The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “So you think I’ve got a chance?” he demanded eagerly, his hands gripping the bars.

  “Only if you tell me the truth. I can’t convince the old man otherwise. Did you put the poison in that straw?”

  “No!”

  “How did it get there then?”

  “Huitztic must have done it!”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” I said a little testily. “It’s just your word against his. Who’s the Chief Minister going to believe, you or his own steward?” And more to the point, I thought, what would the steward do to me if I accused him without evidence?

  Fire Snake looked at the floor. “I don’t know what happened,” he admitted. “That straw was clean when I gave it to the steward. I remember holding it up to the light, to check it had been bored right through. There was nothing there.”

  “Why did you agree to help Heron cheat? Two Rabbit was right – you were making a mockery of the ceremony. Did you expect the gods to be happy about that?”

  “Lord Feathered in Black isn’t afraid of the gods,” he muttered. “His steward made it pretty clear what would happen to me and my family if I didn’t co-operate. He even had the cheek to suggest I make whatever sacrifices were needed to assuage the gods’ anger afterwards!” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable, and for the first time I felt a pang of sympathy for him.

  “I know what it looks like,” he added wretchedly. “I was there when they tested all those jars, right up until the last slave started snoring and they took me away. If any of the sacred wine was poisoned it was only the jar Heron drank out of, and how could anyone have known which one that would be? It has to have been the tube, but I wasn’t the one who put the stuff in it.”

  “There’s no way he could have taken the stuff before the dance? Or during it?”

  “No chance. Someone would have noticed him munching on mushrooms between dance movements, and if he’d had them before it started he wouldn’t have been standing up by the end.”

  “Then somebody must have poisoned the sacred wine,” I said. I had been stooping over the cage. Now I stood up briskly. “It has to have been one or the other, doesn’t it? The straw or the pot. Did you see anybody else doing anything to the pot Heron drank from?”

  “No, but there were so many of them clambering over each other and pushing each other out of the way it was hard to see anything clearly.”

  I imagined the climax of the ceremony: fifty-two clay pots in the middle of a violent, heaving mass of eager young men. Even if one of them had been able to guess which jar Heron would drink out of, how had he managed to slip the poison into it without anyone noticing?

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guard moving purposefully towards us. Our conversation was almost over. As I turned to leave, however, one last thought struck me. “Could Heron have told anyone about the edge you and Huitztic had given him? Someone with a motive to interfere?”

  Fire Snake uttered a gasp of laughter. “I can think of three hundred and ninety-nine men who had a motive!” he said. “Four hundred if you count Two Rabbit.”

  “Why him?”

  “You heard him just now. He thinks the gods have been mocked and he’s been made a fool of. And he blames me. He’s never liked me, says I’m too ambitious.”

  “Heron’s hardly likely to have told Two Rabbit what he was planning, though, is he?”

  Fire Snake scowled for a moment, as if in disappointment. “I suppose not. He could have boasted about it to someone else, though.”

  “Who would that be – one of the other young men? One of his rivals in the competition? I don’t think so. Is there anyone else?”

  “I don’t know . . . I think he has a girl. But I don’t know where you’d find her.”

  A cough at my shoulder told me it was time to move on.

  I crept furtively about my master’s palace, peering cautiously in before I would look into a room, keeping to the shadows as I skirted the edges of the courtyards, taking cover when I needed to behind acacia bushes, yucca plants from the lowlands and other greenery. I did not want the steward to see me until I had reported to the Chief Minister, and I would not be ready to do that until after I had spoken to Heron. I assumed he was still at the palace, since I suspected that even if he had recovered consciousness, he was unlikely to be in a fit state to go wandering off for a while yet. I wondered whether he would co-operate if I asked him who he had told about the trick. If he did not, then I had no idea what I would do. I did not seem to have learned anything useful from Fire Snake.

