"Why not?"
She pointed to her tear-stained, pockmarked face, more sobs breaking free.
"You are still stunningly elegant," Malinali assured her.
Tecuichpo shook her head. "He used to smile at me, but now he won't even look at me. Have you any idea how painful it is to be your father's joy but end up another man's annoyance?"
Malinali flinched at Tecuichpo's unthinking words, and the memories they set free: her father's laughing face as he whirled her in the air while she giggled, exhilarated, his long black hair flowing so freely around him as he spun; that grey, rainy day when her mother sat crying before the hearth, surrounded by sodden warriors informing her that they'd found her husband's body floating in one of the city's canals; and of those loathsome glares her mother's new husband gave her every time she spoke. Looking at him was like staring into the eyes of an indifferent god. I know exactly how painful it is. A choke rose in her throat.
"I'll die never knowing the warmth of a man's loving embrace," Tecuichpo muttered.
That makes two of us. "Consider yourself lucky. It hurts dreadfully the first time, and there are plenty of men who don't care if it's unpleasant every time after." When her mistress frowned, horrified, she cursed herself. "Never mind me, My Lady. Things will work out, and you and Cuauhtemoc will have a palace full of beautiful children."
Tecuichpo smiled. "He is so very handsome, isn't he?"
"Extremely." Not a lie, but Malinali was careful to keep such thoughts locked away, where they couldn't render her foolish, as they used to not all that long ago. "Now get your rest."
¤
Malinali was still in Tecuichpo's quarters, and with her scornful response to his questions earlier, Cuauhtemoc decided he'd rather avoid her right now. Besides, his heavy, formal clothing wore on his nerves—especially the enormous headdress that kept slipping down every time he moved his head. He needed to be dressed comfortably before he spoke with his wife, so he continued down the hall, to the doorway at the end, the one with the crimson curtain emblazoned with his royal crest. The two guards standing watch outside stood straighter as he approached. "Inform me when Lady Tecuichpo's servant leaves," he said as he passed between them.
The fire burning in the anteroom hearth cast heat and orange light into the darkness of his quarters. It was one very large room divided into four smaller sections, each separated by folding screens painted with images of the gods. A long blue curtain could be pulled across the bedroom area for privacy.
His three male body servants relieved him of his crown of quetzal feathers and his bulky gold and silver necklaces. He stood perfectly still while they worked, his arms out at his sides, to facilitate speed. They worked without a word, taking expert care to not touch his bare skin as they removed his robe and slid off the jade arm and calf bands. They took his discarded clothing to the large dressing room off his sleeping quarters, but he shook his head when one of them returned with his night shirt. "Get my xicolli with the egrets. I have business before bed."
With a wordless nod, the servant disappeared behind the maguey-cloth screen and reappeared a moment later with the shirt. With another servant's help, they pulled it over his head and straightened it while the third held up a polished obsidian mirror so Cuauhtemoc could approve his appearance. One of them then held out his gold and turquoise diadem, which he wore for daily use, but he shook his head. He wanted to speak to Tecuichpo as her husband, not her king.
He dismissed his body servants, then retreated to the back of his sleeping quarters to stare out into the moonlit garden below. His thoughts wandered to his former wife Cuicatl—dead three years now—and the last time they'd spoken. He'd made her cry after they argued about Tecuichpo; they always argued about her, about how he'd been too cowardly to stand up to those ridiculous rules made by old men that supplanted his first wife in favor of a child already twice married. He'd left to stay in his father's old palace on the other side of the sacred precinct, to get peace from her. He even turned away messengers—a decision he'd regretted every day since. By morning she was dead and he'd had no chance to make better with her, no chance to tell her one last time that he loved her. And he only got to hold his newborn son after Lord Death had claimed him as well. The boy was so tiny and fragile; he fit in Cuauhtemoc's outspread hand.
"Lady Tecuichpo is alone now, My Lord," the guard announced, and Cuauhtemoc choked back the sting rising in his chest. With a nod, he left his quarters and went down the hall.
