Obsidian & Blood (7 page)

  "Do you know where he lives?" I asked Ceyaxochitl.

  "No," she said. "But he's a Jaguar Knight. You can go ask at their House, tomorrow."
  "Why not tonight?" I asked. "Neutemoc–"
  Ceyaxochitl's lips pursed. "One night of imprisonment isn't going to kill your brother."
  "But I could–"

  "You could not." Her voice was as cutting as obsidian. "One does not walk into the Jaguar House."

  "I am High Priest for the Dead," I said, in the same tone she had used on me.

  Ceyaxochitl's gaze told me all I needed to know: the Jaguar and Eagle Knights were the elite of the Empire, the warriors who kept us strong, and they had their own laws. "Acatl. If you go into the Jaguar House, and wake up sleeping Knights without their commander's permission, you'll be under arrest. And much good it will do your brother then." 

  "You're asking me to let go?"

  "I'm asking you to wait until tomorrow. Daylight changes many things."

  Yaotl's lips pursed. "And if you dress impressively enough, getting in shouldn't be a problem."

  "Ha ha," I said. Even if I put on my full regalia, with the skullmask and the cloak embroidered with owls, I'd still have difficulties entering the Jaguar Knights' House. "Do you think it's worth pursuing?" I asked Ceyaxochitl.

  It was Yaotl who answered. "That Jaguar Knight was shaken," he said. "Very badly shaken, and trying hard not to show it." 

  Hardly a normal reaction. "You think he had something to do with it?"

  "I'm having trouble seeing how he could not have had something to do with it," Yaotl said.

  More suspects. On the one hand, this lessened the chances Neutemoc was guilty of more than adultery. On the other, what had looked like an easy case seemed to put forth additional complications with every hour. 

  "I'll go and see him tomorrow," I said.

  Ceyaxochitl's eyes blinked, slowly; her face stretched slightly. I put my hand over my mouth to contain my own yawn. 

  "Anything else?" she asked.

  I thought back to my interview with Zollin, and of the magic that had hung thick in her room. "You said you'd searched every room of the calmecac for the nahual. Did that include Zollin's rooms?" 

  Yaotl spoke up. "No supernatural jaguar hiding there, trust me. Although I've never seen someone less worried about Eleuia." 

  "I had the same impression," I said. "She seemed to polarise people." 

  Ceyaxochitl shrugged. "The beautiful often do, even if they're no longer young." She leaned on her cane, exhaling in what seemed almost nostalgia. Then she shook her head, coming back to more pressing matters. "The search parties are out. Yaotl will stay here and supervise them. You, on the other hand, should go to sleep." 

  I said, stung, "I don't need–"

  "Sleep? Don't be a fool, Acatl. Dawn is in less than two hours. You won't be of any use to anyone, least of all your brother, if you can hardly stand." 

  My brother. Was I going to be of any use to him?

  I hadn't dwelled on Neutemoc for years. Or perhaps it had started even earlier: when the calpulli clan's search party brought Father's drowned body to Neutemoc's house, and when we'd stared at each other across the divide, and known we'd become strangers to each other. 

  I didn't know. I didn't know what I ought to feel.

  "There will be time, tomorrow," Yaotl said, almost gently. I must have looked really tired, if he was being solicitous to me. 

  "Was there anything else, Acatl?" Ceyaxochitl asked.

  It was a dismissal: my last chance to get her help, instead of Yaotl's distant, ironic pronouncements. I said, finally, "I need the location… of a certain house in Tenochtitlan."

  "A House of Joy?" Yaotl asked, his face falsely serious. "Feeling lonely in your bed?"

  I was too tired to rise to the jibe. "Priestess Eleuia allegedly had a child, some years ago. I'm not sure it's significant, but I'd like to know if it's true."

  Ceyaxochitl's eyes held me, shrewd, perceptive. I lowered my gaze. I didn't wish her to read my thoughts. But she had to know; she had to have guessed what I feared. "Yes?"

  "I've heard whispers in the Sacred Precinct," I said slowly. "They say… they say that Xochiquetzal, the Quetzal Flower could not restrain Her lust, and charmed all the gods onto Her sleeping mat, one after the other. There is talk that the Duality expelled Her from Heaven for this sin, and that She now dwells in the mortal world, in a house which can be visited, if one knows its location." 

