"It's not a ritual," I said at last. "At least, not per se. I just need you to provide a little… help."
We repaired to one of the examination rooms, under the hollow gaze of Mictlantecuhtli. As I'd asked, Ichtaca had gathered only offering priests for this – the novices would have been all too glad to take part in something like this, but they hadn't yet learned the fundamental lesson of the priesthood: that magic might be awe-inspiring, but that the heart of our devotions lay elsewhere. That Lord Death did not give us more than was needed, or grant us our prayers, but that we could rely on Him to stand by His rules, that he was not cruel or capricious, but merely there, awaiting us all.
And it was my role – and Ichtaca's – to teach them the importance of the small things, of the devotions at night, of the examinations of corpses with knives and small spells, of the offerings that came day and night to give their lives the rhythm of faith.
At the feet of each priest lay a pile of quetzal feathers, and a single lip-plug made of jade. On Ichtaca's signal, they cut a thin line across the back of their hands, and let the blood drip onto the feathers and jade.
Ichtaca – who was part of the circle, started chanting a hymn to Lord Death:
"Only here on earth, in the Fifth World,
Shall the flowers last, shall the songs be bliss,
Though it be feathers, though it be jade,
It too must go to the region of the fleshless."
Where the blood touched the feathers, they gleamed – a dark hue of green, the miasma of the underworld. A cold wind was blowing across the room, making the priests' grey cloaks billow like the wings of some gaunt and skeletal bird.
"It too must go to the region of mystery,
Only once do we live on this earth,
We came only to sleep, only to dream,
Only once do we live on this earth."
I took a deep breath, and tightened my grip on my obsidian knife. I had offered no blood, but that did not matter. To call on what I intended, I needed no offerings, merely my presence, there in the very centre of Lord Death's largest temple – I, who had been consecrated High Priest, invested with the breath of the underworld.
I felt it rise within me: the lament of the dead, the grave voice of the Wind of Knives, the careless smile and wide eyes of the Owl Archer, the hulking shapes of beasts of shadows – and everything that presaged Mictlan in the Fifth World: the old folk laid out on their reed-mats, struggling to breathe for yet another day; the peasants feeling the first aches in their backs, the first creaks of their joints; the women in the marketplace with their wrinkled faces and streaks of white in their hair; the children, learning that no year resembled the one past, and that time had caught them all, more surely than a fisherman's net; all those on the road to the throne of Lord Death – and to oblivion.
"In the house of the fleshless,
In the house with no windows,
We go, we disappear,
Only once do we live on this earth."
The world contracted. A cold feeling ran over my entire body, as if I'd just put on chilled clothes after some time standing before a brazier. And the feel of the underworld, instead of abating, continued unchanged. I saw the skulls under the faces of the priests – smelled the coming rot, and the blotches that would spread over their skins as the blood stopped flowing within their bodies.
I wouldn't be able to maintain it for long, for it took its toll on my own energy. I'd expected to be frightened, or disgusted, but I wasn't. Cocooned in a power as familiar to me as the taste of maize, I felt… at ease, relaxed even for the first time in days. I had lived with the awareness of death for years – not as a distant event in the future, but as real as the blank eyes of corpses, as the blotches on pallid hands.
It would have to do.
I crossed the Sacred Precinct as if in a dream. A cold wind blew around me, reducing the bustle of the crowd to the silence of the grave and the crackle of flames on a funeral pyre. Indistinct faces brushed past me, and the only things that seemed real were the shadows of the temples, from the round tower of Quetzalcaoatl the Feathered Serpent to the familiar pyramid shape of the Great Temple dwarfing the Sacred Precinct.
I didn't feel quite ready to face Teomitl yet – what would I have flung at him, save worries I couldn't quite substantiate?
Instead, I made my own way to the quarters of the Master of the House of Darkness and found him awake, tended to by his personal slave. One of the She-Snake's guards was at the entrance; he let me pass, though I knew he would soon be reporting my coming to his master.
The Master of the House of Darkness looked, if anything, worse than on the previous day – his raw skin shining in the morning sun, glistening with the particular glint of pus and scabs. His torn eyelids had puffed up, all but hiding his eyes. With my new, sensitive eyesight, I could trace the incipient rot in every streak on his forehead and cheeks and smell the swelling pus, a rancid odour that threatened to overwhelm the smoke of copal incense.
"My Lord," I said. "I am Acatl, High Priest for the Dead."
"I know who you are." The voice sounded slightly peeved. "I might be on my mat, but I'm no invalid, and certainly not at Mictlan's gates yet."
I wasn't entirely sure I agreed, but I didn't say anything. I sat cross-legged in front of him – an honoured visitor – and spoke as if nothing were wrong. I prayed his diminished eyesight wouldn't let him see the way my gaze wandered downwards – of that, if he did see, he would misinterpret it as a sign of respect.
"So," Pochtic said after a while. "Here to investigate the attack on me, then?"
