Master of the House of Darts (16 page)

He spoke like a warrior: frank, honest, not mincing words and making no efforts to hide anything.

Or did he? His account was not only fragmentary, but singularly unhelpful – as if he'd worked on it to give as little information as possible.

"Hmm," I said. "He grasped you by the neck. That would indicate a man taller than you."

His mouth set in a grimace – his hands clenched as the split lips contracted, opening up the hundred tiny wounds he'd sustained. "I suppose so."

With him lying down, it was hard to tell – but I remembered the ceremony of welcoming for the army, and the four members of the war-council following one another. Pochtic, in his crimson feathers and black-trimmed mantle, had towered over Teomitl – who wasn't very small himself, either. So either our assailant was uncannily tall, whether he was human or not – I could think of several creatures that would fit that description. Or…

I needed a way to look at his neck – one that would be discreet enough to draw no suspicion. If he was lying, and in some ways involved with the epidemic, the last thing I needed was to be spooking him.

If I rose now – with the words he'd spoken fresh in his mind – he would suspect something. I had to gain time, instead. "Asphyxiation," I said. "It's a common ritual used by the priests of Tlaloc."

"I have little to do with the Storm Lord," Pochtic said, not without disdain. "My service is dedicated to Tezcatlipoca the Smoking Mirror, Lord of the Near, Lord of the Nigh – and to the other gods of war."

"You don't think someone could have attacked you for precisely this reason?" I asked.

Pochtic snorted. "I maintain good relations with the gods and their priests. Nothing particular happened in the last few days that would justify this."

His eyes flicked, just a fraction, as he said that – and for a moment I saw raw fear in the pupils. He knew, or suspected what he'd been attacked for.

What was going on?

"So you didn't know your assailant? You're sure that you wouldn't have caught a glimpse of him – have any inkling or any suspicion why you were picked for that kind of death?" I rose as I said that, and walked nearer to him – and, as I expected, Pochtic followed the direction of my voice, tilting his head upwards. His cloak slipped, a fraction, uncovering his neck and the top of his shoulders – a fraction, but it was enough for me to see that there was no mark whatsoever there.

No, wait.

There were faint bruises on both shoulders, not far from the neck area. I'd only had a short look at them before Pochtic settled down again, but they were familiar, from a thousand examinations. Palm marks, facing upwards. In other words, someone had forced Pochtic down on his back, and put the mask on – and left him here, flopping like a fish on dry land until the air in his lungs gave out.

Then he had seen his assailant – or a shadow, at least. Why lie about it?

"I've told you," Pochtic said. "I don't have any idea what's going on."

"You're a strong man," I said, slowly. "I'm surprised you were overwhelmed that easily."

Pochtic's eyes glittered with something I couldn't place – shame, fear? "He held me like a rag doll," he whispered. "And then I couldn't breathe. Do you have any idea how horrible it is – your lungs starting to burn, your mouth struggling to draw air through jade? I– all your life, you breathe. Day after day, moment after moment – and suddenly you can't see anything, can't focus on anything but how powerless you are?"

He was Master of the House of Darkness: a rich, powerful man, who had everything he could ever want – physicians waiting on him, servants to satisfy the least of his desires. Like Eptli, he believed himself designed for greatness – and then, in a moment, everything had been snatched from him. He had been reminded that – like precious stones which cracked and broke – he was destined for Mictlan, the underworld, the place of the fleshless.

I knew the fear in his eyes – I had felt it myself. But in him it seemed to be compounded with something I couldn't place. Did he lie about his assailant because the latter had been small, and he was ashamed? Or was it something else?

Either way, this wouldn't be solved here. To accuse him of lying would bring me nowhere and would only anger Tizoc-tzin further – not the most intelligent of ideas, given his current mood.

NINE

Enemies of the Empire

I was walking out of Pochtic's quarters, when, through a courtyard, I caught a glimpse of Teomitl, walking by a woman in a simple red skirt. She did not wear the two horns of married women, but there was an ivory comb in her hair. Her face was lathered with makeup, giving her skin the yellow sheen of corn, and she walked with the familiar, swaying allure of a woman used to seducing men.

A sacred courtesan. Xiloxoch? I couldn't see any other reason for him to talk to someone of her status – not now that he was married, in the process of founding a household of his own.

