6
Princess of Texcoco
The Duality House, unlike the palace, was silent and dark, and those few priests we crossed were in courtyards, down on their knees to beseech the favour of the Duality for their ailing superior.
"She came back from the palace late at night," Yaotl said. "Everything was fine at first but then she started complaining of tingling in her hands and feet. And then it spread."
"Something she came into contact with?" I asked. I had seen her yesterday, and she had seemed tired and weary; but I had attributed it to a long day, not to poison.
Would it have changed anything, if I had noticed?
I hoped it wouldn't have. I needed to believe it would make no difference. Regrets wouldn't serve us now; what we needed was to move forward.
We reached the main courtyard of the shrine, a vast space from which rose a central pyramid of polished limestone. Ceyaxochitl's rooms were just by the stairs. Their entrance-curtain, usually opened to any supplicant, was closed, unmoving in the still air.
Inside, Ceyaxochitl was propped up against the wall, her skin sallow, her whole frame sagging. A frowning physician was holding a bowl of water under her chin.
"No shadow. Her spirit is still unaffected," he said. "It's a physical poison."
"You know about poisons," Yaotl said.
I couldn't help snorting. "Yes, but after death. Generally, I don't have patients. I have corpses."
The physician withdrew the bowl of water. "That's as close to a corpse as you can get to, young man. Nothing is responding. She can't speak, or move any muscle." He turned to Yaotl. "I'd need to know the day and hour of her birth, to know which god is in charge of her soul."
Yaotl's hands clenched, slightly. The physician's asking for her nameday could only mean that he intended a full healing ritual, which in turn meant the situation was desperate. "Quetzalcoatl. The Feathered Serpent." God of creation and knowledge, and the only other god to accept bloodless offerings. I couldn't say I was surprised.
"I'll send for supplies, then," the physician said.
I knelt and touched Ceyaxochitl's warm skin. Nothing responded. Her heartbeat was fast and erratic, as if the organ itself were bewildered.
"She's in here," the physician said. "Conscious. It's just that her body is completely paralysed."
About as cowardly and as nasty a poison as you could think of. They could have had the decency to make it clean, at least.
"Acatl-tzin," Yaotl insisted.
"Do you have any idea what she could have been poisoned with?" I asked the physician. He was the expert, not I.
"What other symptoms have you seen?"
Yaotl thought for a while. "She was rubbing at her face before the numbness came. And having some difficulty walking, as if she'd been drunk, but Mistress Ceyaxochitl never drinks."
Indeed not. She might have been old enough to be allowed drunkenness, but she'd always seen that as a sign of weakness. She'd always been strong.
Gods, what would we do without her?
"Something she ate, then, in all likelihood," the physician said.
"Something?" I asked. Surely things hadn't degenerated so fast at the palace that food and drink couldn't be trusted anymore? "Can't you be more precise?"
"Not without a more complete examination," the physician said. His voice was harsh. "But I think you'd want me to see if I can heal her first."
"Yes," Yaotl said. "But I also want to make sure that the son of a dog who did this does not get away with it."
The physician looked at Ceyaxochitl again and scratched the stubble on his chin. "I seem to remember a similar case some time ago. I'll send back for my records, to see if anything can be inferred from it. In the meantime the best we can do is keep her warm."
And breathing. It didn't take a physician to know that if the paralysis was progressing, the lungs would stop functioning at some point, not to mention the heart.
I moved my hand from Ceyaxochitl's hands to her chest, feeling the heart within fluttering like a trapped thing. "I know you can hear us. We'll find out who did this. Stay here. Please."
Please. I knew we'd had our dissensions in the past, our disagreements on how to proceed, but they had been spats between friends, or at least between peers. To think that she was dying, that she might not see the next day…
The Flower Prince strike the one who had done this, with an illness every bit as bad and as drawn-out as the poison that now coursed through Ceyaxochitl's veins. "Did she say anything?" I asked Yaotl. "Any clues?" Anything we could use...
He shook his head. "Not that I can remember. She complained about the whole afternoon having been a waste of her time."
