Quenami smiled. 'Look at you. Such wonderful dedication.' His voice took on a hard edge. 'Nevertheless… today we celebrate our victory, Acatl – the return of the army, and the confirmation of our Revered Speaker. Tizoc- tzin needs his High Priests here.'
An unmistakable, utterly unsubtle threat. But I'd had enough. 'This isn't the confirmation,' I said. 'As you said – today we celebrate our victory. I don't think the absence of one person is going to make a difference.' Especially not one High Priest with dubious loyalties, as far as Tizoc-tzin was concerned. 'I don't stop being High Priest for the Dead when we celebrate.'
Quenami made a slow, expansive gesture – one I knew all too well, the one which suggested there were going to be unpleasant consequence and that he'd done all he could to warn me.
And, of course, the moment I had my back turned, he was going to go to his master and denounce us.
At least I knew where I stood with him.
The dead warrior had been taken deep within the Imperial palace – on the outskirts of Tizoc-tzin's private apartments. The sky above us had the uncanny blue of noon, with Tonatiuth the Fifth Sun at his highest.
A slave took me to a small, dusty courtyard with a dry well – I'd expected it to be deserted, but to my surprise two people were waiting for me there. The first was Teomitl, still in full finery, looking far older than his eighteen years. Next to him was a middle-aged man, whom I recognised as another member of the war-council. Though he wore rich finery, the lower part of his legs was uncovered, revealing skin pockmarked with whitish skins. He nodded curtly to me – as an equal to an equal.
'I didn't see you leave,' I said to Teomitl.
He grinned – fast and careless – before his face arranged itself once more in a sober expression, more appropriate to the Master of the House of Darts. 'We were right behind you.'
'Tizoc-tzin–' I said, slowly.
'Tizoc-tzin can say what he wants,' the other man interrupted. 'I have no intention of abandoning one of my own warriors.'
'This is Coatl,' Teomitl said, shaking his head in a dazzling movement of feathers. 'Deputy for the Master of Raining Blood.'
And, as such, in command of one fourth of the army. 'I see,' I said. I pulled open the entrance-curtain in a tinkle of bells, and slipped inside.
It was dark and cold, in spite of the noon hour: the braziers hadn't been lit, and the dead man lay huddled on the packed earth, abandoned like offal – an ironic end for one who had worshipped Huitzilpochtli, our protector god: the eternally youthful and virile Southern Hummingbird.
Automatically, I whispered the words of a prayer, wishing his soul safe passage into the underworld, for his hadn't been the glorious death of a warrior, the ascent into the Heaven of the Fifth Sun, but rather small and ignominious, a sickness that doomed him to the dark, to the dryness of Mictlan.
'You knew him,' I said to Coatl.
He made a curious gesture – half-exasperation, half-contempt. 'Eptli. Yes. I knew him.'
'Did he have any enemies?'
'Eptli was one of the forty honoured warriors, out of an army of eight thousand men. I'd say there would be strong resentment against him.'
'Yes,' I said. 'But why single him out? Why not any of the others?'
Coatl spread his hands. 'I knew Eptli because he was under my orders, but no more than that. His clan- leader was responsible for his unit.'
There was something – not quite right in the tone of his voice, as if he was going to say more, but had stopped himself just in time. What could it possibly be?
Eptli had been a four-captive warrior: with this, his fifth capture, he could aspire to membership of the Jaguar or Eagle Knights, the prestigious elite of the army.
I was about to press Coatl further, when the entrance-curtain tinkled again. I started – surely Tizoc-tzin wouldn't search for us that soon – but instead a covered cage landed on the floor with a dull thud, startling whatever was inside so it gave a piercing, instantly recognisable cry.
I knelt and lifted the cover – to stare into the bleary, murderous eyes of a huge white owl, who looked as though only the wooden bars prevented it from terminally messing up my face. It screeched once more, disdainfully.
Acamapichtli strode into the room, rubbing his hands together as if to wash away dust. 'There you go. Living blood. You can use it.' It wasn't a question.
'We're–'
'– certainly not going to wait for Tizoc-tzin to find us,' Acamapichtli said. 'He died of magic, didn't he? That's something serious.'
'It might be,' I said, carefully. I searched for a diplomatic way to say the words on my mind, and gave up. 'What in the Fifth World are you doing here, Acamapichtli?'
'Why,' his smile was sarcastic. 'The same thing as you. Investigating a suspicious death.'
Which, in and of itself was suspicious. Was this another court intrigue? I'd have thought that with the disaster of the previous one, Acamapichtli would have known better than to try causing another. 'I don't think curiosity is enough to justify your presence here. Quenami made it quite clear we were angering Tizoc-tzin.'
'You forget.' He smiled, revealing rows of blackened teeth. 'We're in disgrace. It can't really get worse.'
I rubbed the mark on the back of my hand: the whitish trace of a fang, a reminder of a prison where it had been a struggle to think, a struggle to even breathe – a cage of beaten earth and adobe where Tizoc-tzin's enemies were reduced to drooling idiots. I'd spent only a few hours within, four months previously, accused of treason by Quenami – a handy excuse to keep me out of the way. I didn't want to go back there. 'With all respect… I think it can.'
Teomitl snorted. 'You sound like an old couple.' He didn't sound amused. 'You have our permission.' His voice made it clear it was the imperial 'we', the one that put him on an almost equal footing with his brother
