Obsidian & Blood (140 page)

 

Finding Xoco wasn't hard: I asked the slave at the gates, and he pointed me to the other end of the courtyard – to a door closed with a simple, unadorned cactus-fibre curtain. In front of that door, an old woman was kneeling, grinding maize in a metate pestle.
  Xoco looked up when I arrived; her eyes widened. “My Lord…”
  I cut her off. “I'm just here for a few questions. Citli thought you might know something.”
  “Lord Citli?” Xoco nodded. “About his illness?”
  “Yes,” I said.
  “I'm not sure I can help,” Xoco said, with a slight grimace. She laid aside her mortar, and rose, keeping her gaze to the ground. “It was sudden, that thing. One morning he couldn't rise anymore.”
  “You didn't notice anything?” I had a feeling I was just duplicating my conversation with Citli – running around in circles.
  “No. I'm just a slave woman, my Lord. I can't see magic, or converse with the gods, as you do.” Xoco's voice radiated the awe most common folks had for priests – something which wasn't going to facilitate my task.
  I sighed. I'd learn nothing new here; I might as well go back to Huchimitl and question her further.
  But then I remembered the mask. “Have you been here long?”
  “In this household? Five years or so. I was a gift, for the master's marriage.”
  “You know them well, then. The master and mistress of the house,” I said, and bit my lip. It had nothing to do with the investigation, and it was a prying, improper question to ask. But I couldn't get that mask out of my head. “When did Huchimitl start wearing that mask?”
  Xoco was silent, for a while, and then she said, “It started four years ago. When they found Master Tlalli dead in his room.” Her voice was a whisper now, and she kept her head bowed to the ground, making her expression unreadable. “He was a generous man, but she only married him for his prestige.”
  I wished I could have denied the accusation. But I remembered the morning Huchimitl had told me she was marrying Tlalli – just after I'd come back from the calmecac school, bursting with joy at the idea of sharing my experiences with her. I hadn't expected her to be angry. I hadn't expected her to fling her future husband's feats of glory in my face, or to mock me for choosing the priesthood.
  But she had been a little too proud of his prowess – a little too forceful. Later, when I had cooled down enough to think, I remembered how she used to come to me, always standing a little too close for propriety – and the day when she'd danced for the Emergence of Flowers in her white cotton shift, swaying to the rhythm of drums, fierce and beautiful, unmatched by any of the other dancers. It was you, she'd said, when I congratulated her. I only did it because you were here.
  How could have I have been so blind?
  Her marriage… Why should it have been happy, if she'd contracted it out of disappointment, out of spite?
  “They fought all the time,” Xoco was saying. “She'd always reproach him, always nag him for not being good enough, brave enough. There'd be bruises on both of them, come morning. On his arms, on her face. Except that night, it went worse than usual. Something happened. Something – “
  Her fear was palpable – radiating from her to settle in the growing hollow in my stomach.
  “I don't know what exactly, my Lord. I wasn't there. All I know is that they found him dead, and she shut herself in her rooms and wouldn't let anyone close to her. Afterwards, she started wearing the mask, and never took it off – they say it was to hide what he'd done to her.”
  The hollow in my stomach would not go away. For years I had told myself that Huchimitl had found happiness with her husband, that if I came to her house I would only intrude on her.
  Lies, all of it. Useless lies.
  They'd fought. Every night, perhaps. They'd hit each other, and left traces – bruises.
  But it wasn't only a few bruises Tlalli had given her, was it, if Huchimitl was still wearing that mask?
  “So the master is dead.”
  Xoco looked at me, and her eyes shimmered in the sunlight. “Yes. Gone down into Mictlan with the other shades, and not coming back.”
  “I see,” I said.
  She shook her head, as if finally remembering to whom she'd told her tale. “I wasn't there. I couldn't do anything. But – “ Her face twisted again, halfway between fear and hatred. “But I know one thing. They said Master Tlalli died of a weak heart, but I don't believe that.”
  “The physicians ascertained that,” I said, quietly, not liking what she was telling me.
