less pleasant things. The Speakers were notoriously hard to communicate with, but it made sense.
“Describe this thing to me. The thing that was missing from the Great One’s body.”
The translation produced another roar from the huetlacoatl and I thought the Speaker would explode, the way he turned red and puffed up. “The treasures of the line,” he screamed. “The things that make the Great Ones. We must have them now!”
Treasures. Multiple. Then several things had been taken from the body.I tried to remember if there were any spots on the dead one’s cloak where something might have been torn off. Or perhaps they had been attached directly to the skin and that was why it had been cut up.
The huetlacoatl spoke for the first time except in response to the translator: a long collection of hisses, squeaks, and squeals that ended with a clash of teeth like a gunshot. All three of the Speakers turned toward the creature and froze in identical postures, one foot in front, bowing forward from the waist and the right fist pressed to the forehead.
“We waste the Great One’s time,” the Speaker spat as he turned back to me. “If an animal you act, then an animal you shall be treated.”
“We are civilized,” the Speaker snapped. “We do not offer ourselves in the marketplace for food.”
I wondered just what it was the huetlacoatls were trading for-or what they thought they were trading for. “But it is meet that our enemies be hunted in a civilized manner, to expiate their crimes.” He gestured to the slaves holding my arms, turned and strode away with me being dragged after him.
“There!” the Speaker gestured over a balcony and down to a courtyard below.
At first I couldn’t see anything but a flagged stone yard with a water trough. Then there was a “wheeping” sound from beneath the balcony, and another, and another. Then four huetlacoatls came bounding into the court, wheeping and craning their necks to see what was on the balcony.
There was nothing to give me scale, so it took me a minute to realize these huetlacoatls were smaller than usual. It took me a minute longer to infer from their clumsy movements and their tussling that these were immature huetlacoatls. As a group they were as cute as a nest of baby rattlesnakes. Only I didn’t think they had the high ethical standards of rattlesnakes. And I didn’t like the way they were looking up at me and wheeping expectantly.
“We tie you by your arms,” the Speaker said. “Then we lower you down so the young can practice hunting. Just your feet and ankles and first, then your legs. So you may reconsider your theft from the Great Ones.”
Well, at least I’ll be able to kick the little bastards’ teeth in.Not much comfort, but you take what you can find.
The Speaker leaned close. “Only first we break your legs so you cannot hurt the little Great Ones.”
I was digesting this information and trying desperately to come up with a plausible lie when a huetlacoatl whistled so high that it almost hurt. I managed to twist around in the slaves’ grip and see that a new group of humans had entered the room.
There were six of them, cloaked in gray, with gray hoods drawn over the heads, and gray masks covering their faces. I’d never seen that outfit before, but I knew what it was. It was the closest thing to a uniform ever worn by the Emperor’s Shadow.
There was a long palaver between the Speaker and one of the Shadows. I divided my attention between trying to overhear them and listening to the plaintive cries of the young huetlacoatls below me, who obviously weren’t used to waiting for their supper. Finally, after an extended, involved discussion, the adult huetlacoatl made a slashing gesture and a steamwhistle bellow. The Speakers bowed and stepped aside, letting the Emperor’s Shadow have me. Personally, I would have preferred the huetlacoatls, but my wishes didn’t count for a whore’s fart.
Another hood, another journey, but this time I was awake. I know we walked for a ways, there was a boat ride across the bay, a slower, smellier ride through the city’s canals, and then more walking. No one spoke, and the ones who held me never loosened their grip.
This time when the hood came off I was in a low-ceilinged room with stone beneath my feet. There was a single blinding light shining in my eyes. I squinted and tried to twist my head away but the ones behind me forced me to look straight ahead.
“Young sir,” came a voice from the darkness, “you must learn to associate with more wholesome companions.” He hobbled into the light and I saw it was old Foureagle, the menagerie keeper. “If you consort with those who want to be huetlacoatls, evil will befall you.”
“What about the company you keep? What’s a tender of caged beasts doing with the Emperor’s Shadow?” I remembered his remark about having seen the insides of a lot of people and tried not to show it.
He smiled. “A man is many things. It not only keeps life interesting, but it is necessary in times such as these.” I decided I had liked the old man a lot better when we were sucking down pulque outside the menagerie. I also realized I had gone fishing for information on a very sensitive matter by questioning a high officer of the Emperor’s Shadow.Shit! One thing about my luck. It’s consistent.
“But come, young sir, you do not seem pleased to see me.”
“I think I’d be better off with the huetlacoatls.”
Wrong answer. It made Foureagle frown and earned me a kidney punch from one of the Shadows. I sagged forward, retching.
“These ones with their costumes and silly antics have no idea of what they are doing,” Foureagle said.
“They’ve got it all wrong, dead wrong.”
“They speak to the huetlacoatls well enough.”
Foureagle snorted. “They speak as a dog speaks to its master. They sense emotion well enough but they understand only a little. The rest is deception. They deceive themselves and the huetlacoatls deceive and use them.”
“Like you use the beasts in the menagerie?”
“The relationship between man and beast can be understood,” he said, his eyes narrowed into slits, “but between man and these thinking, talkingcreatures? Where do we begin to know anything? How can we trust?”
“You understand them.”
He shrugged. “I know when they are afraid. Even if their language is mostly a mystery, the prattling of the Speakers is easy to understand. The huetlacoatls are upset and they are driven to the point of hysteria.
The thing you took from the body was very important to them.” He smiled. “Important enough that the huetlacoatls brought the affair-forcefully-to the attention of the Emperor Himself. You were unwise to upset them so, young sir. If we cannot understand each other, we cannot trade, and the Emperor values the trade with the huetlacoatls very highly.”
We were still in the intellectual fencing stage, which meant I would remain whole and functioning for a least another few minutes. What Foureagle said made sense. The huetlacoatls hadn’t been really upset until they recovered the body with whatever-it-was missing. Then it took time for the word to reach the capital and for the Emperor to turn his Shadow’s interest to this new case. All very logical, but I was damned if I could see how it helped me.
“Uncle, I swear to you I took nothing from the body.”
“So Ninedeer maintained,” the old man said, as if savoring a memory.
I shook off the sudden chill down my spine. “If something was taken, it must have been by someone else.
The sailor who found the body, for instance. Or the city guards who investigated it.”
A gauntleted fist slammed into my face. I had to cough and hack to clear the blood so I could breathe.
“These possibilities have been explored-thoroughly,” Foureagle said. “So we come to you by a process of, ah, ‘elimination.’”
“But I took-” This time the blow was from the front and knocked the breath out of me. Somewhere off to one side there was the sudden odor of burning charcoal as someone lit a brazier. I twisted and gasped and knew this was only the bare beginning of what they’d do to me before I died.
Unless…
The Speakers kept referring to the missing thing as “part of” the huetlacoatl. The huetlacoatls themselves might have continued that use, but the Speakers would have known enough to employ human usage when questioning a human.
Another blow to the face ended my speculation.
“Uncle,” I gasped. “These things, how do they bear their young?”
