“I didn’t go,” Kanmi replied, promptly. “My family was too poor. Temples eat money, ever noticed that? Also, how many times do I have to ask about Tlaloc here? I might need to start keeping a tally.” The Carthaginian’s eyes glittered.
“I’m getting to him. Quetzalcoatl was the next sun-god, but he was too merciful, and his new, normal-sized humans became arrogant, and stopped paying attention to the gods. Tezcatlipoca decided to remind them of his power, and turned all the humans into monkeys. Quetzalcoatl had loved these flawed humans. He didn’t mind their arrogance. But seeing them turned into animals enraged him, and he destroyed the world with terrible storms. They remade the world, and yes, Tlaloc was the next sun.” Ehecatl gave Kanmi an amused glance. “He’s the rain god, He Who Makes Things Sprout. But while he was away being the sun, Black Tezcatlipoca stole Tlaloc’s wife, the goddess of sex and flowers.”
“Not bad for a one-legged fellow,” Kanmi allowed. “I assume that he must have started off life as more of a tripod.” It was said dead-pan, and with no emphasis on the words.
Adam had been watching Sigrun’s face during this portion of the conversation, and the fact that she choked on her tea made him laugh so hard, he almost inhaled his own thick cup of Tawantinsuyan coffee. Trennus put his face down in his hands, his shoulders shaking, and Livorus shook his head in resignation.
“Undoubtedly,” Ehecatl told the Carthaginian, nodding regally, but his lips quirked a bit. “At any rate, Tlaloc was angry, and refused to send rain. A drought swept the world, and the humans begged him for rain. He found their voices irritating, so he did send rain . . . except it was a rain of fire, and the new earth perished. His new wife, Chalchiuhtlicue, became the next sun. She was a water goddess, and benevolent, but Tezcatlipoca was jealous of how loved she was by the people, and told her that his judgment was that she was not really kind, but pretended to be, so that people would love her. She wept blood for fifty-two years, and the people were all drowned. Quetzalcoatl was particularly annoyed by all this, and crept to the underworld, where he found the bones of all the humans. He used his own blood, and brought them back to life, on this, the fifth world, where Huitzilopochtli is the sun now. And because Quetzalcoatl gave of himself to give us life, we’re supposed to give back to the gods. That’s the origin of the sacrifices, in a nutshell.” Ehecatl shrugged. “You may now forget absolutely everything else I’ve just said.”
“To summarize,” Kanmi said, baring his teeth, “Don’t get on Tezcatlipoca’s bad side.”
“Pretty much,” Ehecatl agreed.
“The refresher on the background information is helpful,” Livorus said, putting his fingers together, “particularly for those of us who aren’t entirely familiar with your culture. But where does this get us in terms of last night’s encounter with the high priest of Tlaloc?”
Ehecatl looked into the mid-distance. “As I said, I’m not much of an authority on the priesthood. But I doubt they’d let someone become high-priest who’d just . . . done a good job when he was a young man. You can rise somewhat, but going from altar attendant to high-priest . . . it’s not done, sir. I can ask around, but I’d assume he’s very likely god-born.”
Sigrun grimaced. “I think so, yes.” she agreed. “I was under directive not to reveal myself or make a challenge, but he may have been able to tell . . . in much the same way I had hints, myself.” She sent an apologetic glance towards Livorus, who dismissed it with a flick of his fingertips. “It’s probably nothing, but the governor’s wife mentioned that he’s a cultural conservative. This . . . probably unfairly makes me think of Kuruk, the god-born of the Morning Star up by Ponca.” She shrugged. “I’ll put it out of my mind.”
Livorus nodded, clearly filing it all away for the moment. “What else did we encounter last night?” he asked the others.
Trennus shrugged, and recounted several tales of civil unrest, and the locals in Tenochtitlan’s deep-seated dislike of the Tikali rebels. “There seems to be deep-seated bitterness,” he concluded.
