by Zoe Saadia
On the far edge of the crumbling wall, a small figure perched daintily in a birdlike fashion, waving his hand excitedly, motioning with vigor. This time, she did not hesitate. That boy Ahuitzotl might have been a haughty thing in itself, but he wasn’t spiteful or mean, and he was the only familiar face here, a friendly one.
“What are you doing here?” she shouted, shielding her face against the glow of the afternoon sun.
He motioned again, more impatiently this time. “Come here and stop yelling.”
“You are yelling yourself,” she retorted, following the invitation, the good feeling evaporating once again.
He didn’t hurry to jump down, clearly enjoying his elevated position. “I’m not yelling. I was waving my hand. I was motioning you.”
“And a big difference it makes.” She shielded her eyes against the merciless light that was pouring straight into her eyes, hurting them. “Get down. I can’t talk to you when you are up there.”
He shifted with indecision. “I can’t. I have to be in there.” Another heartbeat of hesitation. “We are not allowed to sneak away. Only to watch the training.”
“But I need to talk to you, to ask you something,” she pleaded, suddenly needing his company, the good feeling he brought after the despondency following the humiliating incident on the Plaza.
“What?” He was still towering up there, like an emperor judging in court, aloof and above it all.
“It doesn’t matter.” The tears were back, blurring her vision. Stumbling on the uneven pavement, she turned away, catching the bulging part of the wall in order to keep her balance. She had had enough falls for one afternoon, hadn’t she?
“Wait.” Behind her back, the cobblestones creaked, rustling under the quick shuffling of his sandaled feet. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not,” she said, turning her face away.
“Yes, you are.” He broke into a quick sprint, darting ahead of her, blocking her way. “You are crying, you are! Why?”
“No reason.” She tried to push past him, but he was quicker, darting to and fro, obstructing her passage. “Let me pass!”
“I won’t.”
The way he stood there made her wish to chuckle against her will, his legs spread wide as though preparing to withstand an attack, his shoulders hunched forward. He was a tall boy, almost the same height as she was, thin but not stringy, satisfactorily broad. Still, she could take him, she decided, if tricking him into an unexpected push, then breaking into a run. He could not possibly beat her on that. She was a good runner, better than some boys on the marketplace.
“Why are you laughing now?” he demanded, his eyebrows knitted in a puzzled line.
“Because you are a spoiled little brat,” she told him, pleased with her power to make him angry. He was a spoiled little thing. “They don’t say ‘no’ to you very often, do they?”
“They do!” he cried out, his darkening eyes shooting thunderbolts. “And you are nothing but a filthy commoner from the filthiest pit of excrement in the filthiest corner of the marketplace!”
The colorful detail of such an inventive expletive made her burst out laughing almost against her will.
“Under the filthiest roof and with the filthiest floor and with the filthiest walls all around. You forgot that.”
Now it was his turn to giggle, though reluctantly.
“Now tell me what you were doing up there on the wall of the royal ball court.”
“Watching them training.” His hand waved in the general direction of the shouting and thuds. “We are made to watch when the city boys are taken to train. Old Yaotzin, he always insists. Every boy in the school has to come, because he’ll be training us soon too. He promised.”
“Don’t they let you run with the ball now? At least a little, when no one is playing?”
“No!” He reared away, staring at her as though she had just sprouted another head. “No one is allowed to touch the ball just like that. Only when you are training or participating in the game, and, even then, only the Master of the Game is allowed to hold it. You can’t –”
“I know the rules of the ballgame!” she cut him off impatiently, not about to be lectured who could touch the ball and under what circumstances. She had seen plenty of boys running around with their rubber treasure, tossing it to each other, trying to take the hits with their elbows and thighs alone. She had tried to do that too, several times, admittedly with little success. “The boys all over the marketplace are playing this game. Only your calmecac teachers make a special event out of it.” Before he could start puffing up again, preparing to give measure for measure – but couldn’t he go through one single conversation without trying to prove his worth – she rushed on, determined, remembering her initial reason for sniffing around this aristocratic Central Plaza. “The city boys that are playing now, those are the boys who learn in your calmecac? The older ones?”
He nodded sullenly, his lips pursed tight.
“And if I need to talk to one of them, how can I do that?”
“To talk to them?” He peered at her, wide-eyed, his previous grudge forgotten in this typical fashion of his, the trait she had noticed about him yesterday, the one that probably made him so likeable despite his snobbery and too easily igniting temper.
“Yes, to talk to them. You see,” for a good measure, she looked around, pleased to notice no passersby, not in this narrow square, tucked between the wall of the ball court and the crumbling side of a smallish pyramid with its peeling off plaster and lack of typical ornaments, “it’s very important. I need their help, help in finding someone.”
His eyes were turning larger by the moment. “Who?”
“A boy. A boy who has been missing since last night. He had been with them, you see, so maybe they know what happened to him, what he was planning to do. He works in my father’s workshop and he never is late or missing, but now he is. He hasn’t been around all day.”
A gust of chilly breeze made her shiver and tuck her festive huipil closer to her body. Or was it fear? Talking about Miztli’s absence aloud made her realize how truly dire the situation was. Something bad happened to this boy; something terrible, maybe.
“Who were the boys who were with him?” Oh, but this one was a quick little thing, understanding the essence of the problem, arriving at the proper course of action. What if he could help her if the other two calmecac boys wouldn’t?
“One of them was called Necalli. That was the name they used when addressing him all the time. He must have a spectacular full name.”
“Necalli?” He reared again, eyes still huge and round but full of indignation now. “Necalli sneaked out of school last night?”
“Well, yes,” she mumbled, remembering what this same mentioned Necalli told her about this boy Ahuitzotl, nothing complimentary or remotely nice. “I think he can help us…help us find Miztli. The missing boy, you see.” Would he be telling on Necalli now, letting the school authorities know about his running around at night? Oh, what a mess!
“Necalli is the worst piece of rotten fish, the most stinking loathsome pompous part of human excrement!”
Again she found it difficult not to snicker at the pictorial vividness of his swearing. “He is not that bad.”
“Yes, he is,” he insisted, spreading his legs wide again, his favorite argumentative pose. It had been only two meetings, but she felt as though she had known this boy for summers, like her little brother, so predictable.
“Well, I need to talk to him and you are the only one who can make it happen.” She wrinkled her nose, peering at him closely with a measure of mock pleading. “I need you to help me.”
He was still pouting, undecided. “You don’t need me to talk to him,” he muttered in the end. “You can go and talk to him all by yourself.” Still sulking, he motioned toward the wall and the clamor behind it. “He is out there, playing.”
“Playing ball?” she called out, elated.
“What else would he play?”
She paid his glowering no attention. “But I can’t just go in there, can I?”
He rolled his eyes. “You can’t now, but when they stop playing, you can sneak in and talk to them. They are always lingering, trying not to go back to school.” He snorted. “They are such lazy no-goods.” A frown crossed his pleasantly broad features. “No, only Necalli is no-good and lazy. The other boy, Axolin, is fine.”
“Oh, Axolin, yes.” She remembered the other one; a saucy, easygoing boy. Not as handsome as his friend and not as impressive, but a nice person as well.
“Was he out there with your workshop family member too?”
She shrugged, not about to give him more information than she had until now. Enough that her loose tongue might have put Necalli in trouble. “My cousin isn’t working in my father’s workshop. He is learning in telpochcalli, and they might admit him to your calmecac in the end.”
“But he is the one who went missing?”
“No, it’s the other boy, the one who does work in the workshop.”
He wrinkled his face in the funniest of fashions. “You are all strange.”
She tried not to snap at him or to avoid rolling her eyes. “Will you help me to sneak in and talk to them? Please?”
He pouted for no more than another heartbeat. “Come.” The motion of his head indicated the crumbling wall, his former favorite perch.
Chapter 10
Narrowing his eyes, Necalli watched the ball pouncing toward the mark on the wall, missing it by a fraction, bouncing off and straight away toward the dusty ground. His muscles strained, as though he was the one to run all over the field for the entire afternoon. He followed it with his eyes, craving to be near, to insert himself between the ball and the dusty pavement, even at the price of hurtful rubbing one’s back would sustain at such an exercise. Oh, but it was more painful to sit and observe, able to do nothing, he discovered. Such frustration!
Easing his shoulders, he watched the teacher motioning angrily, scolding the players nearest to the wall, Axolin among them. Against his will, he smirked, remembering the previous day. Back then, it was his turn to get scolded and yelled at and Axolin was smirking up here, passing his time chattering with silly children. Still, if offered, he would have switched places now. To merely watch was quite an ordeal. But for the stupid arm!
He glanced at the crude bandage, now sullied and stained after a whole day of school activities. He wasn’t offered any reprimands on account of his wounded limb, besides the demand to sit up here on the tribunes while the others battled the ball. Old Yaotzin made a face, grunting uncomplimentary things, yet not even demanding to inspect the wound. A relief, as the sight of the half burned, half ripped gashes would bring questions and he had no good story to offer, nothing that wouldn’t have challenged and inevitably get them caught in their web of lies. Luckily, this same arm in question was still slightly swollen, not badly but noticeably, convincingly, and that, together with bloody stains upon the crude leather, was what must have put the old veteran off the continued interrogation. Instead, he had been sent to the priests of the adjacent temple to have his arm examined and taken care of, then bidden to sit here and watch the game. A small comfort, but better than earning punishments. To be held over the steaming pot full of hot chili peppers, inhaling the hurtful stinging smoke they produced, was not his idea of a good time, even though at his advanced age, the punishment would be harsher surely. Younger pupils, like that annoying royal family pilli with the exotic name, would be liable for the joys of breathing in stinging peppers, which would only serve that one well, he decided.
As though answering his thoughts, this same irritating pilli sprang into his side view, making his way along one of the low walls and down it with the natural grace of a monkey, at home on the uncomfortably narrow edge. No water monster, this one. He shuddered at the mere memory, clutching his bandaged arm with the good one a little too tightly.
“What do you want?” he asked rudely as the boy landed beside him, perching on the peeling-off stones, ready to spring back to his feet. A restless piece of work.
“Nothing!” As expected, the stormy eyes and the direfully creased forehead were his answer.
“Then hop along.”
If the glares could have killed, he would have been done for, he reflected, grimly amused. That boy was a force of nature, a haughty royal brat or not. Why did he make him wish to put him in his place time after time? Axolin got along with this particular pilli well enough, and it wasn’t wise to antagonize royal family. This one’s brother was Tenochtitlan’s Emperor, and his mother and father both offspring of the previous mighty rulers.
“If you want to stay, sit quietly and watch the game.”
“That’s no game. They are just training.”
“That’s game enough for you.” Rolling his eyes, he tried to will his irritation away. “Old Yaotzin will put you down there soon enough, to be squashed by the ball all around, but until then, that’s the most game you can get.”
“My brother will be playing with his nobles and warriors in a market interval from now and I’ll be invited to watch.” The boy tossed his head high, his short pointed nose facing the sky loftily, with a clear meaning. “That’s more to see than your silly training.”
“Good for you.” He shrugged with as much indifference as he could muster, as though to be allowed to watch the Emperor challenging the best of his warriors for a ballgame was nothing out of the ordinary, an everyday occurrence. But to be allowed to witness something like that! “Careful that old Yaotzin doesn’t hear you talking like that about his lessons. The smoking peppers are just the thing to better your afternoon.”
“If you tell on me, I’ll let him know all about your running away from school yesterday.”
“You what?” Forgetting all about the Emperor and the nobles and the ball that once again kissed the ground, drawing a new outburst of reprimands and lecturing on the stern teacher’s part, Necalli stared at his unwanted companion, speechless for the moment.
