Servant of the Underworld Read online

  But then, if she was indeed complicit in Eleuia's disappearance, the first wasn't surprising. As to the second: I'd known men and women who would bury themselves in activities, no matter how ludicrous, in order to escape guilty consciences.

  The younger dancer joined me outside, after a while. She was even younger than I thought: not much more than a child, really, her body barely settling into the shapes and contours of adulthood. "Acatl-tzin? I thought–"

  "Go on," I said, gently.

  "My name is Papan," she said. "I…" She looked at me, struggling for words. "Is Zollin-tzin a suspect in your investigation?"

  "I don't know," I said, though she most surely was.

  "There was a man found in Eleuia's rooms," Papan said. "With blood on his hands."

  I nodded, curtly, trying not to think too much of Neutemoc, of what I'd have to tell his wife, Huei, once I'd gathered enough courage to go to her. "There are unexplained things," I said, finally. I started walking towards the end of the courtyard, crushing pine needles under my sandaled feet. Their sweet, aromatic smell wafted upwards, a relief after the stifling atmosphere of Zollin's room.

  Papan followed me. "You're looking in the wrong place."

  "Your loyalty brings you credit," I said. "But–"

  "No. You don't understand. Zollin-tzin has worked hard for this calmecac. She's always been fair. She would never kill or summon forbidden magic."

  "Nahual magic isn't forbidden," I said. "And I only have your word for Zollin's acts."

  "But I have only your word that Eleuia was abducted," Papan said, obviously frustrated. "No one has found her. No one even knows if she didn't summon the nahual herself."

  I shook my head. "Priestess Eleuia wasn't born on a Jaguar day. She couldn't have summoned the nahual." Curious, I asked, "Why would she do such a thing?"

  Papan came to stand by my side, under the red arch leading out of the courtyard. A fresco of conch-shells and butterflies ran along the length of the arch. The insects' wings, painted with dark-red lac, glinted with the same reflections as Papan's eyes. "Eleuia was very beautiful," Papan said. "But always frightened. Cozamalotl and the other students didn't see it, but she always moved as if the ground would open under her feet."

  "She had enemies?" I asked.

  Papan shrugged. "I didn't know her."

  "But you understood her."

  "No," Papan said. She blushed. "I just saw. But it wasn't just now. She'd always been like that. For years and years, ever since I entered the calmecac school."

  "And you think she wanted to disappear? Why, if she'd always been afraid?"

  Papan turned her face away from me. "I– I'm not supposed to tell you. But if it helps…" She twisted her hands together, but didn't speak.

  "Go on," I said. "It could save her life."

  Papan was silent for a while. "I saw her once, at the bath-house. She was coming out of the pool." Papan blushed again. "I saw the marks on her body."

  "What marks? Scars?"

  "No," Papan said. "Stretch-marks."

  "She'd borne a child?" It wasn't forbidden for a priestess of the Quetzal Flower, but it was certainly unusual. Many herbs would expel a child from a woman's body, and there were spells which would summon minor gods from Mictlan to end an infant's life in the womb. Priestesses would know all of these.

  "Yes," Papan said. "I asked her; and she laughed and she said it was a long time ago, when she was much younger, in the Chalca Wars. I asked her why she'd done that, and she told me she'd wanted a keepsake of her warrior lover."

  My heart went cold. "You're sure it was in the Chalca Wars?"

  Papan nodded.

  In the Chalca Wars, Eleuia and Neutemoc had slept together. But surely… Nonsense. She was a sacred courtesan. She'd slept with many, many men, even in the Chalca Wars. There were dozens who could have been the father of that child. But it had been someone she'd loved. You couldn't say that about just any warrior.

  And there lay the root of the problem: for a warrior, sleeping with a courtesan was an inalienable right, a reward for facing the hardships of the battlefield. A long affair between a warrior and a courtesan, though – that wasn't tolerated. It would lead to exclusion from the Jaguar Brotherhood, no matter how long ago the affair had taken place. If Neutemoc had indeed conceived a child with Eleuia – and if Eleuia had kept it – then it meant they had been more than casual lovers.

