Servant of the Underworld

by Aliette de Bodard

  I said, "He might still be acquitted. I'm trying."

  "But you don't believe in his innocence," Huei said.

  "You don't either."

  Huei's face tightened. "I believe he was sleeping with that priestess. I don't believe he killed her. He couldn't kill anyone, not in cold blood."

  "He's a warrior."

  "Yes, he is. But not an assassin, Acatl."

  No. But a man used to making hard decisions, often in a short time. Huei wasn't the best judge of Neutemoc's character, being blinded both by jealousy and by love. And I still didn't know whether my brother had fathered Eleuia's child.

  I said nothing for a while, thinking of all it would mean to her. I couldn't tell her about the child, or discuss my suspicions. It would have hurt her needlessly.

  Huei must have sensed that I had run out of conversation subjects. She rose, went to the door, and clapped her hands to summon a slave. "Bring some chocolate," she said. "And tell Mihmatini to come, too."

  She sat down again. "So," she said. "It's been a while since we last saw each other."

  Four years, to be precise. Four years of minding my own small parish in Coyoacan – stopping, from time to time, to dwell on Huei and Mihmatini, but never gathering enough will to walk into that house again. The house where Mother had died; where Father's body had lain, untended to for hours.

  "You haven't changed," Huei said. "Not really."

  I shrugged. "I've come back to Tenochtitlan. But things are the same. I've been doing nothing much. The usual for a priest."

  Huei's eyes narrowed. "You cheapen yourself," she said.

  I shook my head. "You want success? Ask Neutemoc." Ask Mihmatini; ask Father and Mother. Ask them who had taken them in.

  "Not any more." Her voice, loaded with terrible sarcasm, erased whatever I'd been about to say: we stared at each other in silence, until the noise of a shrieking child broke the awkwardness.

  "Uncle Acatl!" A young child, whom I didn't recognise. Mazatl, I realised with a shock. She'd been much younger last time I'd been in this house, barely starting to piece sentences together.

  Her brother Necalli was more dignified. I tried to remember how old he was. Eight, nine years old? His head was shaved; he wore the single lock of hair that marked the unproved warrior.

  And behind him, my sister Mihmatini, grown from a gangly girl into a beautiful woman, blossoming in the calmecac like a marigold flower. She walked slowly, gracefully, her shirt swishing, revealing anew with every step the glint of jade bracelets at her ankles. Her hair, tied in a long queue at her back, shone like polished obsidian. My heart tightened in my chest.

  "The lost brother comes home?" she asked, with a smile.

  I shrugged. "Sometimes," I said. It had been too long since I had last seen her: my fault, for not finding the courage to walk back into that house in spite of Neutemoc's presence.

  Mihmatini made a mock punching gesture. "Stop being so serious."

  "It comes with the position, I'm afraid," I said.

  She grimaced. "Sure, and I'm the Consort of the Emperor."

  She sat down, with both children crowding near her. The toddler Mazatl, in particular, kept trying to climb into her lap, and Mihmatini gently pushed her off every time.

  Slaves brought refreshments, and a light lunch: maize cakes, and frogs with chilli peppers, spread on the reed mat so we could each help ourselves from the ceramic dishes. I was famished. In fact, I realised with a shock, my last meal dated back to the previous evening. I'd been walking around the Sacred Precinct and the city on a completely empty stomach.

  Mihmatini watched me gulp down a frog, and barely hid a smile. "I think someone's forgotten to eat today."

  "Men," Huei snorted. "All the same."

  I hurriedly swallowed, so I could answer. "Now you're being unfair."

  Mihmatini raised her cup of chocolate to her lips, and inhaled the pungent aroma of vanilla and cacao. "Maybe, maybe," she said. She looked at Huei, obviously trying very hard to stifle a laugh.

  I'd visited Mihmatini in her calmecac, but had never seen her so relaxed, so radiant. For all that she'd spent the last ten years away, she seemed to be utterly at ease with Huei and the children, so much more than me.

  The rest of the meal was much the same: spent on pleasantries, listening to the two women mocking me, and carefully avoiding the shadow Neutemoc's arrest cast over both their futures.

  Afterwards, I walked with Mihmatini in the courtyard garden, among the marigold and tomato flowers. "You look well," I said.

  She grimaced. "I can't say the same about you." She poked me between the ribs. Surprised, I leapt out of her path, and she laughed again. "You're a priest for the Dead, not Mictlantecuhtli. The salient bones and skeleton look aren't compulsory, Acatl."

  "Ha-ha," I said, trying to be serious. But in her company, it was hard to stay so, hard to remember all that waited for me outside. "I thought you were going to stay in that temple."

  Mihmatini's face turned grave. "I thought so, too," she said. "The priestesses wanted me to stay. They said they had never had a student so gifted with magic. But…"

  She shrugged. "In the end, it wasn't where my heart was. I wanted to go home, find a husband of my own, raise my own children."

  All things that were forbidden to priests. "I see," I said. "And since then…" I started, wondering why she was still in Neutemoc's house, and not married.

