by Zoe Saadia
But the first man shielded his eyes against the fierceness of the sun, his words nothing but a menacing growl. “They caught him already. But for the stupid cubs!” His hand raised again, swift and decisively heavy, but this time, she saw Necalli ducking and the slap that might have pushed him off his feet with the power of it brushed against the side of his disheveled topknot, harmless. “You filthy cub!”
As Necalli’s assailant groped for his shoulder, with the clear intention of doing better with his fists this time, Chantli felt her heart coming to a halt.
“No, please wait! You don’t understand. He speaks the truth, he does! That boy out there, you should let him go. He is very important. You can’t harm him. It will harm you if you do. Please, you must listen to him, please! Necalli is the best student in his calmecac; he isn’t lying.”
The second man still looked as though not about to give up on violence as a means of venting his frustrations, knowing what his rights were, yet his companion frowned soberly, his narrowed gaze sliding down the calmecac boy’s battered body, clearly taking in the patterns of the torn cotton cloak. His eyebrows knitted into nearly a single line.
“What are you doing here and why in such state, boy?”
Necalli’s face turned stonier, even though it was anything but relaxed before. “We… we got lost in the lake waters, under the old causeway.” His tongue came out briefly, licking the cracked lips. “I… I know it’s not something we should have been doing. In calmecac, we’ll receive the deserved punishment and,” another lick of the colorless lips, “and we won’t seek adventures again.”
“Who are these ‘we’?”
“I and that boy out there in the boat,” he said readily, too readily. She saw the eyes of their interrogators narrowing again, the other warriors nearing, dragging the resisting Ahuitzotl along. “He was trying, trying to help us return back to school.”
“There are no lessons in schools today!” exclaimed the second man, grabbing Necalli by his upper arm, squeezing hard. She saw the boy’s lips pressing tighter, losing the last of their coloring. “You are lying to us, you filthy piece of human excrement. And what’s with the girl?” The furious eyes leaped to her, piercing. “What are you not telling us?”
“He tells the truth, all of it!” she cried out, pressing her hands to her chest, her stomach twisting. “Please. You must believe us. We just want to… to go back home, and we won’t, won’t come here again, won’t cross the old causeway –”
“You what?” The first man’s eyes grew so wide they turned almost round. “You came from Tenochtitlan? You… you are Tenochtitlan pillis?”
She tried to think of something to say, her heart making strange leaps inside her chest, informing her that something went wrong, terribly wrong. She had said something that shouldn’t have been said. But what?
Necalli thrust his chin yet higher. “Yes, we are,” he said proudly, his haughty calmecac self again, this time welcomed most eagerly. “We are of noble families, and to be treated as such.”
The warriors exchanged openly contemplative glances. “Tenochtitlan noble cubs, eh? Running around the right place at the right time…”
“Have been to the Plaza and the morning competition as well, I bet. Have you?” The second man thrust his face closer, threatening again.
“No, we haven’t been to the Plaza,” she heard Necalli saying, his voice surprisingly calm but strident, having a lower tone to it. “As I said, we came upon this shore by mistake. We have –”
“Save your breath, boy.” The heavyset man shook his prisoner hard. “Tell your tales to the noble persons who’ll be asking you questions. Then you’ll have plenty of opportunities to talk, more than you might wish to.” The wide lips pressed tighter. “The Head Adviser will wish to see them, won’t he?”
His companion just shrugged, then turned his head in the direction of the heated protests that exuded from the group of the ascending warriors, heralding the reappearance of their royal company in the worst timing ever. Numb again, Chantli turned to stare.
Pressed between two sturdy-looking men, partly dragged, partly carried, Ahuitzotl was kicking viciously whichever way, his red-hot harangue spilling twenty words for a heartbeat, each expletive more colorful than the previous one.
“A high-spirited beast.” The leading man among the newcomers frowned. “What to do with him? Take him to the judge of the nearest district?”
Their captors exchanged quick glances, their eyes narrowing against Ahuitzotl’s wrinkled but still perfectly whole cloak, the richness of its embroidery peeking from behind the generous cover of mud, the turquoise of his sandals’ straps glittering, undamaged by their nighttime adventures.