  It also meant that Neutemoc had an even stronger motive to keep Eleuia silent. A child.

  I did not like the thought. I had to consider it, like everything linked to the investigation – but it was an itch at the back of my mind, claws softly teasing apart what I had believed I knew about Neutemoc.

  "Why do you think it may be connected?" I asked Papan.

  Papan shrugged. "I don't. But she didn't name the warrior."

  I had noticed that. "And she didn't tell you anything about him?"

  "No," Papan said. "But she looked scared, as if she'd told me something I wasn't meant to know. She made me swear to keep it secret. And I have, haven't I?"

  I knew what she wanted. Gently, I said, "Secrets are no use to her if she's dead."

  Papan stared at me for a while. I couldn't tell if I'd convinced her. "Don't tell Zollin-tzin I told you," she said, as we walked out of the courtyard. "She thinks Eleuia was only an opportunist."

  She didn't use any honorific for Eleuia, I noticed, just her name. "You were close?" I asked.

  Papan bit her lip. "Until Zollin-tzin started teaching me," she said, miserably. "It's hard, being torn in two halves."

  I hadn't known that. But I could guess, given Zollin's acidity, that it was indeed hard. "You did the right thing," I said.

  "I'm not sure." Papan bowed, deeply. "I'll go back to my room now. But thank you for listening to me, Acatl-tzin." And she walked off into the darkness, leaving me to my own worries.

  A child. Neutemoc's child? The Storm Lord smite him, couldn't he have been more careful? A warrior was meant to marry in his calpulli clan, to love his wife, to raise her children. And it seemed that Neutemoc – who'd always been held up as an example before me, the shining representation of all I should have done with my life, whom I'd always admired and hated at the same time – it seemed that Neutemoc had not had great success with his marriage.

  Ceyaxochitl and Yaotl were waiting for me at the entrance to the calmecac school, by a fresco of quetzals in flight. The birds' long tails spread against the painted background like waterfalls of emerald. Ceyaxochitl's face was flushed, and she was muttering imprecations under her breath. "Arrogant bastard. Who does he think he is?"

  "Something the matter?" I asked, stifling a yawn.

  Yaotl turned to me. "The Jaguar Knight just walked out of here," he said.

  "The Jaguar Knight?" My mind, which had been focused on Eleuia's child, and on whether it might have been Neutemoc's, snapped back to the present. "Mahuizoh? The one who was visiting his sister?"

  The Duality curse me. I'd forgotten to ask Neutemoc if he knew the man. He had to: there weren't that many Jaguar Knights in the city of Tenochtitlan.

  "Yes," Ceyaxochitl snapped. "He said we had no evidence against him, that we had a perfectly good culprit in any case, and that he saw no reason to tarry here."

  "So you didn't question him."

  "Does it look as though I did?" Ceyaxochitl snapped. She rapped her cane on the ground. "I should have arrested him for disrespect. I'm getting too soft for this."

  I didn't believe a word of that last sentence. She was still as harsh as she'd ever been: as harsh as she needed to be, to protect the Mexica Empire from wayward gods, stray underworld monsters, sorcerers and magicians…

  "Why didn't you?" Yaotl asked, softly. He had a hand on his obsidian-studded macuahitl sword. "You had ample reasons."

  Ceyaxochitl shook her head. "He's not guilty of anything, Yaotl. Warriors and arrogance go hand-in-hand, remember?"

  I disliked arrogance as much as Ceyaxochitl, and Zollin's imperio
usness was all too fresh in my mind. But Ceyaxochitl was right: warriors, especially Eagle and Jaguar Knights, were entitled to be arrogant, to dismiss us as of little consequence. It wasn't seemly behaviour, but they had dispensation. They'd fought on the Empire's battlefields, taken prisoners to sacrifice to the gods, so that the world should go on, fed by the magic of living blood; survived gruelling battles and retreats. Compared to this, we priests had an easy life.

