by Simon Levack
For a long moment we heard nothing more from him. Then he began yelling.
Kite and I stared at each other for a moment, while we strained to catch the words, although they were muffled by the walls of the shed. Finally we both rushed towards the doorway just as Spotted Eagle appeared in it. I staggered to a halt, slipping and stumbling in the sodden, churned up ground, and just managed to avoid running full tilt into the blades of the young man’s sword.
His eyes were wide open. His mouth was opening and closing but now no words were coming out, only faint gasps.
‘What is it?’ Kite demanded, before pushing him aside and launching himself through the doorway.
The youth staggered sideways. He turned to stare at me. ‘It’s Red Macaw!’ he cried in a strangled voice. ‘He’s in there!’
6
I do not know what I expected to find when I followed Kite through the doorway. All I knew was that Spotted Eagle had seen his father’s old antagonist – his mother’s former lover – in here, but I had no idea in what guise. For all I knew he might be got up as a sorcerer, his face painted black like a priest’s, or transformed into some grotesque but still somehow identifiable version of himself, the warrior fused with the monster.
I did not see him at all to begin with, because it was too dark and my attention was caught by Kite. The policeman stood in the centre of the hut, hacking at the roof with his sword, while a litter of reeds and damp moss fell around his feet.
‘Need some light in here,’ he said, ‘and watch where you’re putting your feet!’ Automatically I looked down.
There was just enough room in here for a man to lie full length if his head were wedged into one corner and his feet jammed into the corner opposite. That was how I found Red Macaw.
At first I thought he was dead. An unpleasant smell rose from him; a smell of blood, rot and shit, worse than the inside of a temple after a busy day’s sacrificing to the gods.
Kite wrenched a great lump of material from the roof, which I had to bat away to prevent it from landing on the man on the floor. In the daylight that flooded the space around us, I could make out two things. The first was that Red Macaw was still alive, for his eyes rolled weakly and a faint tremor shook his body. The second was that he did not have much time left.
He was naked except for the tattered, filthy remains of a breechcloth. Just above the garment, his flesh had been torn open. A fat grey loop of gut peeked obscenely through the hole. The floor would have been damp anyway, but now it was soaked with his blood.
I lifted my eyes from his ruined abdomen to his face. It was grey, the skin stretched so tightly over the bones that it looked as if it might burst. Dried blood caked the corners of his mouth and his upper lip. I would not have recognised him from our one meeting, but Kite and Spotted Eagle obviously knew him better.
His lips moved. The tongue that appeared between them was black.
‘He wants a drink,’ Kite suggested.
I thought about the medicine I had had to learn at the priest house and the wounds I had seen treated or neglected in the army. ‘Even if you could get clean water it would probably finish him off.’
‘Wouldn’t that be kinder?’ Spotted Eagle spoke from behind me. He was peering cautiously through the doorway.
Kite looked at him sharply. ‘Don’t stand there! Someone’s got to keep watch outside! Whoever did this may still be around, remember?’
The young man vanished. I dropped to my knees, staring into the haggard face. The eyes tried to swivel to meet mine, but they kept rolling to one side.
‘Who did this?’ I demanded.
The lips moved silently.
I looked up a Kite. I felt sick, not so much from the sight and smell of the dying man as from what I knew I had to do. But I told myself it would make no difference now in any case. ‘You were right. He’s asking for water.’
‘What do I do?’
‘Find a bowl, or a cup, or anything.’
I turned back to Red Macaw’s agonised features as the policeman rummaged through a pile of effects in one corner of the hut. Slowly and loudly I said: ‘We’ll get you water. But you have to tell me: who did this to you?’
I did not think he had heard me. The eyes rolled slowly in their sockets. Eventually they came to rest pointing in my direction, although they looked dull and unfocused.
The lips moved silently again.
‘What’s he saying?’ the policeman demanded.