  She shrugged. "It will come, in time. I'm not desired."

  "Surely, as Neutemoc's protégée–"

  She blushed. "He's been busy lately."

  My stomach contracted. What had Neutemoc done, again? "Too busy to look for a husband?"

  "I'm young," Mihmatini said. "I can wait. It's going to take time for this to be sorted out, I expect."

  "I hope not." Both for Neutemoc's sake, and for her own. She wasn't young. Eighteen was old, in a land where the first marriages were contracted when the girls were sixteen. She wasn't plain, or poor. But a husband would want a girl able to bear children; and the more Neutemoc and Huei waited, the more prospective alliances disappeared.

  Mihmatini must have caught some of my thoughts. "He means well."

  How could I answer that? "He's been busy, as you said." Busy quarrelling with Huei; busy giving in to the charms of a priestess. Great occupations, worthy of a warrior.

  A thought occurred to me. "You sleep here."

  Mihmatini pointed to a small opening, to the eastern side of the courtyard, its entrance-curtain adorned with leaping deer. "In that room. Why?"

  "Do you know where Huei was yesterday night?"

  She puffed her cheeks, thoughtfully, a habit neither Mother nor the calmecac had broken out of her. "Yesterday night? Pretty well. We played patolli all night. And a good thing we used tokens instead of cacao beans, or I'd be out of money."

  I made a sweeping gesture, taking in her red-dyed cotton shirt, her wide skirt with its finely embroidered hem, and the jade necklace she wore around her neck. "Aren't you already out of money, owning all of that?"

  She looked at me, her eyes widening in mock surprise. "Why, is that a joke, brother?"

  It had to be written somewhere, on some divination priest's codex, that I'd never have the upper hand with her. "Very well. I'll stick to serious subjects, if that curbs your hilarity. Are you sure about the patolli? You didn't step out at some point?"

  "For a very short time," Mihmatini said. "Huei couldn't have gone out and murdered the priestess, or whatever you think she did. She didn't have time."

  "Hmm," I said. It all sounded solid. But still…

  "You're calling me a liar?" Mihmatini said.

  She might have protected Huei out of friendship or gratitude. But if that was so, my sister had changed much in the years since our childhood. I didn't think that was the case. "You might not realise the significance of something you saw, but–"

  "I know what I saw," Mihmatini said. "Huei was with me the whole evening, Acatl. I'll swear to it in court, if
it comes to that."

  I hadn't really thought Huei was the culprit, in any case. She might have hated Neutemoc's lover, but one thing was sure: she truly loved her husband. Which didn't leave me with anything I could use to spare Neutemoc the death penalty.

  SIX

  The Seekers

  I came back to the temple with a full stomach, intending to stay only briefly before I resumed my talk with Neutemoc. But I found Teomitl waiting for me at the entrance to the storehouse, chatting with Ezamahual: a lean, nervous novice priest, a son of peasants who couldn't believe he'd had the good fortune of entering calmecac. Given how captivated Ezamahual was by Teomitl's talk, I could have emptied the storehouse in front of him without raising the alarm.

  Ah well. Youth would wear off at some point. I belatedly realised I wasn't so old myself: only thirty. But I felt old; out of place.

  Teomitl didn't see me immediately, but Ezamahual did. He straightened up and Teomitl turned.

  "Acatl-tzin. I've come back from the registers. I have what you asked from me." He was still filled with that coiled energy; it lay beneath every word, every short, stabbing gesture he made with his hands. "Out of all the names you gave me, only Priestess Zollin was born on a Jaguar day."

  He gave me a quick account of the names: neither the dancers, Huei nor the other senior priestesses of the calmecac could have summoned that nahual.

  There was one name missing from that recitation, though. "Mahuizoh?" I asked. "The Jaguar Knight? You couldn't find him?"

  "I searched," Teomitl said, in what was almost an angry retort. I was starting to understand such a reaction was usual with him, and wondering if I had the patience to deal with that. "There are two Mahuizohs who are members of the Jaguar Knights."

  "And?" I asked.

  "Their birthdates?" I expected him to protest, but he surprised me by closing his eyes. "One Rain and Three Jaguar."

  "I'm impressed," I admitted. "What about their age?"

  "They're both around thirty-six," Teomitl said.

  Tlaloc's lightning strike me. It didn't remove Mahuizoh from my list. Though it was significantly shorter now, with just the priestess Zollin, the Jaguar Knight Mahuizoh, and my brother Neutemoc left. I wished the search parties would find Eleuia, or, failing that, some evidence that would help me decide.

  Teomitl was still standing, waiting. "You did well," I said.

  "No." He sounded disgusted. "I was one hour at the records for six birthdates. That's hardly the pinnacle of efficiency."

  "You're too hard on yourself," I said. An uncanny trait, when coupled with his staggering arrogance.

  He shook his head. "Realist. Give me something else to do."

  "I don't have–"

  "You're in the middle of an investigation, and you're doing it alone." He must have seen my face, for he said, "The Guardian told me."

  I wish I could tell Ceyaxochitl some words of my own. "You're not giving the orders," I snapped. "That's the first rule you'll have to learn."