But she must have seen something, or suspected something after the fact. Otherwise why take the risk of poisoning her? The penalties for such a crime would have been severe, death by crushing the head, at the very least.
"Nothing at all?"
The physician, who was lifting the entrance-curtain in a tinkle of bells, stopped, and then turned back towards me. "When I was first called, the paralysis hadn't quite reached everywhere. She managed to say something, for what it's worth."
"Yes?"
"Well, her lips were already half-paralysed, but I think it was something about worshipping bells."
Yaotl and I looked at each other. "Acatl-tzin?"
Bells. Silver Bells. Huitzilpochtli's sister Coyolxauhqui, She of the Silver Bells, who waited under the Great Temple for Her revenge.
"I don't know if it makes any sense," the physician said.
I withdrew my hand from Ceyaxochitl and carefully stood up. "It does make sense. Thank you."
"Not to me," Yaotl said.
"Silver Bells. She's been poisoned by a devotee of Coyolxauhqui," I said, and watched the pallor spread across his face.
Our enemies were indeed in our midst. One person, or several, were worshippers of She of the Silver Bells; summoners of star-demons, harbingers of chaos, determined to sow destruction among us.
The only question was who.
* * * *
I ate a sparse lunch in my temple with my priests: a single bowl of maize porridge, leavened with spices. Then, instead of going straight back to the palace, I detoured through the Wind Tower, the shrine to Quetzalcoatl. Like the other shrines it stood on a platform atop a pyramid; unlike the other shrines, which were squat and square, the Wind Tower was made of smooth black stones and completely circular, offering no sharp angles or purchase. For Quetzalcoatl was the Feathered Serpent but also Ehecatl, the Breath of Creation, and to hinder Him in His passage through His own shrine would have been an unforgivable offence.
And He was the Morning Star and the Evening Star, our only ally in the night skies in those dangerous times.
I could have prayed to Lord Death in Ceyaxochitl's name, for He was the only god I claimed, as familiar as a wife to a husband or a digging stick to a peasant. But, somehow, it felt wrong to appeal to Him to keep a soul out of His dominion.
I stood for a while on the inside of the shrine with pilgrims crowded around me, unsure of what to say. I did what I had always done. Kneeling, I pierced my earlobes with my worship thorns, and let the blood drip onto the grass balls by the altar. The Feathered Serpent took no human sacrifices, but only our penances and our gifts of flower and fruit. He had given us the arts and the songs. He had once descended into the underworld for the bones of the dead, had braved death and darkness so that humanity might be recreated.
"Keep her safe," I whispered. "Please.
"You who know the metals in the earth
The jade and the flowers and the songs
You who descended into Mictlan
Into the darkness, into the dryness
Please keep her safe."
I wished I could say that He'd been listening, but the shrine remained much the same as ever. I was not His priest, I did not have His favours. My prayer was no doubt lost among the multitude.
I walked back into the palace in an even bleaker mood than I'd left it. As fate and the Smoking Mirror would have it, the first person I met in the corridors was Quenami, the High Priest of Huitzilpochtli, who looked unusually preoccupied.
"Acatl." He frowned. "I haven't seen you this morning."
"I had other business to attend to." I was not in the mood for niceties. "Did Ceyaxochitl come to you yesterday, Quenami?"
There was a brief moment before my words sunk in, which I could almost follow by looking at his blue-streaked face. "The Guardian? She might have. I don't remember."
"Only a day ago, and you can't remember? What a fickle mind you have."
"I thought yesterday's little interview would have removed your inclination to insult your peers or your superiors." Quenami's voice was cutting.
So many things had changed since yesterday. "Perhaps. That was before someone poisoned Ceyaxochitl."
"Poisoned? That means–"
"She's dying," I said, curtly. I tried not to think of her warm, unresponsive skin under me, of the feeling of her heartbeat lurching out of control. She'd been at my back for as long as I could remember. We'd fought, but I'd always known she'd be there when the Empire truly needed her. "And whatever happened, it was in the palace."
