I made straight for the Imperial Chambers, which overlooked a wide courtyard paved with limestone. Normally, it would have been empty of all but the highest dignitaries; now noblemen and warriors crowded on the plaza, a sea of gold-embroidered cotton, feather headdresses, jaguar pelts sewn into tunics, and the shimmering lattices of personal protective spells. But I barely had to push in order to make myself a passage. I might have been the least important of the high priests, but I was still the representative of Lord Death in the Fifth World, wielder of magic beyond most people's reach.
Steps rose from the courtyard towards a wide terrace with three doors closed with entrance-curtains. The middle one was the Revered Speaker's reception room, the other two were rooms for the other rulers of the Triple Alliance when they visited the city. If they weren't there already, they soon would be. They had a place in the funeral rites, but more importantly, they would vote along with the council to designate a new Revered Speaker.
Indistinct speech floated through the entrance-curtain of Axayacatl-tzin's rooms. Two pairs of sandals confirmed I hadn't been the first one to arrive. Who would be inside? In all likelihood, my adversaries, here to remind me of my small place in the scheme of things…
No point in worrying before the sword strike. I added my own sandals next to those already there.
'Wait here,' I told Palli.
I pulled aside the entrance-curtain in a tinkle of bells, and entered the inner chambers of the emperor.
I had never been there before. My work as High Priest had taken me as high as the audience chambers, but one had to be consort or wife to behold the Revered Speaker in his intimacy. But death took us all and made us all equal, our destinies determined only by the manner of its coming and, in its embrace, no privacy would remain.
It was a large, airy room, with a window at the back opening onto the gardens. There was little furniture, a handful of braziers, a few low chests, and a reed mat upon which lay the body. Frescoes wrapped around the columns of the room, representing animals from jaguars to the
'Acatl-tzin, what a surprise,' a sarcastic voice said.
There were only three people in the room: the one who had spoken was Quenami, the newly appointed High Priest of Huitzilpochtli the Southern Hummingbird, his lean face suffused with the arrogance of the nobility and with the knowledge that, as priest of our patron god, he was our superior both in magic and politics. I had disliked him from the first moment I'd seen him, and he was doing nothing to change that opinion. He wore the blue-and-black makeup of his god, his cloak was of quail and duck feathers, and more feathers hung from his belt, opening out like a turquoise flower.
Acamapichtli, High Priest of Tlaloc, scowled at me with undisguised animosity. I was not surprised. The Storm Lord had recently tried to seize power in the Fifth World, and I had played a significant part in foiling the attempt. Now Acamapichtli was in disgrace, and he blamed me for all of it.
I'd expected to see Tizoc-tzin, Master of the House of Darts, the heir apparent and favourite for the succession, but he wasn't there. I didn't know whether to be relieved or angry; my relations with him were icy at best, but his place was here with his deceased brother, not planning a gods-knew-what manoeuvre to secure his accession to the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown.
The last man, instead, was Tlilpopoca-tzin, the She-Snake and vice-emperor of the Mexica, a short, slight man wearing unrelieved black, and who was said to have played the game of politics from his mother's womb.
The She-Snake was also the only one who had not removed his sandals, a privilege afforded only to him. He and the Revered Speaker were two sides of the same balance, near-equals, one male, one female; one in charge of external policy and one keeping order in the city and in the palace, just as men waged war while women managed the daily business of the household.
I bowed to the She-Snake, and to everyone else in turn.
'My lords,' I said. 'I have come, as custom dictates, for the body of the Revered Speaker, Huitzilpochtli's chosen.'
'We surrender it willingly,' the She-Snake said, in the singsong accents of ritual. His voice was grave, inviting trust. 'We all must leave this world, the jades and the flowers, the marigolds and the cedar trees. Having nourished the Fifth Sun and Grandmother Earth, we all must leave the world of mortals. For those who died without glory, they must go down into the darkness, and find oblivion at the end of their journey. Let the Revered Speaker be no exception to this.'
I did not know where he stood. Rumour had it that he opposed Tizoc-tzin, that he might even want to become emperor himself instead of the eminence behind the Revered Speaker. He probably believed in the gods only distantly – like his father, who had viewed religion as a tool, and not as the life and breath that kept the Fifth World whole.
'Let the Revered Speaker be no exception,' I repeated, and broke off the ritual with a bow. Now that the formalities were out of the way, I could finally approach the body.
Axayacatl-tzin lay on his reed mat, relaxed as only death could make a man. His face – the face upon which no mortal had been allowed to gaze back when he had been alive – was slack, every trace of divinity long since fled. He looked much like any other corpse in my temple, save for the turquoise tunic that denoted him as Revered Speaker. He was painfully thin, the bones of his arms visible through the translucent skin, and his body smelled faintly unpleasant, the rancid odour of a man old before his time. He'd died of war wounds gone bad; of the decay that had settled into his bones and muscles. No foul play here. Not in a palace barricaded by protective wards, not under the watchful gaze of so many priests.
'Satisfied?' Quenami asked. The High Priest of Huitzilpochtli looked even more smug. I hadn't imagined that was possible.
'I expected to be,' I said, turning back to face him. 'You know that the corpse isn't the problem when a Revered Speaker dies.'
Acamapichtli snorted. 'The star-demons? You worry far too much, Acatl. Last time, the wards held for more than a month. And I should think our fighting abilities haven't diminished since then.'
I wasn't a fighter, and he knew it. 'When we are talking about beings that want to tear us apart, yes, I'd rather worry.'
'Worry, then, if you wish. The interregnum will be short, in any case. We'll soon crown a new Revered Speaker, whom the Southern Hummingbird will invest with His power.'
I turned towards Quenami, who made a small grimace. 'Yes,' he said. 'It might be worth considering them. The palace wards will be reinforced.'
He was young, newly come into his role, elevated from the nobility through connections and privilege and
