Shadow of the Lords

by Simon Levack

  ‘Careful!’ I said. ‘I need to talk to him. Her too.’ If Butterfly had had any thoughts of escape they were short lived. Two men held her fast. I caught her smiling at one of them, but he might as well have been made out of granite for all the good that was going to do her. They had all seen her sister-in-law by now.

  ‘I suggest you keep them far apart.’

  ‘Really?’ said Lion heavily. ‘I’d never have thought of that! Now, is anybody going to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘Bring Crayfish over here.’

  ‘You mean the lad blubbing by the doorway? Right.’

  As his guard dragged him, still sobbing, towards us, the youth turned his head, so that his eyes stayed fixed on his cousin.

  My son came after them, frowning anxiously. ‘Father, don’t let them be too rough with him!’

  ‘I won’t,’ I promised, ‘so long as he cooperates. What happened out here, anyway?’

  ‘When I got to the featherworker’s house they told me he and his nephew had already left. Angry didn’t want Crayfish to come, but he followed him anyway. So I ran all the way here and found Crayfish outside. He said I couldn’t go in, but he didn’t seem to know why.’

  ‘Then we turned up,’ added Lion. ‘I couldn’t see the point of standing out here arguing with the boy or barging in through the front room and alerting his uncle. I got your message about breaking into a secret room at the back, so we just went straight to it.’

  In spite of everything I grinned. ‘I didn’t really mean from the outside, Lion! But thanks, anyway.’

  Lion’s answer was a non-committal grunt. ‘So what do you want done with the boy? Do I let him go, or what?’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything about this,’ my son said. ‘Look at him. All he cares about is his cousin!’

  ‘Hold on to him for the moment,’ I said. ‘There’s still the matter of the costume.’ I had had a thought about that, since hearing Butterfly say it was missing. It was only a possibility, but the more I considered it, the more convinced I became that I had the answer.

  First, however, I had Angry and Butterfly to deal with. I walked over to where they stood, each firmly pinioned by their guards. The featherworker was staring at the woman, his expression a mixture of fascination and loathing. He did not look at his daughter. Perhaps, I thought sadly, he could not bear to.

  Butterfly returned my gaze with wide-open, defiant eyes.

  ‘I suppose you expect me to confess all now,’ she snapped.

  ‘You may as well.’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  One of her guards growled at her but I motioned him to be quiet.

  ‘What is really so bizarre about all this,’ I said eventually, addressing both her and Angry, ‘is that neither of you has actually killed anybody. I thought you had,’ I added, to Butterfly, ‘but I realize I was wrong. So I don’t know how all this is going to turn out, but I guess that if you both make a clean breast of everything, you may escape with your lives.’

  ‘I told you,’ Angry muttered. ‘Idle came to see me. It was on One Death. He brought the costume to me and asked me to repair it. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I could see what it was and it didn’t take a genius to work out who must have ordered it. And Skinny’s style was all over the thing. I told him to give it back to his brother. Then, the next day, he came back. He told me Skinny was dead, and how he was going to impersonate him. I thought it was the most stupid thing I’d ever heard, and I told him so. That’s when …’ Suddenly a deep, broken sob broke from him. ‘That’s when he showed me the finger.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh no,’ my brother whispered. ‘You,’ he ordered one of his men, ‘check the girl’s hands – gently, mind!’

  I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth against the wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me. I decided then that I did not care whether Butterfly talked or not. She was going to get whatever the law said she had coming to her, regardless.

  ‘Little finger, left hand, missing, sir!’ the soldier barked.

  ‘It was deformed,’ the old man whimpered. ‘She broke it when she was a little girl, and it healed funny. That’s how I knew it was hers.’

  ‘So you did what you were told. You shut yourself in your workshop – your nephew told me about it – and worked on the costume night and day, to get it finished before he brought you any more.’ I looked at Butterfly, whose expression had not altered. ‘But you’d walled her up by then, hadn’t you? Did you hate her that much? Just because your husband finally found what he needed, and it wasn’t you? Whose was the baby, Butterfly – his or Idle’s?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she spat.