  Ceyaxochitl didn't blink, or give any sign of surprise. "Perhaps," she said. "You'd go to Her to know about the child?" 

  "Yes," I said.

  I couldn't read her expression. But at length she said, "Priestess Eleuia belonged to Her. And she is Goddess of Lust and Childbirth, after all. Perhaps She'll know something useful. Go to bed, Acatl. I'll send the address to you in the morning."

  So I couldn't go to the goddess's house now. They were both treating me like a newborn infant, which was worrying. Neither of them had shown any inclination to overprotect me before. 

  "Very well," I said. "You win. I'll go find some sleep before dawn." 

  "Don't worry. We'll take care of things," Yaotl said. His eyes glinted in the darkness. For a fleeting moment I thought there was more than amusement in his gaze – something deeper and more serious – but then I dismissed the thought. Yaotl was not my enemy. 

  I was too tired to think properly. I bade them goodbye and walked back to my temple, praying that they'd find Eleuia alive – that they'd find something, anything, that would exonerate Neutemoc.

 

 

My sleep was dark and dreamless. I noted, distantly, the blare of priests' trumpets that marked the return of Tonatiuh from His night-long journey – and then turned on my reed-mat, and went back to sleep.

  When I woke up, sunlight flooded my house. I sat up, wincing as all the events of the previous night came back into my mind, as unforgiving as
peyotl
visions.
  Neutemoc.
  A child.

  He had a wife and children of his own, and our sister Mihmatini under his responsibility. Even if Neutemoc was later found out to be innocent, the tarnish of his arrest and his attempted adultery would hang over them all for a long time. Huitzilpochtli blind him. Could he do nothing right?

  I rummaged in my wicker chest for a clean loincloth, and took my grey cloak from the reed-mat where I'd left it. As I tied it around my shoulders, I thought of the last time I'd seen Neutemoc: of Mother's face, contorted in agony and anger as she accused me of cowardice; and of Neutemoc, standing frozen by her death-bed, unable to say anything.

  He hadn't said anything as I walked out, later. He'd gone back to his wife and children, and I'd staggered through the city, trying to find words I could give Mother: reasons that would convince her that by entering an obscure priesthood, I hadn't wasted my life. I was needed: I kept the balance of the world; I gave the dead their rest. But not indispensable: there were plenty of priests – while there had been no one, save Neutemoc, to pay for the schooling and the feeding of my three sisters.

  Enough worries. I had to make sure, first and foremost, that Neutemoc was truly innocent. I tried to ignore the voice whispering that he might well be the murderer Ceyaxochitl thought she'd arrested.

  I walked out into the courtyard, under the lone pine tree, and exited my house. Outside, the hubbub of the Sacred Precinct filled my ears: vendors hawking their amulets and charms; a crowd of freemen in loincloths, coming to offer their sacrifices to the temples; a procession of priestesses, dressed in white skirts and blouses, singing their hymns to honour Toci, Grandmother Earth; warriors in embroidered cotton cloaks, striding arrogantly ahead. 

  Determined to start with the most unpleasant tasks, I went to the Jaguar House first: a squat adobe adorned with lavish frescoes of Knights trampling bound enemies underfoot, and of their patron Tezcatlipoca, watching the carnage with a slight smile across His striped face.

  The House itself was always a centre of activity, bustling with Jaguar Knights and sacred courtesans, but today it was oddly silent. 

  There was a single guard at the gates, instead of the usual pair. He stared at me levelly as I approached. "Looking for something?" His pose and his voice exuded arrogance – not deliberately, but something that had become second nature to him. And yet he was a boy, impossibly young to have already been admitted into the ranks of the elite. 

  "I need to see a knight," I said.

  "I have no doubt you do." His gaze lingered on me a little longer.
  In his eyes was the familiar contempt of warriors for priests. "That's currently impossible."
  "Currently?" I asked.

  His lips curled, in what might have been amusement. "They're at the Imperial Palace. There's a ceremony they have to practise for." 

  "All of them?" I asked, my heart sinking.

  "All but me." He looked again at me, as if wondering what a shabbily dressed priest could possibly want of Jaguar Knights. Yaotl and Ceyaxochitl had been right; I should have put on my full regalia before coming here.
  "When will they be back?" I asked.
  He shrugged. "Tezcatlipoca only knows."

