“If you can tell me where the boat is,” said a low voice that was like cold water trickling down my spine, “I will owe you more than my life.”
Lion whirled as if he were still dancing. I turned around slowly.
Lily stood facing us in the doorway. Her eyes shone in the torchlight.I noted from the heavy rabbit’s-fur mantle drawn tightly across her shoulders that she had been out, and not hiding in the women’s rooms after all.
My tongue seemed to have turned into a lump of wood. All evening I had been seeking this confrontation and now it had come I could not get the words out. In the end I managed to say “Lily” in a voice so thick the name was barely intelligible.
Lion recognized it, though. “Lily? You’re Shining Light’s mother? Yaotl here reckons your son’s boyfriend’s holding a lot of sorcerers prisoner on his boat!” My brother was not known for his delicacy of manner.
Lily looked at me levelly. “He’s not my son’s … Yaotl, you said that to me once, but you were wrong. Shining Light wouldn’t be interested in Curling Mist-not in that way, anyway. Whatever that man’s hold is over my son, it’s not that. He …” She caught her breath before going on. “Shining Light likes them younger-he’s more likely to have wanted the boy. I think Shining Light may have done the father’s bidding for the sake of the son, at least in the beginning. I don’t know. I’ve never met Curling Mist.”
“Nor has anyone else, except me,” I said dryly. I felt a sudden rush of self-pity. “Young Warrior doesn’t go near anyone else-you, my master, Kindly-he sends the boy to see everyone else, but I’ve met him three times-and each time he’s done his best to kill me!”
“Is he still holding your son hostage?” my brother asked.
Lily hid her face in her hands and stood for a few heartbeats with her shoulders heaving silently. Then she took a deep breath and looked at us both, blinking rapidly.
“I told the boy what you told me, Yaotl-about the girl in the marketplace. He said … he said it wouldn’t be enough.”
“Go on,” I said grimly.
“That was the evening of the day you told me about the girl. He said I would have to … that his father would come to the house the next day, and …”
“And you had to tell the slave to let him in. You let that bastard in to attack me! I nearly died! Constant did die!”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” she cried. “The boy didn’t tell me he meant you any harm. He just said there was something he had to know. My son’s life was at stake!”
“So was mine!”
“Yaotl,” my brother warned me, in his best imitation of a soothing voice.
“And where were you?” I yelled. “Couldn’t bear to watch, is that it?”
She seemed to flinch, as if I had slapped her, before screaming back: “Where do you think? I was trying to find my son! The boy told me to go back to the ball court in the morning, and I’d find him there, only”-her voice suddenly turned into a long, descending wail-“he wasn’t there!”
I wondered why that was. Perhaps my would-be assassin, piqued by his failure, had managed, in his flight from her house to the ball court, to overtake Shining Light’s mother, and had got her son back on board his boat, hoping the young merchant might still be useful if he wanted to make another attempt on my life. It seemed more likely that Young Warrior had never intended to honor the bargain Lily had made for her son’s freedom, and she had set out that morning on a fool’s errand. As much as I resented what she had done I felt a twinge of pity.
“Lily,” I began gently, but Lion interrupted me.
“Before you two wake the Chief Minister up, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re saying we have to look for a boat-a big one?”
“That’s right,” I replied.
“Where do we start, then?”
“It was in a cove on the western side of the city,” I said, “but that was days ago. They may have moved it since then.”
“So it could be anywhere on the lake? On any of the lakes?” Lily’s voice was low with disappointment. Young Warrior had chosen his hiding place welclass="underline" finding one craft among the many thousands plying the vast complex of lakes around the city could be almost impossible.
“What does this boat look like?” Lion asked me.
“I don’t know. I scarcely saw it-I was busy being kidnapped at the time, remember.” I thought for a moment. “If it’s being used as a warehouse, it must be unusually big-like one of those seagoing craft the Mayans have, carved from a whole trunk, or even several lashed together. And that means it won’t move very far or very fast-especially if it’s just Young Warrior and his boy handling it. I don’tthink there’s anyone else working with them.” I glanced at Lily, who did not demur.
My brother gave her a shrewd look. “Madam,” he asked, his tone carefully polite, “did you report to the boy this evening?”
“Sir-of course I did!” she snapped back defiantly. “I had to tell him Yaotl was here.” She caught my expression. “Oh, don’t worry-he won’t come here tonight. There are too many people about.” So much for my plan to lure Young Warrior out of hiding, I thought.
“You must have had a prearranged meeting place.”
“Yes. On the Tlacopan causeway, at the nearer end. He’s there regularly, at dusk, in case I need to report anything. I have to get there before they pull the bridges up, though.”
Lion and I looked at each other, the same calculations running through both our heads. If Young Warrior and Nimble lived on the boat-and how else could they guard their hostages? — then the boy must return to it every night. But if he needed the bridges open, that meant he had to cross the causeway. So the boat could only be moored on the western side of the lake, opposite the city, not far from the mainland end of the causeway.
“What do you do if you’re late?” I asked.
“I don’t see him at all that evening. I’d have to wait until the following night, unless we’ve arranged something else, like the ball court.”
“So he has to be on the other side of the causeway by nightfall.”
“There are lots of little inlets and places you could hide a boat on the edge of the lake,” Lion pointed out. “How would we know where to look, especially if he keeps moving about?”
“But he won’t move the boat every day,” I said, “and I don’t think Nimble would want to go blundering around there after dark. There can’t be that many places close enough to the causeway where you could hide a boat that big.”
“We need a boatman to tell us where to look,” Lion observed. “Where are we going to find one at this time of night?”
I stared at him. “What do you mean, ‘at this time of night?’ No one’s going anywhere now. Send a squad of warriors first thing in the morning.”
“No time,” said my brother. “We’ve got to get to those sorcerers before your master does.”
“We have to go now,” said Lily quietly.
“But you can’t go!” I protested. “This is men’s work-warriors’ work!”
“My son is on that boat,” she said simply. She turned on her heel and walked away. “You can do what you like. I’m going to find a boatman!”
“Come on,” Lion said as he set off after her.
I had taken one step toward the doorway when a familiar voice stopped us all in our tracks.
“Not so fast! Just where do you think you’re going?”
Lord Feathered in Black was sitting up. He was bright and alert. I stared at him in confusion for a moment before it registered that he, like my brother, had obviously felt the need to keep a clear head, and had not taken any of the mushrooms. No wonder there had been some leftover for Handy. My master must have heard everything that had been said around him while he was pretending to sleep.