  Teomitl smiled, and I knew why. I'd already given halfway in. "Tell me the others," he said.

  I'd sworn I wouldn't take any apprentices, that I wouldn't hold out my heart to be torn apart. "You have no idea where this will lead you."

  "The underworld?" he asked.

  "You should have enough good sense to be afraid of Mictlan."

  "Yes," Teomitl said. "I'm afraid. But don't the courageous go on, even in the face of fear?"

  Again, an unexpected answer. There was obviously more to him than his arrogance, and that had to be the reason Ceyaxochitl had sent him to me.

  But I still didn't know what to do with him.

  "I can help," Teomitl said. "I can do better than this."

  I was going to regret it. But still… "Very well," I said. "Go back into the girls' calmecac. See if you can find some trail, or someone who's seen something. That nahual didn't enter here through the main gate, and we still don't know how it left the building." What in the Fifth World had happened to that beast? At least, it would keep Teomitl busy for a while.

  Teomitl nodded. If he was excited, he let nothing of that show on his face, just went rigid, like a warrior taking orders from his commander.

  "I'll be back," he said.

  As he walked past, a tendril of something brushed me. I narrowed my gaze, opening up my priest-senses. A slight, almost transparent veil of magic hung around Teomitl: not nahual, not underworld magic, but something tantalisingly familiar. Something…

  The more I tried to bring it into focus, the more it slipped away from my mind.

  "Teomitl!" I called.

  He turned, halfway through the courtyard. "Yes?"

  It was as if something had reached out, and brushed against his whole body, leaving an intricate network of marks over his skin. It didn't look harmful. Quite the reverse, in fact: it was an elaborate protection spell, one I had never seen.

  "No, nothing. Be careful," I said, finally.

  "He's an interesting man," Ezamahual said to me after Teomitl had left. "A bit abrasive, but interesting."

  I nodded. "He must have stories to tell."

  Ezamahual's lean, dour face lit up. "He's heard tales of the jungles to the south, and he's even met a merchant who went north, into Tarascan land. But he's not boasting. Just sharing." His unquestioning, almost boyish enthusiasm was endearing. In many ways, Ezamahual reminded me of myself at a younger age, when everything in the priesthood was still a wonder, opening pathways that radiated through the whole of the universe.

  "I imagine Teomitl hasn't seen many things himself, though," I pointed out.

  Ezamahual shrugged. "Second-hand accounts are better than nothing. And he's too young, in any case."

  With a jolt, I realised that Teomitl had to be at least four years younger than Ezamahual: an adolescent, barely out of childhood. "Yes," I said, finally. "He's very young."

  Ezamahual shifted position slightly. "He'll have time to see the world," he said, always pragmatic. "Warriors travel quite a bit."

  They did. Most battlefields those days were further and further away from Tenochtitlan. Perhaps, one day, the fabled jungles, where the quetzal birds roamed free, would be part of the Mexica Empire. And Teomitl would have taken his place in their conquest.

  None of my concern now. I had other things to do, like try to see Neutemoc and coerce him into admitting the truth about his relationship with Eleuia.

  I walked back to the Imperial Palace on my own, under the light of late afternoon. Outside the Jaguar House, some sort of ceremony was going on. Three warriors and three sacred courtesans were going through the steps of a dance, to the piercing, slow tune of flutes: the jaguar pelts the warriors wore mingled with the courtesans' garish cotton skirts, weaving a pattern like a spell cast over the world.

  Among the crowd that watched the dance, several faces stood out: a young girl of noble birth, her face flushed with lust, and a scruffy, ageless man, his face covered in grime, the wooden collar of a slave around his neck. His expression was hard to decipher, but I thought it was hatred. Odd.

  I did not dwell on it for long: I elbowed my way out of the crowd, and made my way to the display platform in front of the Imperial Palace.

  But when I arrived, Neutemoc was not there any more.

  Stifling a curse, I paced up and down among the cages, drawing glances and a few jeers from the prisoners awaiting trial. My brother wasn't anywhere to be found.

  "Excuse me," I asked one of Neutemoc's former neighbours in captivity. "The Jaguar Knight who was here…?"

  The prisoner, a middle-aged freeman with a tattered loincloth, spat at my feet. I didn't step back. I had nothing to do with his case, and so could do little to him. And he knew it. Intimidation was the only strategy possible.

  After a while, he shrugged. "They took him for questioning."

  "They?" I asked, with the first stirrings of fear in my belly.

  "The magistrate and some good-for-nothing, fancy priest."

  Nezahua
l. The servant of the High Priest of Tlaloc, the one who wanted my brother convicted at all costs.

  "Thank you," I said, and I climbed the rest of the steps into the palace.

  Like the Great Temple, it was a huge complex: a maze of gardens, private apartments and sumptuous rooms. On the ground floor were the courts of justice and the state rooms; on the upper floor, the apartments of Emperor Axayacatl-tzin, and of the Rulers of Texcoco and Tlacopan, the other partners in the Triple Alliance that kept the Mexica Empire strong.