[Aztec 04] - Tribute of Death

by Simon Levack

  ‘Does she live alone?’ I wondered.

  I called the midwife’s name softly from outside the house. When nothing came back out of the darkness inside, I tried again, a little louder.

  I hesitated then, torn between concern and a curious feeling of relief. I was still fearful for Lily. On the other hand I had had no real notion of what I was going to do if I met Gentle Heart on her own territory, either alone or with Cactus. I dared not even contemplate an encounter with the otomi.

  Lion said: ‘So what do we do now, then?’

  ‘If she’s in, I want to know where Lily is.’

  ‘And if she’s not? Or she won’t tell us?’

  ‘Can we hit her over the head and search her house for clues?’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ Handy rumbled. I glanced uneasily at him before calling out again. Eventually, still unanswered, I put my head through the doorway and peered about me. I felt this only made me look foolish, though, so I stepped inside.

  ‘Gentle Heart?’ I said, for the fourth time.

  I held my breath while I listened for a response. Perhaps she was in the courtyard, I thought, or the back room, and it was entirely possible that she had recognised my voice and was hiding. Nobody replied.

  I looked around the room but my eyes had not adjusted to its gloom after the full daylight outside. What I could see looked normal enough, vague shapes that might be a wicker chest, a sleeping mat and a sack.

  My eyes travelled around the dimly-lit space, taking in what they could. They returned to the sack. It lay in one of the far corners of the room, against the wall, as though it had been thrown there out of the way. While my gaze rested on it and I began to get used to the light it occurred to me that it might not be as normal as I had thought. There was something not right about its shape. What would you keep in a sack in a house, I wondered? Chillies, squashes or greens? But the thing I saw did not look like a bag of vegetables, all bunched together by the cloth that held them: it was somehow sprawled across the floor. Then I became aware of something else: there was a nasty smell in the room.

  Behind me, Lion made a disgusted sound. ‘What in all the nine regions of Hell happened in here? It’s like someone kicked over a chamberpot!’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I whispered, as I stepped towards the thing. ‘Lily? Not you as well. Please, not that…’

  Part of me wanted to turn and run then, to forget about lord Feathered in Black and Handy and Mexico and even my family, just to go far away, far enough for me put all the horrors I had found in my home city out of my mind for good. Even while I was thinking this, with every instinct urging me against it, another step had brought me to the thing on the floor and I was plucking at the cloth with my fingertips.

  I tugged at the material. I whimpered in grief and disgust as the smell flooded my nostrils and I felt the weight of a stiff, inert human body resisting my efforts. I dropped to my knees and reached out with both hands in an effort to shift the corpse, to get it onto its back and look it in the face.

  The horror of what I had felt, imagining the body was Lily’s, was swept away by what I saw when I finally had those sightless eyes staring upward into mine.

  I was staring at a rigid mask, with its lips drawn back and its teeth clamped together in a mirthless grin. Spittle and dried vomit coated its chin. It was a woman’s face. However, it was not my mistress’s. And even as understanding dawned on me, I realized why it had been so hard to turn the body over. It was not one corpse at all, but two. Two human beings, a man and a woman, their stiff limbs forever locked in a last gruesome embrace.

  I was too shocked to be relieved. I could only stare dumbly at the twisted, soiled features, the arms and legs grotesquely contorted, and try to find in them something I might have recognised in a living, breathing human being.

  ‘Who is it?’ Handy asked. ‘Is she dead? What happened to her?’

  Nausea threatened to overwhelm me. I felt as though I were about to fall over. I put a hand out to steady myself, inadvertently touching the body. ‘It’s Gentle Heart,’ I said, in a hushed voice. ‘And Cactus!’

  ‘Well,’ said Lion coolly, ‘that rather upsets your theory, doesn’t it, brother? Unless they killed themselves!’

