For the longest while, she did not speak. “They came,” she whispered. “A procession of priests like you, with feather-headdresses and jade ornaments. They asked if she was a maiden. Who was I, to shame her, to shame the master in front of the whole household?” Tears, glistening in the starlight, ran down her cheeks. “She was my daughter…”
“I see,” I said, finally, embarrassed by such grief. “Thank you.” I watched her retreat inside the slaves' quarters, leaving me alone in the courtyard.
The priests had checked Yoltzin's innocence, but there were ways, if one were prepared, to make it seem as though the maidenhood was intact. They were more commonly used before a wedding, to fool the go-betweens, because cheating the gods was a grave offence.
The sacrifice had been a sham. Rain had come, because the gods can be merciful, and because Yoltzin had not been the only maiden in the Empire to be sacrificed to Xilonen on that day. Rain had come, but the sin had not been forgiven.
With a growing hollow in my stomach, I thought of Huchimitl, alone in that house, with only the memories of her husband to sustain her – memories that were not happy or comforting. It did not look as though Tlalli had had much regard for her at all. It did not look as though she had ever been happy.
I had been such a fool to let her go without a word. I had been such a fool to abandon her.
I rose, came to stand at the heart of the courtyard. The buildings of the house shone under the light of the stars, white walls shimmering as if with heat, and once more I felt myself on the verge of vertigo. Once more the throbbing rose within me, the slow, secret rhythm linking the earth to the buildings, but this time I knew it to be the song of the corn as it slept in the earth. Pain sang in my bones and in my skin, and I knew it was the pain of a flayed woman, waiting for her skin of green maize-shoots to grow thick and strong.
I whispered Her name. “Xilonen.” And Her other name, the one we seldom spoke: “Chicomecoatl.” Seven Serpents, the earth that had to be watered with sweat and blood before it would put forth vegetation.
In my mind's eye I saw Her, coiled within the house, feeding the buildings with Her light. Gradually, She coalesced at the heart of the courtyard: a monstrous human shape with translucent skin the colour of ripe corn, with hollow eyes that swallowed the light and gave nothing back.
“Priest,” She said, and Her voice, echoing around the walls, was amused. “You are clever.”
“Not clever enough. I should have guessed that a curse that did not come from the underworld had to come from the heavens.”
“Humans could have done this,” Xilonen said, still amused. “But they did not.”
“Why do you punish them? They did not cheat you of your sacrifice.”
Xilonen smiled, an utterly inhuman expression. “Let the sins of the beloved father fall on the beloved son, and onto his beloved war-son, and the sins of the husband be taken up by the wife. I was cheated of My revenge.”
So Tlalli had died a natural death after all. “And is there nothing they could offer, that would make you forget?”
Xilonen shook Her head. “They are Mine. They amuse me: Mazahuatl, that pathetic excuse for a warrior, refusing to acknowledge his bad luck on the battlefield. That arrogant, misguided mother who thinks they can fall no lower. Who thinks I have punished them enough, that I would not dare touch her son's prisoner. My son has enemies,” She said, mimicking Huchimitl's voice with a chilling, contemptuous precision. “They have no enemies but Me. And you think to bargain for either of them, priest? You serve no one.”
“I serve Mictlantecuhtli, God of the Dead,” I said, drawing myself to my full height.
The goddess recoiled at the mention of Mictlantecuhtli, He in Whose country nothing grows. I pressed my slim advantage.
“There are rules, and rituals.”
“They offered Me a tainted sacrifice.” Xilonen was growling like a jaguar about to pounce. “They cheated Me of my proper offerings. And you dare bargain for them?”
“There is such a thing as forgiveness. Such a thing as ignorance.”
“Ignorance is not innocence. I will not be cheated, priest, whether knowingly or unknowingly.” Her head, arched back, touched the sky; Her feet were rooted in the earth of the courtyard. She was utterly beyond me: wild, savage, cruel. She could have crushed me with a thought, had I not belonged to a god She had no mastery over.
It had been a long time since my days in calmecac, a long time since I had learnt the hymns for every one of our gods and goddesses. I searched through my faltering memories, and finally said,
Xilonen was crouching at the heart of the courtyard, watching me, but Her face had taken on an almost dreamy expression.
I went on,
She was smiling at me now, the contented smile of a child. I was not fooled. There is a reason for all those rituals, for all those hymns. They know what things are pleasing to the gods, what things will appease Them. But it
