There had been a long, uncomfortable silence then, before my master had finally pronounced: “It all depends on what we find when we get there. I will decide then!”
“And my son?”
Lily had still been holding the torch steady in the Chief Minister’s canoe. Her hand had trembled slightly, shaking loose a few embers that had spiraled slowly into the water.
“It all depends,” my master had repeated gruffly.
Now Lion, Handy and I sat in silence as we watched the causeway slide by and waited for a dark interval to appear, revealing the last bridge and the place where we were to cross to the southern side.
Handy said: “I still don’t understand what Shining Light’s doing on that boat. I thought he was on a trading venture. I saw him leave. He had a canoe full of provisions. It was One Reed, remember, and you thought it was a funny day to be off on a long journey.”
“I suppose the provisions were for Young Warrior, the boy and the sorcerers,” I said.
“Which means,” my brother pointed out, “that whenever the merchant and his boyfriend-or his boyfriend’s father, whatever-had their falling out, it must have been after that, mustn’t it? Shining Light would hardly have delivered himself up as a hostage, complete with his own food supply.”
“So what did they have a row about?” Handy asked.
I hesitated while I tried to imagine what might have been going through the merchant’s mind. “I suppose Shining Light was going to lie low for a while, to keep out of the way of the merchants-not to mention the Chief Minister! He told his mother to pretend he’d gone on a trading venture. Maybe that’s why you were asked to deliver his message to my master, Handy-so that you could attest to the fact that he was off somewhere with a boat full of provisions, asif he was going on a long journey. In fact he wasn’t, but he needed somewhere to hide. The obvious place was Young Warrior’s boat. Maybe being cooped up with that vicious young man for a few days was enough to convince Young Warrior and Nimble that he was more useful as a hostage than a guest. Then again …”
Then again, I realized, what I had just said was nonsense. Lily had told me that Shining Light had not known where Curling Mist’s warehouse was. If that was the truth, then Shining Light could not have delivered himself to Curling Mist-or Young Warrior-willingly or otherwise, because he would not have known where to find him.
If that was the truth.
Lily had no reason to lie to me about that; nor had her father, who had told the same story, accounting for the bare room in their house. But suppose Shining Light had lied to both of them?
As soon as that thought occurred to me, the fabric of the story I had woven together out of the past few days’ events began to unravel. Things that I had seen and heard and all but forgotten about came to mind, and each was like a loose thread pulled away from the cloth until there was nothing left of it but the truth.
And I had seen the truth myself, only that evening, without recognizing it. I had even told Lion and Lily about it, without knowing what I was saying.
“We’ve got it all wrong,” I started to say, but Lion interrupted me.
“Whatever they fell out over, you can ask them both about it soon. Here’s the bridge!”
The Chief Minister’s boat coasted through the gap in the causeway and then, just as we turned to follow it, it vanished. There was a faint hissing sound as Lily doused the torch in the water of the lake, and then there was nothing to see by but the stars and the water’s own eerie phosphorescence.
Trailing his paddle in the water, Handy brought us to a halt next to the other craft.
“It’s a creek, a little bit south of Chapultepec.” Although this was still a long pull away by canoe, my master’s boatman had taken to whispering. “When we reach the aqueduct we’re almost there. The boat you’re looking for is moored in its mouth, a fair distance from the shore.”
“That makes sense,” my brother muttered, “if he doesn’t want the sorcerers slipping overboard and swimming for it. We’ll have to get into the creek mouth as quietly as possible and try to get between him and the shore. If Young Warrior or anyone else tries to escape that way we should catch them.”
Lord Feathered in Black silently prodded his boatman with his foot, and the man slowly took up his paddle and dipped it in the water.
“If there’s a boat in there, I can’t see it,” Lion whispered.
We lay in the bow of the canoe, staring into the tangled darkness that marked the edge of the lake. We dared not stand up, in case our quarry caught sight of us outlined against the stars.
“Are we sure this is the right place?” Handy asked.
“He seems to think so.” I looked over my shoulder at the dark, quiet water behind us, where I assumed my master’s boat still floated. “Our reluctant boatman was happy enough about finding the aqueduct.” The man had uttered a cry of delight, quickly stifled, when the long, low stone structure had emerged out of the darkness, as though he had surprised himself with his own skill. It had taken a long time to get that far, paddling cautiously through the gloom. The final leg of the journey, following the shoreline down to the creek mouth where our quarry was supposedly waiting, had been all too short.
“Let’s go anyway. I’m tired of waiting.” I spoke through teeth clenched to stop them chattering. I had told myself it was a cold night, although it must have been colder for Handy, because after we had passed Chapultepec he had taken his breechcloth off and wrapped it around his paddle to muffle it.
“If we keep to the middle of the channel,” Handy suggested, “we ought to find them.” He thrust his paddle into the water and began to push the canoe forward.
A faint splash from behind us told me that the other canoe was on the move as well, but its boatman had not troubled to muffle his paddle, and we could hear its progress clearly as it forged ahead, steering a course wide of our own and much closer to the bank. A fleck of foam, gleaming white in the starlight, showed where the paddle blade dug into the water, tearing its surface and throwing it up as he sped past us.
“What’s he doing?” Handy muttered. “He’s far too close to the bank! He’s going to run aground if he’s not careful!”
“Not to mention the noise he’s making,” Lion said.
I suddenly realized what the man was up to. “He wants to run aground! He’s trying to escape!” I was already standing up, making our canoe rock as I strained to see where the other boat was going.
Across the water came a crash and the sound of splintering wood.
The brief silence that followed ended with the beat of heavy wings as some large bird, perhaps a heron, started from its roosting place and took flight across the lake.
“They’ve hit!” Handy observed.
“Quiet!” I snapped. Had I imagined it, or had there been another sound? Even as I struggled to identify it, however, it was obliterated by curses and recriminations from the direction of the wrecked canoe.
“Old Black Feathers is not happy,” remarked my brother.
“Nor is the lady,” added Handy.
It struck me that the merchants must bring their women up differently from the rest of us, because I was sure my mother had never known some of the words Lily was using. I wondered if she had learned them in the marketplace. I could not hear the boatman’s voice at all. I supposed he had made good his escape, leaping overboard as soon as he knew the crash was imminent.
“Well, that’s that,” declared Lion. “Everyone on this side of the lake will know we’re here now. We might as well forget it.” He scrambled to his feet to join me in standing unsteadily in the center of the canoe. “If Young Warrior was ever here, he’ll be on the move. He can hardly have missed that lot-”
“Well, shut up, then!”