  I wondered about the girl the priest had mentioned. A young man like Heron, with his noble connections and fresh from his first triumph on the battlefield, might have his pick of the girls from the pleasure houses. From what I had heard, though, it sounded as though he had a more settled arrangement than that. If she knew about the young man’s attempt to cheat the gods, I had to find out; and then I would need to know whom she might have told the secret to.

  I was padding as silently as I could along a dark colonnade when a sudden sound stopped me my tracks: a loud groan, a cry of pain.

  The noise appeared to be coming from a nearby courtyard. As I crept towards it, I heard it again, but this time it was shut off abruptly, and replaced by something quite different: a woman’s voice, hissing furiously: “It’s no use moaning and expecting me to feel sorry for you. What happened was your own fault!”

  “How do you make that out? I didn’t put mushroom powder in that jar myself, did I?”

  I grinned. It seemed as though I need look no further for Heron or his girl.

  “If you hadn’t tried to cheat it wouldn’t have happened!”

  “How was I supposed to win if I didn’t cheat? And please don’t shout, Precious Flower.”

  The girl had not raised her voice above a whisper, but clearly the sacred wine and the mushrooms had not quite worn off, so it probably sounded to Heron as though a Master of Youths were shouting orders into his ear. I peeped around the corner to watch them. He lay stretched out on a stone bench with a cloth over his head. The girl, a tall, slim beauty in a fine cotton blouse and skirt, stood over him with her arms folded. Her hair was loose, like a pleasure girl’s, but there was no red stain around her mouth and no sign of the yellow ochre that pleasure girls wore to lighten their skins.

  Heron raised his head a little, thought better of it and let it drop again. Hastily Precious Flower stooped to put her hand under it to stop it striking the bare stone.

  “Anyway,” he mumbled ungratefully, “how did they find out what I was going to do? You must have told them!”

  She stepped away from him, probably wishing she had let the hard limestone knock some sense into his skull after all. “It would serve you right if I did!” she cried indignantly. “You would keep boasting about having an edge over the others!”

  Heron squirmed, either in pain or anger, but did not get up. Instead he turned his head to glare at the girl. “I knew it!” he snapped. “Who did you tell, you bitch? Was it Firstborn Son or Owl?”

  I watched shock and hurt cross the girl’s features, making her blink in time to the young man’s words. “No, I . . .”

  I decided I had heard enough. Strolling into the courtyard I said, deliberately loudly: “You’re absolutely sure it wasn’t the steward who poisoned you, then?”

  The girl squealed and darted to one side. Heron gasped, squirmed again, and fell on to the floor in a tangle of limbs and soiled cloth.

  I smiled at the girl. “I’m Yaotl. His great-uncle told me to find out what had happened.”

  She stared at me through big, moist eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “Did you tell anyone about the trick with the tube?”

  “She must have done!” the young man protested, heaving himself back on to his seat. “How else did they know to put the mushrooms in that jar?”

  “Oh, shut up,” I told him. I looked at the girl.

  She did not lower her eyes. “No,”
she replied firmly. “I didn’t, and I will eat earth.” She bowed down and touched the ground with a fingertip, then put it to her mouth, in the gesture that was an Aztec’s most sacred oath.

  The young man was sitting up now, with his knees slightly apart, and seemed to be watching something fascinating on the ground between them. “It can’t have been Huitztic,” he said indistinctly. “He’s my pal. Keeps my great-uncle off my back – covers up for me when I’m out late. When the old man’s gone and I get my share of his lands, there’ll be something in it for old Huitztic – he knows that.”

  “So he expects to profit from your advancement?”

  “That’s it,” the youngster said eagerly. He looked up. “The old man told me you were a priest, so you know what winning that contest would mean, especially now that I’ve taken my first captive,” I wondered whether that had been arranged for him too. “Why would Huitztic want to screw it up for both of us?”