  ‘Maybe that’s what happened,’ I said. ‘What’s this?’ A small, shallow earthenware vessel, decorated with bands of black and orange glaze, lay on the floor by my foot. It was the kind of thing that could be found in almost any house in the city; my mother probably had a shelf full of them. ‘One of them dropped it, I think. See, it’s cracked here? And there are some dregs in the bottom.’ I lifted it until its edge was level with my nose for a cautious sniff. ‘Smells like chocolate!’

  ‘That’s a rich man’s drink,’ Lion protested. ‘What would a midwife and a small-time curer be doing with it?’

  ‘I wonder...’ I put a finger into the bowl to touch the residue at the bottom.

  A piercing shriek split the air in the room. There was a sound of running feet, and then wild confusion as something warm – I realised it was an arm – was thrown around my neck and began tugging at me, pulling me away from the dead woman and shaking me until my teeth rattled. The shrieking became words: ‘Don’t touch that! Did you touch it? Don’t put that finger near your mouth. Yaotl! Are you all right?’

  The faces of the dead became a blur as my head jerked backward, while a living woman’s furious cries battered my ears, for a moment driving every thought out of my head.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lion sounded as shocked as I was. ‘You’re mad, woman! Hey, stop! Handy! Help me get her off him!’

  It was like being snatched out of a bad dream and having, all of a sudden, to take in what was happening around me and make sense of it.

  The woman whose voice filled my ears and whose arm was locked around my throat, preventing me from answering her, was Lily.

  She let me go with a violent jerk that pitched me forward beside the midwife’s body. From behind me, there came a crash that shook the walls of the little house and brought plaster and sawdust down from the roof.

  ‘Hold onto her, Handy, she’s bloody dangerous. Just let me get up!’

  Lily was sobbing now, hysterical tears choking her voice.

  Groaning, I stood and turned around.

  My mistress lay against the wall where the three of them had fallen, her face crumpled with distress. Handy stood over her, slack-jawed with bewilderment, while my brother got slowly to his feet, shaking his head and blinking.

  I stepped across the floor to extend a hand. ‘Lily,’ I said loudly. ‘It’s all right. Look at me! I’m all right!’

  She glanced up, fixing me with wide, glistening eyes. The sobs subsided. ‘Are you… Are you sure?’ she whispered fearfully, as I bent down and took her arm to help her up.

  Lion was standing by now. ‘Is one of you going to tell me what all that was about?’ he inquired peevishly, as Lily and I hugged each other.

  Over her shoulder I said: ‘Someone gave Gentle Heart and Cactus the same treatment as Slender Neck!’

  Lily mumbled thickly: ‘I was afraid the poison would get you too!’ She turned to look at Lion. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffed, ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘Gentle Heart?’ Handy repeated. ‘But…’ He stepped across to the body. He pulled a foot back as if to kick it, and then seemed to change his mind, recoiling and turning away in disgust. ‘Why? If she was the one who killed my wife, then who...?’

  ‘How long have they been dead?’ I asked.

  Lily said: ‘I don’t know. A couple of days? They’re still quite stiff.’

  Lion began inspecting the bodies. ‘A couple of days is right, I’d say. Not easy to tell, of course.’

  ‘She was alive when we buried the baby,’ Handy reminded us.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘She must have died soon afterwards, though. Remember what they told us in the marketplace – neither of them has been seen for couple of days.’ I thought for a moment. ‘We know the sorcerer, w
hoever he is, was with the otomi yesterday. Maybe he finally took off with him after he did this.’ I cursed suddenly. ‘But why wasn’t it Cactus? It would have made sense if it had been! We know he was trying to kill you, Handy, with those herbs he wanted to give you. And he’s such an obvious fraud, he’d have been a perfect fake sorcerer!’

  Lion frowned. ‘You mentioned those herbs once before. It seems strange, that. Seems an oddly half-hearted way to try to kill someone. And didn’t he give up rather easily?’

  ‘I just put it down to him being a devious bastard,’ I admitted.

  My brother said mournfully: ‘I suppose there’s no way he could have taken his own poison by accident?’

  ‘Or on purpose?’ Handy suggested.

  ‘I don’t see how, or why,’ I replied, ‘Which means we’ve got to start all over again – and look for someone else altogether!’

