The Demon of the Air (28 page)

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Authors: Simon Levack

BOOK: The Demon of the Air
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“I think their relationship is more complicated than that, my Lord. Shining Light and Young Warrior seem to have been lovers, and now Shining Light is Young Warrior's prisoner. He has the merchant and his merchandise, as well as your sorcerers.”
“So you said. So where does he live, this Young Warrior?”
“You don't know?”
“Of course not! What, you think the Chief Minister is going to be
seen plucking at the hem of some small-time criminal's cloak?” In his agitation he waved the smoking-tube about, sending flecks of ash flying from its end. “I have taken great care never to meet the man. It's bad enough that I have to entertain that boy of his on occasion.”
“But if you are to find the sorcerers …”
“I could simply do what Shining Light or Curling Mist or Young Warrior or whoever has them asks me, and hand you over!”
There was a long silence. I wriggled nervously while the Chief Minister drew comfortably on his pipe. I wondered whether that meant the playacting was now over, and the steward would be told to finish what he had set out to do on the morning of Four Vulture, by trussing me up like a deer and delivering me to Young Warrior.
Eventually he took the clay tube out of his mouth. “Relax, Yaotl. If I wanted to exchange you for the sorcerers, would we be talking now? I would just have had my steward make the exchange, and that would be an end to it. But the truth is,” he went on, suddenly sounding older and wearier than ever, “I'm sick of being made a fool of. All this talk of godlike strangers from the East—well, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. You know what I mean?”
“No, my Lord.” I thought I did, however: it was the tale of jealousy, vanity and greed that I had outlined to Handy and Lion only that morning.
“You heard some of it from the Emperor himself, I believe. Weren't you shown the box—the one that was washed up on the shore of the Divine Sea, with the marvelous cloth and the sword in it? Ever since I saw the things in that box I've been waiting for the men who made them to appear. Now they have, and who is going to be the man of the moment now, as my father was all those years ago? Montezuma? I don't think so. He's too preoccupied with omens and portents to be able to handle anything like this. All he can think of doing is consulting sorcerers over a silly fairy tale about some mythical ancestor of ours. If these strangers were to come to see him he'd run away—he'd find some cave to hide himself in. No, this was going to be my chance. I, Lord Feathered in Black, was going to be the man who made allies or slaves of these strangers and secured the things they brought with them, their weapons and goods, for the people! And who would have talked about Lord Tlacaelel then?”
I said nothing. I could understand his words but not the desire that lay behind them. It seemed to me not much of an ambition to be worth so many lives, simply to be a bigger man than your father.
My master toyed with the smoking-tube before putting it down for the last time.
“It's gone out. They always do, if you leave them,” he said regretfully, as he let it roll across the floor away from him. “I know Montezuma thinks that I have the sorcerers, or that I know where they are. I know he told you to find them and bring them to him. You know why I can never allow that to happen?”
“Yes, my Lord. They could tell the Emperor that you instructed his majordomo to release them and hand them over to you. And you did that because you couldn't let Montezuma know you had consulted them yourself about your plans to deal with the strangers on your own account.”
“I have to get those men back, dead or alive. If the only way to do that is to hand you over to the man who stole them from me, then that's what I'll do.” He let that hang in the air for a moment before going on: “But he's laughing at me. I made a deal with Shining Light: he was to keep those men in a safe place until I could question them myself. Now I find that Young Warrior duped me and kidnapped Shining Light. He turned one of the sorcerers into a Bathed Slave for sacrifice and left another in the water outside my own house. So I don't just want the sorcerers back—I want this man killed.” My master's grim smile made his mouth look like just another line across his face. “And as for you, Yaoti—if you don't want me to make a present of you to your enemy, you'd better help me think of a way of finding him!”
So my master wanted to shed still more blood. I might well have killed Young Warrior myself if I had the chance, but I felt a sudden urge to be sick.
I forced myself to think.
“The only person who I know is in contact with him is the merchant's mother, Lily,” I said. “She was hoping that if she could tell the boy, Nimble, enough about me, her son would be released …”
“He wasn't. She's still saying he's abroad.”