“I’ll tell on you if you tell on me,” was the laconic answer, the level eyes facing him, flinty and unafraid.
“If you dare as much as to let out a peep…” he began, then thought better of it. One didn’t threaten to beat up imperial brothers. “Forget it, you little piece of dung. I wasn’t going to tell on you speaking silly things, even if you do run around spreading stories about me. I don’t care.” He forced out a shrug, his limbs still stiff with fury. “Also, I didn’t run away from school. I went out when we all were allowed to go out, to visit our families.”
“But you didn’t go to your family home,” called out the boy, triumphant.
“That’s none of your filthy interest, little turkey.”
“The girl you were running around with told me all about it,” went on the annoying whelp, unimpressed.
That brought him back to the unseemly staring. “Who?”
“The commoner girl.”
“Chantli?” It surprised him that he did remember her name, having thought of her since yesterday, occasionally yes, but in a fragmented way. “Why would she be telling you any of it? And how do you know her at all?”
The victorious glow didn’t dim. Oh, but the filthy thing was happy to have an upper hand, even if temporary, the little pest. “Because she was looking for you just now, that’s why. She said that the boy you’ve been with is missing and she wanted you to help her finding him.”
“Oh!” He tried to process this flood of information, from his puzzlement that the haughty royal offspring would know the workshop commoner girl and on such intimate terms, to the missing boy who needed his help in order to be found. What had Patli got himself into?
“Yes, and she is still out there, you know. I promised her to bring you out.”
“What? Now?” The pieces of the puzzle kept falling together. Oh yes, she was bragging about her friendship with this same Ahuitzotl, wasn’t she, claiming that he was a nice boy and that he told her plenty of g
ossip straight away from the Palace’s halls. “Where is she?”
“Out there. I just told you.” The satisfied glitter made him wish to strike the presumptuous little beast whatever the consequences. “You are slow.”
“Don’t push it!” He bit his lower lip, willing his thoughts into calmer directions. “I’ll tell you what. Take me to her, but then make yourself scarce. Go back here and watch that Yaotzin doesn’t look this way.”
The boy sprang to his feet readily, as though pushed by the stones under his bottom. “Don’t give me orders. I’ll stay if I want to.”
“No, you won’t!” But the regular annoyance with the pushy brat didn’t come. “Stop arguing and lead the way.”
The renewed fighting for the ball drew their attention with its loudness and the lively shouting, offering possibilities. Half bent behind the cover of a stone parapet, they slipped alongside it, then leaped for the next cover of the old wall.
“I’m not climbing that,” hissed Necalli when his companion leaped up the crumbling stone. “It will put us in a clearer spot than to yell to old Yaotzin outright.”
“It’ll take you ages to go around it.” As expected, the little beast pushed his way up, not even bothering to turn his head for a reply.
Necalli eyed his bandaged arm, glad to channel his irritation toward it. His lack of climbing skills was not an issue, not now. Warriors didn’t climb like monkeys, not Jaguar and not Eagle elite warriors.
“Wait for me there and tell her to do the same.”
While slinking along the towering stones of another higher wall that separated the court from the Revered Tezcatlipoca’s temple and pyramid, he thought about what had been said. So that pretty Chantli’s cousin got himself in trouble, the cowardly piece of rotten fish that he turned out to be, and out of all people, she came to him, asking for help. The smile threatened to sneak out, unheeded and uninvited. She could have gone to her father, the workshop owner and Patli’s uncle, couldn’t she? Or she could have even asked for the help of the courageous apprentice, the barefoot villager with a spectacular name. Obsidian Puma, of all things! But this boy’s father must have been hopeful while reading his son’s calendar upon the day he was born. Was this why he sent the promising thing to Tenochtitlan, the Capital of the World? To slave in the workshop and be snubbed by everyone who felt like it, even the annoying Patli – some glorious future!