  In other words, it was beneath his dignity to answer me. I bit back a curse. Antagonising the guard would bring me nothing but trouble.

  "Noon?" I asked, insisting.

  "They might be back then," the guard said. "You can try." His slightly mocking tone made it clear he believed I'd be thrown out of the House, regardless of whether the knights were back. 

  "I certainly will try," I said, determined not to let him get the better of me. "I'll see you then."

  He didn't say anything as I walked away from the House. Privately, I doubted the knights would be back before a while. An Imperial ceremony was no small matter.

  Curse it! Well, if I couldn't interview Mahuizoh, I could see about Xochiquetzal instead – not a pleasant thought, by any standards. 

  From the Jaguar House, it was but a short walk to my temple; and by the time I arrived there, most of the novice priests had already left for the market at Tlatelolco.

  My second-in-command Ichtaca was in the courtyard, giving instructions to a handful of offering priests in grey-and-blue cloaks. As usual, he was acquitting himself so well I wasn't sure how I could have helped him. Why ever had Ceyaxochitl thought I'd make a good High Priest? I'd hoped to slip by Ichtaca undetected, but he was quite observant. 

  "Acatl-tzin!" 

  I suppressed a sigh. "Yes?"

  "There's a message for you," Ichtaca said. "From Guardian Ceyaxochitl."

  The location of Xochiquetzal's house, a message I'd hoped to recover discreetly. I nodded, and felt obliged, now that I was standing in front of him, to ask, "How are things going?"

  He shrugged. "The usual. Two deaths in the district of Moyotlan. The examination revealed no trace of magic or other foul play, so I let the priests of the district handle it. A woman dead in childbirth in the district of Cuepopan. We'll have to supervise the burying rites, and make sure she's honoured properly."

  As the woman had died struggling to bring a life into this world, her soul would already be flying upwards, to accompany Tonatiuh on His journeys; but the family's grief would be eased if the rites were said accordingly. 

  "I see," I said. "Well… I'll leave you to it."

  Ichtaca looked at me. He seemed to be expecting something more of me, but I couldn't see what. Some orders? He had absolutely no
need for that.
  "I'll see that message," I said finally.

  Ichtaca shrugged. Clearly, I had not given him what he had expected. "It's in the shrine. Come."

 

Before leaving, I detoured through the storehouse to take a parrot and a handful of marigold flowers: offerings for Xochiquetzal. Palli had been replaced by a younger novice priest, one whom I didn't know. He bowed to me, making me feel ill at ease.

  Carrying the parrot's cage against my hip, I went to the address Ceyaxochitl had given me: a house on the outskirts of Moyotlan, the south-west district of Tenochtitlan. The city was on an island, of which the Sacred Precinct was the heart. Streets and canals snaked out from the central plaza, leading to the four districts – and further out, to the fields where we grew our crops. I walked away from the centre, into streets bordered by canals on either side. Small boats passed me by, ferrying their owners to their business: to the artisans' districts, to the marketplace, or an audience at a nobleman's house. The aqueduct canals were crossed at regular intervals by bridges. On each bridge stood a water-porter, ready to dip his bucket into the water, and to offer it to anyone who paid.

  From the houses around me came the familiar grinding sound of maize pounded into powder, and the wet slap-slap of flatbread rolled onto the stones. That sound had woken me up every day when I was a child: Mother's daily ritual, making the food that Father would take to the fields. Long before I took the path to my humble priesthood, back when my parents had still been proud of my thirst for knowledge.

  Lost in reminiscence, I finally reached my destination: a small, unremarkable alley, half street, half canal. At the back of the alley were the featureless walls of a huge house, one that seemed to waver in the morning light, even though there was barely any mist. 

  Magic hung thick around it: the familiar, bold strokes of Ceyaxochitl's spells, woven into a cocoon around the house, hiding it from the world. An uninitiated person could not have seen enough of that house to open its door.

  The house had two storeys, a luxury reserved for noblemen. A lush garden of poinsettias and marigolds adorned its roof. In the courtyard, pines grew by the side of a stone pool, the water within, clear, cloudless, reflecting the perfect blue of the sky.