Master of the House of Darts (34 page)

"An important life." I hadn't seen Ichtaca creep up behind me – but suddenly he loomed behind me, as forbidding as a god. "I needn't remind you of who Coatl is."

Deputy for the Master of Raining Blood, member of the war-council – moving among the turquoise and jade, the brightest lights and most shining mirrors of the Mexica Empire. "I know. I don't care. A life for a life is wrong."

"Then what? Do you want us to kill him again? It won't regain the sacrifice's life. Besides," Ichtaca said, "he knew what he was doing."

How could he be so high in the hierarchy of Lord Death, and fail to see the problem? "That's not the point. All lives are equal and weighed the same – separated only by the manner of their deaths." I felt like a teacher in the calmecac, repeating obvious truths to boys not old enough to have lost their childhood locks. To give one's life to the gods was the greatest sacrifice, but to do so in favour of another human being, to rank human lives by importance, like
things…

Ichtaca's lips pursed. His rigid sense of hierarchy – what had caused him to put Coatl ahead in the first place – wouldn't let him contradict me, his superior. "As you wish," he said.

The Duality curse me if I let him have the last word. "It was good work," I said to Palli. "But I don't think it would make a viable cure."

He looked disconsolate, and I couldn't think of anything that would change matters. "Look into it again," I suggested. "There might be a way around the human sacrifice."

"I suppose."

I wished I could offer more – but black was black and red was red, and he shouldn't have done that. I guessed my point had come across clearly enough. "Ichtaca?"

"Yes, Acatl-tzin?" His face was smooth, expressionless.

"There is a man you need to track down – someone who came here earlier. A calendar priest."

"He will be under the seal of secrecy." He didn't say "you should know that", but it was abundantly clear.

I shook my head. Yes, the priest wouldn't be inclined to reveal the contents of the interview. But still… a drowning man couldn't afford to be choosy about which bit of driftwood to cling to. "He might still give us something to understand Pochtic. It looks as though Pochtic did the prescribed penance, and then still committed suicide." Which, to be honest, made me wonder if the offence hadn't been too grave to be forgiven – which suggested either something large, or something that went against the will of a powerful god.

"Hmm," Ichtaca was still looking at the walls – which reminded me that he'd been muttering earlier.

"Something the matter? Here, I mean."

His gaze suggested he thought more was the matter than a deserted room containing the body. "I don't think – something is odd in this room, Acatl-tzin. I can't quite pinpoint what, but…"

I sighed – assessing my meagre resources. "Palli, can you see about tracking down the calendar priest?"

Palli pulled himself straight, almost to attention. "Yes, Acatl-tzin!"

I could feel Ichtaca's discontent as I moved into the room, leaning on my cane – Storm Lord's lightning strike me, I was looking the same as Coatl, though perhaps not quite so battered.

Coatl still stood where we'd left him, looking down at Pochtic's body. His eyes, dark and shadowed, were all but unmoving, his gaze expressionless. But tears had run down his cheeks, staining the black face-paint. "That's not how it happens." His voice, too, was expressionless – too carefully controlled.

"How it happens?" I asked.

"We die in wars," he snapped. "Caught by spears and cut by obsidian, our souls taking wing on the courage of eagles, the ferocity of jaguars. We don't–" His hand rose towards Pochtic, faltered. "We don't just end it like this."

"No," I said, at last. "I know it's not much, but I'm sorry you had to see this."

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. You can't erase the memory of it, anyway. Was there anything else, Acatl-tzin?"

I bowed my head, as gravely as I could. "Yes. I apologise for bringing this up," we both knew I wasn't sorry, not by a large margin, "but I need to know what you can remember about the sickness."

The tremor in his hands was barely visible. "Not much. I… I couldn't breathe – as if I were in water or mud. And there were… bodies." He inhaled, sharply. "Dozens and dozens of bodies, all burning with fever. I've walked battlefields, but this was–"

"Different."

"Yes." Gently, he knelt by Pochtic's body, his fingers probing the wound that had slashed the arteries. "That's all there is."

"I see." It was consistent with my own symptoms – with Teomitl's. And all consistent with Jade Skirt's involvement – water or mud, and the sensation of choking. But it was nothing
new
, though.