“Who are you, boy?” After another exchange of glances, Chantli’s captor released his grip on her arm, letting it drop with pronounced contempt, unimpressed with her maguey garments, barely there by now, her best huipil a muddied rag from under which the edges of her skirt hung in torn, muddied shreds. A sight, but the one that clearly put her off the suspected list, at least for the moment.
“I’m the Emperor’s brother and when Axayacatl hears what transpired here, he will level this entire city and make a huge marketplace out of it!”
The newcomers rolled their eyes, having probably heard worse promises while dragging their prey out of the lake, but Necalli’s captor’s eyes widened again, with much apprehension.
“Which brother are you, boy? What is your name?”
“Ahuitzotl!” spat the boy with such fury, even Chantli felt like stepping aside and away. His eyes glowed like a pair of coals. “And if you don’t let us all go now, I promise you that Tenochtitlan will make your pitiful island sink under the water and he will never let you as much as take your own lives when you beg us to let you do that.”
More spirited harangue flowed like a river of fire, like a melted copper when it has been kept in an impossibly hot brazier for longer than half a day. People were heading their way, groups of younger warriors and other well-dressed folk, while the rest just spilled all around, raising the commotion to impossible heights.
Among all this, she felt a palm brushing by her side, drawing her attention back to Necalli.
“Run,” he breathed into her ear, leaning as close as the grip of his captor allowed him. “Run for the shore and hide there. Find Axolin. Do it now, before they remember.” His eyes glimmered steadily, relaying no fear, giving her power. “Now!” Another fraction of a heartbeat and he motioned with his head, a light imperceptible movement. Go, his eyes told her, go and get help.
She didn’t think it all through. An opening to her left beckoned, the warriors’ attention on the combative royal boy undivided. As though all lowlifes of the Underworld were after her, she bolted toward the trampled-on grass, its brown and green glowing in the strong high noon sun, slippery and full of pits.
Putting it all into this concentrated attempt, she skirted around the multitude of obstacles, people standing or strolling, waving their hands, talking agitatedly. So many warriors! Difficult to clear one’s way in such a commotion, difficult to tell if she was being chased.
Not looking around, she pressed on, panicked, not knowing where she was heading. Away from their captors. To get help! What help? Who would help them? Limping Axolin or barely conscious Patli with his bleeding head? But maybe they’d know what to do. She had to find them and tell them.
An upward tilt in the ground sweeping under her feet and a quick glance around told her that she had been heading in the wrong direction. No more damp grass made her feet struggle against the slippery surface. Now it was the dusty pavement, the cracking stones, warm and pleasant to the touch on her partly bare skin, her sandals flopping, threatening to fall off. People were crowding all around even worse than down there by the shore, staring at her; well dressed, good-looking people, no marketplace scum. She tried to make her mind work, her breath coming in gasps, head reeling. But she needed to get away from these crowds! Then she’d manage to find h
er way back to the shore, the one where Axolin and Patli were loitering. Why couldn’t they sense her predicament and come out and help?
Just as she felt that her heart was going to burst if she didn’t stop, bouncing off yet another blurry form, the passerby’s exclamations loud and full of indignation, a low wall loomed ahead, blocking her way. Blinking, she tried to see her way past it, unable to go, doubling over to catch her breath, not worried about her possible chasers, not anymore. Let them catch her and drag her wherever they wanted. It was hopeless anyway. No one would help them, no one would come to their rescue. Unless she managed to find the causeway, to cross to Tenochtitlan maybe, run to her father and brothers and beg them to help. Would they agree?
The tears were near now, not tears of exhaustion but of sadness and fear. She wouldn’t be in time to help Necalli or Ahuitzotl. They would die like the village boy, that nice closemouthed Miztli, such a welcome addition to their household, and such a short one. She wasn’t in time to bring help, and his blood sprinkled that old temple’s floor back in Tenochtitlan, and she would be as late for the others. Useless and late and of no help, and…
“Chantli?”
