‘Besides, I really had no choice.’
‘Nonsense! You had a home here. And all I told you to do was go to the market and sell some paper, not drown yourself in sacred wine and get yourself thrown into prison!’
‘I didn’t mean …’
‘Anyway, I’m not going to argue with you.’ My mother stepped aside, and I saw my father, standing about four paces away, glaring at me with his arms folded and his teeth bared like an angry dog’s.
He looked like an older, heavier version of my elder brotherLion, thicker around the waist and neck and with most of his hair long since turned ash-grey, but still hard and strong. He still proudly wore the orange cloak and piled-up hair of a two-captive warrior. Had he been as lucky on the battlefield as his first son was to be, no doubt I would have grown up as the child of an exalted commoner, not exactly a great lord or a noble but the next best thing, and my precarious and ultimately doomed existence among the nobles’ offspring in the Priest House might have been very different. In the event, each of us had had to make his own way in the world, and if I were ever tempted to hold that against my father, I only had to look at the jagged white scar left by the javelin that had shattered his left knee to remind myself that he was as much the victim of his fate as I was.
Unfortunately he was less philosophical about it.
‘I heard you’d been here. What are you doing back again? Have you come to pay your mother back for the paper you stole? Fine. Pay her and go.’ He lurched towards me, balancing himself on his good leg. ‘If it’s food and shelter you want you can forget it. I’ll throw you in the canal first, and don’t think my knee will stop me!’
I glanced at my mother. She looked down, her face darkening, although whether this was from embarrassment or anger I could not tell.
‘All I’ve got,’ I started to say, ‘is what I’m wearing. I’m sorry …’
My father almost fell on me, stumbling forward and striking me on the chest with both hands. Surprised, I staggered back, almost losing my footing. The old man followed me and screamed in my face.
‘You’re sorry! You useless, lying, drunken, filthy, thieving, whore-mongering little excuse for a shit-smeared dog’s arse!’
‘Mihmatcatlacatl!’ my mother cried, reproachfully.
He ignored her. He hit me again, but this time it was a real punch, aimed at my shoulder and with all the force of his strong right arm and a decade or more of bitterness behind it, and the numbing force of the blow sent me crashing to the floor with my cloak flapping around me in a tangle of billowing cloth.
‘How dare you show your face here! I’ll give you “sorry”! If you knew what I gave up for you!’
He aimed a kick between my sprawled legs. Fortunately kicking was no longer one of his strengths. His wounded knee gave way and he stumbled, momentarily off balance, and I took the chance to roll to one side and get on my hands and knees.
I scuttled away. A small circle of spectators, mainly my curious nieces and nephews, had gathered around us, and I made for its edge. He caught me before I got there, grabbing the hem of my cloak and jerking at it until I heard the cloth tear. ‘Come back here, you coward! I’ve not finished with you yet!’
I let him have the cloak. I managed to undo the knot with one hand and help myself to my feet with the other. I whirled around, just in time to see my father collapse, screaming with rage as the cloak fell away in his hands.
My mother called his name again as she ran to help him up. She shot me a reproachful look.
‘Get him away from me.’ The old man was suddenly in tears. ‘I can’t bear to see him here. Just get him out!’
I watched and listened, mystified. ‘I don’t understand you,’ I gasped. ‘You won’t even let me tell you why I came.’
‘He’s probably looking for me.’
The newcomer spoke in a self-confident drawl that I knew very well. I turned in time to see him stepping forward from among the spectators, the red border of his rich yellow cotton cloak swirling about his feet and the white ribbons at the napeof his neck flowing behind him. His sandals had big loose straps which slapped the ground as he walked.
The Guardian of the Waterfront stopped to survey the scene in front of him, a knowing smile spreading across his face as he watched my mother helping my father to his feet and me rubbing my sore shoulder.
‘Looks as if I got here in time. I see you two have met at last!’
‘Lion!’ My father limped towards my brother with his arms outstretched and his eyes sparkling with joy. ‘I didn’t think you’d come! Are you here for the festival?’
Lion’s reception could not have been more different from mine. While they embraced, clapping each other on the back, I looked around. The little children and their parents were beginning to move away to resume their seats at the edges of the courtyard. I saw Handy among them, looking self-conscious. I hoped my elder sister had not teased him too much.
When he had managed to disengage himself Lion said: ‘I can’t stay. I’m sorry, I’m needed at home.’ Lion’s family was housed in a mansion near the city centre, and if he intended to celebrate the festival he would have a pole of his own standing in the biggest of his courtyards. ‘I came to find him.’ He looked at me.
‘How’d you know to look here?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Just a lucky guess. I gathered from that evil little scorpion of a steward your master employs that you’d gone out. He claimed to have no idea where you’d gone, so I thought I’d try here first. It’s where I found you last time, if you remember. You seem to be making these reunions a habit!’
My father gave me a disgusted look. ‘Well, you’ve found him,’ he snapped. ‘Now will you please take him away with you’.
I groaned, realizing that I was about to get the blame for mybrother’s not being able to stay. ‘Look,’ I began, ‘I only wanted to say …’
‘Come on, then,’ said Lion briskly. ‘Don’t forget your cloak.’ He turned to my mother. ‘I’m sorry about this. Duty calls — for both of us. But I’ll send him back later.’
My mother said nothing. My father stepped towards me, then turned on my brother. ‘Bring him back? That’s the last thing I want. I don’t want to see him again!’
Lion had started towards the doorway, gently brushing away the small crowd of admiring children who were trying to feel the hem of their hero’s cloak. Now he stopped and looked back.
‘I’ll send him back,’ he repeated coolly. ‘What you do with him then is up to you. But it looked to me as if you two had some unfinished business and I would hate to interfere!’
He walked away. The only sound was the flapping of his sandal straps.
I looked at my parents. My mother looked back at me. Her face looked as if it had been carved in stone. My father merely stared wistfully after his favourite son.
‘Well?’ my mother said eventually, in a cracked voice.
‘You heard what he said, Mother. I’d better go.’ I turned away.
‘Do you want your cloak?’
‘No,’ I said, without looking around. ‘Keep it. In return for the paper!’
4
I left Handy in the midst of my family. If my father could forgive him for being associated with me, I knew they would make him feel welcome.
I ran down to the canal and caught up with Lion just as he was about to climb into a canoe. There were three of them, moored in a line: one for Lion and me and two for his escort of powerful warriors.
‘I’ve learned from experience that whenever you’re involved I’ve got to be ready for anything,’ he explained. ‘Now, in you get!’
‘Aren’t you going to tell me where we’re going?’
‘When you’re in the canoe, yes.’ By which time, of course, I would not be able to bolt. Ignoring my misgivings, I climbed into the canoe. It was either that or go home again and get beaten up by an old man.
‘I have to hand it to you, Yaotl,’ Lion continued as he settled himself behind me, ‘when you get yourself into trouble, you do it in style. After all, if you’re going to piss people off, why not go straight to the top?’