  Xoco looked down again. “She never loved him. Not truly. And there are poisons…”
  This time I cut her off before she could voice the hateful words. “Yes,” I said. “I understand. Thank you.” Xoco was sincere; and that was the worst. She really believed that Huchimitl had killed her own husband.
  But that was impossible. Huchimitl would never do such a thing.
  The girl I remembered, no. But the woman she had become – the woman I had scorned in my blindness?
  Xoco waited until my back was to her to speak again. “The house hasn't been right since, my lord. Never. The mistress will say what she wants, but it's never been right since Master Tlalli died.”
  “It's empty,” I said, turning back to her. “Without a master. That's all.”
She shook her head again. “No. I've been in empty houses. This one isn't empty. There's something in it. Something that will suck the soul out of you. Be careful, my Lord.”

 

Xoco had unsettled me more than I had thought possible. To calm myself, I walked through the courtyard.
  Huchimitl hadn't loved her husband. They'd quarrelled, often and bitterly: a loveless, angry marriage. Xoco had been right in that respect at least.
  After that fateful morning, I'd never spoken to Huchimitl again. Something had broken between us. Her betrothed was a tequiua, a warrior who had taken four prisoners and was entitled to tribute and honours – I remembered Huchimitl's angry gaze when she'd flung his feats of glory at me. Only later did I understand that it had not been anger, but unrequited love, that had made her so forceful. By then, it was too late. My meagre gifts of apology were returned intact; when I came to her father's house, her family would not speak to me, and Huchimitl herself was never there.
  Would things have been different, I wondered, if I had understood her that morning? For years I had told myself that it would have made no difference – that it was the gods that I wanted to serve, that Huchimitl did not matter. But I knew she did.
I looked at the house again. Why had Xoco been so frightened of it?
  It was a normal house for an affluent warrior: a courtyard enclosed by adobe buildings, with a few pine trees and a pool in the centre. The entrance-curtains to each building were elaborately decorated, but the walls themselves were not painted: odd but not sinister. It was, to be sure, a bit unsettling to see adobe stark white, shining under the sun as if it held some secret light, but –
  My eyes had started to water, and there was a throbbing in my head that had not been there before, a throbbing like some secret heartbeat uniting the earth beneath my feet and the buildings scattered on its surface. And then I realised that the throbbing was the beat of my own heart, rising faster and faster within my chest, singing like pain in my whole body, sending waves of heat until my skin was utterly consumed, and everything beneath it was revealed, blistered and smarting…
  No. I tore my eyes from the house as fast as I could, but it took a while for my heartbeat to calm down. I had seen enough strange things in my life to know this was not a hallucination. Xoco was right. There was something about this house. Something unpleasant, and it was spreading – from the house to Citli, and the gods only knew where it was going to stop.
  I didn't like it. It meant that everyone could be struck down.
  Everyone.
  After that experience, I was not keen on entering a room in the house again, but Huchimitl was waiting for me inside – and I would not leave her alone in there, if I could help it. I asked the slave at the gates where the reception area was, and he showed me through another door into a large, well-lit room.
  The brightly-coloured frescoes adorning the room were a relief after the blank adobe of the outer walls. All of them represented sacrifices to the gods: young children weeping as their throats were slit to honour Tlaloc, God of Rain; a maiden dancing to honour Xilonen, Goddess of Young Corn, later replaced by a priest wearing her flayed, yellow skin; a warrior, his face thrust into burning embers as a sacrifice to Huehueteotl, God of the Hearth.
  Again, those were not unusual. I well knew that only human blood and human lives kept the end of the world at bay. I had abased myself before gods, offered them what they needed, from human hearts to flayed skins; I had wielded many obsidian knives myself in many sacrifices. But the concentration of images in that room seemed almost unhealthy.
  I found Huchimitl sitting on the dais in the centre. She turned her masked face towards me. “So?”
  “Something is wrong.” I looked at her, sitting secure between her walls, never suspecting about the curse affecting more than just Citli. “The house is wrong.”
  Her gaze rested on me, and would not move away. “An odd thing to say.”
  “Don't tell me you haven't felt it.”
  For a moment I thought I had convinced her. And then she spoke, sinking her barb as deep as she could. “Not all of us are fortunate enough to have gone to calmecac, and become a priest.”