Though Teomitl didn't look seduced – if anything, he looked angry, the facets of his cheeks taking on the colour of jade, and his eyes hardening into small, glinting stones. The aura of his patron goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, Jade Skirt, was strong enough to hurt my eyes.

"Teomitl!" I called.

He slowed down a fraction, but barely acknowledged me. He was in regalia – not the peacetime one, but rather the frightful spectre, the war costume of the Master of the House of Darts. It made him look wild, untamed – from the dishevelled plume of quetzal feathers fanning out from the back of his hair, to his head, emerging from between the jaws of a sculpted skeletal beast. "This is Xiloxoch." He smiled, but the expression never reached his eyes. "Nezahual-tzin brought her to my quarters."

And what pleasure Nezahual-tzin would have derived from it, no doubt. "So you're accompanying her back to the House of Joy?"

Teomitl made a small, stabbing gesture with the back of one hand. "No. I'm taking her to the military courts."

"For visiting a prisoner?" Surely there was no law against this?

The light around Teomitl flared up, became blinding. "You don't understand, Acatl-tzin. Xiloxoch has serious accusations to make."

Against the prisoner? "I–"

The courtesan, Xiloxoch, spoke up. Her voice was that of an educated woman – most of the courtesans who attended the warriors in the House of Youth tended to be commoners, but she had obviously been taught by priestesses in the calmecac school. "Bribery and fraud," she said. Her teeth were black, the colour of unending night; her eyes, outlined with makeup, shone with determination. A driven woman, Nezahual-tzin had said. "Eptli has scratched the jade, has torn apart the quetzal feathers – dishonouring father and mother, and the gods that watched over him."

The sinking feeling was back in my stomach. "What did he do?"

"He corrupted the judges." Teomitl's voice was curt. "The two-faced son of a dog corrupted the war-council, under my own eyes."

But the war-council included him, surely? "The whole council?"

"The Master of the House of Darkness, and the deputy for the Master of Raining Blood." Xiloxoch's face twisted; it might have been a smile, but there was no joy in it. "The other deputy refused."

Pochtic. Coatl. And the other man, the one I hadn't seen more than for a few moments. "And Teomitl?" I asked.

Teomitl's face was a mask, his skin carved jade, his cheeks hollowed, and his eyes dark holes. "I was too much of a fool to catch what they were saying."

"That's a serious accusation," I said, very slowly. "Do you have any evidence?"

"We don't need evidence for the moment," Teomitl said, impatiently. "We need to warn the magistrates, so that they can arrest the culprits."

I raised a hand. Had he learned nothing? "Do you have evidence?" I asked Xiloxoch, again.

Her eyes were dark, and deep; her black-stained teeth shining in the oval of her face. "The behaviour of a dead man. The word of another. It's not easy, as you can see." She didn't smile. Her whole being seemed – taut, with something very like the will to seduce – somehow transfigured, shaped into an instrument of the law. Driven, Nezahual-tzin had called her.

But driven by what? The desire for justice, or one of Xochiquetzal's plots?

"It's a serious accusation," I said, finally. And, if it was true…

No. I couldn't be like Teomitl, and take risks as easily as I breathed.

"It's a serious crime," Xiloxoch said. Her voice took on the singsong accents of an admonition. "'The city has given you a plume of heron feathers, the city has given you paper clothes. You are the slave of the city, the servant of the people. Do not let your words ripen and rot.'" She did smile, then; and it was terrible to behold, a thing without joy.

I didn't like that. Whatever her motivations – and they had to be more complicated than a simple will for justice – it was still… troubling. "Coatl," I said, slowly. "Pochtic."

"Acatl-tzin–" Teomitl said, "You don't think–"

I wasn't in a state to think, that was the problem. "Eptli is dead. Coatl is in isolation. Pochtic has been savaged."

Xiloxoch hadn't moved – she stood as straight as a thrown spear, waiting with undisguised impatience. Still, she'd moved a fraction at the last – something about Pochtic was either news, or unexpected.

"Whatever testimony you have," I said to Xiloxoch, "it won't last long." And, to Teomitl: "You're wrong."