  6

  Lily had found Gentle Heart and Cactus as we had seen them. She had examined them herself, as best she could in the relative gloom of the midwife’s room, and had been considering what to do next when she had heard us outside.

  ‘I hid out here and waited.’ We had come into the house’s tiny courtyard, and now squatted or kneeled on the well-swept earth floor, taking deep breaths of fresh air that smelled of nothing worse than the city’s cooking-fires. ‘I didn’t want to show myself in case you were the killer, come back to make sure they were dead, though I should think he’s done that already, long since. I was just checking, peeping around the edge of the doorway before showing myself, when I saw you touching the stuff in that bowl. I was afraid you were going to try tasting it.’ She shivered. ‘I nearly made that mistake! If I had…’

  ‘What do you suppose it was?’ Lion asked. ‘Snake venom?’

  ‘I doubt if it was that,’ I said. ‘Whatever it was, it killed them both fairly quickly.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘They were clinging to each other. Do you suppose they were lovers? Maybe it was just for comfort. But the thing is, if the poison – whatever it was – hadn’t hit them both at pretty much the same time, they wouldn’t have been like that, would they? They’d have gone their separate ways. Cactus might have gone home. She might have gone out to deliver a baby or collect someone’s washing or whatever she did to make ends meet. And even if they’d both felt ill, how long would they have gone on holding each other while it ran its course? And the bowl’s still there, right beside them. Whatever it was, it worked a lot faster than snake venom.’

  ‘I can guess what it was,’ my mistress said. ‘Tobacco juice.’

  I looked at her with interest and a little concern. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Tobacco juice. You press the leaves and leave the juice to evaporate in the sun. What’s left will knock you out in moments and stop your heart before the day’s out. But it tastes bitter – so you mix it with chocolate.’ She returned my stare. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I asked weakly.

  She gave me a thin smile. ‘My father told me. He learned it in the lowlands, while he was trading there.’ Suddenly she laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Yaotl! How often do you think I’m likely to offer you chocolate?’

  ‘With these ingredients, once would be enough!’

  ‘I’ll remember this next time I want my pipe,’ said Lion drily.

  ‘Someone obviously gave it to them, mixed with the chocolate,’ I suggested. ‘The question is, who?’

  ‘Gave it to them – or one of them.’ Lily glanced over her shoulder into the house. ‘I bet it was Cactus who was the lucky recipient. He was supposed to be the curer, wasn’t he? The one who could get the herbs she needed to ply her trade?’

  I took up the idea. ‘But if he was the fake I think he was, then someone must have given the stuff to him. Slender Neck thought so. He was just a middleman, really. So whoever his supplier was must have decided it was time to get rid of him – with poisoned chocolate. But he chose to share the treat with his girlfriend Gentle Heart.’

  ‘Poor woman,’ Lily said softly.

  ‘“Poor woman”?’ Handy had settled himself against the wall of the house, a little apart from the rest of us, and up until now had squatted there in morose silence, keeping his thoughts to himself. Now that he chose to voice them, it was as an outraged cry. ‘“Poor woman”, you say! That poor woman killed my wife!’

  ‘Did she, though?’ I said thoughtfully.

  ‘You know she did! You were there, you heard what Slender Neck told us. You were the one who said she and Cactus were in it together. And what about those herbs he offered to Slender Neck? They were intended for Star, weren’t they? And he tried to kill the midwife when she refused them.’

  I corrected him. ‘Someone tried to kill her. We don’t know who that was. Now suppose Cactus genuinely had no idea what was in those herbs? When he tried to get Slender Neck to take them, he may just have been trying to drum up business. What if the same person gave poisoned herbs to Gentle Heart, only she was more gullible, or not skilled enough to know them for what they were? In fact... That’s it!’ I looked around at all of them excitedly, forgetting for an instant that we were talking about the deaths of Handy’s wife and the two people in the house beside us. ‘Whoever it was gave the poison to Cactus. He obviously persuaded him to offer it to Slender Neck, but she wasn’t having any. So she was put out of the way and Cactus was told to palm the stuff off on Gentle Heart instead. And when he wanted to give you those herbs, Handy, I bet he really thought they’d help – because the sorcerer had suggested it to him!’