The loudness of the outcry made her look up, not encouraged and not curious but just startled. From behind the polished stones of the wall, a face peeked out, peering at her with intensity.
Recognizing the familiar widely pronounced features – but did she bring the village boy back here with the mere power of her thinking? – she gasped, blinking to make her vision clear. He didn’t look like an apparition, a ghost from the Underworld, dead for more than a day now. Ghosts didn’t sport cuts and bruises, and his face was dotted with them, colorful and pale at the same time. Also, his eyes were wild and too widely opened, as though in shock. But was it possible to surprise a ghost in this way?
Before she could say something, try to reason or ask questions, he grabbed her upper arm forcefully, pulling her into the dimness behind the wall’s opening, again unseemly determined and sure of his actions. Disoriented, she tried to make sense out of it, still out of breath and reeling.
“Chantli, what are you doing here?” he gasped, barely visible now in the dimness of the strange low-roofed building, nothing but a shadow, but there.
Yet as her eyes grew accustomed to the meagerness of this new illumination, she could see that they weren’t alone. A girl of about her age, or probably younger, judging by the angularity of her limbs, was staring at her, her scowl well pronounced.
“Who is this?” she was asking, a grudge in her voice, like that of a petulant child, impossible to miss. “Who is this girl and how do you know her?”
He was frowning painfully, blinking as though trying to make his mind work.
“This is Chantli,” he said slowly, chewing his lower lip. “She… she is the best girl in the World of the Fifth Sun.”
And that made it all right again.
Chapter 17
To see Chantli racing up that narrow side alley made Miztli’s head reel, even though, in some way, it fit the bizarreness of this entire day. Combined with the previous night, it should have left him immune to surprises. Still, when he had seen her dashing up the dusty cobblestones, out of breath and clearly in a panic, he wanted to pinch himself in order to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
Even now, with her calming gradually, looking less like a cornered animal in the tranquility of yet another cozily hidden hideaway his forceful Tlatelolcan new companion called Tlemilli – or just Milli, as she was quick to inform him in her decisive hurriedly chatty way – had found despite her claim that she had never been so far out in the city before, he still felt as though he might have imagined her, having finally gone mad on account of the wild happenings.
“What… what is going on?” he asked her again, deciding to treat this new puzzlement in the same vein of placidness no matter how wild or unreasonable – the lasting lesson of the previous night and the day. “Whom were you running from?”
Her gaze flickered with a renewed bout of panic. “Oh, the warriors… out there on the shore… oh, you wouldn’t believe, they were so, so scary!” Wide open, her eyes clung to him, imploring. “You must help them! Necalli and Ahuitzotl. You must help them. You must… Now that you are here and alive, and in good shape, and not wounded... Are you?” Her gaze darted wildly, scrutinizing him, widening upon reaching his feet, turning astounded.
His sandals, he knew, that most uncomfortable piece of clothing, something he would have gotten rid of but for the girl Tlemilli. She would be shocked, wouldn’t she? But for her, he would have kicked off the stupid pieces of leather readily, their maguey strings wrapped around his ankles, rubbing his skin into sores, trying to slip off for good, the layered soles flapping uncomfortably, hindering his step.
However, as long as she had hurried beside him, trying to show him the way to the shore ahead of the rest of the crowds, herself clad in glaringly expensive garments, colorful and crisp, as though never worn before, all the splendor of softest cotton and expensive embroidery, it felt wrong to get rid of the uncomfortable but necessary wear, something that set him apart from the worst of the commoners apparently. Her own sandals’ straps sparkled with green stones and their leather soles reached over her heel, he had noticed with envy, covering it up to her ankle and higher, supporting well, as it seemed, making the walk easier, more convenient. Was that why she displayed no signs of discomfort, hopping beside him with such obvious enjoyment, radiant and more glowing and chatty even than back under the dais of the plaza.