“That is something of an understatement,” Ehecatl muttered. “The state-run media don’t give the rebels any air-time—it’s a deliberate policy, so as not to reward them by passing on their message—but I haven’t seen this much anger in my own people in a long time. Something is going on down in the jungles.”
“There’s been a fair bit of blood spilled,” Trennus volunteered, to Ehecatl’s evident surprise. “Several fatalities, just among the families of last night’s people at the ball game.”
“They just offered you this information?” Ehecatl said, his eyebrows rising slightly.
“Well, no. I don’t think they knew I could understand them.” Trennus looked away.
Adam raised a finger. “Ah . . . actually, I didn’t know you could, either. Your dossier doesn’t say you speak Nahautl.”
“I don’t.” Trennus grimaced. “One of my spirits decided to be helpful.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed, mostly out of reflex. “So we’re more or less taking your spirit’s word for this?”
“I don’t think she’d invent all of this,” Trennus replied, a little sharply. “Spirits don’t tend to have complex imaginations. That’s something they tend to pick up from humans. That, and more complex motivations. They tend to be a little elemental until they’ve absorbed a lot of human traits.” He shrugged. “No offense,” he added to what looked like empty air, “but most spirits are actually fairly uninterested in humans until summoned and either are forced to do something they don’t want to do, or asked to do things that actually interest them, and are rewarded for it.” Trennus paused. “Which is going to get me going down a side-path to this conversation that we can’t afford right now. Don’t mind me.”
“You and I can talk about metacognition and the development of human psychology in inhuman subjects later,” Kanmi told his fellow mage.
Adam did his best not to twitch. Kanmi didn’t appear to intend to be arrogant or condescending; he just assumed, for the most part probably correctly, that such topics wouldn’t interest most normal people. And, in truth, Adam wasn’t all that interested . . . except that anything more he knew about spirits might give him new insights in fighting them. But he couldn’t help but feel vaguely insulted that Kanmi didn’t think he and Sigrun were intelligent enough to follow along in the conversation. Something to talk to him about later. Non-confrontationally. He probably doesn’t even realize he’s isolating Trennus and himself, by his very wording.
“A little out of scope for this meeting,” Livorus agreed, dryly. “Kanmi? What about you?”
The sorcerer from Tyre grimaced and stared out the window of Livorus’ suite, peeling an orange with his bare fingers. “Well?” Sigrun prompted, after a moment.
“I had a very odd encounter with a former classmate from the University of Athens. Gifted technomancer. Half-Roman, half-Nahautl, born into a semi-aristocratic family here in Tenochtitlan.” Kanmi threw his peels towards the room’s garbage pail . . . lightly redirecting them with a gesture in the air when they looked apt to miss. “I never really knew the fellow well, but he was . . . very interested in speaking with me further. The more so when I noted I was a member of the Praetorian Guards.”
He recounted the whole conversation, and Adam shook his head. “That sounds like a recruitment effort,” Adam offered, after a moment. Kanmi did sound like a good candidate for, well, espionage. He didn’t talk about his wife often, but he’d mentioned, at least once in Adam’s hearing, that she didn’t like the long separations that the job brought, though he’d just moved her and the children from Tyre to Rome. She also didn’t, apparently, much like Rome. And Kanmi’s overall slightly cynical demeanor, and distaste for aristocracy, even for god-born . . . yes, Adam could see why someone would see him as a potential recruit.
“Recruitment into what, is the question?” the older man asked, sounding tired. “I’ve been to all the usual counter-intelligence briefings. I recognize what it could be, but Xicohtencatl wasn’t
exactly a revolutionary at the university. He was . . . earnest, I suppose. And maybe a little bored, with more money at his disposal than was good for him.” Kanmi shrugged. “What could he possibly be into?”
“Not sure,” Sigrun replied, interlacing her fingers and propping her chin on them, her gray eyes intent. “Could be something as simple as an invitation to join a technical and job-support collegium. Collegia aren’t just about being from a given neighborhood in Rome anymore, or just social clubs.” She shrugged. “A lot of people use them for networking, as I understand it.”
Kanmi made a face. “It didn’t quite feel like that,” he admitted.
