The slave had turned. He watched me, his smile mocking me. 'And you think this will solve anything?'
I struggled to find words, to mouth an abject apology, but could not bring myself to. 'No. Nor will your arrogant attitude. I asked for an audience.'
He spread his hands in a blaze of silver. 'You did. And it's my right to refuse it.'
'You–'
He shook his head. 'Still not understanding? Defiance brings you nothing.' He smiled again, displaying teeth as yellow and as neat as maize kernels. 'But you're in luck. It has been a boring week. Wait here. And don't think you can look around. I'll know if you do.'
I had no doubt he would.
He entered one of the rooms around the courtyard, the bells jingling as he pulled aside the entrance curtain. He came out again almost immediately. 'My, my. You're definitely in luck, priest. She has nothing better to do, so She'll see you.'
His arrogance was staggering, but I bit back the angry reply that came to me. I had already seen anger or despair would earn me nothing in such a house.
The slave pointed lazily to my obsidian knives. 'Those will stay outside.'
'My weapons?' I asked. He was observant: the knives, which were those of the temple, had been blessed by Mictlantecuhtli, and were saturated with His magic.
His smile was malicious. 'Consider them payment for an audience. You'll get them back – maybe.'
'I will get them back,' I said, as I undid my belt and gave them to him. 'Or else I won't be the only one hunting you.'
He smiled an even wider smile. 'Do you think you can touch me?'
I wanted, desperately, to try – to summon a minor deity from the underworld, to teach him fear and humility. But I knew I couldn't. He was Xochiquetzal's, and I'd already seen what kind of power She wielded.
Inside the room, it was dark, and cool: the fire in the three-stone hearth had sunk to smouldering embers, and yellow cotton drapes hung over the only window. The air smelled of packed earth, overlaid with copal incense. There was no need for light, though. The figure seated on the dais made Her own: a softly lapping radiance that played on the floor, on the frescoes of flowers on the walls, and on the backs of my callused hands.
In the silence, I knelt, laying the marigold flowers at the feet of the dais. Then I opened the cage and, using one of Xochiquetzal's own knives, slit the parrot's throat. Blood spurted out, covered my hands. I laid the bird by the side of the flowers and, bowing my head until it touched the ground, started singing a hymn to the Quetzal Flower.
When I was finished, there was only silence. I dared not look up.
'Well, well,' Xochiquetzal said, finally. 'It's not often that I have visitors.'
'My Lady.'
'A priest, too. Although' – she sounded disappointed, like a jaguar that had missed its prey – 'not one of my own.'
I swallowed, wondering how much I could tell Her. 'Your priests still think you in the Heaven Tamoanchan, my Lady Xochiquetzal.'
The light over my head grew brighter, and in Her voice was the anger of the storm. I kept my gaze on the beaten earth. 'They don't know because the Guardians have not seen fit to inform them.'
And with reason. The last thing we needed was a religious war within Tenochtitlan. But I guessed it would have hurt, all the same, to be expelled from Tamoanchan by the Duality, for a mere sin of lust.
'I'm not a Guardian,' I said, finally.
'No,' She said. Her voice was toneless. 'I can see that. You may rise, priest. What do you want?'
Carefully, I approached the dais, all my muscles poised to flee. Gods were capricious, caring little about the balance of the world – and one who had been expelled from the gods' company even more so. 'I have come for a favour.'
The Quetzal Flower smiled. She wasn't young, not any more. A network of fine wrinkles marred Her cheeks, and She kept rubbing at Her eyes, so often that the cornea had turned red with blood vessels. 'You rarely come for anything else.' She reached out, and took the parrot in Her hands. Something seemed to pass from the animal into Her: some light, fleeing the corpse and nesting under Her skin, coursing through her veins like blood. 'Very well. Ask your question.'
'My name is Acatl. There is a priestess,' I said, slowly. 'Eleuia–'
'I know who Eleuia is,' Xochiquetzal said. 'I may be fallen from grace, but I'm not completely powerless. What do you want?'
'She has disappeared, and we are looking for her.'
The Quetzal Flower didn't move. 'Eleuia,' She said. 'I don't know where she is.'
'That wasn't–'
'What you needed? You would have asked for it, at some point.' 'Why don't you know?' I asked, unable to resist my curiosity. 'Isn't she your servant?'
The light dimmed, for a bare moment. Xochiquetzal said, finally, 'I'm on earth. In a world where My body doesn't belong, where everything fights My existence. It takes its toll. No god can remain on earth and keep more