  ‘I think I do.’ I took a step towards her. I was going to grasp her chin and force her to face me, so that I could look straight into her eyes and see whether there was anything I could learn from them, but then I changed my mind. She was straining restlessly against the hands that held her, and there was a ferocity about her staring eyes and bared teeth, the desperation of a trapped beast, that made me want to keep my distance. ‘How old are you, Butterfly? How old were you when you were married – fourteen, fifteen? Only just out of the House of Youth, I bet. Your whole life ahead of you, and you the most beautiful girl in Amantlan.’ As she must have been, and still was, even with her features contorted with fury. ‘So you ought to have had the pick of the men of your parish, at least; or even some of the others – think of all those rich, exciting young merchants from just the other side of the canal, and maybe even the chance of some freedom: running the family business while your husband was away, your own pitch in Tlatelolco market – I can see that that would have suited you. It wasn’t to be, though, was it? The matchmaker came to see your parents with an offer they couldn’t turn down. How much did Skinny pay for you? How much would Amantlan’s most famous son have needed to pay?’

  Her answer was a growl.

  ‘Well, never mind. There you were, hitched to a failed craftsman more than twice your age. Still, you’re a practical girl. You made the best of it. You tried to support him while he was working with Angry.’ I remembered Crayfish’s description of how Skinny’s wife had made him eat and drink, fetching him food and water while he was working. ‘It must have hurt so much when he and Marigold started getting close. All that attention, all you’d given up, and what it really took to get him interested was something you couldn’t offer him, something you couldn’t even understand.’

  I was goading her, taunting her with what I was almost sure had happened in the hope of making her own up to it.

  It worked. She finally met my eyes: not scowling at me from beneath lowered brows, in the manner of a person reluctantly facing her accuser, but raising her head to look me full in the face. When she spoke, her voice was clear and confident.

  ‘You’ve no idea what happened. Why, my husband never even screwed her! He wasn’t capable. He never managed it with me! But she wanted to. He never saw through all that crap about the gods and their gifts to us and all our labour going to pay our debts to them. But I did. Everyone thought she was so pious, so innocent, so correct she would never tell a lie or do anything dishonourable. You know what she did? She lied to her own father! She told him that fairy tale about needing to move to Atecocolecan, so that we could get Skinny back here where nobody would know any better when his brother took his name.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Angry tense, but his guards held him as fast as Butterfly’s held her. She saw it too, and laughed. ‘What, you didn’t think your beloved daughter was involved? She was in as deep as the rest of us!’

  I glanced past her, towards what had been her sister-in-law’s prison. ‘Then why that?’

  Butterfly tossed her head. ‘She found out about me and Idle. Bound to, once we were all living together in such a small space. She went hysterical. Maybe it was knowing I was getting what she wanted, and with her husband! She threatened to go back to Angry and tell him everything! We weren’t going t
o let that happen, were we? And then when the suit got damaged and we needed a featherworker to mend it – well, it was the obvious thing to do.’

  I had been wrong about looking into this woman’s eyes, I realized. There was nothing in them that gave me any clue as to how immurement, extortion, mutilation and murder had ever become the obvious thing to do.

  Perhaps it had been just as I had said. She was a practical girl.

  I turned back to Angry. ‘You saw the scratches on Idle’s face, and you guessed from that that she’d put up a fight. I suppose that helped convince you she was alive, didn’t it? That they hadn’t just poisoned her or knocked her over the head.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered,’ he mumbled. ‘I’d have done anything if I thought I might get her back. You can understand that, can’t you?’

  I sighed. ‘So you mended the costume. But it still went wrong, didn’t it?’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ the man cried, ridiculously defensive. ‘I did my bit! The bastard came and picked it up and that was that – he even bloody well thanked me! I should have got her back then. He told me he’d send her, as soon as he got home. I believed him!’