"Among other things," I said, carefully. He was obviously used to be being in charge – which wasn't surprising, given his high position in the army. "Can you tell me more about what happened? I found the mask on the ground."
Pochtic's ruined face did not move. "He was waiting for me in my chambers. I never did get to see his face – before I knew it, he had me pinned, an arm locked around my neck. And then he slid the mask on." He gave a shudder – the act of memory itself was too painful. "I don't remember anything except waking here, afterwards."
He spoke like a warrior: frank, honest, not mincing words and making no efforts to hide anything.
Or did he? His account was not only fragmentary, but singularly unhelpful – as if he'd worked on it to give as little information as possible.
"Hmm," I said. "He grasped you by the neck. That would indicate a man taller than you."
His mouth set in a grimace – his hands clenched as the split lips contracted, opening up the hundred tiny wounds he'd sustained. "I suppose so."
With him lying down, it was hard to tell – but I remembered the ceremony of welcoming for the army, and the four members of the war-council following one another. Pochtic, in his crimson feathers and black-trimmed mantle, had towered over Teomitl – who wasn't very small himself, either. So either our assailant was uncannily tall, whether he was human or not – I could think of several creatures that would fit that description. Or…
I needed a way to look at his neck – one that would be discreet enough to draw no suspicion. If he was lying, and in some ways involved with the epidemic, the last thing I needed was to be spooking him.
If I rose now – with the words he'd spoken fresh in his mind – he would suspect something. I had to gain time, instead. "Asphyxiation," I said. "It's a common ritual used by the priests of Tlaloc."
"I have little to do with the Storm Lord," Pochtic said, not without disdain. "My service is dedicated to Tezcatlipoca the Smoking Mirror, Lord of the Near, Lord of the Nigh – and to the other gods of war."
"You don't think someone could have attacked you for precisely this reason?" I asked.
Pochtic snorted. "I maintain good relations with the gods and their priests. Nothing particular happened in the last few days that would justify this."
His eyes flicked, just a fraction, as he said that – and for a moment I saw raw fear in the pupils. He knew, or suspe
cted what he'd been attacked for.
What was going on?
"So you didn't know your assailant? You're sure that you wouldn't have caught a glimpse of him – have any inkling or any suspicion why you were picked for that kind of death?" I rose as I said that, and walked nearer to him – and, as I expected, Pochtic followed the direction of my voice, tilting his head upwards. His cloak slipped, a fraction, uncovering his neck and the top of his shoulders – a fraction, but it was enough for me to see that there was no mark whatsoever there.
No, wait.
There were faint bruises on both shoulders, not far from the neck area. I'd only had a short look at them before Pochtic settled down again, but they were familiar, from a thousand examinations. Palm marks, facing upwards. In other words, someone had forced Pochtic down on his back, and put the mask on – and left him here, flopping like a fish on dry land until the air in his lungs gave out.
Then he had seen his assailant – or a shadow, at least. Why lie about it?
"I've told you," Pochtic said. "I don't have any idea what's going on."
"You're a strong man," I said, slowly. "I'm surprised you were overwhelmed that easily."
Pochtic's eyes glittered with something I couldn't place – shame, fear? "He held me like a rag doll," he whispered. "And then I couldn't breathe. Do you have any idea how horrible it is – your lungs starting to burn, your mouth struggling to draw air through jade? I– all your life, you breathe. Day after day, moment after moment – and suddenly you can't see anything, can't focus on anything but how powerless you are?"
He was Master of the House of Darkness: a rich, powerful man, who had everything he could ever want – physicians waiting on him, servants to satisfy the least of his desires. Like Eptli, he believed himself designed for greatness – and then, in a moment, everything had been snatched from him. He had been reminded that – like precious stones which cracked and broke – he was destined for Mictlan, the underworld, the place of the fleshless.
I knew the fear in his eyes – I had felt it myself. But in him it seemed to be compounded with something I couldn't place. Did he lie about his assailant because the latter had been small, and he was ashamed? Or was it something else?
Either way, this wouldn't be solved here. To accuse him of lying would bring me nowhere and would only anger Tizoc-tzin further – not the most intelligent of ideas, given his current mood.
NINE
Enemies of the Empire
I was walking out of Pochtic's quarters, when, through a courtyard, I caught a glimpse of Teomitl, walking by a woman in a simple red skirt. She did not wear the two horns of married women, but there was an ivory comb in her hair. Her face was lathered with makeup, giving her skin the yellow sheen of corn, and she walked with the familiar, swaying allure of a woman used to seducing men.
A sacred courtesan. Xiloxoch? I couldn't see any other reason for him to talk to someone of her status – not now that he was married, in the process of founding a household of his own.
Though Teomitl didn't look seduced – if anything, he looked angry, the facets of his cheeks taking on the colour of jade, and his eyes hardening into small, glinting stones. The aura of his patron goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, Jade Skirt, was strong enough to hurt my eyes.
"Teomitl!" I called.
