'Eight Death,' she said. 'Why?'
'Nothing,' I said.
'Not 'nothing',' she protested gently as we entered the reception room.
'Nahual magic,' I said, curtly.
The reception room had changed in four years: all the walls were now covered with frescoes, depicting Huitzilpochtli, our protector God, in His guise as a young warrior. He trampled bound enemies under His huge feet, and a procession of lesser gods with bowed heads followed Him across the walls of the room. On the wicker chests were silver and jade ornaments, and jaguars' pelts covered the ground. An elaborate fan of green quetzal tail- feathers rested against one of the frescoed walls: an object worth at least two years' living for a poor peasant. Neutemoc had clearly earned a larger share of the tribute in the past years, and his family was enjoying the riches that came with his higher status.
Not for long, though, if he was disgraced. My heart tightened in my chest.
Huei set her baby in a wooden cradle. She unrolled a reed mat over one of the jaguar pelts, and sat on the ground. 'I'll have the slaves bring some refreshments,' she said. 'Your sister is watching over the children. But I think you and I would rather wait until we include her in the conversation.'
I said nothing. Huei had always been honest with me, which was one of the reasons we'd related so well to one another. 'Very well,' I said, finally. 'Let's start with the awkward questions. Did you abduct or harm Priestess Eleuia?'
Her eyes flickered. 'Through nahual magic? You know I can't use that.'
No. Being born on the day Eight Death, she had no nahual. But her equivocation wasn't what I had expected, and it frightened me. 'Huei, please. Can you answer the question?'
She didn't speak for a while. 'I knew there was someone. It's obvious when you no longer have your husband's attention, and even more obvious when you see him acting like an infatuated child. But I didn't know her name.'
I studied her for a while. 'And if you had known?'
Huei spread her hands, carefully. 'I – I don't know what I would have done.' She sounded sincere. 'But believe me, I wouldn't sum mon a nahual.'
'How did you know he'd been arrested?'
'Calpulli gossip,' Huei said. She picked up a wooden rattle – one of the children's toys – and flicked it between her fingers with a dry, hollow sound. 'I came as soon as I could. Not that it changed anything, of course. The Storm Lord smite him,' she said. 'Didn't he realise that he'd lose everything? That we'd lose everything? I thought–' She paused, and her eyes glimmered in the light.
She was crying. 'Huei…' I said, unsure of what I could do. I extended a hand halfway across the space that separated us.
Like Neutemoc, she was looking through me, as if I didn't exist. 'He did things. He rose from his status of peasant to a respected warrior. He was going somewhere, and taking us along with him.'
'I don't know what you mean,' I said, as gently as I could. I felt as if I were intruding on some private grief: never a pleasant thought, and even worse when you knew the person as well as I knew Huei. 'Going somewhere?'
'Making something out of his life,' Huei said. 'And then, all of a sudden, he realises it's not worth it any more, that he can throw it all into Mictlan.'
'I don't think–'
'I know him, Acatl,' Huei said. 'He was driven.'
And you? If he was driven, and making something out of his life, what did you think you were doing?
'And you loved him because of what he was?'
Huei said nothing, but she didn't need to. It was in her eyes: she loved him, and her anger at him was fear; fear that she would lose him to the executioner's mace.
'I'm sorry,' she said after a while. 'It wasn't meant for you.'
I didn't know what to say. I just shook my head, feeling utterly useless. 'I'm sorry.'
Huei blinked, dispelling the last of her tears, though her voice still shook. Behind her, the gods in the frescoes watched, expressionless, uncaring. 'You're not the one at fault. He is, unfortunately.' I said, 'He might still be acquitted. I'm trying.'
'But you don't believe in his innocence,' Huei said. 'You don't either.'
Huei's face tightened. 'I believe he was sleeping with that priestess. I don't believe he killed her. He couldn't kill anyone, not in cold blood.'
'He's a warrior.'
'Yes, he is. But not an assassin, Acatl.'
No. But a man used to making hard decisions, often in a short time. Huei wasn't the best judge of Neutemoc's character, being blinded both by jealousy and by love. And I still didn't know whether my brother had fathered Eleuia's child.
I said nothing for a while, thinking of all it would mean to her. I couldn't tell her about the child, or discuss my suspicions. It would have hurt her needlessly.
Huei must have sensed that I had run out of conversation subjects. She rose, went to the door, and clapped her hands to summon a slave. 'Bring some chocolate,' she said. 'And tell Mihmatini to come, too.'
She sat down again. 'So,' she said. 'It's been a while since we last saw each other.'
Four years, to be precise. Four years of minding my own small parish in Coyoacan – stopping, from time to time, to dwell on Huei and Mihmatini, but never gathering enough will to walk into that house again. The house where Mother had died; where Father's body had lain, untended to for hours.