  ‘I know.’ I looked down, unable to meet the broken old man’s eyes. I forgot how he had threatened me earlier. I just prayed silently to the gods to preserve me from ever being that desperate. ‘But he never got home, did he? And the next thing you heard was this rumour that Skinny had been found dead, and there was no sign of the costume.’

  ‘But she didn’t kill him?’ Lion asked. He had come to stand next to me and was looking at Butterfly with an expression of mystified awe. I guessed he had never met anyone like her before.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘She’d no reason to. Quite the opposite: she needed him alive, to keep up the pretence of his being Skinny. And anyway, they were lovers. She’s in mourning – look at her hair – and it’s not for her husband.’

  ‘So who did it?’ my brother demanded. ‘And what for?’

  Angry kept his face hidden behind his fingers. They trembled slightly. Enclosed in his own world of remorse and grief, he seemed oblivious to what we were saying. It was Butterfly who responded to Lion’s question, letting out a little gasp and looking sharply from him to me and back again.

  What had Montezuma said to me? The thief wore the costume because he wanted to. The raiment of the god has power of its own. The man who wears it takes the form of the god, and his attributes. He becomes the god.

  It’s like an idol, someone else had said. It should be prayed to.

  ‘He would keep wearing the bloody thing,’ I muttered.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Idle, of course. That’s why he died.’ I turned towards the doorway leading out of the courtyard. ‘Let’s go, shall we? It’s nearly noon. I want to get that costume back to Montezuma before my master turns the Otomies loose again!’

  ‘Hang on!’ cried Lion. ‘What do I do with this lot? What about the boy? What about …?’

  From behind my brother’s back came an animal noise.

  Lion stiffened. It took him a moment to turn around; about as long as it took me to look over his shoulder and work out what was happening, and almost long enough for it all to be over.

  Angry had freed himself. Where he had found the strength, and what combination of pain and fury had released it in him, I could only guess, but his guards were on their knees, clutching their brows and looking dazed. The featherworker had banged their heads together and launched himself at Butterfly

  The men guarding her took a moment to take in what was happening: the big man rushing towards them with murder in his eyes. Then they both let their captive go, and she ran. She dashed towards the interior of the house, the room where Marigold had been held, or rather the mass of rubble and broken timbers that was all that remained of it. Seeing there was no escape that way, she checked herself, and turned.

  Angry crashed into her guards. Still bemused, they made only a half – hearted effort to stop him, and he knocked them aside as if they were children. As they staggered away from them he seemed to stumble, but when he straightened up there was a piece of masonry in his hand, a large flat stone.

  Butterfly waited for him. The last expression I saw on her face was oddly calm, serene even, and a slight, knowing smile played across her lips.

  Lion was moving by the time Angry hit her, but too late, and nowhere near fast enough. I took one step, and stopped because I had heard the blow, and from the sound of it there was going to be nothing for me to do.

  Nothing for anyone, except the vultures and coyotes.

  4

  ‘We have to go,’ I said gently.

  I had rarely seen my brother at a loss, but he seemed so now, as he surveyed the scene. In front of him lay a once beautiful woman, her face mercifully turned away as her blood soaked into the dust around her, while a broken, weeping old man huddled nearby with his nephew kneeling by him, a consoling hand resting vainly on his uncle’s shoulder. A moan from somewhere behind us may have meant that the maimed girl Lion had dragged from her cell had broken her silence, or it may just have been one of his men nursing a sore head; I did not bother to look.

  ‘We can’t do any more here,’ I added. ‘Leave a couple of men to look after Angry and his daughter. That’s all they’ll need: they aren’t going anywhere. Bring the rest.’ I stepped over to the boy. ‘You too, Crayfish. We may need you.’

  He looked fearfully up at me, and then turned to my son, as if he expected him to intercede for him. ‘But I don’t know anything about this costume!’