“Allow yourself to be invited in,” Livorus said, his tone austere. “Investigate. If it turns out to be nothing, all we’ve wasted is a little of your time. If not . . . then you might have stumbled onto something interesting.” The propraetor leaned back in his chair, pushing away the remains of his own meal, some sort of roasted quail dish. “Now, for the results of my own conversations last night, both the governor and the emperor have suggested to me, that if any of the rumors we’ve heard of human sacrifice are true, they’re likely to be the result of people who are looking to return to the old ways. And that no one in a major metropolitan center like Tenochtitlan would want to do that. Not where there’s abundant ley-power, there’s art, culture, poetry, and all the advantages that the mix of Roman, Gallic, Gothic, and Nahautl cultures bring.” Livorus sighed. “I did remind them that while familiarity with what’s foreign usually does make people more open-minded . . . it’s just as possible that people who want power for themselves can respond to entrenched power in other’s hands, by attacking their origins. And nevermind the advantages and changes that have come with it.”
Adam looked to the side. There were groups of zealots in Judea who lived apart from the rest of society, who refused to pay Roman taxes or send their young men to serve on the Wall to become part of the troop levy sent into the foreign legions each year. They didn’t send their children to Roman schools, refused to speak Latin, and other such signs of protest. They were tolerated by the communities around them. Mostly because the only alternative was storming their armed compounds and trying to force them to re-integrate with the rest of Judean society. Some of them were so retrograde as to not allow women to walk freely, without escorts, in public, as if they were all still members of some tribe of herdsmen in the fifth century BAC. What would happen, he wondered, if their ideas began to become more pervasive in Judean society? If they became the symbol of resistance to Rome? Would that be . . . more or less the same thing as what Livorus sees here? He didn’t like the mental image at all.
Livorus looked around the table. “We don’t have much in the way of a starting point, even after three weeks. That said, I’ve been asked, officially, by Governor Dioscuri, to ‘look into’ opening dialogue with the rebels near Tikal.”
Groans rose from all five lictors’ throats. Livorus gave them a spare glance. “Now, now, what’s not to like about this? It’s only an area of heavy jungle in which armed guerrillas have held the countryside for a decade, periodically harassing the garrisons and the townspeople who don’t sympathize with their goal. It’s only a region where the guerrillas speak Quechan instead of Nahautl, and almost none of them speak Latin. There’s little in the way of a ley-grid down there—Eshmunazar, you’ll want to talk with your . . . new friend . . . about where, precisely, the state power company is putting in ley-tapping stations . . . .”
“On it,” Kanmi replied, opening a notebook and scribbling something down with a fountain pen.
“Good. You and Matrugena will be looking into that. Several of the ley-stations were attacked in years past. At the moment, the rebels seem to be leaving the newer platforms alone. In examining the stations . . . you might be able to talk with the people building them and guarding them. Find out why the rebels’ tactics have changed.” Livorus pushed his glasses up his nose, and studied his own notebook, which lay beside his plate. “Sigrun, my dear, you’re a natural to go find and talk with the local priests. They’re the lifeblood of these small villages. Their temples provide food and clothing for the indigent, and they are where almost every resident, even the rebels, will come, eventually. The village priests see a great deal.”
“They are hardly likely to speak to me freely, propraetor. I am not one of their god-born.” Sigrun objected, looking uncomfortable. “And I do not wish to try to intimidate or bully the locals.”
“Which is why our good Itztli will be going with you. Do your very best not to look like a valkyrie, my dear. My advice would be to try to look like you are Itztli’s new wife, and wish to understand his culture better—”
It was rare for any of the lictors to interrupt the propraetor, but in this case, Adam’s objections were beaten out by Ehecatl’s laughter. It fought its way free of the man’s throat, and rang back off the walls. Sigrun gave him a resigned look, finally asking, after a few moments, “When you’re quite done?”
Ehecatl managed to slow himself to a mere chuckle. “My wife, Coszcatl, would not be delighted with this plan. There is also the small matter of credibility, dominus.” He grinned. “While I do not deny that Caetia would be a catch, she’s four inches taller than I am. Who is going to believe that she’s my wife?”
