the plague, but in this case he would have removed his whole household, not disappeared himself.
Why?
I walked out of the palace, preoccupied, back to my temple, where – to my surprise – I found Neutemoc and Mihmatini in discussion with Palli.
'What are you doing here?'
Neutemoc was dressed for war in the fur-suit of Jaguar Knights, with his helmet tucked under his arm and his
'Mihmatini told me about the powders,' Neutemoc said. 'Why didn't you ask me?'
'You know about cooking?' I couldn't hide my surprise.
His lips quirked up, in that smile that wasn't a smile. 'It's not about cooking.' His voice took on the singsong cadences of sacred texts. 'Forty baskets of cacao pinolli, and forty baskets of chia pinolly every eighty days, eight hundred mantles of cotton every eighty days, and eighty white and yellow cuextecatl costumes every year.'
'It's a tribute list,' Mihmatini said. 'For Tlatelolco. For the last eight years they've been paying this every year.'
'Tlatelolco?' The merchant, Yayauhqui.
'Yes. I asked about Eptli,' Neutemoc said. 'Other than what you told me, nothing much that was new. Except this: his father was a messenger, originally. He was the one who carried back the news that Moquihuix-tzin, the Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco, was plotting against the Mexica Empire. That's how he became a nobleman.'
'Tlatelolco.' I took in a deep breath. No wonder they'd wanted our fall, our failure in everything. 'Let's go.'
'Where?'
'To find and arrest someone, before it's too late.'
Yayauhqui was not at his stall, and when we inquired at his household, we found him absent there too. The slaves showed us into the courtyard and served us bowls of chilli-flavoured cacao. After a while, a middle-aged woman by the name of Teyecapan came to see us, looking distraught. 'They've told me you're looking for my husband. I can assure you, he's done nothing wrong.'
'Then let us see him,' I said gently. 'He can tell us ourselves.'
'He's not here,' she said. She looked at us as if we were addled. 'It's the Feast of the Sun. He'll be in the slave market, buying a sacrifice victim for the merchants.'
Neutemoc threw me an exasperated glance as we walked out. 'I'm getting tired of walking back and forth between the houses and the marketplace.'
'Not to mention hot,' Mihmatini said, hiding a smile. And, indeed, the Jaguar Knight's costume might have looked grandiose, but it was no more comfortable than my High Priest regalia: we were both sweating quite profusely under the withering glare of the Fifth Sun.
Tlatelolco was nowhere as deserted as Tenochtitlan. But for the sick governor, the plague appeared to have touched it little – which made sense if Yayauhqui was behind it all. There were fewer people in the marketplace, but I suspected the missing were mainly Tenochcas.
In the marketplace, the slave section was filled with merchants, discussing in small groups, looking at the slaves for sale – nearly all burly, unblemished men kneeling on the reed mats with the distant gazes of people who expected to be kneeling all day.
Yayauhqui was easy to find: he towered over the other merchants by a head, and, with the true sight on, there was an empty hole where his souls ought to have been.
'Acatl-tzin?' His gaze moved from Neutemoc to Mihmatini, and then back to me. 'I did wait for you in the palace, but it was a while and you didn't come back…'
The other merchants were frowning at us – their gazes were sharp and inquisitive, if not yet hostile. 'Can we move away a little?' I asked.
Yayauhqui smiled. 'It all depends. What do you want?'
'You're under arrest,' Neutemoc said, curtly and harshly.
'I don't understand.' He sounded genuinely puzzled.
'The plague is linked to Tlatelolco.'
'And you come to me? Do you have any idea how many people of Tlatelolcan blood are around here?'
'Few who knew Eptli, I'd wager,' Mihmatini said.
Yayauhqui considered her, thoughtfully. At length, he bowed. 'I'll grant you this, my Lady, but I had little to do with Eptli, and certainly nothing to do with his death.'
And he sounded sincere. I knew he was a great liar, but surely, if he'd that much hatred of Mexica – if he was that much closer to his goal of unseating us – surely he would have shown some glee, some excitement? 'Come with us,' I said.
He shrugged. 'It's a nuisance, and I assure you I'm innocent.'
'Then you won't mind coming with us until it's all over.' A matter of days, or perhaps of hours.
His face darkened, slightly. 'I do mind. I have business, and other things to attend to. But if that's what it takes to convince you…'
He walked ahead of us on the way to the palace, his head thrown back, as casually arrogant as any warrior.
'Are you sure it's him?' Neutemoc said.
'He might want to be coming back to the palace,' Mihmatini said, slowly, but she didn't sound convinced.