A young slave woman sat outside his wife's door, keeping watch in case Tecuichpo needed anything in the middle of the night. The servant boy came up the stairs too, balancing a tray filled with a fired-clay kettle and two gilded cups. "I'll take that," Cuauhtemoc told him and the boy nodded, keeping his eyes downcast. Another of those pointless rules meant to make him feel like a god, but it only isolated him. He preferred that people look him in the eye, so he could ascertain their true character. He pressed his way past the yellow door curtain, taking care not to rattle the copper bells sewn into the hem.
Tecuichpo's quarters were a smaller version of his own, with nature scenes painted on the maguey screens. The curtain partitioning off her sleeping quarters was open wide, and she lay with her back to the door, seemingly asleep. But then she turned and blinked at him. "My Lord." She pushed herself to a sitting position.
Cuauhtemoc set the tray on the floor next to the bed of thin mats before sitting down. "I hope I didn't wake you."
"I wasn't asleep." She wiped her eyes, reminding him of his own daughter when he woke her in the middle of the night. "I was hoping you'd come to see me."
The breathless way she said this formed a knot in his gut. "It is a special day." He focused on pouring the chocolate, so he didn’t have to see the longing in her eyes. Still, she simpered when he handed her a cup.
After losing not only her first two husbands but her father as well, she'd needed someone to look up to as a parent, and he'd taken up that task—he owed it to her to be fatherly, since the gods had demanded he remove her father from this life, for the good of the empire—but that decision had now created a whole new set of problems. She was a grown woman, old enough to bear his children, but he didn't see her that way. To him she was still a scared little girl who'd knelt next to him in the great hall, confused as the high priest of the Feathered Serpent tied her dress to yet another man's cape. Would that ever change?
Well, you better at least try, for her, for the empire. He drained his own cup, hoping to unclench his gut. "How are you feeling today?"
"Strong," she said, her voice eager. "Best I've felt in months."
"That's good." He stared into his cup, trying to think of something else to say.
Tecuichpo spoke first though. "I've been looking forward to tonight for a very long time, My Lord." She moved closer; not enough to touch him, but so very close. "We don't have to wait anymore."
Too close. And too soon. He stood, getting as much distance between them as he could without looking as if he was running away. "I'm not going to bed you tonight, Tecuichpo." He took a deep, calming breath once he'd said it.
Tears wetted her eyes. "But why not?"
Ayya! You made her cry...just as you made Cuicatl cry. Sitting again, he took her hands in his, holding them together. "You're still sick. It takes time to recover from the Spanish Plague—"
"I feel fine."
"That may be, but if you became with child...it would kill you. We must wait until you're fully recovered."
"But what if I never recover?"
He squeezed her hands. "You will."
But she tore her hands away from him. "It's because I'm so ugly and deformed, isn't it?"
"You're not ugly—"
"Then you must still think me a child." When he hesitated, she gave a hollow laugh and glared at the ceiling. "So I am a child to you."
"That's not true." He couldn't meet her gaze though. "I need time. For the last three years, you've been like a daughter to me—"
/> "I'm not your daughter! I'm your wife!" She moved away to pace in front of the hearth. She looked so tiny in front of it. "I didn't ask to be your wife, Your Grace."
Cuauhtemoc shot to his feet too. "And I didn't ask for you either. I already had a wife, but sometimes we must do things we don't want to."
She turned her smoldering glare on him. "Indeed we do."
He glared back at her until the insinuation sank in. "No, this discussion is over. I've given my reasons why we will wait and you will respect that. Which of us is the huey tlatoani?"
She snorted then turned away, stewing.
Annoyed with himself, Cuauhtemoc shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I need time to get to know you better, and you need that time to fully recover. I lost one wife to childbirth, and I won't risk losing you too."
Tears in her voice, she asked, "Why did you even come tonight then?"
"I wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten about you."
She only sniffled louder.
He sighed. "We'll talk more tomorrow." He turned to leave.
"I saw you gawking at my handmaiden," she fired at him.
Cuauhtemoc froze with the door curtain half open. She made it sound so tawdry.
