Master of the House of Darts: Obsidian and Blood Book 3

by Aliette Bodard

  Tizoc-tzin was coming back, and the She-Snake was making sure everything was ready for the confirmation ceremony. They'd bought slaves from the Tlatelolco marketplace, to replace the warriors who had died – ironic, in so many ways, but the priesthood seemed to be the only ones aware of this. Otherwise, things seemed to go on as they should.

  Mihmatini had gone home, after a very lengthy conversation with Teomitl – and a glance cast in my direction which expressed more than words. Whatever rift Teomitl had opened in their marriage was going to need more than a few hours' talk to solve.

  Neutemoc, surprisingly, had barely said anything: he'd helped me argue with Quenami, shaking his head at some of the latter's more arrogant pronouncements, and remained behind in the palace, talking to his fellow warriors, and generally making sure that Tizoc-tzin, outwardly, would find the support he craved – an illusion that wouldn't hold for long, as we now all knew.

  I, as usual, retreated with my priests in my temple, to begin the vigil for Matlaelel, and tidy things up in my own domain.

  I was settling down with the temple accounts when I heard footsteps outside, and a hand drew aside the entrance curtain. "Acatl." The tinkle of bells didn't mask Acamapichtli's voice.

  I bowed my head, not knowing if he'd see it or not. He was still wrapped in layers of Tlaloc's magic, but I couldn't be sure what he was saying.

  "I thought I'd find you here. Ever the busy clerk." His voice had the old, mordant sarcasm.

  "Ever the same," I said, but it wasn't quite true.

  He'd brought chocolate, and maize cakes; we sat together atop the platform of the pyramid shrine, looking down on the temple complex and the shadows of my priests below as they went for their funeral vigils, and the haunting sounds of the bone whistles started to echo around the courtyard.

  "So we closed it."

  Acamapichtli grimaced. "We did. Well, not quite. You know we couldn't. But it was good that you killed Coatl."

  "Thank my sister," I said, gloomily.

  "I already did." He shrugged. "Don't look so sad. I can recognise power when I see it. She might be young, she might be a married woman, but it changes nothing. She's for great things, you know. Perhaps even greater than her predecessor."

  "I don't know," I said. It made me feel uncomfortable to dwell overmuch on Mihmatini right now – because of Teomitl, because there was nothing I could do about their marriage. Whatever they did, they'd have to work it out by themselves. "So we're safe," I said, to change the subject.

  "I guess. But not as safe as we once were."

  "Do you…? " I stopped, unsure of what to say. "Did you ever stop to think what we'd done? That we'd–" That we'd break things worse than ever, cause our own doom just as Tenochtitlan's invasion of Tlatelolco had paved the way for Moquihuix-tzin's revenge?

  Acamapichtli sighed. "A word of advice, Acatl: don't dwell on what is past." His sightless eyes looked west, towards the setting sun, and his scars seemed to shine in the dim light. "You'll only hurt yourself."

  "But…" But I had to know; had to see whether I was right, whether my decision would heal us in a few years' time, or throw us into worse chaos. But Acamapichtli didn't know any of this, nor could he understand it.

  Acamapichtli's smile was wide and sarcastic. "We all blunder through life, Acatl, making the best we can with what we have. That's all the truth there is." He rose, wiping his hands clean of cake crumbs.

  "Where are you going?"

  He smiled again, like a jaguar showing his fangs. "You'll want to be alone."

  "Acamapichtli!"

  There were footsteps again, on the pyramid stairs; brash and impatient, and I would have known them anywhere. I heard the entrance-curtain to the shrine tinkle as Acamapichtli withdrew for good, leaving me alone, staring at Teomitl.

  He wore the garb of the Master of the House of Darts: the Frightful Spectre costume, his face emerging from the jaws of the skull-helmet, the quetzal feathers of his headdress fanning down like unkempt hair; the slit over his liver, symbolising the sacrifices he was making for the Mexica, seemed to glow in the dark. "Acatl-tzin."

  I sighed. "Come on. There are some maize cakes."

  "I've come to apologise–"

  I shook my head. "No need for that. I think we've both made mistakes that we shouldn't have. The important thing is that we're safe." Safe, but not as before; safe, but trembling on the edge of extinction.

  Teomitl sat down, looking at the maize cakes with studied intensity. "I'll give it a few years," he said. "If we hold that long."

  "I know."

  "You disapprove."

  "I don't know." Not anymore; I was the one adrift without anything to cling to, the future only a terrifying blank. "The Duality curse me, I don't know."

  Teomitl broke the maize cake in two, watching it. "I don't think Mihmatini will ever forgive me."

  "Give it time," I said. I didn't know. Out of all of us, she'd probably been treated the most shabbily, and I didn't know how far her love extended. "I can't help you there. I don't think, in fact, that I can help you much at all. You were right in one thing: you're far too adult to have a teacher."

  He smiled – with a shadow of the old carelessness. "You said things as one man to another. That won't change, Acatl."

  "No," I said. "I guess not."

