Teomitl's eyebrows went up. 'Coatl likes simple decisions. He's a warrior, through and through. There is your side, and the enemy's side, and you shouldn't have to wonder about more than that.'
'And you're not like him?' I asked. Not that I was surprised: politics couldn't be dealt in such a simplistic fashion. Mind you, I couldn't blame Coatl: I preferred my divisions clear-cut, but I was aware that the gods seldom gave you what you liked best.
'I can think,' Teomitl said, contemptuously. 'At any rate – we questioned the warriors of the clan-unit, and the prisoner Zoquitl, and we thought it likely Eptli was in the right.'
'Wait,' I said. 'Zoquitl was willing to testify before a Mexica tribunal?' I couldn't see for what gain. Either way, he would die his glorious death on the altar-stone – and if there was no conclusive evidence, he would be given to the Revered Speaker, and the endgame would be the same.
'He's a warrior,' Teomitl said, with a quick toss of his head that set the feathers of his headdress aflutter. 'He wouldn't cheat a fellow warrior.'
I had my doubts. After all, as my brother Neutemoc had proved, warriors – even Jaguar Knights – were like the best and the worst of us. They walked tall above us, but sometimes, like any mortal, they stumbled and fell. 'Fine,' I said, grudgingly. 'You listened to the testimonies and decided to award the prisoner to Eptli. Why?'
'You want a detailed argumentation? Now?' Teomitl's gaze moved to the dead prisoner.
'The gist of it,' I said.
'He was more likely to be in the area, his description fitted Zoquitl's testimony better, and he was more muscular than Chipahua, more likely to be able to capture him with one blow, as Zoquitl testified.' Teomitl's voice was monotonous, bored.
'And you never had doubts?' I asked.
'No. Acatl-tzin, why go over this again? We ruled and there is no appeal.'
Why? I frowned, not quite sure why myself. 'I thought an inconclusive trial conclusion would explain why Chipahua was so angry at Eptli, and vice-versa.'
'Well, it's not that.' Teomitl hesitated. 'There was someone who didn't agree with this, originally.'
'On the war-council?' I asked.
'Yes. Itamatl. He's the deputy for the Master of the Bowl of Fatigue. He was sceptical at first, and argued against the evidence. But not for long.'
That didn't sound much like a divided war-council, no matter how I turned it.
'We need more evidence,' I said.
'I should say we've got more than enough here,' Teomitl said, sombrely.
'That's not what I meant.'
I needed to see how ordinary warriors had considered Eptli. I needed inside information, but Teomitl would be useless on this one: like Coatl, he moved in spheres that were too exalted to pay attention to the common soldiers. What I needed was someone lower down the hierarchy.
I needed–
Tlaloc's Lightning strike me, I needed my brother.
I had caught a glimpse of Neutemoc at the banquet, so I knew that not only had he come home safe, but also that he had gained from the campaign. But the formalised banquet hadn't left me time to have a quiet chat with him, and I had been looking forward to visiting him.
I just hadn't intended that my visit – the first for months – to come with strings attached: the last thing we needed was for my High Priest business to interfere in our fragile and budding relationship.
FOUR
First, we needed to make it out of the palace – preferably without running into Acamapichtli and his absurd notions of quarantine again.
Luckily, the priest who'd brought us into the prisoners' quarters had vanished, and his replacement at Zoquitl's door was more interested in doing his job as a guard than checking on our departure.
'We'll run into priests,' I said as we exited the prisoners' quarters. 'The palace was overrun by those sons of a dog.'
Teomitl shook his head. 'Not if we take the least-travelled paths. Come on, Acatl-tzin!'
Of course, he had all but grown up there in the early years of his brother's reign and he knew the place like the back of his hand. He took a turn left, and then a dizzying succession of turns through ornate courtyards where slaves brought chocolate to reclining nobles – until the crowds thinned, the frescoes faded into paleness and the courtyards became dusty, deserted squares, with their vibrant mosaics eaten away by years of winds.
'The quarters of Chilmapopoca,' Teomitl said, laconically. 'My brother Axayacatl's favourite son. He died of a wasting sickness when he was barely seven years old.'
It smelled of death and neglect, and of a sadness deeper than I could express in words. I shivered and walked faster, hoping to leave the place soon.
And then we were walking past the women's quarters: highpitched voices and the familiar clacking sound of weaving looms echoed past us – the guard in the She-Snake's uniform gave Teomitl a brief nod, and waved us on.
'Are you sure?'
Teomitl's face was lit in a mischievous smile. 'Remember three months ago, when that concubine blasted her way out of the palace?'