  Nimble answered before I could speak. ‘I think my father knows that,’ he said sympathetically, ‘but he thinks you can help. It’s for your uncle’s sake, as much as anybody’s.’ He extended a hand. Crayfish looked at it for a long time, but at last he took it, and let my son help him up.

  ‘Lion!’ I called out. ‘Come on!’

  My brother roused himself from his reverie then. ‘Let me get my men together,’ he muttered. ‘Where are we going, anyway?’

  ‘Amantlan.’

  ‘It was those Morning Glory seeds,’ I explained. ‘I should have remembered what that stuff is like, back from when I was a priest. Morning Glory, sacred mushrooms – the food of the gods, and others like them – peyote buttons, water lilies – all these things, they don’t just open up the world of dreams to you when you’re asleep. Sometimes they send you visions when you’re awake, and change the way things that are happening to you seem, so you have to sort out what’s real from what isn’t, or at least what belongs here on the Earth from what belongs in the heavens.’

  Lion, Nimble, Crayfish and I were in Lion’s canoe. The boy sat in sullen silence between my brother and me, where we had taken the precaution of putting him, although I was sure he would not try to run away One of my brother’s bodyguards propelled us with firm, sure strokes of his paddle, and the rest of his men rode in boats ahead and behind. The little flotilla churned up the surface of the canal as it sped long, sending waves slapping against the banks to splash the occasional passer-by on the canal path. I did not hear any complaints about a soaked cloak or breechcloth: one look at our escort would have been enough to quell any protest.

  I had been going through my account of what had happened, trying to reconstruct it all. I had reached the night when I had returned to the house in Atecocolecan to look for the costume, and Butterfly had surprised me and knocked me out.

  ‘She could just have stuck a knife in me while I was unconscious, but I suppose she wanted to know exactly what I was doing there, and how much I knew. So she tied me up and drugged me to loosen my tongue. After that – well, she was waiting for Idle to come home, and I have the impression they made love a lot in that room, on purpose so that Marigold could hear them, so I suppose she was ready. And perhaps she saw me lying there at her mercy, and the feeling of power went to her head. I think that’s what she liked, feeling powerful, and it’s not a feeling many women in Mexico get to indulge in very of
ten.’

  ‘Power, eh?’ my brother said. ‘Well, that makes sense. If sex had been all she was after there’d have been no need to drug you!’

  I shut my eyes with embarrassment. ‘I can assure you it wasn’t my idea, and it wasn’t pleasant. I kept thinking she was a snake!’ I opened my eyes again in time to see Lion shudder. When I looked at Nimble, though, he returned my gaze frankly, without a hint of embarrassment or self-consciousness. My heart went out to him then, as I recalled the things he had seen and been made to do in his short life, which made my experience seem ordinary. ‘I thought I was seeing the feathered serpent, or … well, I don’t know. It was all very confused. Gods and goddesses. At one point I heard a woman’s voice, and I thought she must be Cihuacoatl crying in the night, the way they say she does when the city is in real peril. It was only a lot later that I worked out that I hadn’t been dreaming: it was your cousin I heard, Crayfish. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it earlier, or notice there was a false wall, but at the time I was just too befuddled. I didn’t even think of it the next morning, when I found the place smelled a bit like a cross between a temple and a prison. It didn’t occur to me until I realized that Butterfly and Idle needed your uncle to finish off the featherwork for them, and that they must be using your cousin to force him to do it, and that meant they’d found somewhere to keep her.’

  I had to pause for a moment, because the thought of it was threatening to overwhelm me. To be sealed up for good in a tiny cell with no access to the outside world but a little hole at the bottom to pass her rations through – the hole I had thought was made by mice – that was horrific enough; but to have borne a child there?

  Alone, in the dark, with no curer or midwife, no one to help deliver the child or grieve with her over his death. I wondered whether Butterfly had been on the far side of the wall at the time, gloating over her sister-in-law’s agony. I wondered whether Marigold would ever speak again.