“Why are you dressed like this? What happened to you?” Chantli’s wrinkled forehead brought him back to the present, to this strange half crumbled construction that Tlemilli claimed would give them shelter for the time being, until they stopped shooting or made speeches about it. She did bring him to the shore, as she promised, but it was not the shore with the causeway attached to it. Apparently, she didn’t know her way around her island town any better than he did, having never visited here before, a realization that had her fuming for some time. She clearly hoped to be more successful.
“Why don’t you start by answering his questions?” she tossed at their new company now, her forehead creased, pointed eyebrows creating almost a single line above her angrily sparkling eyes. “He asked you first, you know. Why don’t you answer him before bursting out with strange comments about his clothing and things?” A stormy gaze leaped at him, appraising him momentarily, returning to glower at Chantli. “He is dressed well enough. You are the one looking like a kitchen slave, all disheveled and smeared. You have no right to deride his clothing!”
Used to his Tlatelolcan companion’s outspokenness by now, as much as to her way of saying whatever came to her mind, in quantities of half twenty words per heartbeat, Miztli fought his grin from showing. But she was something out of this world, and was she actually getting offended on his behalf? Amused, he watched the wideness of her forehead, now creased like a wrinkled blanket, a scowl sitting well with the sharpness of her features, enhancing the abrupt angles, making her face look like a mask chiseled out of stone, here in the semi-darkness of their shelter as much as back under the dais. In the brilliance of the daylight, the strangeness of her features was more prominent, unsettling rather than pleasing.
Chantli looked like a person who came down to draw water out of an innocent spring only to be confronted by a huge talking serpent, at the very least. Another unseemly sight. The fight against a nervous giggle became more difficult.
“What… what are you talking about?” she muttered in the end, blinking. “What… who are you?”
“I’m the person who saved him back there on the Plaza and I will not tolerate you talking to him nastily –” began Tlemilli hotly, but by this time, he managed to find his tongue, at long last.
“Wait, both of you. Chantli, tell me what happened! Why are you here and looking like that?” Her disheveled appearance was appalling, so unlike her, her huipil wrinkled and torn in places, muddied beyond
recognition, her hair sticking out, face covered with streaks of mud, usually so fresh and tidy, the prettiest sight every morning and noon. “Tell me what happened! Who was after you?”
Her gaze leapt at him, eyes still wide but filling with an obvious relief. “I… I don’t know. These people, the warriors, they got Necalli. Ahuitzotl tried to steal a boat and they were about to shoot him, so Necalli and I, we tried to stop them, and then, somehow, somehow they were grabbing him and when they heard that we came from Tenochtitlan, oh, they turned yet more unsettled and furious, and then,” her voice was climbing to unpleasantly high tones, trembling badly, “then they got Ahuitzotl too, and I ran to get help.” The huge eyes clung to him, unblinking. “You must help them to get away from these men. You must!”
“Who? Who are those men?” he mumbled, his mind unable to cope with this flood of information. Necalli, the calmecac boy? Was he here with her? Why? And Ahuitzotl! Wasn’t this the royal family pilli, the boy whose name he produced on a spur of a moment, a most convenient memory, while being interrogated by Tenochtitlan’s princess with a pretty name? He knew this pilli’s name thanks to Chantli, yes; she had been boasting her acquaintance with the royal offspring, relaying some of the Palace’s gossip, hadn’t she? “Who got them? Who are these men?”
She wrung her hands with an obvious desperation. “I don’t know. They said this town’s nobility would want to question them. The Head Adviser, they said.”
This time, his involuntary gasp was backed by another. He glanced at Tlemilli briefly, surprised by her widening eyes but having no time to process it as well. What Chantli said was more unsettling. The Head Adviser? Teconal? The terrible man from the warehouse, the bejeweled noble upon the dais, the dignitary who sent the people who had knifed his abductor and were still after him? But for Tlemilli’s timely interruption! The man who was obviously meddling in some intricate politics, angering Tenochtitlan’s princess and the friendly nobles like that older man in the shed, talking about this same Teconal’s daughter replacing… Another gasp came out on its own, and this time, his eyes darted toward the Tlatelolcan girl, his gaping mouth matching hers, of that he was sure. This same intimidating Teconal was her father!