Three warriors and three women were sitting at the far end, gathered around the remains of a meal. When the entrance-curtain tinkled, the warrior in the centre looked up, straight at me, and gestured for the slave to bring me closer.
I'd expected him to remain seated, but to my surprise he rose and bowed to me. "Acatl-tzin. Do join us."
He knew my name, too, which was surprising. Warriors and priests seldom mingled, unless at court, but he wasn't high enough in the hierarchy to be at court on a regular basis. I threw a glance at his companions, who appeared to have swallowed a live ember. Well, at least their reception wasn't unexpected. "Chipahua, I presume?"
He smiled. Like Eptli, he wasn't a young man, and battles had left their mark on him, not only in the long scar that slashed his face from right cheek to temple, but also in the wariness with which he held himself. But the smile, spreading to every feature, made him seem almost boyish. "Honoured to meet you, Acatl-tzin." He pointed at the food, spread out on the mat before him. "Do eat with us."
Most of the food was already gone, though the maize cakes and the fish in lime and spiced sauce smelled delicious – not fit for the meal of the Revered Speaker, but simple, robust fare such as I ate every day. "I already ate," I said, regretfully.
"A pity. I'd expected to have more time to idly chat," Chipahua said. "But I very much doubt you came all this way for my sake."
I studied him, but his weathered face gave nothing away. He had to know about Eptli, didn't he?
"You know what happened."
Chipahua's gaze didn't waver. "Yes. Someone fainted during the ceremony."
"Not fainted. Died."
"I see." His lips tightened. "And once again we're not informed."
I felt obscurely embarrassed, even though none of it was my fault. Chipahua smiled – but it was a smile tinged with anger. "What did you do with the body?"
"It's still being examined in the palace. Why?"
"Because he was one of us. He should be given a proper funeral."
"He'll have one." A wake, a pyre and a dog's sacrifice, and the hymns for the Dead – no more, no less than what any man was entitled to.
"I don't think you understand," Chipahua said. His gaze was still amused – but it was tinged with the contempt of warriors for priests. "He was one of us. We will be at his funeral, and it will be done properly."
I acquiesced, rather than let myself be drawn into a loaded discussion. "You haven't asked me which warrior it was."
Something passed in his gaze, too fast for me to grasp. "No. It doesn't matter who he was."
A lie. A good one, but still a lie. "The warrior was Eptli of the Atempan clan."
One of the other warriors sniggered. "Got what was coming to him."
"Zacayaman!" Chipahua said, sharply. "Be silent. The dead are owed respect." But he didn't sound as outraged as he ought to have been.
"I've seen sadder reactions," I said.
Chipahua picked up a maize cake, and looked at it as if it were a lump of jade. "If you're here, you know what happened. I can't exactly be sad."
"But you're also the one with the strongest motive."
"Motive?" This time, the surprise sounded genuine, but I'd already seen what a good liar he was. "I don't see… you mean the death wasn't natural? I assumed–"
"You assumed wrong. Someone cursed Eptli, and he died."
Chipahua tore the cake into two neat pieces. "Curses are serious matters," he said.
"So is ascending into the Eagle or Jaguar Knights."
He wasn't looking at me anymore. "It takes more than four prisoners, as you well know."
"I'm not that familiar with army procedures," I said carefully, though in this particular case I did know. My elder brother was a Jaguar Knight.
"The Knights have to accept you as a brother." He shrugged. "I don't think either I or Eptli had much of a chance, to be honest."
"Why?"
"I'm a commoner," Chipahua said, simply.
"And Eptli wasn't?"
"Eptli's father was a commoner before the Revered Speaker elevated him. It gave Eptli a great deal of… arrogance?"
"Which was totally unjustified," the warrior on my left said.
I suspected arrogance was the wrong word. Warriors were arrogant as a way of life. There had to be more to explain why Eptli was so disliked.
"Commoners have ascended into the Jaguar Knights before," I said, thinking of my brother. We were the sons of a peasant family on the outskirts of Tenochtitlan; he'd risen through feats of arms, and I through the clergy.
Chipahua grimaced. "The new commander isn't as open as the previous one."
"Southern Hummingbird blind the Jaguar Commander," the right-hand warrior – Zacamayan – said. "We know your worth, as does everyone in the clan-unit." His accent and dress were those of an educated man: he was either a nobleman himself, or the son of an elevated commoner, afforded all the privileges of the nobility.
I ignored the interruption. "You want me to think you had no motive for killing Eptli," I said to Chipahua. "But taking a fourth captive brings other benefits besides entry into the Knighthoods." The haircut that marked them as veterans; distinctive insignia and cloaks; the right to more of the tribute, and the title which would give them the higher status they coveted.
"I won't deny that." Chipahua's face was blank. "If you're going by motive, then yes, I do have one, and a strong one. You'll know I wasn't the only one."
I refrained from glancing at his two supporters. "Giving me names to save yourself?"
