[Aztec 03] - City of Spies by Simon Levack

Author:Simon Levack [Levack, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Aztec
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2015-03-15T22:06:48+00:00

11

‘It’s a pity you scared the old man off when you did,’ Hunter grumbled. ‘We must have been about as close to nabbing him as we’ve ever got.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said pessimistically. ‘I have the impression you could be sitting on him and he’d still get away! I don’t understand how he was able to move so fast. He looked as if he’d need help just getting up off his sleeping mat in the morning.’

The Sun was close to the tops of the mountains on the western side of the valley. Soon trumpets would sound to mark his setting, and the dead mothers who escorted him during the afternoon would relinquish him to the care of Mictlan Tecuhtli, the Lord of the Land of the Dead. It had been, from what little I had been able to see of it, a gloriously bright day, which at this time of year would usually mean we were in for a chilly evening, and I had left my cloak behind a statue in the palace.

‘Where are we going to spend the night?’ I asked dubiously.

‘Hare’s house, I reckon. We’ve got this meeting with whoever it is that has his property. That’s good — there may be something in there that will help Rattlesnake get to the bottom of all this, and if Mother of Light wanted something Hare had then it won’t hurt if we can get our hands on it first, will it? But I’d like to go and look the place over again before we have to deal with these people.’

I frowned, thinking that this was the last thing I wanted. What if Hunter managed to stumble across the merchant’s body? ‘Why not go back to the palace for now?’ I suggested. ‘Won’t Rattlesnake be expecting some kind of report?’

‘Like what?’ he demanded. “‘We found the old man but the arthritic old bastard managed to limp away from us?” Not likely! No, we go to Hare’s place. Come on.’

Night was falling by the time we neared the house. A cold breeze had sprung up from the East, blowing towards the lake, where it would stir the surface into a froth. I was going to miss my cloak. At first I thought the goose pimples that broke out on my skin were on account of the weather. Then it occurred to me to wonder why, if that was the case, I was not shivering. Something else was making the fine, almost invisible hairs on my arms and legs stand up, a sensation that had become all too familiar in the short time I had been in Tetzcoco: the feeling that I was being followed.

I glanced over my shoulder, but there was nothing to see but the still shadows of trees and houses.

Who was it this time, I wondered — Black Flower’s spies, perhaps, friends of the unfortunate man who had had his fingers crushed deep inside the palace? I suppressed the fear that it might be the Otomies. The prospect of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.