wouldn't hold for long, as we now all knew.
I, as usual, retreated with my priests in my temple, to begin the vigil for Matlaelel, and tidy things up in my own domain.
I was settling down with the temple accounts when I heard footsteps outside, and a hand drew aside the entrance curtain. 'Acatl.' The tinkle of bells didn't mask Acamapichtli's voice.
I bowed my head, not knowing if he'd see it or not. He was still wrapped in layers of Tlaloc's magic, but I couldn't be sure what he was saying.
'I thought I'd find you here. Ever the busy clerk.' His voice had the old, mordant sarcasm.
'Ever the same,' I said, but it wasn't quite true.
He'd brought chocolate, and maize cakes; we sat together atop the platform of the pyramid shrine, looking down on the temple complex and the shadows of my priests below as they went for their funeral vigils, and the haunting sounds of the bone whistles started to echo around the courtyard.
'So we closed it.'
Acamapichtli grimaced. 'We did. Well, not quite. You know we couldn't. But it was good that you killed Coatl.'
'Thank my sister,' I said, gloomily.
'I already did.' He shrugged. 'Don't look so sad. I can recognise power when I see it. She might be young, she might be a married woman, but it changes nothing. She's for great things, you know. Perhaps even greater than her predecessor.'
'I don't know,' I said. It made me feel uncomfortable to dwell overmuch on Mihmatini right now – because of Teomitl, because there was nothing I could do about their marriage. Whatever they did, they'd have to work it out by themselves. 'So we're safe,' I said, to change the subject.
'I guess. But not as safe as we once were.'
'Do you…? ' I stopped, unsure of what to say. 'Did you ever stop to think what we'd done? That we'd–' That we'd break things worse than ever, cause our own doom just as Tenochtitlan's invasion of Tlatelolco had paved the way for Moquihuix-tzin's revenge?
Acamapichtli sighed. 'A word of advice, Acatl: don't dwell on what is past.' His sightless eyes looked west, towards the setting sun, and his scars seemed to shine in the dim light. 'You'll only hurt yourself.'
'But…' But I had to know; had to see whether I was right, whether my decision would heal us in a few years' time, or throw us into worse chaos. But Acamapichtli didn't know any of this, nor could he understand it.
Acamapichtli's smile was wide and sarcastic. 'We all blunder through life, Acatl, making the best we can with what we have. That's all the truth there is.' He rose, wiping his hands clean of cake crumbs.
'Where are you going?'
He smiled again, like a jaguar showing his fangs. 'You'll want to be alone.'
'Acamapichtli!'
There were footsteps again, on the pyramid stairs; brash and impatient, and I would have known them anywhere. I heard the entrance-curtain to the shrine tinkle as Acamapichtli withdrew for good, leaving me alone, staring at Teomitl.
He wore the garb of the Master of the House of Darts: the Frightful Spectre costume, his face emerging from the jaws of the skull-helmet, the quetzal feathers of his headdress fanning down like unkempt hair; the slit over his liver, symbolising the sacrifices he was making for the Mexica, seemed to glow in the dark. 'Acatl- tzin.'
I sighed. 'Come on. There are some maize cakes.'
'I've come to apologise–'
I shook my head. 'No need for that. I think we've both made mistakes that we shouldn't have. The important thing is that we're safe.' Safe, but not as before; safe, but trembling on the edge of extinction.
Teomitl sat down, looking at the maize cakes with studied intensity. 'I'll give it a few years,' he said. 'If we hold that long.'
'I know.'
'You disapprove.'
'I don't know.' Not anymore; I was the one adrift without anything to cling to, the future only a terrifying blank. 'The Duality curse me, I don't know.'
Teomitl broke the maize cake in two, watching it. 'I don't think Mihmatini will ever forgive me.'
'Give it time,' I said. I didn't know. Out of all of us, she'd been probably been treated the most shabbily, and I didn't know how far her love extended. 'I can't help you there. I don't think, in fact, that I can help you much at all. You were right in one thing: you're far too adult to have a teacher.'
He smiled – with a shadow of the old carelessness. 'You said things as one man to another. That won't change, Acatl.'
'No,' I said. 'I guess not.'
Teomitl was silent for a while. He poured chocolate into a bowl, and breathed in the bitter, spicy smell, but didn't drink. 'When Tizoc comes back…'
'Yes?' I'd expected something about apologies, but he didn't even broach the subject.
'I'll ask him about Tlatelolco. It's high time that wound was healed. We can't keep making them pay for something that happened thirteen years ago.'
'What did you have in mind?'
'I don't know,' Teomitl said. He smiled again, and I couldn't help smiling in return. 'I'll think of something.'
He rose with the bowl in hand, and came to stand near the edge of the platform. Below, the city of Tenochtitlan was bathed in the last light of the setting sun, and the familiar sounds wafted up to us: the splashes of the boats being polled home; the murmur of the crowd offering its last sacrifices in the Sacred Precinct; the harsh cry of the conches and the melancholy roll of the drums that marked the end of the day, and the setting of a sun that would rise, again and again. 'It hasn't changed,' he said, almost in wonder.