Chipahua looked thoughtful for a moment. "You've talked to Coatl," he said finally.
I thought, uneasily, of the tone in Coatl's voice when he'd talked about Eptli. "He didn't approve of Eptli?"
"Eptli mocked the old. He rejected their authority – he said they were spent, and they had nothing more to teach us."
I winced. Given the little I'd seen of Coatl, I very much doubted he'd have liked that. Eptli was sounding more and more like a thoroughly disagreeable person.
Not that I was surprised. It was rarely the likeable men who were murdered. Murder – especially magical murder, with the lengthy preparations, the shedding of living blood and the calling on the power of the gods – required premeditation, and that in turn meant a strong motive. Few innocent men inspired such destructive passion.
"Very well. Do you have anything else to add?" This included the two warriors on either side of me, who watched me with undisguised hostility. Whatever Chipahua thought of priests, they didn't share that opinion.
"No," the left-hand one said.
"No," Zamacayan said. "But you should look elsewhere, Acatl-tzin." He put a slight pause after my name, as if he were adding the honorific only as an afterthought.
"I will give it some thought," I said as I rose. My cloak brushed against him for a bare moment – and I felt a palpable jolt of magic – a strong pulsing power that could only belong to Huitzilpochtli the Southern Hummingbird.
It might have been a ward: many warriors and noblemen had them – including my own student Teomitl. But the throbbing energy climbing up my arm was no standard ward. Zamacayan was either a magic-user, or he had access to one – not the tame priests at court or in the army, but someone prepared to cast a strong, elaborate spell.
I said nothing as the slave took me out of the house, and my priest started rowing us back to the temple. But I was preoccupied. Chipahua himself might have no knowledge of magic, and the two warriors no motive to kill Eptli – but put them together, and bind them with the strong comradeship that kept a unit together in the heat of battle…
"Acatl-tzin!"
I looked up, startled out of my reverie – and almost fell over when I saw Teomitl, leaning on the prow of a narrow-nosed boat. He'd discarded his regalia in favour of a mantle with a red brim, and a dark cape, though his face was still painted black and blue.
"How did you find me?" I started, but then saw the green glow of his patron goddess Jade Skirt et
ched in every feature of his face. I was on a boat, in the water that was Her province – of course She'd know where I was. I shifted conversation subjects. "What in the Fifth World are you doing here?"
"Telling you that you were right." Teomitl reached out, taking my hand to drag me into his own boat. "Come on, we'll go faster with this one. It's larger, and it's got the imperial insignia."
"Teomitl," I said, struggling not to capsize. "How about explanations?"
"Oh." He looked surprised for a moment. "It's the dead man."
"I shouldn't think he could get any deader," I said darkly, manoeuvring to bridge the gap between the two boats. Behind us, the traffic in the canal had completely jammed – and I guessed it was only the imperial crest that prevented people from screaming at us.
"You don't understand, Acatl-tzin." Teomitl steadied me as I set foot onto the floor of the boat. "Whatever he had, he's been passing it on to other people."
A contagious disease. In the palace. Where the rulers of the Triple Alliance were gathering for Tizoc-tzin's coronation; where the highest-ranking noblemen and priests would be discussing the coronation war and what it meant for the Mexica Empire.
I took a deep breath, but it didn't remove the leaden weight in my stomach. "Lead on," I said.
THREE
Further Victims
Teomitl took me to the same wing where we'd put Eptli's corpse earlier. The atmosphere was curiously subdued, with an over-abundance of black-garbed priests of Patecatl, and the blue and white cloaks that could only mark priests of Tlaloc the Storm Lord.
I wasn't that surprised: among His many attributes, the Storm Lord was responsible for the spreading of diseases – pouring them down from one of His jars as he poured rain and lightning upon the Fifth World.
Acamapichtli was waiting for us in front of a closed entrance-curtain. On the ground behind him was a half circle, inscribed with blood-glyphs. Even from a distance, I could feel the heat radiating from the tracings. Something large – perhaps even a man – had been sacrificed here.
"Is it that bad?" I asked. Teomitl's explanations had been confused: I gathered there had been at least one victim, but the sheer number of priests made me suspect it was somewhat worse.
"I don't know," Acampichtli said. "That fool priest of Patecatl should have listened to you in the first place."
"He didn't," I said, though I was as angry with the priest as Acamapichtli himself was. Contagion was a serious matter – and, once started, the illness would be harder to contain. "You can't change that."
Acamapichtli pursed his lips, a familiar gesture halfway between amusement and contempt. "Two victims so far. The priest of Patecatl who examined the body, and Coatl."
They'd both touched it, I recalled. "And the warriors who carried it?"
"We're looking for them." Acamapicthli shook his head. "But they went back to their houses, and no one paid much attention to them after they left."
No, indeed not. But I knew better than to let him cow me through shame. "And the illness?" The warrior hadn't had many symptoms, other than the fluttering shape of shadows over his face, like dappled light coming through trees – no, that wasn't it. I'd seen that somewhere, too – but where?