‘I’m not sure. It’s one word. And again... Shit, he’s saying “Yaotl”!’ For a moment the shock of seeing my own name form on the dying man’s lips threatened to overwhelm me, but I managed to get a grip on myself. ‘Yes, yes, it’s me, Yaotl. Now tell me who did this!’
The lips moved again. ‘“Looking.... Looking for you”?’ I repeated.
‘Here’s a cup,’ said Kite. ‘But are you sure...’
‘Here’s your water, Red Macaw,’ I called out. ‘You can have it in a moment. Just a couple more questions, please.’ I held the cup above his face, and watched the eyeballs tracking it thirstily. I hated myself then; but I knew that the first sip Red Macaw took from that cup would be the last thing he ever did, and there were things I had to know first.
‘Who’s looking for me?’
The eyes closed, as though he could not bear to look at the cup any more. I held it where it was, irresolutely, for a moment. I was on the point of weakening, of giving him his drink and his release, when I saw the lips move again.
I frowned as I tried to make out the words. They did not look like an answer to my question. ‘Wanted... to.... see... her...’
I said nothing.
There was one more word to come: ‘Stop.’
‘Stop?’ I said. ‘Stop what? Who did you want to see?’
This time there was no reply.
After a few moments I looked at Kite. Some unspoken agreement passed between us. The policeman cradled Red Macaw’s head in his hands while I tilted the cup towards his lips. Something like a smile passed over them, and he drank.
The result was less violent than I had feared. At first, nothing happened. Then his eyes snapped open. They rolled slowly up into his head. His body shook once, and from his mouth came a faint sigh and a thin dark trickle of blood.
I threw the cup against the wall of the hut. ‘That’s that, then! I’ve finished off the bastards’ work for them!’
Yet I still think that at that moment, it was the only kind thing I could have done.
7
‘Have a look over here.’
I took no notice of the policeman. I squatted by Red Macaw’s inert body, with my head in my hands, trying to shut out the sight of the dead man but seeing only his face in his last instant of life. For the first time in all the years since the stuff had nearly done for me, I longed for a gourd of sacred wine. I wanted to get uproariously drunk, even though to do so would be to risk execution.
‘Yaotl! Stop feeling sorry for yourself and look!’ Kite barked. You need to see this.’
With a sigh I hauled myself to my feet and turned around. ‘Kite, don’t you realise...’ I never finished what I was going to say because I had seen what he wanted to show me, and the sight of it stopped the breath in my throat. For a moment I forgot Red Macaw had ever existed.
The policeman stood under the hole he had made in the roof and held something up in the light. It was perhaps half as tall as he was, but he could lift it with one hand, because it was made of nothing more substantial than cloth stretched over a wicker frame. It was green, shaped like a huge teardrop with long green feathers – quetzal tail plumes, the most precious feathers of all – trailing like tassels from the tapered end at the top.
‘You know what this is, don’t you?’ Kite said.
My mouth was too dry to form words.
‘The rest is in that pile behind me: the green cotton suit, the sandals with the long straps, everything.’ He lifted the wicker and cloth construction a little higher. ‘How tall
would a man look, carrying this on his back? Half again his own height? And you thought the monster that followed you was too tall to be human!’
‘It’s the captain,’ I whispered, appalled.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ Kite said in a tone of grim satisfaction. ‘This is an otomi’s back device. It’s what he’d wear into battle.’
The marks of an otomi warrior were the hair piled up on his head and spilling down his back, the tall, conical back device, the green cotton suit that clung to his torso and limbs like a second skin, the heavy jewelled sandals. They ensured that he could be seen and recognised across the most crowded battlefield, so that his friends would rally to him and his enemies faint at his approach. Perhaps some of the younger and bolder warriors on the other side would see the captain’s distinctive garb as a goad, and rush at him, keen to try their luck, but it would be all one to him: they would end up as corpses or captives.
I had heard this costume described and seen warriors sporting the clothes and the hairstyle, but never had I set eyes on a man wearing the full regalia, not even in my youth when I had served with the army as a priest.
‘He’s been wearing it in the city,’ I said. ‘Who’s his enemy here?’