"If you touch her—"
"I’m not interested in her, Tecuichpo—"
But she whirled on him like a furious goddess, fists clenched. "If you touch her, I will see that the Black Dog visits you in your own bed!" She snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide, aghast at what she'd said.
Cuauhtemoc stared back at her, equally incredulous, until one of his guards poked his head past the curtain. "Are you all right, My Lord?" The guard made his spear clearly visible.
Tecuichpo blanched, making her look sicker than usual.
"I'm fine." Cuauhtemoc waved the guard off, and once the man moved away, he turned his hot stare back to Tecuichpo, his jaw set tight. "I'll speak to you tomorrow."
"My Lord—"
"Good night." He let the curtain fall behind him as he left, the copper bells drowning out her objections.
Chapter Two
When Malinali went to fetch Lady Tecuichpo's morning atole, an eerie silence fell over the kitchen. Everyone stared as she ladled the watery maize-meal mash into a bowl and added honey, forcing her to wait until she was in the hallway alone before adding the medicinal herbs. The same disquieting silence lay over the halls too, so she hurried up the stairs to the royal living quarters on the second floor, eager to fill that void with Tecuichpo's cheery greetings.
She stopped short when she saw the emperor's bodyguards standing outside Tecuichpo's quarters. Had Cuauhtemoc stayed the night there? Should she come back later, after he'd left?
But when a black-robed priest pushed his way past her—a stench of rot following him—and went into Tecuichpo's quarters, Malinali edged forward, her stomach sinking. The guards made no move to bar the door from her, so she went inside, her nerves buzzing.
Priests, doctors and slaves crowded her mistress's rooms. The girl who usually sat outside the door overnight huddled in the corner, sobbing, her arms wrapped around her head. Cuauhtemoc stood next to the bed, his face hard set as he turned something over and over in his hand. On the bed, Tecuichpo lay in deep sleep.
Yet when Malinali pressed closer, she realized her mistress's chest lay too still for sleep. Dear gods, she's dead! Uttering a strangled cry, she dropped the bowl and it shattered with a heavy thud, covering her bare feet with warm atole. "What happened?"
"Lady Tecuichpo has passed on to Mictlan," one of the priests answered, his blood-wetted hair hanging around his face like decapitated snakes.
"Her heart gave out on her, from her prolonged illness." Cuauhtemoc squeezed whatever he held in his hand. "I found her dead when I came to see her this morning."
The priests and doctors cast him questioning looks.
Another lie. Malinali stared at Tecuichpo's body, not trusting herself to not glare at him in front of everyone. You honored your wedding night promise and it killed her, didn't you? You couldn't wait until she was stronger, could you, you murdering dog?
"Everyone but the priests out, now," Cuauhtemoc ordered. "They have much work to do, to prepare her for her funeral." He knelt to set a stone on the bed next to Tecuichpo; it was one of the polished jade stones husbands gave their wives the day they laid their wedding bed—a promise to give them children.
Malinali clenched her own fists, overwhelmed by the urge to hit him, but instead she left, thankful for the dismissal. She followed the others, keeping to the back of the group until she reached the first floor, then she broke away and ran for the slave quarters, shaking.
Only a few women sat in the common room when she arrived and they called out their condolences, but she didn't answer as she hurried past. She slashed aside the patio doorway's dirty white curtain and stormed out into the bath yard, which was empty except for two square steam bath houses. Thankfully the women's one was empty when she ducked inside.
Falling to her knees on the damp reed mats, she let out a whooshing breath, as if someone had kicked her in the chest. "He killed her! He killed her!" she gasped, her snarls giving way to sobs.
Someone pulled aside the mat covering the doorway but Malinali didn't recognize the face through the blur of tears. "Are you all right?" It was her friend Xochitli's voice.
Malinali shook her head. "My Lady...."
Xochitli pulled her into a hug. "I know. It's all over the palace. The poor girl." She patted Malinali's back. "Certainly you knew this was a possibility? She wasn't the same when she came back from Huaxtepec."
