Obsidian & Blood (5 page)

  The insult stung, but I didn't move. "You were the one who introduced her name into the conversation."

  Neutemoc's hands clenched. "It was a mistake. Ohtli has nothing to do with this, nothing at all. I didn't get to her room, I swear." 

  "Then please show a little more co-operation."

  "Acatl–" He was pleading now, and it made me ill at ease. I'd never enjoyed reducing people to helplessness.

  "It's a pretty story you told me," I said. "But it doesn't fit what I saw in that room, or what the Guardian saw."

  Neutemoc looked at me, and at Yaotl, who already had a hand on the entrance-curtain. "Very well," he said, finally. "I'll tell you. But in private."     "Nothing is private," I said. "Your testimony–"

  "Acatl." His voice cut as deep as an obsidian blade. "Please."

  He was my brother, the threat of death hanging over him, yet I could afford no favouritism. Everyone should be treated according to their status, noblemen and Jaguar Knights more harshly than commoners. "I'll listen to you in private," I said. "But I'll make no guarantee I won't pass it on."

  Neutemoc's face was flat, taut with fear. He glanced at Yaotl – tall, scarred, unbending – and finally nodded.

  Yaotl slipped out, drawing the entrance-curtain closed in a tinkle of bells. He barked orders, and footsteps echoed in the corridor: the warriors, moving away from the door.

  I sat by Neutemoc's side, keeping one hand on the handle of the obsidian daggers I always had in my belt, just as a protection. He hadn't looked violent, but his mood-swings could be unpredictable. "So?" I asked.

  He said, slowly, "I… I knew Priestess Eleuia. We fought together in the war against Chalco. She was a novice priestess of Xochiquetzal then, at the bottom of the hierarchy – but she was magnificent." He shook his head. "We slept together."

  Priestesses of Xochiquetzal were sacred courtesans, accompanying the warriors on their campaigns. They were also warriors in their own right, fighting the enemy with their long, deadly spears. "You slept with her in Chalco," I said, flatly. "That was sixteen years ago." 

  I was starting to suspect what Neutemoc had been doing in Eleuia's room. The idea was decidedly unpleasant.

  "Yes," Neutemoc said. "I didn't think much of it, at the time. I had my marriage coming, and we drifted apart." He closed his eyes, spoke with care, as if he were composing a poem: each word slowly falling into place with the inevitability of a heartbeat. "I met her again two months ago, when I enrolled Ohtli. I had no idea she'd been posted here. We sat together and reminisced about the past, and all we'd lived through together… She hadn't changed, Acatl. Still the same as she'd been, all those years ago. Still the same smile, the same gestures that would drive a man mad with desire." 

  The Storm Lord smite him, surely he hadn't dared? "Neutemoc–" 

  His lips had gone white. "You asked, Acatl. You wanted to know why I was here tonight. I had an assignation. She… she flirted with me, quite ostentatiously."

  And he'd gone to her rooms. "You gave in?" I rose, towered over him. "You were stupid enough to give in?"
  "You don't understand."

  "No," I said. "You're right. I don't understand why you'd endanger all you've got for a pretty smile." Eleuia was no longer a sacred courtesan: to sleep with her was adultery. And for that, they would both be put to death. And then… No more quetzal feathers, no more showers of gold brought to his luxurious home; no more calmecac education for his sons or his daughters, or for our orphaned sister.

  I said, haltingly, "For the Duality's sake! You've got a family, you've got a loving wife." Everything – he had everything my parents had wished for their children: the glory of a successful warrior – and not the poverty-ridden life of a measly priest, barely able to support himself, let alone take care of his aged parents…

  Neutemoc smiled. "You're ill-informed, brother. Huei and I haven't talked for a while."
  I blinked. "What?"
  He shrugged. "Private matters," he said.

  "Such as your sleeping with a few priestesses?" I asked, rubbing the salt on his wounds. If he had indeed been unfaithful, Huei would have kept silent: if not for his sake, then for the sake of their children. 

  He finally opened his eyes to stare at me, and his gaze was ice. "I haven't committed adultery. Even tonight, though that was rather unexpected." He laughed, sharply, sarcastically. "I know what you think. What a man I make, huh?"