"Do you have any proof of that?" Quenami appeared to have recovered from his shock, feigned or genuine I did not know.
"Who else would dare poison the Guardian?"
"More people than you'd think." His voice was condescending again. "Foreign sorcerers–"
"The only sorcerers of any note are in this palace," I snapped. "And I'm going to make sure they can't do any harm anymore."
Quenami's face was frozen into what might have been anger or fear. "So you'll just badger us into confessions? You're making a mistake."
"Why? Because I'm impinging on your privileges? Look, I'm not intending to probe into secrets or shatter your face and heart in public, but you must realise that someone tried to kill the Guardian of the Sacred Precinct – agent of the Duality in this world, the keeper of the invisible boundaries. If they dare to do that, then no one here is safe."
Quenami's face shifted to disdain. He was going to tell me that he was High Priest of Huitzilpochtli, that out of all people, he should be safe.
I forestalled him. "It was poison poured into a meal, or a drink." I kept my voice as innocuous and as innocent as possible. "That could happen to anyone. Even if you could have your meals tasted by a slave, it was slow-acting. She didn't show any symptoms for a few hours after the poisoning."
"What poison?"
"I don't know," I said. "But a nasty one. The muscles refuse to obey. You're trapped as a prisoner in your own body, until your lungs or your heart give up. It's not a pleasant way to go." Not to mention pointless. Sacrifices and wounds dealt on the battlefield were painful, but this pain was an offering to the gods, the whole body becoming a sacrifice. But, for Ceyaxochitl, there would be no reward, no justification for enduring this slow slide into oblivion.
"Fine," Quenami said. "What do you want me to do, Acatl?"
"Just answer a few questions. Did you or did you not see Ceyaxochitl yesterday?"
"Yes," Quenami said. "Very early in the morning."
"And?"
He hesitated for a while, trying to see what he could and could not tell me. "She kept insisting to know where I stood."
"Not surprising."
"I suppose not," he said with a trace of the old haughtiness. "But still, she was annoying."
That I had no doubt of, she could be. "Did she eat or drink anything while she was with you?"
He looked at me for a while. "I could deny it, but I think you wouldn't believe me." His face creased into an uncharacteristic smile. "She had maize porridge, brought by the slaves."
"Your slaves?"
Again, Quenami hesitated. "Yes."
I made a mental note to see if any of that maize porridge was left. There were spells to detect the presence of poison, although they took a long time to be cast and could be finicky. "And what about Ocome?"
"What about him? I barely knew the man."
"I think you're lying."
"And I think you're trying to draw me out." He looked me in the eye, his aristocratic face exuding casual pride.
"I know you came to see him."
"Who wouldn't?" He made a dismissive gesture. "The man had a vote, and he was selling it. Who wouldn't leap at the chance?"
"An honest man," I said, a little more acidly than I'd meant to.
Quenami smiled pityingly. "It's a wonder you've remained high priest so long, Acatl."
And it was a wonder he'd become high priest at all. But I held my tongue.
"Seriously," Quenami said. "You know who I support, and who Ocome supported. Why would I kill him?"
"Because you couldn't trust him not to change sides?"
Quenami snorted. "Murder is a serious matter, not decided so lightly." For once, he sounded sincere. Not that it changed anything. I could well imagine him planning a murder with much forethought, and though it looked as though he'd become high priest only through his connections, I very much doubted his magical abilities would be insignificant.
"I see," I said. "What do you know about Coyolxauhqui?"
"My, my, just full of questions today, aren't we? I can't possibly see what I can tell you about She of the Silver Bells that you don't already know, Acatl. Sister of the Southern Hummingbird. Creator of the star-demons. Rebelled against Him during the migration to found the Empire. Defeated, and imprisoned beneath the Great Temple." His tone was bored, as if he were reciting something learnt by rote. But, if he had been worshipping Her all along, he would have learnt to hide his allegiance.
"That's all you know?"
"What else would there be?" He lifted a hand, thoughtfully staring at his tanned, long fingers, covered with jade and turquoise jewellery. "I can still feel Huitzilpochtli's power, so She's still imprisoned. And we're warded against star-demons."