"And Pochtic?" I asked.

"I thought I knew Pochtic." His gaze was distant. "Obviously, I didn't."

"So you don't know why he might have committed suicide." I was only stating the obvious there, in the hopes that it might help.

"No," Coatl said. He rose, picked up his cane again – his breath fast, laboured. "He was a man who enjoyed life. Too much, perhaps. I don't think he understood what lay beneath as well as some."

"You mean?"

"He knew it was for the glory of the gods, for the Fifth Sun and Grandmother Earth. But I think, all too often, he saw his own glory first." He sighed, again, as if he were a calendar priest, closing the divination books on Pochtic's life. "Ah well. It doesn't matter, now. Never will again."

Suicides, like the rest of the unglorious dead, went to Mictlan. Given enough time, we could summon the dead man's soul, find out what he had known.

I suspected we didn't have that kind of time.

"If you didn't take a bribe…" I said, slowly.

He looked up, with a brief spark of anger in his eyes – nothing unnatural or false there. He may have been acting, but I'd interviewed him earlier and had seen that, while he might have many talents, subtle acting wasn't among them. "How many times will I need to tell you I didn't?"

"It's not that," I said, throwing up both hands like a shield. "My point is that someone still accused you of taking it."

"Who?"

Judging by the gleam in his eyes, I wasn't sure I ought to tell him. But still, he'd find it easily enough. "A sacred courtesan, Xiloxoch. And it looks like several of you were approached with this. By Eptli."

"Eptli." Coatl's voice was bitter. "He's been a worse companion dead than alive, I have to say."

I had to agree there. "And you don't remember this, either?"

Coatl shrugged. "I know what you want." For the first time, there was anger in his gaze. "Eptli was one of my men, and whether he's dead or not, I won't see his name being soiled by chaff and straw. If I have nothing to say against him, I won't invent calumnies."

"Look," I said. He'd just been healed from the sickness, and he couldn't possibly have understood how everything had gone wrong. "Chipahua and his household are dead. The Master of the House of Darts has vanished. We have further warriors with the illness, and someone has been writing threats against the Mexica Empire in the prisoners' quarters." Gods, put like that, it became rather overwhelming.

"And you see me sorry for it," Coatl said, "but there is nothing much I can do to help you."

I could recognise obstruction when I saw it. "Fine," I said, stifling a sigh. "If you can think of anything that would shed light on those matters, keep me in mind."

"Of course," he said, but we both knew he was lying.

EIGHTEEN

The Dead Man's Confession

Palli caught up with me as I was walking out of the palace – we'd left Ichtaca with Pochtic's body, still mumbling to himself. I wasn't sure how much of it was sheer annoyance at my position on the healing ritual, and how much was his detecting a genuine problem.

Never mind. We could both argue until we ran out of breath, but I wouldn't change my position. I had the uncomfortable feeling Ichtaca wouldn't, either.

"Acatl-tzin," Palli said. "I know you asked me to track down the calendar priest, but it's likely he'll be at his temple. We can go together, if you want."

I glanced at the sky: the hour of Xochipilli the Flower Prince, with the Fifth Sun at His zenith. Palli was right: most of them would be having lunch. "Let's have a look."

We stopped for a quick lunch, buying spiced tamales from a vendor and eating the warm food with relief.

The calendar priests had their own temple, a low complex with a small pyramid shrine. As Palli and I walked in, a priest was busy directing a painter to add day-signs to a fresco; others were carrying copies of the sacred calendars back to storage rooms, while novice priests ground pigments in the huge stone mortars. A few more sat cross-legged, annotating horoscopes and pondering favourable dates for their supplicants' endeavours. The air smelled of fried maize more than copal smoke, an odd change after the atmosphere of the Sacred Precinct.

The first calendar priest we found directed us to his superior – who directed us to his superior in turn, until we found ourselves facing the head of the order, a portly man with a stern face, who looked as displeased by our request as by the prospect of being disturbed at his lunch.

"Acatl-tzin." He managed to radiate disapproval even over his utterance of my name. "I'm told you're looking for a calendar priest."

I nodded, and wasn't surprised when he launched into a speech on confession. "As you're well aware, the priest is but the vessel through which confessions are made to the Eater of Filth. He may not repeat the words, for they haven't been spoken in the Fifth World…"

I used the pause in the discourse to insert a few words of my own. "I know that, and I don't want to know the contents of the confession. I just want to speak to the priest who received it."

That stopped him. "Why?"

"The words are out of the Fifth World; the offence, too. But there are other things I might learn."

His eyes narrowed. "Thus going around the interdict. I thought you a more devout man, Acatl-tzin."

One could say I had elevated our survival to a devotion. I bit back a sharp retort, and said only, "Most men who call on the Eater of Filth don't commit suicide afterwards."

He clicked his tongue in a falsely compassionate way. "I see your problem. However, I don't think I can be of help."

The calendar priest who had referred us to him – their equivalent of a fire priest – hadn't left; he was standing by the entrance-curtain, his face set in the peculiar expression of people working hard at concealing their thoughts. "I see," I said, rising from the mat. "My apologies for taking up your time."

I let the other calendar priest escort us out – sounds of mastication behind us, coupled with the strong smell of spices and grilled maize, made it clear the head of the order had gone back to his delayed lunch.

"It sounds like serious business," the calendar priest said. He sounded wistful. "Most of us just get called for adultery, or some other petty offence. You'd think a oncein-a-lifetime confession would be more exciting."

"But it's not," Palli said. "Like most dead bodies turn out to have died from natural causes." He sighed. "And sometimes, of course, it all goes wrong like a dash of cold water, and you wish it could all be normal again."

"I guess." The priest sounded sceptical. "Still… as you say, not every day you have a suicide."

"The Master of the House of Darkness, no less," I said, sombrely. "In the wake of threats against the Mexica Empire."

His face lit up. "Really. And you need to speak to a calendar priest for that?"

I felt dishonest. Likely, it would come to nothing, and we'd have stoked his wrong ideas about the priesthood. But still… given the stakes…

I was going to regret this. "The calendar priest who saw Pochtic-tzin would be useful, yes. He'd probably have a good idea of what's going on." Better than mine, possibly.

"Look…" The calendar priest wavered. I gave him an encouraging smile that felt false from beginning to end. "I didn't tell you this, all right?"

Palli shook his head. "Nothing gets out. Our word on it."

"Quauhtli was called for a reading at the house of some nobleman." The calendar priest frowned.

"That's odd, isn't it? A reading at noon?" Not everyone had lunch, but most people preferred to wait until the heat of the day had dissipated before getting on with serious business like divination.

"Happens," the priest said. He sounded less and less certain. "I think. Most people don't ask for a particular calendar priest, though – and they don't send warriors to escort him to the house."

Warriors. Why? "Where did he go?"

Something of the worry in my voice must have reached him; he was wavering, wondering if he hadn't made a mistake in talking to us. "He might be in more danger than you think," I said. I kept my voice slow and quiet, despite what it cost me. "But if we act now, we might be able to get him out."

"Er… south edge of the Sacred Precinct, I think." He gave us a quick description of canals, which I did my best to commit to memory – as well as a brief description of Quauhtli, though it was generic enough to be pretty much useless. "Thank you," I said.

We walked through the crowds to the southern edge of the Sacred Precinct, passing by the bone-rack, on which priests were adding a fresh row of bleached skulls from human sacrifices – someone had obviously failed to clean the skulls properly, judging by the rank smell of rotting flesh which rose from between the wooden posts. Palli grimaced; I looked on, preoccupied by other things.

The calendar priest had spoken of a house on the south-eastern edge of the Sacred Precinct – in the district of Zoquipan, the same location Nezahual-tzin had been investigating before someone had cast a spell on him.

It could have been coincidence, but there had been precious few of those lately.

Outside the Serpent Wall, the rows of noblemen's houses started up again, each encased within high, stuccoed walls – with steambaths, from which wafted the white vapour, and the smell of spices. Everything seemed silent. We trod our way past deserted canals, where boats bobbed at their anchors under the withering gaze of the Fifth Sun, following the priest's instructions until we stood in a street that seemed much the same as the others. The walls were blank, or decorated with frescoes, and nothing called to mind our missing calendar priest.