‘You seem to have earned that honour!’
I squeezed past the policeman to look at the clothes. They had been neatly folded but were not clean. The front of the green suit was covered in dark stains. ‘It looks as though others have got in his way. Including that poor bastard on the floor.’ I squatted and stretched out a hand to feel the material, as though I wanted to satisfy myself that it was real and not something that belonged in the land of dreams. ‘It’s good cotton,’ I said absently.
‘The emperor would have presented it to him.’ the policeman responded. ‘He doesn’t give out rubbish!’
‘I hope he doesn’t want it back, then. It’s ruined now. Take a lot of cold water to get these stains out and then it’ll probably shrink.’ I stood up. ‘Let’s get out of here before he comes back for it, shall we?’
Kite had already started heading towards the doorway. ‘I’ll round up every man we’ve got and come back here for this stuff. We’ll need to pick up Star and Red Macaw as well. Then you can explain to me what all this means!’
‘It means we know who the warrior is,’ I said. ‘And he’s not a monster after all, just a man.’ Yet I felt no relief. Inside me a voice was shrieking hysterically: What do you mean ‘just a man’? This is the otomi you’re talking about!
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of screaming from outside.
There was a rapid serious of wet slaps, as of feet running over mud. Someone called out and the shout was followed by the crash and rustle of reeds being shoved roughly aside.
‘It’s Spotted Eagle,’ Kite said, ‘doing what he was told – yelling and running away!’ He paused, his head on one side, listening, and then I realised the sounds were not receding.
‘He’s not running away,’ I said slowly. I still had my sword. Now I found I was gripping it so tightly my knuckles hurt.
‘Idiot!’ snapped the policeman. ‘He’s trying to divert him, to draw him off! Come on, we have to get out there!’
‘No, wait...’
I was too late. Kite bounded through the doorway.
There was a sound like someone chopping wood, and then another scream, much closer.
I had no time to think. I just ran, hurling myself after Kite, swinging the sword in a wild, undisciplined arc and bellowing at the top of my voice – not a war cry, but a sound of pure panic.
The weapon connected with something. The impact jarred my arm all the way up to the shoulder. An indignant roar sounded in my right ear, and then a terrific force wrenched the sword away from me.
I held on to the handle for a moment too long. I was dragged forward after it, stumbling helplessly until a sandalled foot lashed out and caught me behind the right knee. Then I crashed face down into stinking mud.
8
Large, rough hands seized my shoulders and yanked me onto my knees. My right leg was weak and numb. It collapsed under me, sending me toppling sideways. My fall was checked by a savage cuff to the side of the head that knocked my teeth together hard enough to send a spasm of pain up through my cheeks. Then the hands were dragging me backwards, with my heels leaving broad tracks in the mud. When my back struck the side of the hut, the whole structure shook, showering me with dead leaves and pieces of reed thatch.
I stared anxiously at my right leg, which was beginning to throb. It lay stretched out before me, looking no more scrawny and twisted than usual, even if the knee was starting to look slightly swollen. I hoped it was not broken.
The policeman had been less lucky.
He had been put against the wall too, in the same position, although he had slipped downwards so that his head was jammed against the crumbling adobe and his neck bent awkwardly beneath it. His face had an ugly yellow hue, his eyes were hollow, and his breath came in shallow gasps.
‘Kite!’ I cried. His eyeballs swivelled at the sound of my voice, as Red Macaw’s had done. They were bloodshot with pain and shock. The flesh at his hip had been torn open and a splinter of white bone jutted from the red, pulpy mass in the wound.
‘Don’t waste your breath on him,’ a harsh, slurred voice rasped. ‘He was lucky.’
I turned towards the speaker. ‘You,’ I said. It scarcely seemed worth the effort needed to come up with anything more original than that, since I was about to be killed anyway.