He was, as usual, far too confident. He had not even bothered to check.
But still, as high priest of Huitzilpochtli, he made a poor candidate for a secret worshipper of She of the Silver Bells. He had passed both the initiation as a priest, and the investing with the Southern Hummingbird's powers, all of which would have been difficult to do with conflicting allegiances.
* * * *
After I was done with Quenami, I could have gone back and seen the council; but there was one person I had not interviewed at all, and who appeared far from uninvolved in the whole business – Xahuia, the princess of Texcoco who had sent away the guards at Ocome's door on that fateful night, and who had either been the last person to see him alive, or worse.
Accordingly I crossed the palace to the women's quarters and asked for an audience, which was granted immediately, a welcome change from the current trend.
The women's quarters were at the back of the palace, protected by a stout wall adorned with red snakes, and a large image of Chantico, She Who Dwells in the House – with a crown of thorns and a tongue twisting out of Her mouth, as red as the paprika She held in Her cupped hands. Those quarters were, more than anywhere else, a place of seclusion. The courtyards I crossed were small, the rooms that opened into them had their entrance-curtains all drawn closed, and I saw no one but the slaves that accompanied me.
Xahuia's audience room was on the ground floor. I wasn't sure if that was her choice, or merely a statement that, as a foreigner, some imperial privileges were denied to her.
Xahuia herself was in a shadowed room separated from the courtyard by pillars carved with glyphs and abstract patterns. She was sitting cross-legged on a reed mat, playing patolli with three of her women; winning, too, by the look of the pawns on the brightly-painted board. Hers were nearing the end of the quincunx-shaped circuit.
"My Lady," one of the slaves said. "The High Priest for the Dead, Acatl-tzin."
She raised her head. Her face was smooth and beautiful, painted with the yellow of corn kernels, cochineal spread on her teeth to give them the colour of blood. Her eyes, underlined by a slight touch of black, were wide, the pupils shimmering like a lake at night. "I see. Leave us, will you?"
The slaves scattered like a flock of parrots, leaving me alone, facing her across the patolli board. "Xahuia-tzin."
She laughed, like a delighted child. "Oh, please. You flatter me by using the title, but no one else uses it."
"You're of the imperial family."
Xahuia's thin lips turned upwards, her gaze creased in amusement. "Of Texcoco. Of Tenochtitlan – only by marriage, and you must know it." She did not say that was why I was here. She did not need to.
"My Lady," I said, finally. "You know there has been one murder, and one murder attempt, in this palace."
Her face went grave again. "I know only of one murder. Who is the second?"
"The Guardian."
"Really." She did not look or sound surprised. Her face had gone as harsh as an obsidian blade.
"You expected this?"
Xahuia was silent for a while, her hands automatically picking up the beans from the board. "She behaved as if the whole palace was hers. It's not a good time for that kind of attitude."
"She came to see you yesterday," I said, voicing the obvious.
Xahuia made no attempt to deny it. "In the afternoon, in the hour of the Storm Lord."
"And?" I asked.
"We talked for a while."
"Around refreshments?"
"Of course." She smiled. "I'll have the slaves bring some to you as well, don't worry."
I forced a smile in answer. Given what had happened to Ceyaxochitl, that wasn't exactly the most promising invitation I'd ever received. "You do know that she was poisoned."
Xahuia shook her head. "Of course not. I've just told you I didn't even know about the Guardian's attempted murder." But she did not ask any more questions. Not what I would have expected, had she been truly ignorant.
"Let's say you don't," I said. "You can't deny you knew Ocome."
"The little councilman?" She laughed again, the strange, careless laughter of a girl. "Of course not. Who did not know him?"
Who indeed.
"I heard he was quite in demand," I said, keeping my face expressionless. Nearby, a quetzal bird took flight, its call harsh and unforgiving, as raw as a burnt man's scream.
"A voice that can be swayed. A voice that can be bought. Of course he'd be quite in demand, as my brother would say." She looked up, straight at me. "But of course you've never met my brother, Acatl-tzin."
