And he swept away, without sparing us a further glance. Quenami lingered behind, looking at us both as if he might add something in his capacity as High Priest of the Southern Hummingbird and our superior, but then shook his head and followed his master. Teomitl, after talking briefly to Coatl, also left – presumably going back to the banquet. From the tense set of his shoulders, he didn't look altogether happy about the situation.
Acamapichtli swore under his breath. 'He's not getting better.'
'We didn't have any choice,' I said, with a conviction I couldn't feel. 'We had to keep the Fifth World whole.'
'Oh, it will work out, don't worry. Perhaps not for us, though,' Acamapichtli added speculatively. I didn't like the tone of his voice – at a guess, he was once more trying to work out the best possibilities for his own advancement.
I decided to take the fight to a terrain I was more familiar with. 'Can you look into where you saw that magic last?'
'What magic? Oh, the one on the corpse?' Acamapichtli shrugged. 'Why not?'
'You don't sound very enthusiastic,' Coatl interjected. He looked paler than he had at the beginning of our interview, and he was shaking. It was all due, however, to barely-contained anger rather than ill-health. 'One of my warriors died. I'll have justice for it.'
Acamapichtli appeared unfazed. 'I usually leave Acatl to deal with matters of justice,' he said maliciously. 'He's got much more experience than I.'
'Do you really think this is a good time for quarrels?' I asked.
'Quarrels? We're not quarrelling,' Acamapichtli said. He threw his head back, and abruptly appeared to grow taller and larger, with a shimmering shadow over his face, and his voice echoing like the sound of thunder over a storm-tossed lake. 'Trust me – when we quarrel, you'll know.'
And he, too, swept away from the courtyard – leaving me alone with a corpse and an angry warrior.
'What helpfulness,' I said. I could have done much the same trick, had I wished to, but it would have been disrespectful to Lord Death: a waste of His power for nothing more than the posturing of turkeys. I turned to Coatl. 'You have my word,' I said. 'By my face and by my heart, I'll bring you justice.'
Coatl grimaced, but said nothing. He couldn't accuse me of being an oath-breaker, but clearly he didn't trust priests anymore than he had to. A typical warrior. I suppressed a sigh and resumed the interview I'd started during the examination of the body. 'You said you didn't know much about Eptli. Are you sure there isn't anything you can tell me?'
Coatl spread his hands again… and then shook his head, as if coming to a decision. 'Teomitl-tzin would have told you, in any case. There was – a problem with Eptli.'
'A problem?'
'The warriors on that line were those who had captured a prisoner unaided in the course of battle.'
'Yes,' I said. I couldn't see what he was getting at.
'Eptli – ' Coatl shrugged. 'Another warrior claimed the same prisoner as Eptli. It happens, in the course of the battle. Things get a little frantic, you can't find any witnesses, and there you are with a prisoner and two men claiming him.'
'Doesn't the prisoner know who captured him?'
Coatl's lips tightened. 'You've never been on a battlefield, have you? As I said: it's fast and frantic, and all the warriors have painted faces and similar feather-suits. Who's to tell the difference between them, unless they have standards of their own? Which,' he added, 'neither Eptli nor the other possessed.'
'And how do you resolve this, if there are no witnesses?' I asked.
'As you said: you ask the prisoner.' Coatl didn't look happy. 'Ask other warriors of the unit to see if you can trace the troop movements and see who is more likely to have been there at the crucial point.' He didn't sound altogether pleased.
'You don't like doing this?'
He grimaced. 'Discipline I can deal with. Warriors should set a higher example than commoners, and if they go so far as to forget themselves, and steal or betray, or retreat in battle, they only deserve what happens to them. This…? The stakes are high, we're not sure, and everything depends on our decision.'
'When you say 'we'–?'
'The war-council handles all criminal matters connected to warriors while we're out on a campaign.' I caught the implication: whoever the guilty party was, they would likely be tried by the tribunal in the palace, thus relieving him of his responsibilities.
I could have asked him if he thought he'd taken the right decision, but there would have been no point. What we needed wasn't the truth of what had happened on this battlefield, but someone with a strong enough grudge to cast a curse on Eptli. 'The other warrior who claimed the prisoner–' I started.
'Chipahua? He wasn't happy. Not at all.' Coatl seemed to realise the import of what he'd said. 'Not that he'd do anything. I'd be very much surprised. Chipahua has always abided by the rules.'
Clearly, he'd defend his warriors to the death, and I wasn't sure I blamed him. Were our situations reversed, I'd have done the same for my priests. 'What kind of a warrior was he?'
'What do you want to know?'
'Young or old?' I asked.
'Middle-aged.' Chipahua grimaced again.
'But he'd already taken a captive before.'
'Four.'
'Like Eptli.' And, like Eptli, he'd have stood on the verge of admittance into the Jaguar or Eagle Knights. Two warriors, vying for further status and prestige, and only one prisoner. It could definitely get ugly fast.
'Look,' Coatl said, 'as I said, I don't like doing this. Accusing people without proof.'
I drew myself to my full height, letting him see my oak-embroidered cloak, the polished skull-mask on my face: the paraphernalia of a High Priest for the Dead, one who patrolled the invisible boundaries, one who defended against magical incursions. 'It's a serious matter. Magical spells are one thing; spells cast under the Revered Speaker's nose, so to speak…' I had no doubt Tizoc-tzin was going to hold Acamapichtli and I accountable for all of it. The Southern Hummingbird knew he needed little excuse, those days.
Still, I stood by what I'd said a year ago. Our Revered Speaker might be a poor warrior with too much ambition, and didn't have the stature to wear the Turquoise and Gold Crown. But when the alternative was star- demons loose in the palace – as we'd had during the drawn-out change of Revered Speaker – I knew where I stood.
