Zollin looked bewildered for the first time. 'Nine, ten years ago? I'm not sure.'
'And how long have you been here?'
'A long time,' Zollin said.
'Long enough to feel you should have been Consort, instead of Eleuia?' I asked.
She looked at me with new eyes. Yes. I might look harmless, but I could still wound.
When she answered, some of the acidity was gone from her voice. 'Some of us,' she said, 'take what we have. And we do the tasks we were charged with, and do them well for years. Eleuia was young and inexperienced. But she was alluring. And men like that in a woman.'
Of course they did – the warriors, and maybe even some of the priests, though they shouldn't have. And the men, as she had no need to remind me, held the power: the clergy of Xochiquetzal was subordinate to that of her husband, Xochipilli.
'She had power,' Zollin went on. 'A great mastery of magic, and a reputation won on the battlefield. But all that doesn't make a good Consort of Xochipilli.'
'Then what does?' I asked.
'Dedication,' Zollin said shortly. 'Eleuia's heart wasn't in the priesthood. You could see it was only her pathway to something larger.'
'I see,' I said. She was only repeating herself. But her final assessment of Eleuia sounded more sincere than everything she'd said before. A woman bent on power – and wouldn't Neutemoc, with his status as a Jaguar Knight, have been a good embodiment of that power? My hands clenched. I wouldn't think about Neutemoc, not now. I couldn't afford to. 'What were you doing tonight?'
'None of your concern.'
Had she and Neutemoc decided to act together to vex me? 'I've had my share of foolish excuses for tonight,' I said. 'Tell me what you were doing.'
It was the dancer Cozamalotl who answered. 'She was with us,' she said. 'Teaching us the proper hymns for the festivals.'
Given the slight twitch of surprise on Zollin's face, that was clearly a lie.
'I see,' I said, again. 'Would you swear to that before the magistrates?'
She gazed at me, defiant, but it was Zollin who spoke. 'Cozamalotl,' she said. 'The penalty for perjury is the loss of a hand. Don't waste your future.'
Cozamalotl did not look abashed, not in the slightest. Her young companion, though, was bright red by now, and looked as if she wanted to speak but couldn't get the words past her lips. I would have to talk to her later.
'I–' Cozamalotl started.
Zollin cut her. 'I was alone. In my rooms. And I can swear that I had nothing to do with that.'
'But you hated Eleuia,' I said.
'I won't deny that.'
'Tell me,' I said. 'What day were you born?'
She looked surprised. 'That's no concern of yours.'
'Humour me.'
'Why should I?'
'It's only a date,' I said. 'What are you afraid of?'
'I'm not a fool,' Zollin said. 'There's only one reason you'd be asking for it. I didn't summon the nahual, Acatl-tzin.'
'But you could have.'
She watched me, unblinking. At length: 'You'll go to the registers anyway. Yes. I was born on the day Twelve Jaguar in the year Ten House.'
She'd been quick to react. Too quick, perhaps, as if she'd had prior knowledge? She'd been in the room: it was conceivable she'd have recognised the scent of nahual magic, though highly unlikely. It wasn't a widespread craft among priestesses.
I said nothing. 'Will that be all?' she asked, drawing herself to her full height. 'I have offerings to make.'
'That will be all,' I said. 'For now.' I caught the eye of the younger dancer, who was still standing unmoving, her face creased in worry. She nodded, briefly, her chin raising to point to the courtyard outside.
I exited the room, and waited for the girl there. She did not come immediately: an angry conversation seemed to be going on inside, between Zollin and her two students. But try as I might, I couldn't make out the individual words, not without re-entering the room.
Two things worried me. The first was Zollin's singular unconcern for the summoning of a nahual, and the spilling of blood in her own calmecac school; the second, the sheer incongruity of teaching girls how to dance at this hour of the night.
But then, if she was indeed complicit in Eleuia's disappearance, the first wasn't surprising. As to the second: I'd known men and women who would bury themselves in activities, no matter how ludicrous, in order to escape guilty consciences.
The younger dancer joined me outside, after a while. She was even younger than I thought: not much more than a child, really, her body barely settling into the shapes and contours of adulthood. 'Acatl-tzin? I thought–'
'Go on,' I said, gently.
'My name is Papan,' she said. 'I…' She looked at me, struggling for words. 'Is Zollin-tzin a suspect in your