  "Do you know where he lives?" I asked Ceyaxochitl.

  "No," she said. "But he's a Jaguar Knight. You can go ask at their House, tomorrow."

  "Why not tonight?" I asked. "Neutemoc–"

  Ceyaxochitl's lips pursed. "One night of imprisonment isn't going to kill your brother."

  "But I could–"

  "You could not." Her voice was as cutting as obsidian. "One does not walk into the Jaguar House."

  "I am High Priest for the Dead," I said, in the same tone she had used on me.

  Ceyaxochitl's gaze told me all I needed to know: the Jaguar and Eagle Knights were the elite of the Empire, the warriors who kept us strong, and they had their own laws. "Acatl. If you go into the Jaguar House, and wake up sleeping Knights without their commander's permission, you'll be under arrest. And much good it will do your brother then."

  "You're asking me to let go?"

  "I'm asking you to wait until tomorrow. Daylight changes many things."

  Yaotl's lips pursed. "And if you dress impressively enough, getting in shouldn't be a problem."

  "Ha ha," I said. Even if I put on my full regalia, with the skull-mask and the cloak embroidered with owls, I'd still have difficulties entering the Jaguar Knights' House. "Do you think it's worth pursuing?" I asked Ceyaxochitl.

  It was Yaotl who answered. "That Jaguar Knight was shaken," he said. "Very badly shaken, and trying hard not to show it."

  Hardly a normal reaction. "You think he had something to do with it?"

  "I'm having trouble seeing how he could not have had something to do with it," Yaotl said.

  More suspects. On the one hand, this lessened the chances Neutemoc was guilty of more than adultery. On the other, what had looked like an easy case seemed to put forth additional complications with every hour.

  "I'll go and see him tomorrow," I said.

  Ceyaxochitl's eyes blinked, slowly; her face stretched slightly. I put my hand over my mouth to contain my own yawn.

  "Anything else?" she asked.

  I thought back to my interview with Zollin, and of the magic that had hung thick in her room. "You said you'd searched every room of the calmecac for the nahual. Did that include Zollin's rooms?"

  Yaotl spoke up. "No supernatural jaguar hiding there, trust me. Although I've never seen someone less worried about Eleuia."

  "I had the same impression," I said. "She seemed to polarise people."

  Ceyaxochitl shrugged. "The beautiful often do, even if they're no longer young." She leaned on her cane, exhaling in what seemed almost nostalgia. Then she shook her head, coming back to more pressing matters. "The search parties are out. Yaotl will stay here and supervise them. You, on the other hand, should go to sleep."

  I said, stung, "I don't need–"

  "Sleep? Don't be a fool, Acatl. Dawn is in less than two hours. You won't be of any use to anyone, least of all your brother, if you can hardly stand."

  My brother. Was I going to be of any use to him?

  I hadn't dwelled on Neutemoc for years. Or perhaps it had started even earlier: when the calpulli clan's search party brought Father's drowned body to Neutemoc's house, and when we'd stared at each other across the divide, and known we'd become strangers to each other.

  I didn't know. I didn't know what I ought to feel.

  "There will be time, tomorrow," Yaotl said, almost gently. I must have looked really tired, if he was being solicitous to me.

  "Was there anything else, Acatl?" Ceyaxochitl asked.

  It was a dismissal: my last chance to get her help, instead of Yaotl's distant, ironic pronouncements. I said, finally, "I need the location… of a certain house in Tenochtitlan."

  "A House of Joy?" Yaotl asked, his face falsely serious. "Feeling lonely in your bed?"

  I was too tired to rise to the jibe. "Priestess Eleuia allegedly had a child, some years ago. I'm not sure it's significant, but I'd like to know if it's true."