  Teomitl was silent for a while. He poured chocolate into a bowl, and breathed in the bitter, spicy smell, but didn't drink. "When Tizoc comes back…"

  "Yes?" I'd expected something about apologies, but he didn't even broach the subject.

  "I'll ask him about Tlatelolco. It's high time that wound was healed. We can't keep making them pay for something that happened thirteen years ago."

  "What did you have in mind?"

  "I don't know," Teomitl said. He smiled again, and I couldn't help smiling in return. "I'll think of something."

  He rose with the bowl in hand, and came to stand near the edge of the platform. Below, the city of Tenochtitlan was bathed in the last light of the setting sun, and the familiar sounds wafted up to us: the splashes of the boats being polled home; the murmur of the crowd offering its last sacrifices in the Sacred Precinct; the harsh cry of the conches and the melancholy roll of the drums that marked the end of the day, and the setting of a sun that would rise, again and again. "It hasn't changed," he said, almost in wonder.

  The last light of the Fifth Sun bathed him, surrounding him in a glow like molten gold,and all of a sudden I saw the ruler he'd become, the one his sister had believed in so desperately – not who he was now, but who he would be, in a few years' time: a man brimming with the power of the gods, smart enough to forge his own alliances and make his own opinions, respected and feared by the army, quick to love and quick to hate – a man who would lead us all to the Southern Hummingbird's promised glory, whose name would spread far and wide, like smoke, like mist – who would make the Empire great and wealthy, and eclipse the name of Tizoc-tzin as if it had never been.

  "No," I said, "it hasn't changed." But he had; oh, he had, and the world seemed to blur and bend a little as I looked upon him.

  Neutemoc had said that even beloved sons and beloved students went astray – that, like I and my brother, they ended up a bitter disappointment to their parents or teachers.

  And sometimes, they outgrew us, and some of their light shone back upon us, making our faces widen with pride – far more than anything we could have done on our own.

  About the Author

  French by birth, Aliette de Bodard chose to write in English – her second language – after a two-year stint in London. Though she has trained as an engineer (graduating from Ecole Polytechnique, one of France's most prestigious colleges), she has always been fascinated by history and mythology, especially those of non-Western cultures. Her love of mysteries gave her the idea to write a series of cross-genre novels which would feature Aztecs, blood magic and fiendish murders.

  She is a Campbell Award finalist and a Writers of the Future winner. Her s
hort fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in venues such as Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, and Fantasy magazine, and has been reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction. She lives in Paris, where she has a job as a computer engineer.

  aliettedebodard.com

  Extras...

  AUTHOR'S NOTES

  The Historical Setting

  As in previous volumes, I took some liberties with naming conventions: the Revered Speaker of Texcoco is Nezahualpilli-tzin, but I shortened the name to Nezahual-tzin. I also kept the convention of referring to the inhabitants of Texcoco as "Texcocans" rather than the more proper "Acolhuas", and once again used the "tzin" like Japanese honorifics , to mark respect, rather than as permanent titles. My main concern, again, was to keep the text readable and understandable, in order not to add confusion to an already complicated universe.

  This volume is most concerned with war, a central concept in Aztec society: more specifically, Tizoc-tzin's coronation war, which is recorded in the annals as a disaster. The coronation war was more properly a confirmation war: once the new Revered Speaker was invested, he had to lead his men into battle: this served the double purpose of confirming him as a leader of warriors, and of securing enough prisoners for the public celebration of his accession to power.

  Again, what we know of the organisation of the Aztec army is fragmentary: I mostly used Ross Hassig's Aztec Warfare as a source for practical details of campaigns, chain of command, and matters of discipline, such as deciding to whom a prisoner belonged.

  The war council was essential in Tenochtitlan: it consisted of four members – their names and functions have been reported in differing fashions, depending on the source. Given that titles such as Master of the House of Darkness seemed to have been attributed much like titles in Ancient China – ie, names chosen for specific acts of valour rather than functions which had to be always filled – I chose to pick among the recorded members of the war council those names which seemed most attractive to me.

  Together with the war council, the Revered Speaker and the She-Snake made up most of the high ranks of Tenochtitlan: therefore, they could not all be absent at the same time. While the Revered Speaker was on campaign, the war council split in half: two of its members remained behind in Tenochtitlan – they were replaced by two deputies within the army. The other two would march along with the soldiers. This ensured that, not only did the city keep functioning smoothly in the absence of the Revered Speaker; but also that in case of attack, there were strategists and veterans ready to organise the defence of the city.

  War, of course, permeated every layer of Aztec society: the merchants I mention also doubled as spies and as advance units, and they sometimes had to disguise themselves while on missions in foreign cities, in order not to be summarily executed. The tension between them and the warriors is well-documented, and I had Eptli voice a lot of the clichéd insults traded between both groups.