  Now that I had seen where she lived, the oppressive atmosphere of the house, more than ever I regretted not coming to visit her. I should have insisted when her family rejected me. I should have done something, not turned away like a coward. So I kept my peace, and said only, “They say your husband died in odd circumstances.”
  “How would you know?”
  “Does it matter?”
  “The servants told you,” Huchimitl said, with an angry stabbing gesture. “They talk too much, and most of that is lies.”
  I kept hoping she'd give me something, anything I could use to understand what was going on. “Do you deny that his death wasn't normal, Huchimitl? All I have to do is ask the slaves, or check the registers – “
  “There was nothing odd about my husband's death,” she snapped, far too quickly.
  Nothing odd? The hollow in my stomach was back. Had Xoco been right about Huchimitl's guilt? “Why do you say that?”
  “Because my husband's death has nothing to do with Citli's illness. Tlalli had a weak heart. He exerted himself too much on the battlefields abroad; and he died of it. That is all.”
  “They say you quarrelled.”
  Huchimitl nodded; the reflections on the mask moved as she did so. I felt queasy just seeing that. “We did, often,” she said. “Do you want me to lie and say it was a happy marriage?”
  “No,” I said. “Though I truly wish you'd found happiness.”
  “We don't always get what we wish for,” Huchimitl said. “Acatl. Trust me. I saw Tlalli die. It was a heart failure. This has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with Mazahuatl. He has enemies– “
  “You told me that already,” I said. She had sounded sincere when swearing to me it had nothing to do with Tlalli's death, but I could be mistaken. “Why did you come to me, Huchimitl?”
  Her voice was low, angry. “I thought you could do something. I thought you could help. A curse, after all, is easily lifted. But it seems you cannot manage even that.”
  “I– “ I said, but words had deserted me. I remembered a time when I could read every one of her expressions, could guess her thoughts before she uttered them. I knew I no longer could do any of that. I suspected I could not help her, and it made me angry at myself for being so incompetent – for failing her.
  “I am no worker of miracles,” I said.
  “Clearly not,” Huchimitl snapped. “I thought you would – “ And then she stopped, as if she had uttered too much.
  “Do what? You tell me nothing. You hide yourself from me, under that mask. You lie to me.”
  “No.” The mask turned towards me, expressionless.
  “Then tell me what is under that mask. Please.” Talk to me, I thought, silently, desperately. Don't hide your secrets from me, Huchimitl. Please.
  “Nothing,” Huchimitl said. Her voice was quiet. “Nothing that concerns you, nothing you can repair, Acatl. I am beyond help. My son is all that matters.”
  “Then tell me more about your son.”
  “Mazahuatl talks little of his life among warriors.” There was longing in Huchimitl's voice, clear, unmistakable. “But I'm no fool. I can guess that things go ill. That he is not liked. That some would like to see him fall. But I have no names.”
  “I see,” I said, and rose to leave. “I'll ask Mazahuatl, then. Where can I find him?”
  The mask moved towards me with the speed of a pouncing snake. “It's not the solution.”
  “Then tell me what would be.”
  “No.” Her voice was fearful. I could not help remembering the girl I'd played with, the girl who had once climbed the festival pole and stood at the top, laughing, daring me to come up and catch her. Not once had she shown fear.
“Huchimitl – “ I said, but she shook her head.
  “You'll find Mazahuatl on the training grounds,” she said. Her voice was emotionless again – an unnerving change of tone.

 

Mazahuatl was on manoeuvres with his regiment. I walked to the training grounds, my mind filled with memories of Huchimitl and of my days as a boy – of all the races we'd run through the fields of maize around Coyoacan, of all the quiet moments when we'd dream of our futures.
  Had I loved her?
  For years I'd told myself that I had not. But I knew now that I had always cared for her. I knew that even though I had felt no regrets on entering the priesthood, still I had left something behind, something infinitely precious that I could no longer recover.
On the training grounds, the warriors were fighting each other wielding maquahuitls, wooden swords with shards of obsidian embedded in the blades.
  Several warriors had finished, and stood to the side, their bare arms gleaming with sweat. I walked up to them and said, “I'm looking for Mazahuatl.”