“Then she must still be talking to the boy. I thought that by going
to see her I could offer myself as bait—I could get Young Warrior to come to me.”
“And it worked. He did!”
“Yes—nearly killing me in the process.”
My master's chair creaked as he sat back, with his eyes closed and the fingers of one hand drumming thoughtfully on his knee.
I had to try to think faster than he could.
It was too much to hope he would let me go anywhere alone: he would assume that I intended to run away the first chance I got. The idea of repeating my attempt to lure Young Warrior out of hiding through Lily obviously appealed to him, but if he had his way I would have an escort of his own choosing—and in all likelihood neither Young Warrior nor I would survive the encounter.
I had to find a way of arranging the meeting so that old Black Feathers could not control the outcome, and I could have some chance of getting away.
“My Lord,” I said slowly, “could the merchants be prevailed upon to hold a banquet?”
He opened his eyes and frowned. “A banquet?”
“If you tell Lily and her father to give one, they will. You are always invited to the merchants' feasts. I would be in your retinue—and there would be enough of us to catch Young Warrior if he tried anything.” Not to mention, I thought privately, enough other people to enable me to hide in the crowd and make my own escape. It was not much of a plan, but it was all I could come up with.
“A banquet.” A dreamy look came into the Chief Minister's eyes. “I like it. After all that family's put me through, I think a good meal is the least they can offer me!”
T
hirteen Snake was not the most propitious day for a feast, but it was not bad: the auguries told us it would probably not rain, none of the diners was likely to choke on a turkey bone and the honeyed mushrooms ought to make the guests mellow rather than pugnacious. Certainly, I thought, as a boatman slowly poled us—Lord Feathered and Black, Handy and me—along a canal toward the merchant's house, the gods were playing their part: the whitewashed walls on either side of us glowed warmly in the setting sun, while above them only the frailest wisps of cloud clung to the mountain tops. It was a beautiful evening.
I thought about the task we were setting out to accomplish. From my master's point of view, at least, it must have seemed simple enough. We had to find out where Curling Mist—or rather, Young Warrior—was hiding the sorcerers, and we were going to do it in essentially the way I had planned the last time I had been to Lily's house: by offering me as bait, although this time I would not be alone.
From my point of view it was far from simple. As I had told my brother days before, my troubles would really begin if and when we found the sorcerers, and I had to choose whether to help my master to recover them or to try somehow to get them to the Emperor, knowing that either choice might lead to my death.
I frowned, not at the dilemma that I might have to confront, but at a nagging feeling in the back of my head that something was not right. It had something to do with the relationship between Young Warrior and Shining Light, I decided. I still could not see how my old enemy had got the young merchant so completely in his power
that he would not only hand over everything his family possessed, but would give himself up as a hostage. I wondered whether there could be another explanation.
Old Black Feathers interrupted my train of thought. He was in a chatty mood. “This will be a good night. I haven't looked forward to a party so much in years. I might even dance.”
“Who will be there, my Lord?” asked Handy.
My master had chosen the commoner to accompany us to the banquet. I had managed to persuade old Black Feathers that a large armed guard would simply scare our quarry off, besides upsetting the merchants; in any event, I had pointed out, there would be enough warriors among the guests.
During my brief absence Handy seemed to have become a member of the household, running some of the errands that would otherwise have been mine. He had a stolid, reliable air that my master seemed to like. He was not afraid of the steward: although I had been confined to my room since my return and strictly forbidden from going anywhere, he had made a point of seeking me out, despite the Prick's warning not to come near me. He had been anxious to explain that he had had no idea the steward would come for him the day he found me at his house.
“His Lordship had some message he wanted got to Shining Light, and I'm the only one he trusts to carry them …”
“All right, what happened wasn't your fault,” I had said absently. “The messages were for Shining Light, then? How did you get them to him?”
“I didn't give them to him in person. I left them at his house.”
That was convenient, I had thought: it meant Lily was still the only person who was in touch with her son or his kidnappers.
When I had asked Handy what had become of Storm and my brother, he had answered me with a grin. “Don't worry. Star took care of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“While the steward was occupied with you, she hid them both in the same maize bin.”
