'He didn't touch the corpse.'
'What in the Fifth World are you talking about?' I asked, with the feeling I wasn't going to like the answer.
'He wants you to be isolated, with the others!' Teomitl blurted out.
'Only for a few days.'
A few days? 'We don't have that kind of time,' I said. What was he thinking of? 'You pick an odd time to be conscientious. What happened to the survival of the Fifth World being assured?' And he seemed to conveniently forget about including himself in his isolation – typical.
He looked at me for a while, and for the first time I heard utter seriousness in his voice. 'I am High Priest of Tlaloc the Storm Lord, His voice in the Fifth World. If the god has chosen to break His third jar, and pour the waters of epidemic upon us, then it is my respon sibility to beseech Him for mercy – and to isolate those He has touched, to see if They have been chosen to go to Tlalocan, the paradise of the Blessed Drowned, or if they are destined to remain in the Fifth World.'
'This is all about appearances, isn't it?' Teomitl asked, angrily. 'About looking good in front of the city.'
'Teomitl.' I raised a hand. I could be mistaken – I could never read the slippery son of a coyote – but there was something genuine in what he was telling us. Acamapichtli believed in his personal gain, but unlike Quenami he wouldn't dismiss the gods out of hand. 'Has the god spoken to you?'
'Not yet,' Acamapichtli said. And then I did understand: if it was indeed the will of Tlaloc, and he, Tlaloc's priest in the Fifth World, ignored it, then he would have more to contend with than angry mortals.
I suppressed a bitter laugh. We'd weathered the anger of the Southern Hummingbird the year before – which had resulted in the massacre of the whole imperial council by star-demons; I could understand why Acamapichtli wasn't keen to try Tlaloc's patience.
'I don't think it's Him,' I said. 'It's magical.'
'You presume to know the will of the gods?'
I shrugged. 'No. But if it's just the will of a mortal, than I'm oathbound to go against it. I keep the boundaries of the Fifth World, and the balance that maintains the Fifth Sun in the Sky, and Grandmother Earth fertile. Will you go against that?'
'If I must.' Acamapichtli's face was pale. 'For a few days, at least.'
'We might not have a few days,' I said. I hesitated. I didn't know much about illnesses, but still – 'Why is it becoming contagious only now? We haven't heard a report about Eptli's comrades falling ill, have we?' And Chipahua and his companions had looked perfectly healthy, with none of the symptoms of the disease.
Acamapichtli looked taken aback. 'It may only be contagious after death. I've seen odder things.'
'Doesn't matter,' Teomitl said impatiently. 'Surely you're not suggesting my brother and I should be subject to this, as well?'
Acamapichtli looked as if he might argue for a moment, but he was too canny a politician for that. 'I shouldn't think so, my Lord. Your protections – and Tizoc-tzin's – are the strongest in this palace. Nevertheless, I would recommend… caution.'
Teomitl grinned, an utterly bleak expression. 'One doesn't become Revered Speaker through caution, priest.' He looked almost like his brother in those moments, with the same stern mannerisms, and the same way of spitting out words as if they'd offended him. I didn't like that – I'd always known he'd grow away from me, my young and precocious student, but I hadn't thought I would lose him to Tizoc-tzin's shadow. 'You overstep your limits.'
Acamapichtli's face twisted, as if he'd swallowed something bitter. 'My Lord… I differ. As Acatl said, those are the numinous boundaries of the Fifth World. They shouldn't concern you.'
Oh, for the gods' sake, the whole business was increasingly ridiculous. 'It's too early to start acting so cautiously. Give us some of your amulets, and you can come pick us up if we collapse.'
Acamapichtli looked as though he might protest, but in that precise moment he was approached by a young priest of Tlaloc.
'Acamapichtli-tzin,' the priest said. He bent his blue-striped face to Acamapichtli's ear, and whispered something. I saw Acamapichtli's face go from mild annoyance to surprise, and then – for a brief moment – to naked fear.
'What is it?' Teomitl asked.
'None of your–' Acamapichtli bit back the sentence with great difficulty. 'Since you're both so keen to risk further contamination…'
'Someone else died,' I said.
'Not any 'someone else',' Acamapichtli said. 'Eptli's prisoner.'
The one that had been contested between him and Chipahua.
'Take us there,' I said to the priest – who looked back, hesitating, to Acamapichtli for confirmation. Acamapichtli shook his head with sardonic humour. 'It's their lives at stake,' he said. 'We'll discuss the matter of your isolation later on.'
The prisoners made in a war were normally the property of their captors, and as such were lodged by the clan, fed and taken care of until the time came for sacrifice. But this time, either because there hadn't been enough time since the army's return, or because Tizoctzin had wanted to keep a watch on the forty captives for his confirmation ceremony, they had been accommodated in the palace itself, in a secluded section to the west of the building, away from the bustle of life in either the Revered Speaker's or the She-Snake's quarters. The mood, when we entered, was subdued – but I got the feeling it was usual, and not due to their losing a comrade.
It might have been any warrior camp before a battle: the air reeked of the blood of penances, and several of the prisoners I crossed had bloody earlobes and bloody loincloths, their worshipthorns casually thrust through the upper part of their cotton clothes. Somewhere would be an altar to the Southern Hummingbird or the Smoking Mirror – with an accumulation of worship balls, the grass stained red and shimmering with raw power.
We followed the priest to the back of a small courtyard, where another priest was keeping watch on a closed room, with a gloomy countenance. 'Here for the body?' he asked.
'To examine it.'
'You have the courage of eagles,' the priest said. He jerked a finger towards the entrance curtain, gently swaying in the breeze. 'It's in there.'
I paused before entering, and slashed my earlobes, taking the time to cast a brief spell of protection calling on Lord Death's power. I waited until the cold of the underworld spread through my veins like melted ice before I passed the threshold.
For all my protection, I felt it when I entered – and by Teomitl's sharp intake of breath, he did, too. The air was tight, somehow more rarefied than it ought to have been: it reminded me of walking atop Mount Popocatepetl,