  One of them gave a short bark, and the others snickered. “Are you now?” he said.
  The warrior's face was heavily scarred, and he wore the quetzal-feather tunic and braided leather bracelets characteristic of tequiuas, those warriors who had taken more than four prisoners and been ennobled. He had their arrogance, too. I said, “Yes, I am looking for Mazahuatl. In what way would it concern you…”
  “Yohuacalli,” he said, curtly. “I'm in the same regiment as Mazahuatl. Tell me, priest, why would you be looking for him?”
  Yohuacalli had a faint aura about him: a talent for magic, though whether sorcerous or not I could not tell. Still, he looked dangerous enough – as dangerous as a coiled snake.
  “Tell me why it should matter to you,” I said.
  He turned to me at last, transfixing me with a gaze the colour of the sky at noon – an uncanny shade for a Mexica. “Mazahuatl is not a true warrior.” I heard depths of hatred within his words. “His father was tequiua, and Mazahuatl never lets us forget it. But his prowess in battle is non-existent. He has no right to such arrogance.”
  “He took a prisoner.”
  Yohuacalli shrugged. “A sick, infirm man? Such a feat of arms.”
  “The man has been cursed,” I said, waiting for his reaction. “After he was taken prisoner.”
  “So they would have you believe. I know the truth.”
  “So do I.” I looked him in the eye. “Surely it would be no great matter for a determined warrior to take a dead man's hand, and bury it into the earth before your enemy's house, and speak the spell to make him fall from grace.”
  Yohuacalli flinched, but soon rallied. “I have no talent for sorcery.” His eyes would not meet mine, and I knew he was lying. “There is Mazahuatl,” he said, pointing to a warrior who was leaving the field.
  Yohuacalli was obviously in a hurry to change the subject, but I let it go. I looked at the warrior designated as Mazahuatl: he was no longer a boy, yet he still wore the braid of the untried warrior – the sacrifice of Citli would enable him to shave his head. His face was flushed with exertion, but even then I could see past that, and make out Huchimitl's traits, Huchimitl's beauty. He looked so much like her that my heart ached.
  Had things gone differently, he could have been my son, not Tlalli's. It was an odd, uncomfortable thought that would not leave my mind.
  When I approached him, he looked at me with contempt. “What do you want?”
  I introduced myself and explained that his mother had sent me, whereupon his manner grew more relaxed. He took me away from the training grounds, out of earshot of his fellow warriors, before he would talk to me.
  I had observed him carefully during our small walk. If Citli, his beloved war-son, had an aura of coiled, malevolent power about him, Mazahuatl was cursed, though not by the underworld. It was small, barely visible unless one stopped and considered him, but he did have an aura. And it was dark and roiling, like storm clouds bursting with rain – an odd kind of curse, one I had never encountered.
  But it had touched him, as it had touched everyone in the house. I thought of the mask again. That had to be why Huchimitl was wearing it – because she'd been disfigured by the curse, just as Citli had been paralysed.
  But the most worrisome thing was that the curse was still spreading. Citli's paralysis wasn't stopping – and I didn't think Huchimitl was safe, not for one moment. The curse would not stop. Not until I found out what was truly going on in that house.
  “How long have you been cursed?” I asked Mazahuatl, and saw him start.
  “You know nothing.”
  “I'm a priest. I know enough, I should say.”
  He turned away from me. “Mother sent you? Go away.”
  “She thinks you have enemies,” I said, softly. “And I'd wager Yohuacalli is among them.”
  He would not meet my gaze. “Go away.”
  “Do you care so little about your reputation?”
  “Mother cares,” Mazahuatl said. “I'm no fool. I know I won't be raised within the ranks.”
  “You captured a prisoner,” I pointed out. “Single-handed. There is no reason it shouldn't happen.”
  He laughed, a sick, desperate laugh. “That's what I told myself at first, trying to make myself believe. But of course it won't work. Nothing ever does.”
  “That's the hallmark of a curse. Won't you tell me anything?”
  “No,” he said. “Just go back, report to Mother that you've failed, and stop bothering us.” And he would not talk to me any more, no matter how hard I pressed him.