“Handy?”
“Father?” Snake’s voice sounded small. “What is it?”
Abruptly his father seemed to make up his mind about something. Bending down, he scooped the captive boy off the ground and shoved him under one arm like a freshly killed turkey. Before any of us could react, he was off down the hill at a brisk trot, with the child’s head dangling upside down at his side, bouncing so low it almost scraped on the ground.
“Come on, then!” he called out over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here!”
His sons and I could only stumble after him.
“What’s happening?” I called out. “I know we’re in a hurry, but … Wait for us!”
As I caught him up he turned to me and said, without breaking his stride: “Can’t you see the family resemblance, Yaotl? Look at the ears, man! You and I-we killed this boy’s father!”
I saw the family resemblance. Even upside down, flapping up and down as his head dangled from the crook of the commoner’s arm, the boy’s ears were unmistakable. When I had last seen them I had been climbing the steps on the Great Pyramid, and they had protruded from the head of the man in front of me: Shining Light’s Bathed Slave. It was not just the ears. The child had the slave’s scrawny physique and the same air of resignation.
“You’re telling me this boy’s father was Shining Light’s sacrifice? Slow down! What was he doing stealing your lunch?” I gasped.
Handy stumbled and ran toward the causeway, leaving us to keep up as best we could. He ran with the child jammed uncomfortably under one arm. The child’s eyes were open but he made no sound. Either there was something wrong with him, I thought, or he must be very brave. In his place, I would have been howling.
“How should I know? All I know is we’ve found him. We’ve got to get him home. Don’t you see, Yaotl? He can tell us who his father was and where he came from. The merchants will want to know that. They’ll want to know where Shining Light got the Bathed Slave who let them down so badly. There’ll be a reward!”
There might be more than that, I thought, as we raced past the low stone walls marking the outskirts of Coyoacan and onto the broad,flat, hard earth roadway that led out across the lake to Mexico. What would happen, I wondered, if anyone-some passing merchant, perhaps, or a member of my master’s entourage-happened to recognize the son of Shining Light’s offering wedged under Handy’s arm?
Halfway along the causeway I stumbled to a halt and tried to call out to the others, to urge them to throw the boy in the water and forget they had ever seen him.
They ignored me. Either I was too out of breath to make myself heard or they were just not listening.
4
My wife will know what to do.” Handy said confidently. His wife, Star, gazed at him in astonishment as he dragged the child into the house.
“I thought you went out to have an omen interpreted. Who’s this? And how did you get yourselves into such a state?”
Her husband looked at his own legs as if he had not noticed they were coated in muck from the knees down. “We found this kid skulking around the village. He tried to steal our lunch!” He gave her a severely edited account of the day’s activities, which she listened to with mounting incredulity.
“So you failed to find the sorcerer and you let those boys get themselves covered in grime and soot playing with bones?” she said mildly, when he had finished.
“Yes,” Handy admitted.
“Well, you know where the brushes are. If you think I’m cleaning up after you in the morning, you’re mistaken. Now, this child …”
Handy started explaining his idea to her. “You remember the Bathed Slave who ran away and then jumped off the edge of the Great Pyramid? This is his son-I’m sure it is. What do you think the merchants would give to find out where he really came from?”
The subject of this discussion squatted in the middle of the room where Handy had put him, with his thumb in his mouth, listening wordlessly while we reminded each other how his father had died. He shivered slightly, although it was not a cold day.
“The merchants aren’t going to find out anything from this child if he starves to death,” Star said crisply. “I don’t suppose any of you has any idea when he last ate?”
Her husband and I looked at each other self-consciously. “He didn’t tell us he was hungry,” I protested.
She gave me a look that would have wilted a cactus. “Why do you think he was after your lunch, then? And it’s hardly surprising if he hasn’t told you anything-he’s obviously scared out of his wits.” She pulled herself to her feet, ignoring her husband’s belated offer to help her up, and extended a hand to the child. “Come along. There are fresh tortillas and honeyed tamales-do you like tamales? Of course you do, everyone does. Now, that’s better …”
Casting a reproachful glance at us over her shoulder, she led the child out of the room, holding him by the hand that she had somehow coaxed out of his mouth. She took the still unopened lunch bag with her.
Buck and Snake were not the sort of lads to squat at their father’s feet when the food had just been taken out of the room. They scampered hastily after their mother and the boy. A moment later we heard her scolding them for leaving muddy footprints in the courtyard.
“Handy,” I began.
“Well, the food’s gone,” he said mournfully, “but I think I can find us something to drink. Wait here.”
“We need to talk,” I told his departing back.
He returned a moment later with two bowls. They had water in them, although I caught myself wishing it was something else.
The commoner drained his bowl at once, smacking his lips appreciatively. “I needed that! Now, you were saying we needed to talk?”
“About that child. I don’t think you should be so eager to go running to the merchants as soon as you’ve heard his life story. And I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone where you found him.”
He rocked back on his heels, frowning. “I just thought the chief merchants, or maybe your master, since he had something to do with Shining Light …”
I put my bowl down deliberately so as not to smash it on the floor in frustration. “Don’t you realize what happened in that village?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” he replied coolly. “All I know is three people got killed in a fire, and if we’d been there at the wrong time it might have been seven!”
“They weren’t killed in the fire-at least, not all of them. Look: the grown-up’s bones were burned worse than the children’s, and we found the children outside the house. So she died indoors, with the place blazing all around her. Her children were in the rubbish heap with their heads broken. They must have been killed first and left outside when the house was burned.”
“‘She?’ How do you know it was a woman?”
“I’m guessing, but we know what became of Crocodile, and he wasn’t there. So I suppose the three we found today were his wife and children. That’s what the Chief Minister did-when the sorcerers got out of the prison he had the army go after their families. And judging by that sandal strap I found he wanted a thorough job done, because he handpicked the very best. Now, do you really want to go proclaiming this in the streets?”
“No, I don’t!” Handy said in a hurt voice. “I just thought the boy-”
“The boy whose father just happens to have been Shining Light’s Bathed Slave. Isn’t that a bit of a coincidence-having him turn up while we’re picking over the remains of a massacre? Why do you suppose that happened?”
Handy stared sulkily into the bottom of his bowl and waited for me to answer my own question.
“We found the boy there because it was his own house we were turning over. He was hanging around the ruins because he had nowhere else to go. If you’re right about Shining Light’s Bathed Slave, and he was the boy’s father, then that would mean …”
I stopped as I pondered exactly what it would mean.