It had been worse, then. I had barely been able to stand up, and we had lain unprotected from the star- demons. Nothing like that here: the Fifth Sun was in the sky, and the star-demons' distant shadows cowering from His radiance.
But still… there were ghosts abroad, and the whispers of the dead, and – soon, perhaps – the panting breaths of beasts of shadow on the prowl.
Something was wrong with the boundaries.
'I need to get out,' I said, again, to the guards.
They looked at me as if I were mad, with clearly no intention of letting me move more than a hand-span. 'We have orders,' they said.
'Then get me the person who gave you the orders.'
They looked at each other, and then back at me. I saw ghosts drift between them, drawn like jaguars to a hearth-fire. My clothes were torn and slightly muddy from my visit into Tlalocan, but they were still the regalia of the High Priest for the Dead. 'My Lord, we cannot…'
'Get me Quenami,' I said, softly.
It might have been the tone, or the remnants of the regalia, but one of the guards left, looking distinctly worried.
In the meantime, I leant against one of the coloured pillars, desperately trying to look nonchalant, but the ghosts still hung in the courtyard like a veil of fog, and the slight nausea at the back of my throat wasn't getting better.
I'd expected Quenami to look smug or satisfied, but when he arrived, he merely looked harried. He wore his most ostentatious clothes – brightly-coloured feathers almost better suited for a Revered Speaker than for a High Priest – and his earlobes glistened with freshly offered blood. 'Acatl. What a surprise to see you here.' Even his sarcasm sounded muted.
I wasn't in the mood to play the dance of diplomacy. 'Look, Quenami. There is an epidemic out here, and I don't need to be confined with the dying.'
'Except that you might be sick yourself.' His eyes were feverishly bright, his hands steady, but I could read the strain in his bearing.
'Do I look sick to you?'
'You never know. You might have it all the same.'
He looked too worried – even for someone who had suffered the debacle in the courtyard. 'It's worse, isn't it? It's spreading, and you have no idea how to stop it.'
Quenami's head snapped towards me. 'What do you know? You've been confined here since yesterday. I know you have. No one has seen you in that time; your own sister admits to knowing nothing of your whereabouts.'
'I know enough,' I said, softly. Gods, Mihmatini had been looking for me the whole time? She was going to flay my ears the next time we met. 'Tell me it's better, that you have it all under control.'
As Acamapichtli had; I hated that man's guts, but I had to admit he had a certain ruthless efficiency. Quenami was all bluster. 'It's only a matter of time,' Quenami said, haughtily. 'The Empire is well protected, as you know.'
It was – against star-demons and the celestial monsters that would swallow us. But still… still, nothing prevented a resourceful sorcerer from sowing havoc. 'You know the Southern Hummingbird won't protect us against a small thing like a plague.' To a god, especially a war-god, hundreds of dead meant nothing. The great famine, the great floods, all had happened under the protection of a Revered Speaker. Huitzilpochtli the Southern Hummingbird only guarded from large-scale attacks which would annihilate the Fifth World or the Mexica Empire.
'What do you want, Acatl?'
'What I've told you. I want to get out, and I want to help. That's all. Is it really so hard to understand? I'm not working against the Fifth World.'
Unlike you, I wanted to say, but I knew it wasn't the best time for airing this particular grudge.
Quenami looked at me, and back at the courtyard. 'It's not safe…'
'No,' I said, with a quick shake of my head – I'd never seen him so uncertain, and I wasn't sure what it presaged. 'But for all you know, you might have it as well. Tizoc-tzin might have it as well.'
'Very well,' Quenami said at last. He made it sound like a special favour granted to me – as if he were Revered Speaker, and I a lowly peasant. 'You may get out.'
I didn't need to be told twice: I walked past the two guards, and came to stand firmly on the side of the healthy, the cane warm in my hands. Quenami made no comment, but let me follow him through a few courtyards – enough for me to realise the palace had grown uncannily silent, as if a cloth had been throw over everything. The servants wove their way among ghosts – not seeing them, but not saying anything in any case – and the few noblemen who were still out hurried past us, intent on not staying out any longer than they had to.
'How much worse is it?' I asked Quenami.
He shrugged – a contained movement, but I could still feel his anxiety. 'The She-Snake says he has every thing under control.'
Which wasn't the same thing as saying the problem was solved. 'And what he has under control…'
Quenami shook his head – of course he wouldn't allow himself to look embarrassed. 'About a fifth of the palace has been affected, and it sounds like it's spreading through the city.'
'And you still think you can keep a handle on this?'
'Tizoc-tzin thinks so,' Quenami said.
It was the closest he'd ever come, I guessed, to saying he didn't agree with his master. 'And Tizoc-tzin still thinks it's a good idea to arrest the clergy of Tlaloc.'
Quenami looked away, and didn't speak. At length he said, in a much quieter voice. 'Your sister's priests are with us, to find rituals to slow this down. It will suffice. It has to.'
But we both knew it wouldn't.
• • • •
I detoured through the kitchens to find some food since, in addition to being weak and still wounded, I hadn't
