Obsidian & Blood (125 page)

  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.

 

 

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 once-in-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 Pochtictzin 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.

  Palli looked at me questioningly. He was about to be disappointed – what good could a crippled High Priest do? Unless…

  I put the cane on the ground, hand-spans away from the canal, and withdrew a knife from my belt. Then, quickly, I spoke a hymn to Lord Death.

 

 

  The familiar veil descended over the world, throwing everything into insignificance – the adobe becoming the colour of yellowed bone, the water in the canal darkening to the colour of a corpse's blotched skin, the smells of maize and steam receding to become the familiar ones of rotting meat and flesh.

  This deep within the streets inhabited by noblemen, magic was everywhere, the various trails crisscrossing in the air, shimmering in the water like spilled cooking oil. Huitzilpochtli the Southern Hummingbird, Tezcatlipoca the Smoking Mirror, Xochiquetzal the Quetzal Flower, Tlaloc the Storm Lord, everything merging like a hundred drumbeats on the night of a festival. I stood still, and didn't move – waiting for the discordant beat, the colour slightly out of place.

  There was a faint trail alongside the canal – a smell of algae, of churned mud; a sensation of quiet, muffled sound in a universe where everything was at peace forever. I teased it out, followed it. It wove between houses, in and out of the steambaths, dipping into canals like a girl testing the waters, twisting in the mud at our feet like a snake.

  The scent died at the gates of a mansion much like any other – blank-faced, drawn back on itself with no hint of what lay inside. But the smell in the air was familiar, quivering on the edge of recognition. 

  "Acatl-tzin…" Palli said, behind me.

  I realised that I stood defenceless – a cane and a bloodied obsidian knife my only weapons.
  Never mind.

  The warrior by the gate was a veteran with the whitish scars of sword-strikes on his legs: he displayed them proudly, not bothering to hide them beneath a cloak. "Yes?" he asked, making it clear we were wasting his time.

  I smiled as brightly as I could. "We're looking for a calendar priest."

  That, if nothing else, threw him. He hadn't expected brutal honesty. "Not here. Now go away."

  "That's hardly polite," I said. Behind him, from within the house, another three warriors were emerging – not the friendly-looking kind either, but beefy thugs that wouldn't have been out of place at a pillaging.

  "What's all the fuss?" the leader of the warriors asked. 

  "They say they're looking for a priest."

  "Are they." His gaze narrowed, focused on me – appraising my worth. "The High Priest for the Dead." He jerked a thumb in the general direction of the inner courtyard. "What a happy coincidence. As it turns out, you're expected in here."

  In here? Three of the burly warriors had deployed in the courtyard, looming over us, and their leader was grinning like someone who held all the weapons, and knew it. "Fine," I said. "I might as well not keep your master waiting."

  They laughed at that, as if I'd said something witty – which I'd clearly not done.

  I felt as if something had changed when we entered the house – something indefinable, which tightened the air and made it harder to breathe. The courtyard was sunny, and as we passed through two more it seemed like a nobleman's house – with slaves grinding maize into flour, women weaving maguey fibres with the familiar clack of their looms. Except… except that there were warriors everywhere, casually leaning against pillars – hefting their
macuahitl
swords with wistful smiles, and watching us like turkeys among jaguars and eagles.

  Palli had gone rigid – I focused on my breath, coming in and out of my lungs; on the faint touch of Lord Death on my skin, a wind that raised goosebumps on my arms. I was High Priest for the Dead, and they couldn't touch me – they wouldn't dare.

  At last, we reached the centre of the house. A small flight of steps led to a grander room, wide and airy with rich frescoes. At the back of the room, seated on a low-backed chair, was the owner of the house.

  She was a woman – and old enough to be my own grandmother, with bent limbs and hundreds of wrinkles on her round face. But the gaze she directed towards us was sharp, and, when she moved, she exuded enough magic to choke the life out of us.

  I knelt on the mat before her – couldn't help noticing the stains of blood, scrubbed but never removed. Was this where Nezahualtzin's missing warriors had died? The air seemed to shimmer with the heaviness of the grave – the magic of Grandmother Earth, who had birthed us and would receive us all.

  "So you're the priest." Her voice was mildly curious – kind, almost, save that her tone was firm, and obsidian lay beneath every word, sharp and cutting.
  "We're looking for a priest," I said, slowly.

  "And with no more idea of the stakes than a child breaking maize stalks before the harvest."