  It made sense, I realized. I realized something else, too: my master was too shrewd not to know what was going on between his steward and his great-nephew. That was why I had been told to look into it with Huitztic. Old Black Feathers had not been able to think of any explanation for what had happened that did not implicate the steward, but he had not been able to work out what Huitztic’s motive for humiliating his great-nephew might have been either.

  “So who else did you tell, apart from Precious Flower here?”

  “I didn’t! And I’ll eat earth too, if you want!”

  “Don’t bother. Just tell me about those two you mentioned – Owl and Firstborn Son. Who are they, young toughs like you?”

  “That’s right. Thought they were my friends, too, but Owl in particular . . .” He shot a venomous look at the girl.

  “What was I supposed to do?” she cried out, colouring. “He asked for me. I’m a pleasure girl, Heron, I’m not allowed to save myself for you, you know that!” And then, suddenly, she burst into tears. “It wasn’t me, really it wasn’t. I wouldn’t tell anyone, even though I was angry with you. And I was only angry because you kept boasting about what you were going to do!”

  As she went to embrace him, and he allowed her to, I decided it was time to withdraw. I had learned all I was going to here, and I had seen enough of Heron’s smirking, winking face.

  I decided it was time I paid a visit to the temple of the god of sacred wine.

  To my surprise, the temple was deserted. As I approached its precinct I had to shoulder my way through the city’s usual evening crowd – traders taking unsold goods back from the marketplaces, youngsters going home from the Houses of Youth, labourers returning from the fields – but as soon as I was within the walls, all the bustle and noise was gone, replaced by a strange, echoing silence. The sudden change gave the place a forlorn air, which was added to by the way it had been left. Normally the flagstones would have been carefully swept, but not today. It did not appear to have been touched since the chaotic events of the previous afternoon. The large pottery jars stood where they had been put out for the dancers, mostly empty now but still filling the air around them with a stale, sour smell. On the ground around them were scattered the reeds, apparently lying where they had been dropped. Some were slightly flattened, probably squashed by the young men as they squabbled over them. Here and there a scrap of torn cloth or a severed sandal-strap showed where a fight had broken out.

  I had been hoping to find the head priest, Two Rabbit, here, but he was clearly not coming back today. I noticed that the brazier in front of the temple, which ought to have been permanently lit, had gone out. I wondered whether after what had happened, the priest was afraid that the gods might have withdrawn their favour. Maybe he thought the place was now unlucky. I remembered that Lord Feathered in Black had sent his serfs to taste the sacred wine that had been left in the pots, but presumably he did not care what curses he might bring down on their heads.

  I shivered. I felt suddenly sick, not with fear but from the smell of all that sacred wine. Some of the old craving had returned, and I was glad the pots were empty, because my body had started telling me that what I needed at that moment was a drink.

  “I’m wasting my time,” I muttered, kicking at the straws scattered at my feet. “I got nothing out of Heron and his girl, and there’s nothing here either. I still don’t even know how they managed to get the poison into that jar, never mind who did it.” For a few moments I pretended to look for clues, although I had no idea what I hoped to find: something that looked like powdered mushrooms, perhaps. I soon gave up in disgust.

  “Nothing here,” I repeated. “Just fifty-two empty pots and two hundred and sixty straws no one could drink with.” I thought about that. “No, two hundred and fifty-nine, of course.”

  Then I thought about it again.

  I looked at the straws scattered around me, now looking as pale as bones in the gathering dusk. I whispered a curse, and then set to gathering them, scooping them up in handfuls and carrying them to a corner.

  After I had taken a last look around to ensure that none had rolled away unnoticed, I began to count them.

  By the time I had finished my task, sorting the reeds into thirteen neat piles, the light in the plaza was too poor to see by, and I was working by touch, stooping to put the last few straws in place. I finished the job in haste. Night and the things that haunted it frightened me less than they did most Aztecs – my priest’s training helped with that – but there was something about this place that unnerved me, making me feel as though I were being watched. I wanted to be done as soon as I could.