My enemy, the otomi captain, stood over me. He would have looked down upon me if I had been standing, but from where I sat now he seemed as tall as a full-grown cypress tree. He wore only a breechcloth, and that none too clean, and his hair had not long ago been cut short, but he was no less terrifying for that. His face was split by the lopsided grin I had learned to dread and hate so much. Mirth wrinkled half his features only; the rest was an immobile slab of dead flesh, left that way by some fight long ago. For some reason it occurred to me then that I had never found out who had inflicted that wound on him, or what had become of him. I hoped he had died quickly.
‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.
‘He is!’ He jabbed Kite with the end of the weapon he was holding. ‘If I’d used an ordinary sword instead of this, he’d have been cut in half! He’s lucky he met me!’
I felt sick. I knew the captain’s weapon of choice well, a long wooden club with four rows of obsidian blades set into it at right angles. He had obviously caught Kite with it as the policeman ran out of the shelter. If he had struck his victim with a sword, the force of the blow would probably have taken both his legs off.
‘I’m sure he’s grateful,’ I said bleakly.
Then Kite spoke. With obvious effort he turned his head to face the captain. ‘What happened to the boy?’ he asked in a voice so thick and guttural I could barely make out the words.
‘Don’t worry about him. He’s being taken care of!’
‘Not by you, though,’ I said. ‘So the sorcerer came too.’ In what guise? I wondered, with a chill. Was the captain’s ally wading through the marshes on human feet or on an animal’s; or even soaring overhead on wings? I remembered the large bird we had heard taking off from the lake’s surface and wondered whether that had been as innocent as it sounded. ‘Does he do your killing for you, these days? I’m not surprised. It can’t be easy recruiting followers, after what happened to the last lot!’
The otomi stiffened. I tensed myself for a lacerating blow, wondering what had made me speak like that: why did I want to provoke him? Bloody awful timing, Yaotl, when you’re lying at your enemy’s feet with a leg that won’t move.
The blow did not come. The grin broadened. ‘You should watch your mouth. It’ll get you in trouble soon. Very soon! But there’s no hurry – I’ve plenty of time. Unlike you!’
A feeble groan came from Kite’s throat. The captain looked at him.
I realised the policeman was asking what t
he otomi wanted. I repeated the question.
The great brute looked more amused than ever. ‘You, of course,’ he purred. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for so long!’
I jerked my head towards the policeman. ‘Well, you seem to have got me. He needs help, though.’ Kite’s breechcloth and the lower part of his cloak were saturated with dark red fluid. ‘He’ll bleed to death, if the shock doesn’t kill him. And if that wound turns rotten...’
‘Fuck him!’ the captain shouted. A foot struck out, slamming into the wounded man’s chest. His body jerked in response. ‘He can live or die. I don’t care. You, I intend to have some fun with. Just one thing I have to do first...’
He strode past me, casually swinging his foot against the side of my head as he entered the hut behind me. The blow was a token, only hard enough to make me flinch, and the moment he was out of sight, I tried to get up. I was going to run. I knew it meant leaving Kite to his fate, but unless I got help he was a dead man anyway, so I had no choice.
My right leg sprawled helplessly under me, depositing me back on the damp mud. Before I could move again the otomi had reappeared.
His huge form hurled itself outside. Mud flying off his feet spattered my face. He ran several paces before turning to face us, and when he did so, it was obvious that whatever he had seen in that hut had turned him nearly demented. His jaw was working, twisting the living part of his face, and his feet stamped and danced in the mud.
‘He’s dead!’ he screamed. ‘What happened? Tell me what happened to Red Macaw!’
I stared at him. ‘You opened his stomach with that club of yours. What did you expect that to do, give him mild indigestion?’
He held the weapon high in the air. The blades glittered in the sunlight. Then he lunged at me.
It was my turn to scream, to cry out in terror, but the agonising, crushing blow was not to fall yet. Instead he stooped, seized my ankle and tugged at it. The next thing I knew I was on my back, staring into the sky, with my left leg raised and stretched. The ankle was held in an unbreakable grip and something sharp was tickling the skin. I gasped as I felt it do more than tickle.