That was when I had smiled, for the first time in what had seemed like an age, at the image of Lion spitting husks and oaths as he
emerged from a dusty wooden bin, to the sound of Star's helpless laughter.
“Who will be there?” my master mused. “Oh, everyone. All the chief merchants, of course, the Governor of Tlatelolco, his deputy, and a lot of the high officials—including your brother, Yaotl. They always make a point of inviting the Guardian of the Waterfront.”
I wondered whether my master had any idea how deeply Lion hated him. “Everyone always makes a point of inviting my brother everywhere. He probably hasn't paid for a meal since he was appointed to his rank, unless he was giving a banquet himself.” I turned to Handy. “Look, all this means is that Lily and Kindly are desperate to repair the damage Shining Light's done to their family name, not to mention their parish. When the Chief Minister politely suggested holding a feast, even at three days' notice, they weren't in a position to argue. They've probably lavished their last wealth on it, and the place will still be full of people who are ready to kill them. If you want my advice, don't eat anything, and drink all the chocolate you can hold to keep yourself alert.”
My master smiled benignly. Either he approved of my advice or he really was looking forward to the evening.
 
“A shield flower, my Lord. A stick flower, my Lord.”
“Thank you,” the Chief Minister replied graciously, as well he might since the man offering the gifts was no servant but, as was customary at a feast, a seasoned warrior. Holding his tobacco bowl delicately by its rim, my master passed it back to Handy before taking the flowers. The vast yellow sunflower he held in his left hand, like a shield, while the spray of frangipani was known as the “stick flower” because it was taken in the right like a weapon.
“Lovely,” he murmured, sniffing contentedly at the frangipani as he joined the throng in the courtyard.
The veterans ignored Handy and me, looking straight through us at their next honored guests as we hastened in our master's footsteps.
Lily had filled her house with a scintillating crowd. Gold, jade and amber lip-plugs flashed as their wearers turned to speak to new arrivals. Red, yellow, blue and above all green feathers nodded in time to words spoken in muted, well-bred voices. Capes of every color—
blue here, tawny there, carmine there—billowed against each other. These were the great of Tlatelolco, and not a few of Tenochtitlan's finest as well: merchants, able for once to show off their wealth, and warriors, here to remind the merchants that they could take that wealth off them whenever they chose.
Ostensibly, Handy and I were there to attend to our master's wishes, in case he was tempted by some tidbit. I was more interested in the guests, though. It was easier to look at their feet than their faces, and my eyes roamed the freshly strewn earth on the floor in the hope of seeing, among the calloused, sandaled feet of the merchants and the warriors and their cloaks' embroidered borders, a more delicate ankle, the hem of a skirt or the tasseled fringe of a woman's mantle.
In fact there were several women among the guests. Some were merchants' wives, accompanying their husbands or standing in for them, and some were there in their own right, as directors of the marketplace. Whenever I furtively raised my glance from their feet to their faces, however, I was disappointed. There was no sign of Lily among them.
I had tried to plan what I would say to her if we met, but the words would not come. From my master's point of view it scarcely mattered: if she saw me here then, hopefully, she would tell Nimble and then Young Warrior would come after me, and that was all his Lordship wanted. But what did I want?
I imagined myself accusing her of letting my enemy into her house to try to kill me, reproaching her for betraying me, demanding to know whether the night we had spent together had meant anything or nothing. I pictured the hurt in her eyes, her head turned quickly away to hide it, the silver streaks in her hair catching the light.
Then I pictured her looking at me blankly, curling her lip in indifference or amused contempt, or laughing out loud.
“You're a fool, Yaotl,” I told myself.
“You've got that bloody right,” rasped a voice I knew very well indeed. “Come here!”
A hand like an alligator's jaws clamped itself on my arm. “Now you can stand still for a moment. I'm tired of wandering around after you.”
“Hello, brother,” I sighed. “I didn't recognize you dressed up like that.”
Lion was his old self again. His cloak was brand new, the cloth still a little stiff and dyed a yellow even brighter than the sunflower in his left hand. His freshly trimmed hair was bound up immaculately and a splendid plug of green stone shaped like an eagle and set in gold jutted from his lower lip. His expression was ferocious.