"I can't say I have," I said, cautiously. I was starting to feel I was losing the control of the conversation, assuming that I'd ever had it.
"Nezahual has always been the canniest among us. They say he was blessed by The Feathered Serpent, too, able to foresee the future. He's more than fit to rule Texcoco."
As far as I could remember, Nezahual-tzin had been but a child when his father had died, leaving him legitimate ruler of Texcoco. Three of his elder brothers had conspired to depose and kill him, and Nezahual-tzin owed his Turquoise-and-Gold Crown only to Axayacatl-tzin's intervention . The young prince had been sheltered for a while in Tenochtitlan, before coming back to Texcoco under the hungry gaze of his many brothers and cousins. That he was still Revered Speaker said something, indeed, about his political acumen. "And you're his sister," I said. Fine. I had had my reminder of who she was, of whose support she could enjoy. But the Storm Lord blind me if I was going to let that stop me. More than Tenochtitlan or Texcoco were at stake.
"Let's go back to Ocome," I said.
The women came back. One of them cleared away the patolli board, the other laid down a tray of newts and frogs with amaranth seeds, and slices of tomatoes and squashes.
Xahuia reached for a tomato, and nibbled at it for a while. "Not hungry?"
"Not right now."
Again that laugh. "I'm not going to poison you, poor man."
"You'll forgive me if I don't feel reckless."
She nodded, a hint of amusement across her features. "What do you want to know about Ocome?"
"Who killed him."
"That's usually a good start. I'm afraid I can't help you."
"I think you can."
"Do tell me."
"You were the one who sent the guards away that night, weren't you?" And, when I saw that I had shocked her into silence, "The last one to see him alive."
"I should think not." Her voice was clipped, precise, with a hint of a foreign accent. "That honour would be reserved for his murderer."
"Which you deny being."
"Of course." She picked up another tomato slice. "I won't deny the part about the guards, though."
"Then perhaps you can explain to me what you hoped to achieve."
"Oh, Acatl-tzin." Xahuia shook her head, a trifle sadly. "Are you such a naïve fool? When you're a woman in a world where men are empowered to make the decisions, you learn to use what weapons you have." She bent forward slightly, and all of a sudden I became aware of the curve of her shirt above her breasts, of the luscious hair falling down her bare neck, of her hands, long and soft and capable...
I closed my eyes, but it was too late to banish the images she conjured.
She went on, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. "Of course, you have to make sure it happens late enough at night that your husband won't ever hear of it."
"So you sent away the guards." My voice was shaking. Did the woman have no shame? Her husband was dying, and all she could think of was how to best sell herself?
"Yes, I did. I'm sorry for Axayacatl, but I have to think of myself and of my son, and of what happens when he's no longer there to protect us." Xahuia shifted to an upright position again, and now I saw only a queen in her palace, receiving a supplicant. "You disapprove. I'm not surprised. Most priests are too uptight for their own good."
Uptight, perhaps, but at least I knew where the dividing line lay between right and wrong. "Tell me what happened," I said through gritted teeth. "Did Ocome reject you? Did he laugh at you, and tell you that he had already made his decision? How much did you hate him?" Was that why he had died?
I don't know why I expected her to leap up at me with her nails extended like a jaguar's claws, perhaps too much familiarity with goddesses who seldom could stand being mocked, but I found myself braced for an attack.
Instead, she reached for a newt, carefully picking it out of the tray and bringing it to her mouth, swallowing it in two bites. "As you said, he had made his decision. But with men like Ocome, decisions are seldom final."
I had to close my eyes again. "You– "
"Don't be a fool. I offered both; pressure, and pleasure. I could make life very unpleasant for him, and he knew it."
"More unpleasant than Tizoc-tzin or the She-Snake?"
Xahuia smiled again. "As much. But I could promise him one thing they could not. Once my son had risen to power, I could make sure his rivals both died."
