'Send them out,' I said. 'I'll go and talk to Zollin.'
THREE
When I arrived, the courtyard was deserted again, and the entrance-curtain to Eleuia's room hung forlornly in the breeze. But from the other set of rooms – Zollin's – came light, and the slow, steady beat of a drum. Music, at this hour?
I pulled aside the curtain, and took a look inside.
In a wide room much like Eleuia's, two young adolescents went through the motions of a dance. One was tall, her hair cascading down her back, and the seashell anklets she wore chimed with each of her slow gestures. The other wove her way between the tall one's movements, like water flowing through stone. It was not all effortless: beads of sweat ran down the first dancer's face, and the other one kept whispering under her breath, counting the paces.
The drum-beater was older than either of her dancers: her seamed face had seen many a year, and she kept up her rhythm, even though her eyes were focused on the girls. Smoke hung in the room: copal incense, melding with the odour of sweat in an intoxicating mixture.
I released the curtain. The chime of the bells crashed into the music, a jarring sound that made both dancers come to a halt. The drum-beater laid her instrument on the ground, and looked at me, appraising me in a manner eerily reminiscent of Ceyaxochitl. It was very uncomfortable.
'Priestess Zollin?' I asked her. 'I am Acatl.'
The drummer nodded. She turned, briefly, to the girls, 'That was good. But not enough. A dance should be done without thinking, in much the same way that you breathe.' She waved a dismissive hand. 'We'll practise again tomorrow.'
The girls remained standing where they were, staring at me in fascination.
The older woman's full attention was on me. 'The High Priest for the Dead, I suppose. Come to question me. I've had the Guardian already, you know, and you've already arrested a culprit. I don't see what good it will do.'
She was sharp. Used to getting her own way, to the point of discarding Neutemoc as of no importance to her. Already, I longed to break some of that pride. She was also singularly unworried, if she could dispense music lessons in the middle of the night, with one of her priestesses missing, or killed.
'One of your priestesses has vanished,' I said. 'Doesn't that–'
She shrugged. 'Why should it interfere with the running of this house? I grieve for Eleuia' – that was the worst lie I'd ever heard, for she made no effort to inflect any of those words, or to put sadness on her face – 'but she was only one woman. The education we dispense shouldn't halt because of that.'
'I see,' I said. 'So you think she's dead.' I closed my eyes, briefly, and felt the magic hanging around the room like a shroud, clinging to the frescoes of flowers and musical instruments: not nahual, not quite, but something dark, something angry. Zollin was clearly powerful.
'There was so much blood,' the tallest dancer said suddenly. Her face was creased in an expression that didn't belong: worry or fear, or perhaps the first stirrings of anger.
'Cozamalotl,' Zollin snapped. The girl fell silent, but she still watched her teacher. Her younger companion hadn't moved. A faint blush was creeping up her cheeks.
'Eleuia could still be alive,' I said.
'Then go look for her,' Zollin said. She was truly angry, and I had no idea why. 'Do your work, and I'll do mine.'
The Duality curse me if I was going to let her dominate me. 'My work brings me here,' I said, softly. 'My work leads me to ask you why you're not more preoccupied by the disappearance of a priestess in your own calmecac.'
Zollin watched me. 'She never belonged to this calmecac. It was only a step on her path to better things.'
'Becoming Consort?' I asked.
'Whatever she could seize,' Zollin said.
Cozamalotl spoke up again, moving closer to Zollin as if she could shield her. 'Everyone knows Eleuia grasped at power the way warriors grasp at fame.'
The younger dancer did not answer. She was shaking her head in agreement or in disagreement, though only slightly. It seemed that Cozamalotl wasn't only Zollin's student, but her partisan. If Eleuia was indeed dead, or incapacitated, Cozamalotl would have her reward, just as Zollin would.
The Southern Hummingbird blind my brother. How in the Fifth World had he managed to embroil himself in such a bitter power struggle?
I probed further. 'So you think someone didn't like what Eleuia was doing?'
Zollin snorted. 'No one did. It's not seemly for a woman.'
Hypocrite. She condemned Eleuia for her ambition, but she still wanted that office of Consort for herself. I liked Zollin less and less as the conversation progressed, though I couldn't afford to be blinded by resentment if I wanted to solve this.
'Women have few paths open in life,' I said, finally, thinking of my own sister Mihmatini, who would be coming of age in a few months, and would either join the clergy or look for a husband of her own.
'But we know our place,' Zollin said. 'Eleuia's behaviour was hardly appropriate. Flaunting herself before men with her hair unbound and her face painted yellow – red cochineal on her teeth, as if she were still a courtesan on the battlefield–'
'When did she come here?' I asked, knowing I had to regain control of the conversation if I wanted to find anything to help Neutemoc.