For a moment – a bare, fleeting moment – I saw the harshness of jade in his features, and the shadow that spread to his eyes – and I thought he was going to reprimand me, to deny my right as his teacher. But then he shook his head, and some of the tension in the air vanished. "Wrong? Prove it."

Think, think, Southern Hummingbird curse me. "I want to know what you have," I said to Xiloxoch. "Once again, it is a serious accusation that you bear. We can't act prematurely on that."

"I slept with Eptli, once or twice. He made – careless confessions, after he was spent." Her lips twisted. "He was so sure of himself, that one. Didn't think for a moment that the captive would fail to be awarded to him." She spat on the ground; her saliva glistened on the dry earth.

"And you still slept with him." I understood her less and less – was her patron goddess Xochiquetzal behind that? The Quetzal Flower's intrigues tended to be far more vicious and far less complicated than that.

"He was handsome," Xiloxoch said, dismissively. "One might as well pick the prettiest ones."

"That's not a very strong reason," I said. "Why did you pick him, Xiloxoch?"

She shook her head, but did not answer.

"Xiloxoch." Teomitl said – his voice was soft, but it was no longer that of the young, unproven warrior. "Someone has been spreading diseases in the heart of the Mexica Empire. This is also a serious crime."

"I wouldn't know anything about that." Her eyes had flared; her hands clenched. She looked more angry than fearful.

"Why pick Eptli, Xiloxoch?"

"I told you. For justice."

"No," I said, slowly. "That's not what you told us. You said you'd learned of Eptli's transgression only after you slept with him."

There was a soft, green light spreading – Teomitl's aura, giving everything the air of underwater caves. The air smelled of churned mud, with the salty aftertaste of blood – and it was thicker too, clogging in our lungs. I could hear Xiloxoch's rising breath – coming in shorter and more laboured gasps. "Why?" he asked.

Last time I'd seen him try this, he'd almost killed a guard – but things had changed now, and he seemed more in control. Though one could never be sure, with the capricious Jade Skirt.

Xiloxoch's face was pale, her teeth drinking in the light and giving nothing back. "He was such an arrogant, obnoxious man. Thinking all the quetzal feathers, all the jade of the Fifth World were his due. So used to riches he thought they could buy anything."

The quintessential warrior – contemptuous of anything so feminine as sacred courtesans. "In other words, the perfect worshipper of the Southern Hummingbird."

Xiloxoch smiled, but said nothing.

"It's a serious accusation," I said, again. "But, if it's true, then they'll uphold the law, and Eptli will be stripped of rank, posthumously. Warriors were held to higher standards than commoners, by virtue of their higher knowledge and education. The war-council – the heads of the warriors, their role-models in the Fifth World – would be held to even more exacting rules.

"Come on," Teomitl said. "Let's see the magistrate, and we'll sort this out."

I shook my head. The pattern was disturbing: if Xiloxoch's accusations were true, we had three people involved. Eptli had offered the bribe, Pochtic and Coatl had accepted it. Eptli was dead, someone had attacked Pochtic, and Coatl had fallen prey to the same sickness as Eptli. As to the prisoner Zoquitl – the prize in all of this – he had also died.

Whether Xiloxoch's accusations were true or not, someone seemed to be killing off everyone alleged to have taken part in the affair.

Was it someone else associated with Xiloxoch? "Who else knows about this?" I asked her.

She started. "I don't understand."

"Don't take us for fools," I said. "As you said – everyone mentioned has died, or been attacked in some way. I find it hard to believe there is no connection."

Xiloxoch's eyes flicked towards the ground. "I didn't mention it to anyone. Why would I?"

Teomitl watched her intently – I wondered if he saw anything else, with the light of Jade Skirt so strong in his eyes – but at length he nodded. "Let's go, Acatl-tzin. We've wasted enough time already."

I thought, quickly. The coincidence was troubling, but then all the men she had accused were members of the war-council and what better way to sow chaos amongst us than target them – the supreme four, commanders of the army?

"No," I said. "We have more important things to do than this." And, to Xiloxoch: "I'm pretty sure you can find your own way to the military courts."

Her smile was wide and dazzling. "Of course. Don't worry about me, Acatl-tzin."

After she'd left, Teomitl turned to me, his face creased in puzzlement. "We could have–"