked up sharply. ‘What does Huitztic know about that?’
I whirled around at the sound of a harsh, explosive laugh from a few paces away. It was Jaguar, Handy’s father-in-law, who had made the sound; however, his look, the way his lips were spread into a narrow grin, was one of triumph rather than mirth. I stared in shock at the grim smile on Star’s father’s face, recognising then that if Huitztic had indeed come here to gloat he might not have done so alone.
‘That’s a good question, isn’t it, Handy?’ the old man crowed. ‘What does he know about it? What is there to know? Why don’t you tell us?’
The commoner glared at his late wife’s father. ‘You know why. And if you had any shame at all you’d keep your filthy mouth shut.’
‘Shame!’ Jaguar cried. ‘I’ll tell you who ought to be ashamed. You, that’s who. And you are, too. So ashamed you can’t bear to hear about it even though we all know what they did!’
Handy struggled to his feet. His elder son started towards him anxiously but he waved him away. ‘I told you to shut up!’ he hissed. ‘This isn’t the time or the place.’
‘To share a secret the whole parish has known for a dozen years?’ the older man spat contemptuously. ‘Why not?’
I looked at Spotted Eagle, who was standing between his father and grandfather. The young man’s head was darting from side to side as he looked at each in turn, and he shook with agitation. Suddenly he took a step towards the old man. He raised a hand and I was afraid he was about to strike him; but at that moment Star’s mother intervened.
We had barely noticed her as she stepped swiftly and silently across the courtyard. She pushed her way into the space between Jaguar and Spotted Eagle. She glared silently at her grandson before spinning on her heel to face her husband. ‘That will do!’ she hissed. ‘Remember who’s here!’
‘I don’t care! And don’t tell me what to do, woman. It’s time there was one less secret here! We all know what we’re talking about...’
‘There are some who don’t!’ the old woman snapped. ‘Just remember who’s going to be hurt.’
‘Hurt?’ Jaguar screamed into her face. ‘I’ve just lost my daughter, have you forgotten about that? And you talk about hurt!’
He was silenced with a sound like a stick breaking in two as the woman struck him, swinging her open hand against his cheek so hard he staggered sideways. He gasped and stared at her.
For a moment everyone was still. Then Handy said slowly: ‘Get out of my house.’ The old man rubbed his cheek. He looked at his wife, his son-in-law, the sky and the floor; then, gradually, he turned towards the gateway, dragging his heels as he went.
His son-in-law slumped back against the wall, letting out a long, shuddering breath.
A low wail sounded from the far side of the courtyard. Goose had rolled over onto her back and was staring up into the air, crying aloud for the first time since I had come to the house.
‘Come on, both of you,’ the old man called from the pathway outside. ‘We’re going!’
His wife ignored him. She darted to her daughter’s side, cooing anxiously as she crouched over her.
Jaguar’s parting words puzzled me at first.
‘Handy!’ he yelled, in a voice that must have carried the length of the parish, ‘how do your turkey chicks go on these days?’
It was a strange question and all the more so since, for so long as I had known him, Handy had never kept turkeys.
12
Night was falling, a clear, starry night that promised to be bitterly cold.
Goose and her mother had gone to bed, at her mother’s insistence. They had taken the younger children with them, and then the old woman had come back to summon Spotted Eagle and Snake indoors. She ushered them through the doorway, insisting against their protests that they warm themselves by the hearth.
Handy showed no inclination to move, barely acknowledging the others as they left.
I paced the courtyard for a while, unable to make up my mind what to do. I was tempted to leave, to abandon Handy’s family to their grief and recriminations, and head straight for Lily’s house, where I knew I would be welcome and relatively safe. What stopped me was partly fear of the thing I had encountered the night before. I knew that the streets were not safe at night. However, there was something else. I had the feeling that I had been left alone with the commoner for a reason. Judging by the way Spotted Eagle had glowered at me as he was all but pushed inside by his grandmother, he expected me to fulfil some role. It was not necessarily one he approved of, but his grandmother would not have it any other way.
Eventually I squatted beside Handy, noting as I did so that, hunched over miserably as he was and with his face made haggard by hunger and lack of sleep, he looked smaller than usual.
I shivered, but it was not from the cold. I was afraid. I felt exposed and vulnerable here. I wondered how much safety there was behind a courtyard wall. Was my enemy waiting, just beyond that frail barrier, ready to break through at any time he chose?
If so, I thought, I could not face the danger alone. It was all the more reason why I had to try to stir
the man next to me out of his apathy.
‘Handy…’ I began. I looked down at the hard earth floor between us while I gathered my thoughts. When I met his eyes again I began speaking in a tone that I hoped was both firm and gentle: ‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I don’t know. Sit here for a little longer, I guess, till it gets cold. Go indoors then. What about you?’
There was a dangerous quality in his voice, a lightness that betrayed how far detached his words were from what was going on inside his head.
‘And after that?’
‘Go to sleep, I expect. What’s it to you?’ He turned away, not just his face but his whole body, shuffling around so that he was looking into the opposite corner of the courtyard. Well, I had achieved something, I reflected wryly. It was probably the most he had moved since we had come back to the house.
‘You reckon on going to sleep, then? When was the last time you did that?’ There was a long pause. I thought the only answer I was going to get was silence, but what the man did in the end was to heave a long, shuddering sigh.
‘You know,’ he said softly. He tried to look at me then, but he could not hold my gaze for more than a moment. Instead of turning away now, though, he raised his hand, passing it in front of his eyes as if to brush away tears.
‘I keep seeing her, you see,’ he whispered. ‘When I lie down. I can’t close my eyes… And if I dream…’ The last word vanished into a high, thin whine, like the wind in a treetop. He swallowed. ‘Do you understand?’ he gasped. ‘It’s how she was… Not when she was here, but afterwards. When we put her in that hole.’
I watched him steadily, not daring to say anything, but thinking that perhaps this was what we had been left together for.