And, of course, neither Tizoc-tzin nor the She-Snake could make that promise for she was a princess of Texcoco, and unless either one of them was willing to break the Triple Alliance, they could not kill her – not when young Nezahual-tzin was so desperately in need for something he could turn into a show of strength. "I see. And he accepted your offer." I still could not quite believe it, she lied as easily as she breathed, told me exactly what she wanted me to hear. Her father had indeed trained her well.
She inclined her head, gracefully. "Of course he did. He made me a promise."
"One he wouldn't go back on?"
She smiled. "You underestimate me, Acatl-tzin. I am no fool. The moment he revealed his allegiance, others would court him. So I made him promise not to say anything until it was time."
"And he accepted?" Of course, if he had given in to her seduction, she would have had her blackmail tool. The Revered Speaker might have many wives, but they were not for ordinary mortals.
"Of course."
"You trusted him?"
"Not any further than I had to," Xahuia said, with that same smile, revealing the darkened red of her teeth. "But I made him swear a solemn vow before a priest of Quetzalcoatl."
A canny move, for oaths sworn before Quetzalcoatl were sacred – the Feathered Serpent Himself, scourge of falsehood and deception, being called to witness them. Such a priest wouldn't have been easy to find at this hour in the palace. But, then again, she was a princess of one city and an empress of another. Who would not come, if called?
"I suppose you won't want to tell me the name of that priest?"
"Why should I not? Every word is true; and, besides, the fool is dead." And, for a moment, her mask of beauty and power slipped, revealing a face as cold and as merciless as that of an executioner.
In that moment, she frightened me as no one else had. I saw that just as she had told me, she would not hesitate to do what was necessary for her own good. That she would not hesitate to remove a Guardian, perhaps, who was too curious, or even a high priest.
My hands shook, and even the sunlight seemed cold on my brow. "I see," I said, but I still had my duty. "Do you know a man named Pezotic?"
She looked genuinely puzzled. "It's not a familiar name. Who is he?"
"A member of the council," I said. I'd been a fool. I should have asked Quenami, but I had been too busy fencing with him to think of that particular question.
"Oh. There are far too many of those." She laughed, careless once more. "I can't say I remember him at all."
"I see," I said. I would have pushed, but her puzzlement and surprise had been so obvious I didn't think she knew him. "I'll take the name of that priest of Quetzalcoatl, if you please. The one Ocome swore an oath before."
"Of course." She gave me a name, telling me he officiated at the Wind Tower, the same place I had gone to pray for Ceyaxochitl's sake. "Will that be all?"
The food sat between us. I had not touched it, and all she had taken were the tomatoes and a newt. Her teeth, when she smiled at me, were the red of spilt blood; and her eyes shone with the light of the moon, of the stars which belonged to She of the Silver Bells, now and forever. A light which grew stronger and stronger, starting from the pupils and slowly consuming the irises and the whites, a great sea of light in which I drowned.
"That will be all," I said, forcing the words between my teeth. I could hear footsteps in the distance; the slaves, coming to escort me out. All I had to do was to get up; to put myself outside of her influence...
"Ah, my dear," Xahuia said, from far away. She turned away from me; and, in that moment, broke the eye contact between us, and whatever spell she had been weaving. "What a pleasure to see you."
Shaking, I pulled myself to my feet, and met the curious gaze of a youth. He looked to be even younger than Teomitl, with a round, open face reminiscent of a rabbit, with the soft folds of flesh of one who had never had to work a day of his life.
But it was his companion who caught my gaze, and held it. He was much taller, as rake-thin as a pole, his face crossed by a single black stripe. His right foot trailed slightly behind him, to a rhythm as erratic as a dying man's heartbeat.
"You haven't met my son Zamayan," Xahuia said, but I was barely listening.
The stripe and the foot were enough clues of the god the man served. Even without those I could not have mistaken him for a mere slave, for magic hung thick and strong around him, an angry, pulsing network of grey and black as deep as night, and the smell of blood wafted from him, as strong as that of an altar.
He was a servant of the Smoking Mirror, the lame god of sorcerers and dark magic, He who delighted in souring men's fates.
And not just any servant, but someone so wreathed in power that summoning a star-demon would have been a trifle.