  Tlaltelolco, which turns out to be crucial to the plot, was Tenochtitlan's sister city: it was founded by a splinter group some kilometres away from the Mexica capital; and, as time passed, both cities grew to abut each other. Where Tenochtitlan was a city of warriors, Tlatelolco was known for its merchants, and its marketplace had the dimensions of a small city. The war between Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco is also reasonably documented: it went on pretty much as I described it, though it is likely that Tenochtitlan's growing role in the Triple Alliance and the management of the Mexica Empire drove a lot of Moquihuix's plotting (and it's still not really clear how much of the so-called plot was Moquihuix seeking to strike before he was struck).

  As mentioned in the novel, Texcoco's role was crucial: had Nezahualpilli's father not chosen to honour his old alliances ands side with the Mexica, it's likely the war (and victory) would have gone the other way. I did tweak history slightly by having Moquihuix die strangled – the record of his death is confusing, with no less than three different accounts, but in none of them does he die of strangulation.

  It is worth noting that Teomitl/Ahuizotl did indeed make a headstart in healing the breach between both cities, by marrying a Tlatelolca princess. Their son, Cuauhtemoc, would become joint Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan – though, sadly, this was at the time of the conquest, and he is more known for being the last Mexica Revered Speaker.

  The epidemic Acatl, Mihmatini and Teomitl have to face is also, unfortunately, quite real: I derived its symptoms from smallpox, a sickness which was brought over by the Spanish and devastated the Aztecs – who, having no livestock, had never had to face the disease. It turns out that there are quite a few different varieties of smallpox, and – sadly – I did not have to exaggerate in order to make the epidemic deeply horrific (the hallucinations of diseased corpses, though, are my own invention in order to give the illness supernatural weight).

  On the role of women in Aztec society, I once again cheated: though there were priestesses, none of them had even a fraction of the liberty and power enjoyed by Mihmatini and Acamapichtli's consort. The female priesthood was very much inferior to the male clergy – its members shared in the deprivation, but were far less visible in ceremonies, and wielded very little power. It is, though, a recorded fact that High Priests were the only members of the clergy allowed to have a spouse: this is most probably for the reason I advance here, to have representatives of both the male and female sides of the deities at the highest levels (much like the Revered Speaker and the She-Snake functioned as two halves of a male/female duality).

  I have had questions about the hymns: they are not real – as in, they were never spoken by bona fide Nahuatl speakers. I write them myself, using a reference the very real hymns contained in books such as The Flayed God, or Aztec Thought and Culture. The main reason I do this is because, like most religious hymns, Aztec hymns are highly language-specific, and translate very badly to English (most literal translations come with reams of translator's notes), all the more so when one does not have the cultural references necessary to understand things.

  It is, for instance, highly counter intuitive that the Nahuatl expression "to bear fruit" actually has a negative connotation: the verb in this expression carries the entire meaning of flowering, ripening, bearing fruit and then falling to the ground and rotting away; it was mainly used about high officials that were dismissed because of their reprehensible actions. Likewise, many Nahuatl expressions either do not have an English equivalent, or would require paragraphs of explanations to make sense. I sometimes can manage to put in entire Nahuatl phrases, and I try to do this whenever it is possible; but it is far from being always the case.

  Further Reading

  Paper Sources

  Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Oxford University Press, 2006

  Elizabeth Baquedano, Eyewitness: Aztec, DK, 1993

  Frances F Berdan, Patricia Rieff Anawalt, The Essential Codex Mendoza, University of California Press, 1997

  David Carrasco, Religions of Mesoamerica: Cosmovision and Ceremonial Centers, Waveland Pr Inc, 1998

  Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: an Interpretation (Canto), Cambridge University Press, 1991

  Laurie Coulter, Ballplayers and Bonesetters, Annick Press, 2008

  Nigel Davies, The Aztecs: a History, University of Oklahoma Press, 1973

  William Gates, An Aztec Herbal: the Classic Codex of 1552, Dover, 2000

  Ross Hassig, Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control, University of Oklahoma Press, 1988

  David M Jones & Brian L Molyneaux, Mythologies des Amériques, EDDL, 2002

  Miguel Leon Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, University of Oklahoma Press, 1990

  Miguel Leon Portilla, The Broken Spears: the Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Beacon Press, 2006

  Roberta E Markman & Peter T Markman, The Flayed God: the Mythology of Mesoamerica, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992

  Jacques Martin & Jean Torton, Les Voyages d'Alix: Les Aztèques, Casterman, 2005

  Colin McEw
an & Leonardo López Luján, Moctezuma Aztec Ruler, The British Museum Press, 2009

  Mary Miller & Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and of the Maya, Thames & Hudson, 1997

  Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, Phoenix Press, 2002

  Michael Ernest Smith, The Aztecs (People of America), , Wiley-Blackwell, 2002

  Thelma D Sullivan & Timothy J Knab, A Scattering of Jades: Stories, Poems and Prayers of the Aztecs, University of Arizona Press, 2003

  Online Sources

  Aztec Calendar – http://www.azteccalendar.com

  Sacred Texts – http://www.sacred-texts.com (most particularly the "Rig Veda Americanus" by Daniel G Brinton)