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looking for. We’re all here to do the same job and we’re none of us here because we want to be …’
    â€˜I wouldn’t be too sure of that! Nice and quiet here – no one about – we could have some fun. How about a game where you all pretend to run away and we hunt you down like wild pigs?’
    â€˜No …Ya …Yaotl’s right.’
    To my amazement, it was the steward who spoke up. His voice shook so much that I could barely make out the words, but plainly his fear of being caught up in the Otomi’s sadistic fantasy was enough to loosen his tongue.
    â€˜Lord Feathered in Black sent us. Yaotl can tell you where the man and the boy went – can’t you, Yaotl?’

    I got up slowly, too nervous myself to appreciate the wheedling note in the steward’s words to me. I spat blood out of my mouth, carefully avoiding the Otomi’s feet.
    â€˜I think so,’ I said slowly. ‘I saw where they landed. I can try to pick up the trail from there.’
    The captain turned his eye on Fox. ‘What’s he talking about?’
    â€˜I expect he means that spot where the ground’s all churned up – where we thought someone must have run a canoe ashore, going quite fast.’ He gave me a hard stare. He was right, of course, and I tried to hide my dismay. These men were going to be more difficult to fool than I had thought, and the consequences if they thought I was leading them astray on purpose did not bear thinking about. ‘We checked that place out yesterday,’ Fox added, ‘and there’s nothing. Someone ran off into the rushes, all right, but there’s only one set of prints and they disappear as soon as you get up into the fields. What makes you think you’re going to find anything else?’
    â€˜Yaotl’s an expert tracker,’ my master’s steward put in maliciously. He had little idea what we were looking for but would be happy to let me take the blame for not finding it.
    I had no choice but to play along with this. Even if it cost me my life, I had to keep these brutal killers from picking up my son’s trail.
    â€˜Let’s at least go and have a look.’ I sighed. ‘It’s not as if any of us has anything better to do!’

2
    â€˜ A re you going to tell me what’s going on now, Yaotl?’
    Handy and I were pushing the canoe ashore. We and the steward had gone by water to the place I had pointed out earlier, where churned-up mud and trampled rushes showed that someone had landed a boat. The Otomies had been happy to walk; I could hear them approaching us, crashing through the reeds, their joyful shouts accompanied by the flapping and splashing of birds and animals scared from their nests and hiding places. The steward had gone on ahead, keen to get his feet on relatively dry land. Since I could no longer hear his teeth chattering I judged he must be out of earshot, provided we whispered.
    â€˜We have to lose those bastards.’
    â€˜Well, I agree with that. What do you want to bring them here for, though? Isn’t this where old Black Feathers’ own boat ended up? The Otomies are right, you know – one man went up this trail, not two. We both saw what happened – your master’s boatman grounded his canoe on purpose and ran away. You don’t have to be a skilled tracker to work out which way he went, but it’s not him we’re looking for, is it? So what’s the idea?’
    I had no choice but to let Handy into my confidence. In any event he had seen enough of what had happened two nights before to piece the rest together for himself.

    â€˜We’re not looking for two men. We’re only looking for one, and he’s not who you think he is.’
    Handy and I grasped the canoe’s slippery sides and heaved it in among the rushes. We leaned over it, breathing heavily, and stared at each other. The big commoner’s face looked troubled,