"She was getting better," Malinali insisted. "This shouldn't have happened."
"Certainly no one did anything to her." When Malinali didn't answer, Xochitli gasped. "Did someone hurt the huey tlatoani's wife?"
"He killed her," Malinali muttered again between hiccupping sobs.
"Who?"
Malinali nearly growled Cuauhtemoc's name, but someone might overhear them; the more incessant gossips took great joy in spreading every little rumor they heard. "No one," she mumbled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm just upset."
Xochitli smoothed her friend's hair from her face. "I know Lady Tecuichpo meant a great deal to you, so losing her must be like losing a child."
Her friend's words meant to comfort but instead they cracked open the jars in Malinali's heart where she stored the memories she couldn't bear to look at anymore. Such as holding her son Ollin for the first time, making her chest swell with more love than she'd ever thought possible. Or the potent terror when his father wrestled the boy from her arms. "He was never yours, slave, no more than I ever will be."
"Are you all right?" Xochitli asked, concern creasing her brow.
Malinali nodded. "I'm going to wash then report to the head steward for reassignment. I’m certain the kitchens will need help with the funerary feasts."
Xochitli nodded. "We honor Lady Tecuichpo by performing our duties to her family the best we can."
Including Cuauhtemoc? Remembering how he'd stared at her last night made her shiver. I suppose six years without being forced to be my master's bed toy is as long a reprieve as the gods will grant me this time.
¤
"Poison?" Ixtlil waved off the servant offering him another steaming golden tortilla. He and Cuauhtemoc sat on feathered mats at a stone slab cluttered with platters of food in the royal gardens, under the broad-branched copal tree.
The colorful, whistling parrots overhead usually made for a calming ambience, but today they gave Cuauhtemoc a headache. He motioned for the servant to take the birds away and the man quickly gathered their tethers and left with them. "She did it after I left." Cuauhtemoc poked absently at his fried quail eggs. "Made that poor slave girl show her where the gardeners kept it, then she mixed it with the chocolate I left there."
Ixtlil cleared his throat. "Not to be insensitive, but...certainly you weren't that bad."
Cuauhtemoc chuckled mirthlessly. "She
did it because I wouldn't bed her."
"What...why...why ever not?"
"She was still sick and so fragile, and...." Cuauhtemoc averted his gaze to the pair of silent quetzal birds watching him from the wooden cage next to the stone table. "She was like a daughter to me, Ixtlil. It didn't feel right."
"I could see that."
Cuauhtemoc shook his head. "I should have made more effort to see her as a grown woman. I drove her to this." He ran his hands over his face, feeling too sick to eat. "And she accused me of sleeping with her handmaiden."
"You were leering at her last night."
"Looking and leering are two different things. I look at women whereas you leer."
"Thank you for that clarification," Ixtlil said with a chuckle. "Not that it's Tecuichpo's business if you have your way with the servants. The huey tlatoani is entitled to his pleasure."
"I'm not interested in bedding Malinali, and I said as much to Tecuichpo last night."
"And she believed that as readily as she believed she could take as many lovers as she wanted and you wouldn't blink about it? You didn't call this insignificant slave girl by her name last night, did you?"
"Call who by their name?" an older woman asked from the doorway to the garden. Her bright, red-feathered robe announced her arrival louder than her voice as she swept up to the table, her personal guards following at a discreet distance.
Cuauhtemoc rose to embrace her, and when she held her cheek out for a kiss, he obeyed. "I thought you went back to Tlatelolco last night, Mother."
She knelt on one of the mats, making certain her feathers lay smoothly over her lap as a servant brought her a platter of food. "Good thing I decided to stay. Was our dear Lady Tecuichpo truly poisoned?" When Cuauhtemoc nodded, she added, "Why hasn't the servant been executed yet?" She gave her son a pointed stare.
He reclaimed his mat. "The handmaiden didn't poison her. My Lady took it willingly."
His mother wrinkled her nose. "There's no honor in taking your own life. I hope Lord Death punishes her appropriately; no eternal rest for putting you through this."
Fugitives of Fate Page 2