  Ceyaxochitl's eyes held me, shrewd, perceptive. I lowered my gaze. I didn't wish her to read my thoughts. But she had to know; she had to have guessed what I feared. "Yes?"

  "I've heard whispers in the Sacred Precinct," I said slowly. "They say… they say that Xochiquetzal, the Quetzal Flower could not restrain Her lust, and charmed all the gods onto Her sleeping mat, one after the other. There is talk that the Duality expelled Her from Heaven for this sin, and that She now dwells in the mortal world, in a house which can be visited, if one knows its location."

  Ceyaxochitl didn't blink, or give any sign of surprise. "Perhaps," she said. "You'd go to Her to know about the child?"

  "Yes," I said.

  I couldn't read her expression. But at length she said, "Priestess Eleuia belonged to Her. And she is Goddess of Lust and Childbirth, after all. Perhaps She'll know something useful. Go to bed, Acatl. I'll send the address to you in the morning."

  So I couldn't go to the goddess's house now. They were both treating me like a newborn infant, which was worrying. Neither of them had shown any inclination to overprotect me before.

  "Very well," I said. "You win. I'll go find some sleep before dawn."

  "Don't worry. We'll take care of things," Yaotl said. His eyes glinted in the darkness. For a fleeting moment I thought there was more than amusement in his gaze – something deeper and more serious – but then I dismissed the thought. Yaotl was not my enemy.

  I was too tired to think properly. I bade them goodbye and walked back to my temple, praying that they'd find Eleuia alive – that they'd find something, anything, that would exonerate Neutemoc.

  FOUR

  The Midwife of Te nochtitlan

  My sleep was dark and dreamless. I noted, distantly, the blare of priests' trumpets that marked the return of Tonatiuh from His night-long journey – and then turned on my reed-mat, and went back to sleep.

  When I woke up, sunlight flooded my house. I sat up, wincing as all the events of the previous night came back into my mind, as unforgiving as peyotl visions.

  Neutemoc.

  A child.

  He had a wife and children of his own, and our sister Mihmatini under his responsibility. Even if Neutemoc was later found out to be innocent, the tarnish of his arrest and his attempted adultery would hang over them all for a long time. Huitzilpochtli blind him. Could he do nothing right?

  I rummaged in my wicker chest for a clean loincloth, and took my grey cloak from the reed-mat where I'd left it. As I tied it around my shoulders, I thought of the last time I'd seen Neutemoc: of Mother's face, contorted in agony and anger as she accused me of cowardice; and of Neutemoc, standing frozen by her death-bed, unable to say anything.

  He hadn't said anything as I walked out, later. He'd gone back to his wife and children, and I'd staggered through the city, trying to find words I could give Mother: reasons that would convince her that by entering an obscure priesthood, I hadn't wasted my life. I was needed: I kept the balance of the world; I gave the dead their rest. But not indispensable: there were plenty of priests – while there had been no one, save Neutemoc, to pay for the schooling and the feeding of my three sisters.

  Enough worries. I had to make sure, first and foremost, that Neutemoc was truly innocent. I tried to ignore the voice whispering that he might well be the murderer Ceyaxochitl thought she'd arrested.

  I walked out into the courtyard, under the lone pine tree, and exited my house. Outside, the hubbub of the Sacred Precinct filled my ears: vendors hawking their amulets and charms; a crowd of freemen in loincloths, coming to offer their sacrifices to the temples; a procession of priestesses, dressed in whit
e skirts and blouses, singing their hymns to honour Toci, Grandmother Earth; warriors in embroidered cotton cloaks, striding arrogantly ahead.

  Determined to start with the most unpleasant tasks, I went to the Jaguar House first: a squat adobe adorned with lavish frescoes of Knights trampling bound enemies underfoot, and of their patron Tezcatlipoca, watching the carnage with a slight smile across His striped face.