I winced. Given the little I'd seen of Coatl, I very much doubted he'd have liked that. Eptli was sounding more and more like a thoroughly disagreeable person.
Not that I was surprised. It was rarely the likeable men who were murdered. Murder – especially magical murder, with the lengthy preparations, the shedding of living blood and the calling on the power of the gods – required premeditation, and that in turn meant a strong motive. Few innocent men inspired such destructive passion.
'Very well. Do you have anything else to add?' This included the two warriors on either side of me, who watched me with undisguised hostility. Whatever Chipahua thought of priests, they didn't share that opinion.
'No,' the left-hand one said.
'No,' Zamacayan said. 'But you should look elsewhere, Acatltzin.' He put a slight pause after my name, as if he were adding the honorific only as an afterthought.
'I will give it some thought,' I said as I rose. My cloak brushed against him for a bare moment – and I felt a palpable jolt of magic – a strong pulsing power that could only belong to Huitzilpochtli the Southern Hummingbird.
It might have been a ward: many warriors and noblemen had them – including my own student Teomitl. But the throbbing energy climbing up my arm was no standard ward. Zamacayan was either a magic-user, or he had access to one – not the tame priests at court or in the army, but someone prepared to cast a strong, elaborate spell.
I said nothing as the slave took me out of the house, and my priest started rowing us back to the temple. But I was preoccupied. Chipahua himself might have no knowledge of magic, and the two warriors no motive to kill Eptli – but put them together, and bind them with the strong comradeship that kept a unit together in the heat of battle…
'Acatl-tzin!'
I looked up, startled out of my reverie – and almost fell over when I saw Teomitl, leaning on the prow of a narrow-nosed boat. He'd discarded his regalia in favour of a mantle with a red brim, and a dark cape, though his face was still painted black and blue.
'How did you find me?' I started, but then saw the green glow of his patron goddess Jade Skirt etched in every feature of his face. I was on a boat, in the water that was Her province – of course She'd know where I was. I shifted conversation subjects. 'What in the Fifth World are you doing here?'
'Telling you that you were right.' Teomitl reached out, taking my hand to drag me into his own boat. 'Come on, we'll go faster with this one. It's larger, and it's got the imperial insignia.'
'Teomitl,' I said, struggling not to capsize. 'How about explanations?'
'Oh.' He looked surprised for a moment. 'It's the dead man.'
'I shouldn't think he could get any deader,' I said darkly, manoeuvring to bridge the gap between the two boats. Behind us, the traffic in the canal had completely jammed – and I guessed it was only the imperial crest that prevented people from screaming at us.
'You don't understand, Acatl-tzin.' Teomitl steadied me as I set foot onto the floor of the boat. 'Whatever he had, he's been passing it on to other people.'
A contagious disease. In the palace. Where the rulers of the Triple Alliance were gathering for Tizoc-tzin's coronation; where the highest-ranking noblemen and priests would be discussing the coronation war and what it meant for the Mexica Empire.
I took a deep breath, but it didn't remove the leaden weight in my stomach. 'Lead on,' I said.
THREE
Teomitl took me to the same wing where we'd put Eptli's corpse earlier. The atmosphere was curiously subdued, with an over-abundance of black-garbed priests of Patecatl, and the blue and white cloaks that could only mark priests of Tlaloc the Storm Lord.
I wasn't that surprised: among His many attributes, the Storm Lord was responsible for the spreading of diseases – pouring them down from one of His jars as he poured rain and lightning upon the Fifth World.
Acamapichtli was waiting for us in front of a closed entrancecurtain. On the ground behind him was a half circle, inscribed with blood-glyphs. Even from a distance, I could feel the heat radiating from the tracings. Something large – perhaps even a man – had been sacrificed here.
'Is it that bad?' I asked. Teomitl's explanations had been confused: I gathered there had been at least one victim, but the sheer number of priests made me suspect it was somewhat worse.
'I don't know,' Acampichtli said. 'That fool priest of Patecatl should have listened to you in the first place.'
'He didn't,' I said, though I was as angry with the priest as Acamapichtli himself was. Contagion was a serious matter – and, once started, the illness would be harder to contain. 'You can't change that.'
Acamapichtli pursed his lips, a familiar gesture halfway between amusement and contempt. 'Two victims so far. The priest of Patecatl who examined the body, and Coatl.'
They'd both touched it, I recalled. 'And the warriors who carried it?'
'We're looking for them.' Acamapicthli shook his head. 'But they went back to their houses, and no one paid much attention to them after they left.'
No, indeed not. But I knew better than to let him cow me through shame. 'And the illness?' The warrior hadn't had many symptoms, other than the fluttering shape of shadows over his face, like dappled light coming through trees – no, that wasn't it. I'd seen that somewhere, too – but where?
'Their body temperature is high, and they keep shivering. No other symptoms, but those can take time to appear.'
He might have been right – I wouldn't have known. I was called in after there was no hope, after the remedies of ground pearls and white earth had failed, after the patient had taken on the visage of death, after the blood had poured over the heart and spread into all the members, quenching life as it did so. And few illnesses came from corpses.
Angry voices brought me back to reality. Teomitl was arguing, loudly and arrogantly, with Acamapichtli. 'I don't see why–'
'It's a precaution.'
