enable him to shave his head. His face was flushed with exertion, but even then I could see past that, and make out Huchimitl's traits, Huchimitl's beauty. He looked so much like her that my heart ached.
Had things gone differently, he could have been my son, not Tlalli's. It was an odd, uncomfortable thought that would not leave my mind.
When I approached him, he looked at me with contempt. “What do you want?”
I introduced myself and explained that his mother had sent me, whereupon his manner grew more relaxed. He took me away from the training grounds, out of earshot of his fellow warriors, before he would talk to me.
I had observed him carefully during our small walk. If Citli, his beloved war-son, had an aura of coiled, malevolent power about him, Mazahuatl was cursed, though not by the underworld. It was small, barely visible unless one stopped and considered him, but he did have an aura. And it was dark and roiling, like storm clouds bursting with rain – an odd kind of curse, one I had never encountered.
But it had touched him, as it had touched everyone in the house. I thought of the mask again. That had to be why Huchimitl was wearing it – because she'd been disfigured by the curse, just as Citli had been paralysed.
But the most worrisome thing was that the curse was still spreading. Citli's paralysis wasn't stopping – and I didn't think Huchimitl was safe, not for one moment. The curse would not stop. Not until I found out what was truly going on in that house.
“How long have you been cursed?” I asked Mazahuatl, and saw him start.
“You know nothing.”
“I'm a priest. I know enough, I should say.”
He turned away from me. “Mother sent you? Go away.”
“She thinks you have enemies,” I said, softly. “And I'd wager Yohuacalli is among them.”
He would not meet my gaze. “Go away.”
“Do you care so little about your reputation?”
“Mother cares,” Mazahuatl said. “I'm no fool. I know I won't be raised within the ranks.”
“You captured a prisoner,” I pointed out. “Single-handed. There is no reason it shouldn't happen.”
He laughed, a sick, desperate laugh. “That's what I told myself at first, trying to make myself believe. But of course it won't work. Nothing ever does.”
“That's the hallmark of a curse. Won't you tell me anything?”
“No,” he said. “Just go back, report to Mother that you've failed, and stop bothering us.” And he would not talk to me any more, no matter how hard I pressed him.
I did two things before coming back to Huchimitl's house: the first was to stop by the registers and check on the death of Tlalli. There was not much to go on. The date of death was listed as the seventeenth day in the Month of Izcalli or Resurrection, in the year Thirteen Rabbit – four years ago. An ironic time to die, if nothing else, for Izcalli is the month when the plants are reborn from their winter beds, and a time to rejoice in the coming of spring.
Search as I might, I found no additional mention of that death, which meant that it had not been found suspicious. I exited the registers in a thoughtful mood – for, in spite of what I had just read, I didn't think Tlalli's death was irrelevant. It was too much of a coincidence that the curse on the house had started just after his death.
Which left me with the second thing: if no one was going to tell me what had happened four years ago, I was going to have to look into the past myself.
I stopped by the marketplace and made my way through the crowd to the district of animal-sellers. There I bartered for a peccary and the hide of a jaguar – a transaction that had me hand over most of the cacao beans in my purse to a beaming vendor. It did not matter. Though not wealthy in the slightest, I’ve always lived comfortably on the gifts the families of the dead make to me.
The peccary was small: barely reaching my knee, it followed me docilely enough on its leash, but kept rubbing its tusks with a chattering noise, an indication that it was unhappy. Peccaries were aggressive; I did not look forward to sacrificing this one, but it was necessary for the ritual I had in mind.
The slaves in Huchimitl's house had been given instructions to let me enter; the tall, sturdy individual who stood by the gate raised his eyebrows when I passed him, but said nothing.
I went straight to Citli's room, deliberately avoiding Huchimitl – the last thing I needed was her trying to prevent me from investigating her husband's death.
On my first visit, I had noticed a small hearth by the bed; it was by that hearth that I settled down. From my belt I took three obsidian knives and laid them on the ground. I threw into the hearth a handful of herbs that soon filled the room with a sharp, pungent smell; I laid the jaguar hide on the ground and coaxed the peccary onto it.
Citli watched me with interest but did not speak. I said, all the same, “I need to do this if you want help.” He may have nodded, but it was hard to tell with the smoke that had filled my eyes.
As I had foreseen, the peccary attacked me when I raised my knife; I narrowly avoided the sharp tusks, then buried my blade deep into its throat. Blood fountained up, staining my hands, pooling on the jaguar's hide. I spoke the words of the ritual, calling on Quetzalcoatl, God of Creation and Knowledge:
