Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven (11 page)

“Just a hundred acres of prime coastland on Spain’s side of the Eastern Ocean. Claims it belonged to his family.”

“Good luck to him,” said Takun.

Of course, Spain hadn’t had a king in a couple of hundred cycles. None of the Euro countries had. Most of their royalty had been beheaded, or quartered, or put out to sea in a boat when the common people decided they’d been oppressed long enough.

But now that it was safe again to have some royal blood, the descendants of Europe’s kings were starting to pop up here and there, claiming legal rights to their ancestors’ castles and jewels and so on. I’d read that myself. But if Izel had his story right, this guy was bolder than most. He wasn’t just asking for a pile of stones or a few shiny trinkets. He was making a play for valuable land, and a lot of it.

“Actually,” said Izel, continuing to pore over his monitor, “he may get it. Seems he’s suing not as royalty, but as a private citizen trying to recover his family’s property.”

Takun grunted. “A loophole.”

“And,” said Izel, “he’s jumping into it with both feet.”

Quetzalli looked skeptical. “Where’s he getting the beans to launch his suit? These things are expensive propositions.”

“I’ve heard that too,” said Takun. “People gamble everything they own.”

“Unless this de Borbon is rich to begin with,” said Quetzalli.

Meztli, an Investigator who’d been transferred from Ixtapaluca the week before, sat back from his monitor. “You didn’t hear it from me, but someone’s backing him. Someone who wants de Borbon to get what he’s asking for.”

“And who’s that?” asked Takun. “
You
?”

Meztli smiled. Then he looked around, as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping on him, and said, in little more than a whisper, “The Emperor.”

“Get out of here,” said Quetzalli.

“Why would he do that?” asked Takun.

Meztli shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Takun made a face. “Where do you get this stuff?”

“Someone who works for the Emperor,” said Meztli.

“Of course,” said Quetzalli. “But you can’t say who.”

Meztli nodded. “That’s right.”

I began to understand why he’d been transferred from Ixtapaluca. Nobody liked a know-it-all, especially one who claimed to have secret connections.

“Idiot,” Takun said under his breath, and walked away.

Meztli frowned. “You think I didn’t hear that?”

I wondered who was less popular in the Investigations office at that moment—Meztli or me.

I had looked up The Sleeping Jaguar and was figuring out my rail stops when Nagual called.

I was glad to hear from him. He’d given me two of my best leads. And beyond that, we’d been friends. I was glad we’d gotten back in touch.

But I
wasn’t
glad he still had a cold. I said as much.

He didn’t respond to my remark. Instead he said, “I need to see you, Maxtla.”

There was a note in his voice that I hadn’t heard before. It sounded like fear—or worse. “Of course,” I said. “Where are you?”

He gave me the name of a pyramid. I recognized it.

“That’s in District Five,” I said.

“Yes,” said Nagual, “it is.”

I was surprised. District Five was one of the seediest in Aztlan. After all those dental cream ads, I’d expected him to be living in District Fourteen.

“When can you come?” he asked.

“Right now,” I told him.

In older pyramids, they used day-signs instead of numbers on apartment doors. But the sign on Nagual’s door was gone. I only knew it was his because the door to its left had a jaguar on it and the one to his right had a vulture.

I knocked. A few moments later, the door opened.

I hadn’t seen Nagual in person in nearly three cycles. He didn’t look anything like what I’d expected.

When we were playing together in the ball court, he was strong and quick, and he had a smile that made women love him. I doubted that women saw Nagual that way now. He had lost weight to the point that he looked hollowed out, more like a scarecrow than an athlete.

“Maxtla,” he said, mustering a smile.

I embraced him because I couldn’t do anything else. He felt like an old man in my arms. “What’s the matter?” I asked in as kindly a voice as I could manage.

“Come in,” he said.

I followed him into his apartment. It was orderly but sparsely furnished. I didn’t get it. The dental cream ads . . .

“Sit down,” he told me, and indicated a chair with threadbare upholstery. He sat opposite me on one that was even
more
threadbare. “I know,” he said. “You’re wondering why I look like crap. Why I live in a place like . . ." He looked around and blinked. “A place like
this
.”

By then, I had figured it out. “
Octli
.”

He nodded. “
Octli
.”

“But you had everything,” I said.

“Once,” said Nagual. He let his gaze fall to the floor. “But I lost it when I left the ball court.”

“You were still a celebrity.”

“It wasn’t the same. I’d heard the crowds in the Arena scream for me, Maxtla. I’d heard them pound their feet on the floor, making the place vibrate as if Tepeyollotl himself was shaking it. I’d felt all that in my blood—and it ate at me that I’d never feel it again.”

“So you started drinking.”

“It was the only thing I could do to dull the pain. Don’t you feel it sometimes?”

“Sometimes,” I had to admit.

But I was an Investigator. That responsibility had filled the void in my life left by the absence of the ball court.

“I felt it
all
the time,” said Nagual. “After a while, I couldn’t even leave my apartment without having a few drinks. I didn’t even have to buy them. Other people bought them for me.”

I knew that feeling too.

“People began to notice what I was doing to myself,” said Nagual, “especially the people who made decisions about endorsements. The beans started drying up. I tried not to let it show. I tried to keep up appearances, to be the same old Nagual, so the public wouldn’t stop caring about me. But it was expensive to do that. It took everything I had.”

“What about those dental cream advertisements?”