“Don't try to be funny. What are you doing here?”
“You'll have to let go of my arm,” I pointed out. “It doesn't belong to either of us.”
After a brief glance at my master, Lion did as I suggested. “I assume you're here under orders? Still looking for your master's precious sorcerers?”
“Of course.”
My brother snorted derisively. “What does old Black Feathers expect to learn from this lot? No one ever says anything useful at parties like this. I don't know why anyone bothers with them—they always make me want to throw up!”
His vehemence surprised me, but it was easy to forget that for all his status as a great warrior Lion had been born in the same room as I had, and unlike me he had not been schooled alongside nobles in the Priest House. Lion's home, as the midwife would have told him the day he was born, was on the battlefield, not in some merchant's courtyard making small talk about the price of cacao and how hard it was to get a cook who knew anything about armadillos.
“Well,” I said, “it looks as if your hosts agree with you, since neither Kindly nor Lily seems to be here.”
“He'll be preparing for the sacrifice,” Lion reminded me. “Either that, or he's already too drunk to care. As for her, someone told me she'd been taken ill and had retired to the women's rooms. Maybe she heard you were coming!”
“You still haven't told me what you're doing here.”
“I heard old Black Feathers would be here.” The way he spat the name out left me in no doubt about his feelings. “I've a score to settle with that bastard, after what he made me and my men do in Coyoacan.”
I looked at him in alarm. “You're never planning to …”
“I just want to keep my eye on him, that's all. If it was your master
who got those sorcerers out of the prison and then lost them, then I want to be there when he finds them again. I want to make sure at least one of them gets back to Montezuma alive, to tell him exactly what his Chief Minister's been up to!”
I groaned. “Oh, no, Lion, don't …”
“So, Yaotl, you're going to have to make your mind up, aren't you? Are you with me and the Emperor—or your master?”
I was spared the need to answer by a disturbance in the crowd around us. I turned quickly, half expecting to see Lily emerging into the courtyard to greet her guests, but it was only a server, bearing a bowl of steaming chocolate. Others followed him, carrying gourds and gourd rests and stirring sticks, and suddenly the air was filled with the smell of chocolate and nutmeg and an appreciative silence.
 
After the chocolate came the sacrifices; then the warriors danced.
As night fell, to the mournful sound of conch-shell trumpets from the tops of the pyramids, the Food of the Gods was served: little mushrooms coated in honey to disguise their bitter taste. After that, there would be no other food till morning, and no need for any, although the chocolate would continue being whisked and poured.
The Governor of Tlatelolco came first into the courtyard, followed by his deputy, the other dignitaries including my master and my brother, the mighty warriors—Shorn Ones and Otomies—and last of all the veterans, the masters of youth, the eagle and the ocelot warriors. As the musicians struck up their song and the dancers shuffled into their places, some already had a detached, faraway look that showed the mushrooms were taking effect.
Fueled by chocolate and mushrooms, most of the dancers would keep going all night. In their own minds, each one would be a proud, graceful, sinuous youth dancing on air to music made by gods. None would see himself staggering drunkenly about, hear himself giggling inanely or notice that none of his neighbors seemed to be following the same tune as he was. I was relieved when my master fell out before the dancing began, to retire indoors to the comfort of a reed mat and whatever magical dreams the gods sent his way.
The merchants did not dance. They sat at the edges of the courtyard, looking on and conversing quietly among themselves. Around
them were spread the presents they would give out later, to any of their guests still capable of recognizing them: still more flowers and smoking-tubes, feathers, paper garlands, turquoise mosaics and cloth treated with mica to make it shine.
It occurred to me that, if I ran away now, probably nobody would miss me before the morning. But where would I go? I had asked myself this question before and failed to find an answer. There was nowhere I could think of making a home other than Mexico, and nowhere in Mexico would be safe for long once my master woke up and found I had deserted him a second time. And those two images of Lily's face, the one shocked and hurt by my words, the other indifferent, still haunted me, and would go on doing so until I found out which was real.

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