  "Don't push me. Or I might just leave you in peace."

  "You've already done too much as it is." Neutemoc's hands clenched again.

  "You were the one who brought me into this, all because you were incapable of resisting a woman's charms," I snapped. 

  Neutemoc was silent for a while, looking at me with an expression I couldn't interpret. "You're right. I shouldn't have said that. I apologise. Can we go back to where we were?"

  I had been bracing myself for a further attack; this extinguished my anger as efficiently as water poured on a hearth. Struggling to hide my surprise, I nodded. "So you came to her rooms with the promise of a pleasurable evening. I assume you got in by pretending you were here to see your daughter?"

  He shrugged. "It was before sunset. Nothing wrong with my visiting her."
  "But you didn't."

  "No," Neutemoc said. "I– Eleuia had told me where her rooms were. I went there and found her waiting for me. She poured me a glass of frothy chocolate, with milk and maize gruel – good chocolate, too, very tasty. That's the last thing I remember clearly. Then the room was spinning, and…" His hand clenched again. "There was darkness, Acatl, deeper than the shadows of Mictlan. Something leapt at her. I tried to step in, but everything went dark. When I woke up, I was alone, and covered in her blood." 

  It still sounded as though he was leaving out parts of the story – probably Eleuia's seduction of him, which I didn't think I was capable of hearing out in any case – but this version sounded far more sincere than the first one he'd given me. Which, of course, didn't mean it was the truth. If he and Eleuia had consummated their act, he could have panicked and decided she was a risk to him while she still lived. I didn't like the thought, but Neutemoc was a canny enough man, or he wouldn't have risen so high in the warrior hierarchy.

  "You could at least have had the intelligence to get out as soon as you could," I said. "What about the furniture?"

  He stared at me. "Furniture? I… You know, I don't quite remember about that. I think I must have wanted to make sure I hadn't left any trace of my passage."

  Not a sensible thing to do. But then, would I be sensible, if I woke up in a deserted room, covered in blood, with no memory of what had happened?

  "Very well," I said. "Do you have anything that can prove your story?"

  Neutemoc stared at me, shocked. "I'm your brother, Acatl. Isn't my word enough?"

  He was really slow tonight. "We already went through that, remember?" I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible. "Your word
alone won't sway the magistrates."
  "Magistrates." His voice was flat.
  "It will come to trial," I said.

  I'd expected him to be angry. Instead, he suddenly went as still as a carved statue. His lips moved, but I couldn't hear any word. 

  "Neutemoc?"

  He looked up, right through me. "It's only fair, I suppose," he said. "Deserved."

  My stomach plummeted. "Why did you deserve it?"

  But he wouldn't talk to me any more, no matter how many times I tried to draw him out of his trance.

 

Ceyaxochitl was waiting for me in the corridor, talking to Yaotl. He threw me an amused glance as I got closer.
  "So?" Ceyaxochitl asked.
  I shrugged. "His story holds together."

  "But you don't like it," she said, as shrewd as ever.

  "No," I said. "There's something he's not telling me." And my brother had tried to sleep with a priestess; had tried to cheat on his wife. I was having trouble accepting it. It did not sound like something that would happen to my charmed-life brother.

  "Where does the world go, if you can't trust your own brother?" Yaotl asked, darkly amused.

  As far as I knew, Yaotl, a captive foreigner Ceyaxochitl had bought from the Tlatelolco marketplace, had a wife – a slight, pretty woman who seldom spoke to strangers – but no other family. At least, not the kind that lived close enough to get him embroiled in their troubles. Lucky man.

  "What about the nahual trail?" Ceyaxochitl asked.

  "It vanishes into thin air, halfway up a wall no animal could jump."
  "Hum," Ceyaxochitl said. "Odd. We've searched every room, and the nahual isn't here."
  "They don't just vanish," I said.

  "I know," Ceyaxochitl said. She frowned. "We're no nearer finding Priestess Eleuia than we were one hour ago. I'll instruct the search parties to cast a wider net."

  She waited, no doubt for my acquiescence. It was an unsettling thought to be in charge of the investigation. Eleuia had been about to become Consort of Xochipilli. This meant that she would have been connected to the Imperial Court, in one way or another. Given the political stakes, I had better be very careful of where I trod; and politics had never been my strength. "Shouldn't you be back at the palace?" I asked her.

