The ghost of a smile. 'Because I don't think you understand Tizoc-tzin. When his banquet is over and he wakes up and realises someone deliberately spoiled his wonderful ceremony, he is going to want explanations. And right now, neither of us can afford to fail at giving them.'
Footsteps echoed from the courtyard: the slow, steady march of guards. It looked as though our time alone with the corpse was drawing to a close. I hoped it wasn't Tizoc-tzin, but I didn't think we'd be so lucky.
Before leaving, I took a last glance at the body, lying forlorn and abandoned in the middle of the room, its rich clothes discarded at its side. One moment honoured by the Revered Speaker himself, on the verge of becoming a member of the elite – and the next moment this: cooling flesh in a deserted room, probed openly by strangers. From glory to nothingness in just a few moments… a cause for regret, if there ever was one.
But then again, I was a priest for the Dead and I knew we would all come to this… in the end.
TWO
'You mock me,' Tizoc-tzin said. His sallow face was puckered in anger, making him seem even gaunter than usual. 'Leaving in the middle of the banquet, before the feast was over? One would think–' his voice was low, malicious 'that you didn't care at all about the fate of the Mexica Empire.'
'My Lord,' I said, stiffly. 'I maintain the balance of the Fifth World. The fate of the Mexica Empire is of paramount importance.'
Tizoc-tzin looked dubious. He had come with his sycophant Quenami and, rather to my surprise, with a priest of Patecatl, an elderly man who had slipped into the room unobtrusively to take a look at the body. I had warned him about the possible contagion, but he had only snorted and moved on – as if the word of a youngster like me had no value.
'As to you…' He looked at Teomitl, his face caught in an odd expression. They were brothers, yet they couldn't have been more different: there was bad blood between them – had been for four months. 'You ought to have known better.'
'It's important,' Teomitl said. 'For Acatl-tzin, and perhaps for me. He was a warrior.' Now that Teomitl was Master of the House of Darts, he was most definitely no longer my inferior, and didn't have to add the 'tzin' honorific after my name. But he'd kept the habit, all the same.
'And you're Master of the House of Darts,' Tizoc-tzin said, curtly. 'Head of the army, and heir-presumptive to the Mexica Empire. Do you know what it looks like when you walk out in the midst of the celebrations for our safe return?'
I had to admit he had a point – for all his exalted status, Teomitl had a tendency to behave as though he were still a mere warrior in a regiment – just as I, when I made no effort, had a tendency to behave as a mere priest for the Dead.
Teomitl's face darkened. 'The coronation war was a failure.'
Quenami winced, and next to me, Coatl looked as though he would rather be anywhere else. It was Acamapichtli who spoke up, his aristocratic face creased in amusement. 'You forget. We must appear strong, especially in the present circumstances.'
Four months before, in the scrabble for the succession, Tizoctzin's court intrigues had led to the death of the entire council, and the intrusion of star-demons into the Sacred Precinct – and the Great Temple's altars had been slick with the blood of our own noblemen. All in front of the foreign dignitaries gathered for the designation of Tizoc-tzin – dozens of neighbouring city-states who had paid exorbitant tribute to Tenochtitlan, and dreamt of a day they could cast us down into the mud.
Whatever angry words Teomitl might have had were cut short by the re-emergence of the priest of Patecatl, who looked preoccupied. 'This is no natural death, my Lord.'
Tizoc-tzin looked from Acamapichtli to me – but it must have been clear we couldn't have bribed the priest. 'What is it, then?'
'I don't know,' the priest said, which wasn't surprising. Patecatl was god of herbs and potions: He was powerless against spells. 'It looks like a curse.'
Tizoc-tzin looked back at me, his lips tightening. 'Someone did this, then. Someone cast a spell to kill a man in the midst of the celebration.'
'It would seem so,' Acamapichtli said, with a meaningful look at me.
Tizoc-tzin threw him a suspicious glance, but more as a matter of principle, it seemed. 'There is a sorcerer out there, seeking to destabilise the Mexica Empire.'
I winced – and, under Quenami's disapproving gaze, did my very best to turn it into a cough. 'My Lord, surely the people love you.'
'The Empire goes from coast to mountains, from marshes to valleys. We have our enemies, only waiting for a moment of weakness to pounce.'
Tizoc-tzin had always had a slight tendency to paranoia; unfortunately, this had turned out to be justified four months before, when his rashness had killed him at the same time as the council. I and the other two High Priests had pooled our powers to bring him back from the threshold of the world beyond, but he'd never been the same since. If anything, the paranoia had got worse. He saw assassins in every shadow, every canal bend, every courtyard and in everyone bold enough, or foolhardy enough, to approach him too closely.
It looked more like a case of personal vengeance than political intrigue – not that it was made more legitimate by that, of course. 'I don't think–'
'Acatl never thinks.' Acamapichtli's voice was dismissive. 'That's always been his trouble. We'll of course investigate this as thoroughly as we can, my Lord.'
As usual, I wasn't sure whether to thank Acamapichtli or to strangle him. And, by the smug look on his face, he knew my feelings all too well.
Tizoc-tzin frowned. At the meeting point of his eyebrows, I could see a thin white line: the arch of a broken bone in the skull. His eyes were deeper than they should have been, shadowed like empty sockets.
Southern Hummingbird blind me, we should never have brought him back. No wonder the hole in the Fifth World wouldn't close: the dead weren't meant to rule the living, or to walk in sunlight.
'Very well,' Tizoc-tzin said. 'I trust this will be solved quickly.'