“I haven’t received a bean for them in almost two cycles.”

“Why not?”

“I was already in debt when I signed the contract, Maxtla. I needed a hill of beans and I needed it right away. They gave me the sum I asked for, but it wasn’t as much as I’d have gotten if I’d been paid every time they ran the ad.”

“A buy-out,” I said.

“Exactly. I thought it would work out, that I’d sign another contract soon afterward. You know, to push luxury apartments in some new pyramid, or maybe those nice, big mirror screens. But none of that ever happened.”

I got it. Nagual had been a hero in the ball court—but once it got out that he was abusing
octli
, advertisers couldn’t afford to be associated with him. He was lucky to have gotten the dental cream job at all.

“The funny thing,” he said, “is that I’m off the
octli
. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you, but I stuck with it and I made myself stop. I haven’t had a drop in seven moons.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“But I can’t convince anybody I’m done with the stuff. No one wants to touch me.” He drew a deep breath, let it out. “I always knew my career in the
tlachtli
would come to an end some day. We
all
knew that. But advertisements? I thought I’d be doing them forever.”

“So you need some beans,” I said before the silence got too thick.

Nagual looked at me. “I wouldn’t ask if I had other options, Maxtla. You know that. But . . . but I haven’t eaten in two days.” His eyes filled with water. “Whoever thought this could happen? Whoever thought?”

I crossed the space between us and put my hands on his shoulders. He looked away but I could feel him shake with each wracking sob.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You’d do the same for me.”

I had no doubt of it.

When I was a rookie, Nagual was the one who had steered me clear of temptations, the one who had saved my career more than once. Now it was my turn to save
him
—if I could.

“Lands of the Dead,” I said, “what kind of friend would I be if I left you here? You’re coming home with me.”

“Not a chance,” he said. “People will think I’m still a drunk. You’ll lose your job.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“No, you won’t,” Nagual insisted. “Just lend me the beans. I’ll be all right.”

What could I say? He still had a little pride. I couldn’t take it away from him.

“I’ll lend you the beans,” I said, reaching into my pouch for a couple of gold pieces, “but I’m not going to forget about you. We’ll figure this out, you and me.”

For a moment, I saw the old, dashing Nagual in his eyes. Then he bit back another sob and whispered, “Thanks, Maxtla.”

I shrugged. “What are friends for?”

• • •

On the way back from Nagual’s, the painkiller really started to weigh me down—to the point where I fell asleep in the rail carriage and almost missed my stop in District Ten. Fortunately, I got up in time and staggered out onto the platform.

The Arena loomed before me only a block away, a golden crown rising above the smaller, less impressive buildings around it. In fact, it had been designed to
look
like a crown—the kind worn by the Emperors in ancient days. Except it was made of gold-painted stone rather than actual gold, and it trailed brightly colored banners in place of the Emperors’ brightly colored parrot feathers.

Talking with Nagual had inspired me to take another look at Coyotl’s workplace, which had once been mine and Nagual’s as well. Sure, I had seen the place the other night before I interrogated the team, but it never hurt to go back for another visit.

I entered through the front door, showed the guard my bracelet, and made my way into the Arena proper—an immense well that ascended in row after row of green and gold painted seats from the ball court at its bottom to the roof high above it. The Eagles were practicing as I walked in, listening to Ichtaca bellow at them. His voice echoed like that of a god.

He didn’t sound happy with the team. But then, he wasn’t accustomed to losing two games in a row—certainly not during his time with Yautepec, and not in his inaugural season with Aztlan.

I took a seat high up in the stands and tried not to draw any attention to myself. There were twelve players down there in the I-shaped ball court, the Eagles’ six starters against the six who comprised their second team. Ichtaca, dressed in a loose-fitting white tunic with the Eagles’ green-and-gold insignia on it, was trying to show them what they had done wrong in the match against Malinalco.

The players, stripped to their breeches, were covered with sweat despite the fact that they had a game later that evening. It was a sign of desperation, a mistake I wouldn’t have thought an old boulder like Ichtaca capable of making. Then again, who was I to say what was a mistake and what wasn’t—I, who had never coached a single game in the ball court, much less in the Sun League?

On the other hand I
was
an Investigator, and as I watched the practice I took note of the players’ postures, the way they interacted with each other and with Ichtaca. Some were eager, perhaps seeing Coyotl’s disappearance as an opportunity to advance their own careers. Some were resentful, perhaps thinking they liked their previous coach’s style better than Ichtaca’s.

In the end, I didn’t see anything that would steer my Investigation in a new direction. Still, it was hardly a wasted afternoon. I knew more about the team when it was over, and one never knew what information would prove valuable.

As I sat there, I thought about the deep-fried rabbit wrapper I’d found in Coyotl’s trash container. From all accounts, Coyotl loved to play the game, and in fact it had been a long time since he had missed one. What had made him want to sit one out? I had a feeling that if I knew that, I would know
everything
.

Maybe Coyotl’s mysterious noblewoman would be able to explain it to me.

• • •

At the appointed time, I showed up at Calli’s apartment for dinner, flowers in hand.

She made a fuss over them, as if no one had ever brought her flowers before. As pretty as she was, I doubted it.

I noticed, as she placed the flowers in a ceramic vase, that she had put her hair up. It exposed the curve of her neck, which was as beautiful as the rest of her.

I had never seen a woman wear her hair that way in the Empire. In a braid, yes, of course. Hanging loose, on occasion. But never up that way.