Acamapichtli – abruptly, I remembered the trial. 'Acamapichtli's arrest. That's what's gone wrong.' And Tapalcayotl in his cage; and probably the whole clergy, all over the city – the Consort, High Priestess of Chalchiuhtlicue, and her own clergy… 'The arrest of her husband's clergy must give Her enough to be busy.'
Mimahtini shook her head. 'I know it's serious, Acatl, but that's not what we're focusing on right now.'
No. She was right. One couldn't grasp four hundred stalks of corn at the same time. We needed to shape our minds to a single purpose, or Teomitl would be gone just the way of Eptli.
I thought again of the corpse – small and forlorn and abandoned, and my stomach lurched within me at the thought of Teomitl's being there, in Eptli's place.
'You don't know healing spells either?' I asked Mihmatini.
'I've thought of something, but it cannot possibly work as it is. Come and see.'
She found a cane for me, which looked suspiciously like her predecessor Ceyaxochitl's cane. I used it to prop myself upwards – and half-carried by Mihmatini, half-pushing myself on the cane – I made my way out of the room. Ironic, really – Ceyaxochitl herself had been the fittest old woman I'd known, using the cane mostly for show in order to enjoy the respect and pity accorded to the frail elderly. She'd never been one much for frailty, and she would probably have scolded me for being such a weakling.
Gods, what I wouldn't have given to have her back – overbearing and patronising as she'd always been. The cane was warm under my fingers, but she was gone, down into Mictlan, never to return, her wisdom and knowledge going the way of dust blown by the wind.
The entrance-curtain opened into the main courtyard of the Duality House: like most temples, it had a rectangular layout, with a pyramid shrine in the centre, and various rooms and compounds opening into the main courtyard, their entrance-curtains shaded by a pillared portico.
Yaotl was waiting for us at the entrance, sitting on his haunches in a position of attention. He unfolded himself when Mihmatini came out; she acknowledged him with a curt nod. For me, he had nothing but his usual, mildly sardonic glance – not that I had expected more than that.
'Anything?' Mihmatini asked.
Yaotl shook his head. 'No change.' He handed his mistress a folded piece of paper. Mihmatini took it, but didn't open it.
'Come,' she said, and all but dragged me to another room, the entrance-curtain of which was marked only by a few glyphs.
Inside, an antechamber led into a deeper, more shadowed room – Mihmatini's quarters, in as much disorder as usual. The wicker chests bulged with clothes: colourful headdresses and skirts spilled out from under their lids, and a feather-fan I'd last seen in Neutemoc's house rested on top of one of them. The two sleepingmats had been unrolled: one was empty; the second one held Teomitl.
He was so pale – his skin so leeched of colours it seemed like pallid gold. His eyes were sunk deep into his face; his hair, curled and plastered with sweat, clung to his scalp in clumps, and he tossed and moaned. I dragged myself closer, and painstakingly crouched down – not so much a deliberate gesture as a gradual sagging of my body, stopped at regular intervals by my grip on the cane – slow and messy.
Teomitl did not move, or give any sign that he had registered my presence; after a while, I realised that he wasn't moaning, but talking under his breath, so fast I could barely follow – delirious snatches of sentences mentioning anything from Jade Skirt's touch to beasts of shadows. I touched the mat; it was already soaked. 'You said you had something.'
A flutter of clothes, and then Mihmatini was crouching by my side – the thread between her and Teomitl reduced to an arm's length, bright and vivid, like blood in an open wound. Her face was calm, expressionless – like obsidian in the instant before it shattered. 'I haven't been idle. We've cast spells of protection in the Duality's name, and we have also been looking into possible causes for the sickness. It's one – or more – of four things. He's carrying something within him, which was put there by a sorcerer. I don't think it's the case: insofar as I can tell, none of the dead men touched anything?'
I thought, uneasily, of Eptli. 'It might have started that way, but I don't think it's using a physical vector anymore.'
'Hmm.' Mihmatini unfolded the piece of maguey paper Yaotl had given her: it was a transcription from a divinatory priest's calendar, listing horoscopes and fates for a particular birth – a beautiful piece, with coloured glyphs swirling around the images of the protector gods.
'His?' I guessed. A man's birth influenced many things, not least of which the healing rituals which would be effective.
'It was hard to find,' Mihmatini said. 'Fortunately, Yaotl is frighteningly efficient at what he does.'
I wasn't surprised. It wasn't only healing rituals that depended on the birth-signs, but also vulnerabilities – naturally, someone as paranoid as Tizoc-tzin would not want his war-council to be on display for any sorcerer to tackle.
'Ten Rabbit. He could have a nahual totem; but he's never been strong enough to materialise one. And none of the other affected men had nahuals – Eptli was born on a Five Knife, his prisoner was a Two House insofar as we could check, and Coatl is quite definitely a Ten Rain. So it can't be that, either.'
The words came fast, one atop the other – almost without pause. 'Mihmatini. Slow down. It's not going to change anything.'
'You don't know that,' she said, angrily, but she didn't protest further.
'What about the
'It's weak,' Mihmatini said. 'But that could just be because the body is weak. Which leaves the last explanation.' Her finger rested on the paper, near the head of Tlaloc the Storm Lord. 'It's some kind of influence.'
I thought of the shadows – this far into the Duality House, under the influence of so many protection spells, they had all but gone – but they had been real enough. 'Given what I've seen of the sickness, I think it's some kind of influence. But I don't think the influence would hold here.'
'If he has it within his body, he's sheltering it from our wards,' Mihmatini said. 'That was my idea: to make him expel it.' She stopped; looking at me – for guidance, I saw with a start.
'You're old enough not to need me anymore,' I said, though I was secretly pleased to see she still looked