  By the time I had finished, however, I knew how the Chief Minister’s great-nephew had been poisoned, and I could make a good guess at who might have done it. I had to smile as I thought about the trick: it was clever and somehow fitting.

  I could feel my smile fading as I contemplated the report I would have to give my master. I remembered the vain young man I had seen arguing with the pleasure girl, Precious Flower, and wondered whether the person who had decided to teach him a lesson truly deserved whatever brutal punishment Lord Feathered in Black had in mind. But I could not see what I could do to prevent it without bringing the old man’s wrath down on my own head.

  There was no sound in the courtyard that I could hear. Nonetheless the sensation that I was not alone would not go away. I could feel it as a tingling at the nape of my neck and a coldness beyond the chill of the evening air.

  I turned to go, expecting to feel my way out of the Plaza. However, I had not taken three steps before I bumped into something large and hard.

  “Hey . . .!”

  The thing moved. Suddenly I was lifted off my feet, the breath squeezed out of me in a bear hug. I heard a man’s voice, very low but clear: “So the priest told you, did he?”

  I struggled, lashing out with my feet but kicking only empty air. I wanted to shout but had no breath to do it with.

  “Where is it?” the man holding me hissed. “You found it, didn’t you? What have you done with it?”

  All I could manage by way of reply was a strangled gasp. My assailant’s grip slackened a little when he realized that I could not answer his questions unless he stopped trying to suffocate me.

  I thought quickly. “It’s all right,” I croaked, using up the little air he allowed me. “I know what happened. It was Huitztic, the steward! He put the poison in – I’ve got the proof!”

  It did not work. The powerful arms gripped me tighter than ever. I felt dizzy. Coloured lights began to dance before my eyes.

  Then another man spoke, from somewhere in the shadows. I knew the voice instantly.

  “Who’s that? Yaotl? What’s going on?”

  The man holding me dropped me on the ground.

  As I fell, crashing backwards on to the flagstones, my lungs filled up and I was able to yell: “Huitztic, stop him!”

  The steward did not understand. “There you are!” he bellowed triumphantly. “I know your game. You thought you’d hide from me until
you’d made up a pack of lies to tell to Lord Feathered in Black. I’ll see you dead before you pin this thing on me!”

  I groaned aloud. “No – you idiot! – quick, stop that bastard before he runs away!”

  A foot flew out of the night and slammed into my shoulder. I gasped in pain. I drew breath to call out again but then I heard the sound of running feet, moving away.

  Huitztic yelled: “Got you, you miserable slave – wait, who are you?”

  His words turned into a cry of pain as the young man who had assaulted me hit him.

  After that there was a long silence, broken only by the steward’s painful whimpering.

  “So which one was that?” I wondered out loud, while I nursed my bruised throat. “Was it Owl or Firstborn Son, do you think?”

  There was no answer.

  “I think we’d better go and see old Black Feathers now,” I continued, “and if you don’t say anything about how both you and that young fool tried to silence me, then I won’t.”

  My master, seated in his favourite place, under the magnolia on the roof of his palace received me alone. We left the steward in the courtyard below to fret and pace about nervously. He still thought I was going to accuse him, but I knew that would not do for the old man. He wanted proof.

  I showed him what I had brought from the temple. It was, I had guessed, the thing the young man who had attacked me had been after: the one reed out of the two hundred and sixty I had found that had seemed lighter than the rest. As he held it up to peer at the Moon through it, I told him what had happened.

  “There were four hundred dancers, two hundred and sixty straws and fifty two jars,” I began.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” he replied absently, still squinting through the tube.

  What I said next got his full attention, however.“Wrong! There were two hundred and sixty-one straws – and two of them were bored through. The one your great nephew had, and this one.”

  “No, that doesn’t make sense. If two of them had cheated, one of the others would have become intoxicated – or worse, if he’d drunk from the same jar as Heron.”