He slowed down a fraction, but barely acknowledged me. He was in regalia – not the peacetime one, but rather the frightful spectre, the war costume of the Master of the House of Darts. It made him look wild, untamed – from the dishevelled plume of quetzal feathers fanning out from the back of his hair, to his head, emerging from between the jaws of a sculpted skeletal beast. "This is Xiloxoch." He smiled, but the expression never reached his eyes. "Nezahual-tzin brought her to my quarters."
And what pleasure Nezahual-tzin would have derived from it, no doubt. "So you're accompanying her back to the House of Joy?"
Teomitl made a small, stabbing gesture with the back of one hand. "No. I'm taking her to the military courts."
"For visiting a prisoner?" Surely there was no law against this?
The light around Teomitl flared up, became blinding. "You don't understand, Acatl-tzin. Xiloxoch has serious accusations to make."
Against the prisoner? "I–"
The courtesan, Xiloxoch, spoke up. Her voice was that of an educated woman – most of the courtesans who attended the warriors in the House of Youth tended to be commoners, but she had obviously been taught by priestesses in the calmecac school. "Bribery and fraud," she said. Her teeth were black, the colour of unending night; her eyes, outlined with makeup, shone with determination. A driven woman, Nezahual-tzin had said. "Eptli has scratched the jade, has torn apart the quetzal feathers – dishonouring father and mother, and the gods that watched over him."
The sinking feeling was back in my stomach. "What did he do?"
"He corrupted the judges." Teomitl's voice was curt. "The two-faced son of a dog corrupted the war-council, under my own eyes."
But the war-council included him, surely? "The whole council?"
"The Master of the House of Darkness, and the deputy for the Master of Raining Blood." Xiloxoch's face twisted; it might have been a smile, but there was no joy in it. "The other deputy refused."
Pochtic. Coatl. And the other man, the one I hadn't seen more than for a few moments. "And Teomitl?" I asked.
Teomitl's face was a mask, his skin carved jade, his cheeks hollowed, and his eyes dark holes. "I was too much of a fool to catch what they were saying."
"That's a serious accusation," I said, very slowly. "Do you have any evidence?"
"We don't need evidence for the moment," Teomitl said, impatiently. "We need to warn the magistrates, so that they can arrest the culprits."
I raised a hand. Had he learned nothing? "Do you have evidence?" I asked Xiloxoch, again.
Her eyes were dark, and deep; her black-stained teeth shining in the oval of her face. "The behaviour of a dead man. The word of another. It's not easy, as you can see." She didn't smile. Her whole being seemed – taut, with something very like the will to seduce – somehow transfigured, shaped into an instrument of the law. Driven, Nezahual-tzin had called her.
But driven by what? The desire for justice, or one of Xochiquetzal's plots?
"It's a serious accusation," I said, finally. And, if it was true…
No. I couldn't be like Teomitl, and take risks as easily as I breathed.
"It's a serious crime," Xiloxoch said. Her voice took on the singsong accents of an admonition. "'The city has given you a plume of heron feathers, the city has given you paper clothes. You are the slave of the city, the servant of the people. Do not let your words ripen and rot.'" She did smile, then; and it was terrible to behold, a thing without joy.
I didn't like that. Whatever her motivations – and they had to be more complicated than a simple will for justice – it was still… troubling. "Coatl," I said, slowly. "Pochtic."
"Acatl-tzin–" Teomitl said, "You don't think–"
I wasn't in a state to think, that was the problem. "Eptli is dead. Coatl is in isolation. Pochtic has been savaged."
Xiloxoch hadn't moved – she stood as straight as a thrown spear, waiting with undisguised impatience. Still, she'd moved a fraction at the last – something about Pochtic was either news, or unexpected.
"Whatever testimony you have," I said to Xiloxoch, "it won't last long." And, to Teomitl: "You're wrong."
For a moment – a bare, fleeting moment – I saw the harshness of jade in his features, and the shadow that spread to his eyes – and I thought he was going to reprimand me, to deny my right as his teacher. But then he shook his head, and some of the tension in the air vanished. "Wrong? Prove it."
Think, think, Southern Hummingbird curse me. "I want to know what you have," I said to Xiloxoch. "Once again, it is a serious accusation that you bear. We can't act prematurely on that."
"I slept with Eptli, once or twice. He made – careless confessions, after he was spent."
Her lips twisted. "He was so sure of himself, that one. Didn't think for a moment that the captive would fail to be awarded to him." She spat on the ground; her saliva glistened on the dry earth.
"And you still slept with him." I understood her less and less – was her patron goddess Xochiquetzal behind that? The Quetzal Flower's intrigues tended to be far more vicious and far less complicated than that.
"He was handsome," Xiloxoch said, dismissively. "One might as well pick the prettiest ones."
"That's not a very strong reason," I said. "Why did you pick him, Xiloxoch?"
Master of the House of Darts: Obsidian and Blood Book 3 Page 13