"Their body temperature is high, and they keep shivering. No other symptoms, but those can take time to appear."
He might have been right – I wouldn't have known. I was called in after there was no hope, after the remedies of ground pearls and white earth had failed, after the patient had taken on the visage of death, after the blood had poured over the heart and spread into all the limbs, quenching life as it did so. And few illnesses came from corpses.
Angry voices brought me back to reality. Teomitl was arguing, loudly and arrogantly, with Acamapichtli. "I don't see why–"
"It's a precaution."
"He didn't touch the corpse."
"What in the Fifth World are you talking about?" I asked, with the feeling I wasn't going to like the answer.
"He wants you to be isolated, with the others!" Teomitl blurted out.
"Only for a few days."
A few days? "We don't have that kind of time," I said. What was he thinking of? "You pick an odd time to be conscientious. What happened to the survival of the Fifth World being assured?" And he seemed to conveniently forget about including himself in his isolation – typical.
He looked at me for a while, and for the first time I heard utter seriousness in his voice. "I am High Priest of Tlaloc the Storm Lord, His voice in the Fifth World. If the god has chosen to break His third jar, and pour the waters of epidemic upon us, then it is my responsibility to beseech Him for mercy – and to isolate those He has touched, to see if They have been chosen to go to Tlalocan, the paradise of the Blessed Drowned, or if they are destined to remain in the Fifth World."
"This is all about appearances, isn't it?" Teomitl asked, angrily. "About looking good in front of the city."
"Teomitl." I raised a hand. I could be mistaken – I could never read the slippery son of a coyote – but there was something genuine in what he was telling us. Acamapichtli believed in his personal gain, but unlike Quenami he wouldn't dismiss the gods out of hand. "Has the god spoken to you?"
"Not yet," Acamapichtli said. And then I did understand: if it was indeed the will of Tlaloc, and he, Tlaloc's priest in the Fifth World, ignored it, then he would have more to contend with than angry mortals.
I suppressed a bitter laugh. We'd weathered the anger of the Southern Hummingbird the year before – which had resulted in the massacre of the whole imperial council by star-demons; I could understand why Acamapichtli wasn't keen to try Tlaloc's patience.
"I don't think it's Him," I said. "It's magical."
"You presume to know the will of the gods?"
I shrugged. "No. But if it's just the will of a mortal, then I'm oath-bound to go against it. I keep the boundaries of the Fifth World, and the balance that maintains the Fifth Sun in the Sky, and Grandmother Earth fertile. Will you go against that?"
"If I must." Acamapichtli's face was pale. "For a few days, at least."
"We might not have a few days," I said. I hesitated. I didn't know much about illnesses, but still – "Why is it becoming contagious only now? We haven't heard a report about Eptli's comrades falling ill, have we?" And Chipahua and his companions had looked perfectly healthy, with none of the symptoms of the disease.
Acamapichtli looked taken aback. "It may only be contagious after death. I've seen odder things."
"Doesn't matter," Teomitl said impatiently. "Surely you're not suggesting my brother and I should be subject to this, as well?"
Acamapichtli looked as if he might argue for a moment, but he was too canny a politician for that. "I shouldn't think so, my Lord. Your protections – and Tizoc-tzin's – are the strongest in this palace. Nevertheless, I would recommend… caution."
Teomitl grinned, an utterly bleak expression. "One doesn't become Revered Speaker through caution, priest." He looked almost like his brother in those moments, with the same stern mannerisms, and the same way of spitting out words as if they'd offended him. I didn't like that – I'd always known he'd grow away from me, my young and precocious student, but I hadn't thought I would lose him to Tizoc-tzin's shadow. "You overstep your limits."
Acamapichtli's face twisted, as if he'd swallowed something bitter. "My Lord… I differ. As Acatl said, those are the numinous boundaries of the Fifth World. They shouldn't concern you."
Oh, for the gods' sake, the whole business was increasingly ridiculous. "It's too early to start acting so cautiously. Give us some of your amulets, and you can come pick us up if we collapse."
Acamapichtli looked as though he might protest, but in that precise moment he was approached by a young priest of Tlaloc.
"Acamapichtli-tzin," the priest said. He bent his blue-striped face to Acamapichtli's ear, and whispered something. I saw Acamapichtli's face go from mild annoyance to surprise, and then – for a brief moment – to naked
fear.
"What is it?" Teomitl asked.
"None of your–" Acamapichtli bit back the sentence with great difficulty. "Since you're both so keen to risk further contamination…"
"Someone else died," I said.
"Not any 'someone else'," Acamapichtli said. "Eptli's prisoner."
The one that had been contested between him and Chipahua.
"Take us there," I said to the priest – who looked back, hesitating, to Acamapichtli for confirmation. Acamapichtli shook his head with sardonic humour. "It's their lives at stake," he said. "We'll discuss the matter of your isolation later on."
Master of the House of Darts Page 4