  Ceyaxochitl snorted. "I can spare one night to help you start. But only one."

  I nodded. She'd been clear enough on that. I couldn't fault her for her frankness, even if sometimes she wounded me without realising she did so.

  If the blood in the room and on Neutemoc's hands had indeed belonged to Eleuia, time was against us.

  "Send them out," I said. "I'll go and talk to Zollin."

 

 

When I arrived, the courtyard was deserted again, and the entrance-curtain to Eleuia's room hung forlornly in the breeze. But from the other set of rooms – Zollin's – came light, and the slow, steady beat of a drum. Music, at this hour? 

  I pulled aside the curtain, and took a look inside.

  In a wide room much like Eleuia's, two young adolescents went through the motions of a dance. One was tall, her hair cascading down her back, and the seashell anklets she wore chimed with each of her slow gestures. The other wove her way between the tall one's movements, like water flowing through stone. It was not all effortless: beads of sweat ran down the first dancer's face, and the other one kept whispering under her breath, counting the paces. 

  The drum-beater was older than either of her dancers: her seamed face had seen many a year, and she kept up her rhythm, even though her eyes were focused on the girls. Smoke hung in the room: copal incense, melding with the odour of sweat in an intoxicating mixture.

  I released the curtain. The chime of the bells crashed into the music, a jarring sound that made both dancers come to a halt. The drum-beater laid her instrument on the ground, and looked at me, appraising me in a manner eerily reminiscent of Ceyaxochitl. It was very uncomfortable. 

  "Priestess Zollin?" I asked her. "I am Acatl."

  The drummer nodded. She turned, briefly, to the girls, "That was good. But not enough. A dance should be done without thinking, in much the same way that you breathe." She waved a dismissive hand. "We'll practise again tomorrow."

  The girls remained standing where they were, staring at me in fascination.

  The older woman's full attention was on me. "The High Priest for the Dead, I suppose. Come to question me. I've had the Guardian already, you know, and you've already arrested a culprit. I don't see what good it will do."

  She was sharp. Used to getting her own way, to the point of discarding Neutemoc as of no importance to her. Already, I longed to break some of that pride. She was also singularly unworried, if she could dispense music lessons in the middle of the night, with one of her priestesses missing, or killed.

  "One of your priestesses has vanished," I said. "Doesn't that–" 

  She shrugged. "Why should it interfere with the running of this house? I grieve for Eleuia" – that was the worst lie I'd ever heard, for she made no effort to inflect any of those words, or to put sadness on her face – "but she was only one woman. The education we dispense shouldn't halt because of that."

  "I see," I said. "So you think she's dead." I closed my eyes, briefly, and felt the magic hanging around the room like a shroud, clinging to the frescoes of flowers and musical instruments: not nahual, not quite, but something dark, something angry. Zollin was clearly powerful.

  "There was so much blood," the tallest dancer said suddenly. Her face was creased in an expression that didn't belong: worry or fear, or perhaps the first stirrings of anger.

  "Cozamalotl," Zollin snapped. The girl fell silent, but she still watched her teacher. Her younger companion hadn't moved. A faint blush was creeping up her cheeks.
  "Eleuia could still be alive," I said.

  "Then go look for her," Zollin said. She was truly angry, and I had no idea why. "Do your work, and I'll do mine."

  The Duality curse me if I was going to let her dominate me. "My work brings me here," I said, softly. "My work leads me to ask you why you're not more preoccupied by the disappearance of a priestess in your own calmecac."

  Zollin watched me. "She never belonged to this calmecac. It was only a step on her path to better things."
  "Becoming Consort?" I asked.
  "Whatever she could seize," Zollin said.

  Cozamalotl spoke up again, moving closer to Zollin as if she could shield her. "Everyone knows Eleuia grasped at power the way warriors grasp at fame."

  The younger dancer did not answer. She was shaking her head in agreement or in disagreement, though only slightly. It seemed that Cozamalotl wasn't only Zollin's student, but her partisan. If Eleuia was indeed dead, or incapacitated, Cozamalotl would have her reward, just as Zollin would.