  Lily said: ‘Then he’d have to know Handy and his family pretty well, wouldn’t he?’

  The commoner gaped at us both while he absorbed what we were saying. ‘You’re saying both Gentle Heart and Cactus were used by someone else? But who? I don’t know any sorcerers!’

  ‘What about your brother in law?’ Lily suggested gently.

  Handy made a rude noise through his nose. ‘Flower Gatherer? He’d never have the guts, or the brains!’

  ‘Whoever it was, you haven’t explained why he came back to kill these two now,’ Lion pointed out.

  ‘Maybe they weren’t useful any more.’ I considered the question. ‘He was afraid one of them would sooner or later figure out what had gone wrong with Star’s pregnancy, and didn’t want to risk keeping either of them live any longer than he had to.’ I looked at Handy. ‘I’m sorry, my friend, but the thing you’re going to have to accept is that Cactus and Gentle Heart were as much victims of this thing as your wife was. And there’s someone else out there, some associate of the otomi, who murdered all three of them.’

  7

  We walked from Gentle Heart’s house to the parish hall in Atlixco. It was not such a long distance that there was much to be gained by taking the canoe, which in any event was laden with the bodies of the midwife and Cactus. Lion intended to leave them to the authorities in the dead woman’s own parish. ‘They’ll need to record the deaths,’ he explained, ‘and it’s one less problem for us!’

  As the sun set and a blue-grey twilight enveloped the mountains, we found ourselves in the centre of Handy’s home parish. The plaza outside was all but empty, the traders having packed up their their wares and reed mats and gone. Now, shadowed as it was, with the squat bulk of the parish’s pyramid looming above it, the empty space had an air of menace that made me think twice about crossing it to get to the parish hall, even in company. And when I caught sight of a lone figure apparently trying to conceal himself against the outer wall of the building, I was convinced my worst fears had been realised.

  ‘Look out!’ I hissed at the others. ‘It’s an ambush!’

  To my amazement, Handy responded with a laugh. ‘No it isn’t, Yaotl. It’s only the Prick! Didn’t you tell me old Black Feathers was sending him out here as part of your escort?’

  ‘Him!’ Lily cried indignantly. ‘If we’ve got to deal with the otomi, I’d sooner do it alone than with him pro
tecting me!’

  Huitztic detached himself from the wall and walked towards us. I noticed he was limping. I wondered whether that meant lord Feathered in Black had ordered some of his followers – perhaps the hefty men who carried his litter – to vent his displeasure on his steward.

  My brother looked at him critically. With the limp and the extra weight he carried about his midriff, the Prick did not make a very convincing warrior, despite the sword that swung from his right hand. Lion and the steward were probably of an age – if anything, my brother may have been slightly the elder – but the Guardian of the Waterfront had never let himself go and despised anyone who did. He glanced scornfully at the weapon the other man was holding and said: ‘Are you sure you can remember how to use that thing?’

  Huitztic drew in his breath with a sharp hiss and I saw the sword in his hand twitch threateningly, but he thought better of whatever he had been about to do. Instead he tossed his head indignantly in the direction of the building behind him. ‘They won’t let me in!’

  ‘Who won’t?’ I asked, trying to conceal my amusement.

  ‘The morons in there! I told them I was the chief minister’s servant, but they kept going on about someone called Kite, and saying this was his parish, and he’d said... Well, you won’t believe it...’

  ‘Try us,’ I suggested.

  He swallowed audibly. ‘He’d let the chief minister in if he came in person and asked nicely, but not some... some...’

  ‘Flunky?’ my brother suggested.

  ‘Not imaginative enough,’ I said. How about “Some overweight geriatric who thinks he used to be a warrior?”’

  The steward stared at me. ‘How dare you!’ he spluttered. ‘Have you forgotten who I am?’