Itamatl shrugged. 'Fine.' He turned to me, and bowed, brusquely, as if forced to acknowledge someone he didn't much care for. 'And you'll listen as High Priest for the Dead.'
'It's my role,' I said, slowly. 'You don't seem to care much for our wars.'
Itamatl looked at Teomitl – who said nothing. At length, he said, 'There will always be wars, and the Southern Hummingbird will always grant His favours as he sees fit.'
'But, here and now, we are the ones holding His favours.'
Itamatl's gaze was sardonic. 'And this grants us the right to lie and dissemble?'
'If you approve so much of the truth,' I said, 'then be frank with us. Do you wish for this coronation war to be a success?'
That, if nothing else, caught him aback. At length he threw his head back, and laughed.
'Just like a priest, to wound with words.' He was silent, for a while. 'No. Just once, I would like Tizoc-tzin to be thwarted in his desires. To know what it is to lose.' He smiled, bitterly, at Teomitl. 'I might have tried to make him lose you, but I don't think he would care, either way.'
Teomitl's face was a mask; for once, I couldn't read him, no matter how dearly I might have wished to. Did he still love his brother, in spite of the grievances between them – or was there nothing left between them, save duty?
'Be careful what you say.'
'Words aren't a crime,' Itamatl said. 'Not yet.'
'But acts are,' I interjected. 'Eptli's death. The sickness. The attack on Pochtic.'
There was a moment of silence, which seemed to stretch into an eternity. Then, a snort and a shake of his head. 'I'd have been tempted, perhaps. But I assure you, I have nothing to do with this. If anyone has to pay, it's Tizoc-tzin. I won't drag down other warriors.'
And, but for the silence, it might have sounded sincere.
'I see,' I said, though all I could see was that we couldn't discount him as a suspect.
Teomitl said, in a brusque fashion. 'There have been talks, Itamatl. Talks we were approached for bribes by some of Eptli's allies.'
'Bribes?' The puzzlement on his face looked genuine, but then again, he had had ample time to prepare himself for the question. 'I don't see–'
'I didn't either.' Teomitl's voice was low and savage. 'But that doesn't mean there was nothing.'
As we walked towards the entrance-curtain, his voice brought us short. 'Teomitl!'
'Yes?' Teomitl didn't turn around.
'He'll drag us down, you know. Bit by bit and lie by lie. You know this.'
'I know.' Teomitl shook his head. 'Come on, Acatl-tzin. Let's go.'
Outside, it was early evening and the stars were shining in the sky. Teomitl paused on the platform, staring at them – I thought he might be looking for the Evening Star, the incarnation of Nezahual-tzin's protector god, but when he did speak, it had nothing to do with the Feathered Serpent. 'Acatl-tzin… it was worth it, was it not?'
Trust him to get to the heart of the matter. Itamatl had accused priests of wounding with words, but Teomitl could be equally devastating in his naivete. I stared at the stars – fixed, distant, but it only took a slight effort of memory to remember the rattle of skulls, and the lights plunging down towards us, becoming the eyes of the monsters, becoming large shapes looming over us, bringing the shattering cold, and the sense that nothing would be right again…
'We need a Revered Speaker,' I said. 'Otherwise the star-demons will come back.' I wished I could believe it that easily. Perhaps it was better to weather a period of chaos, if that was the price to pay for a better man? But I couldn't say that. I couldn't agree to pay in blood and deaths, and casually sacrifice so many, as Tizoc-tzin had sacrificed the whole council. I'd had no choice, back four months before: we'd had to bring Tizoc-tzin back into the Fifth World, so that he would ward us against chaos and fire. That he was a man I despised changed nothing.
'He's a bad Revered Speaker. Itamatl is right.' Teomitl's voice was low and fierce. 'I can't admit it to him because of who I am, but he is right.'
'He's not eternal,' I said, finally. I started down the stairs, slowly, towards the inner courtyard, which lay in darkness beneath the merciless light of the stars.
'But he's still young.' Teomitl scowled. 'He could live forever.'
He was a shambling corpse – because that was what we'd brought him back as, because I'd held back during the ritual, and left us with only a shadow of who Tizoc-tzin had been. 'He won't last long,' I said, finally. 'Trust me.'
'Days, months? A year?' When I didn't answer, he said, 'It'll be long enough, then. Look at us. We're already torn apart.'
'It's nothing new,' I said, but I didn't know what I could tell him. He had seen the star-demons, as I had. He knew the price of being without protection – the price of opening up the boundaries and letting everything that prowled in the space outside the Fifth World walk our streets and swim in our canals. 'I hate to say it, because it makes me sound like Acamapichtli, but we'll endure. We always have.'
Teomitl laughed, without joy. 'Because we're worth it.' He shook his head. 'Because we trample others into the dust.'
'Why the moodiness?' I asked.
'I thought– He shook his head. 'I thought of who might want to harm the Mexica Empire. There are so many people we have defeated and made slaves…'
I thought, uneasily, of Tlatelolco – of the bustling marketplace, which hid the scars of war, and the enslaved people; the bitterness of men like Yayauhqui. I thought of Yaotl, who was a foreigner and a slave, and who wouldn't ever be free. 'It's the way of the world. War isn't kind, or fair. You should know this, too.'
'I do know!' He made a short, stabbing gesture with his hand – and stopped halfway, as if bewildered by the lack of an enemy. 'It's just that…'
I waited for something else, but it didn't come. Instead, his head came up – like an