“I’m your height,” Kanmi said, dryly. “My wife’s Caetia’s height.”
“And do people have difficulty believing that you’re married?” Trennus asked, not, apparently, above needling Kanmi.
“Her colleagues think I’m a figment of her imagination.” Eshmunazar’s tone became even more arid. The man never spoke of his family at all. Then again, Adam thought, none of us do. This is the first time since I’ve met Ehecatl that he’s even mentioned his wife’s name.
“It’s not just the height,” Ehecatl put in, his grin fading. “It’s the fact that I can’t picture Caetia here married to anyone.”
“Thank you,” Sigrun said, tiredly. “I appreciate this compliment.”
“We could send her with Matrugena instead. They actually look like a pair. And there’s Matrugena’s obvious infatuation with her, to make it look the more realistic.” Kanmi’s retaliation on Trennus was wickedly fast.
Adam held up two fingers. Though Ehecatl had been senior on the detail before he’d come along, Livorus had made it clear that Adam and Sigrun were still in charge of the lictors for the moment. “If I could get a word in edgewise? Esh and Matru, you first met Sig in that taverna in Rome, and didn’t think twice about who she was, at first.” Any more than I did. “So long as she doesn’t start glowing on us, I think she can pass as a . . .” he hesitated over the wording.
“Perfectly normal human being,” Sigrun said, looking at the ceiling.
“I wasn’t going to put it quite that way.”
“And thank you for that vote of confidence, Adam. Ehe, I will be sure to hang on your every word as dotingly as I am capable of doing.”
Even Livorus smiled faintly at that one. Ehecatl shook his head. “Gods. Ptah should have been here for this. He’s going to need pictures the next time I see him, for him to believe this.” Ehecatl had known Sigrun long enough to know precisely how to tease her.
Adam glanced back at Livorus now. “With four of us off investigating, that’s going to make protecting you problematic at best. I’ll call the local Praetorian office and get us a little more manpower.” At Livorus’ expression, he added, “Sir, there are guerillas in that region, and you would make a most excellent hostage to trade to Rome for political considerations, or the release of captives in Nahautl prisons.”
Livorus sighed. “My reluctance stems from the fact that the local Praetorians are, in fact, largely that: local. I detest having to suggest that anyone’s loyalty might be compromised, without proof, and before having even met them, but the possibility exists.”
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Ehecatl promised.
“And I’ll have one of my spirits keep watch, as well,” Trennu
s volunteered. “A normal human won’t even notice that she’s there.”
Kanmi slid a glance Adam’s way, as he shifted uneasily in his chair. “I think some of us might be more concerned about the spirit’s trustworthiness, than the local Praetorians’.”
“I can’t deny that it would be useful. I’m concerned about the cost, however,” Adam managed, as neutrally as he could. “Matrugena’s always been very upfront about every interaction with a spirit having a price.”
Kanmi bared his teeth. “Oh, come now, Matrugena seems to be in good health. A little awkward with women, but still interested in them. I don’t think this female spirit of his would make you into a galli.”
Galli were followers of the goddess Cybele, also called corybants. The Great Mother, as she was known, had only been incorporated into the worship practices of Rome during the Second Punic War, mostly because a line in the Sibylline Oracles that had been interpreted as indicating that Rome could not win the war without her support. The goddess was eastern in origin, much in the way that Dionysus was not originally a Hellene god, and her rites and propitiations were very much against the grain of standard Roman faith. Orgiastic and hedonistic, as opposed to stoic and restrained . . . and the goddess had had a mortal lover, a shepherd known as Attis. In his exaltation at seeing his lover revealed as a goddess, he had, legend said, castrated himself and flung away his genitalia. He was worshipped in his own right as a minor vegetation god. Galli were men who, traditionally, while in a state of religious ecstasy, castrated themselves with special tools. They then dressed as women from that moment on . . . assuming they survived the process, which had been something of a question, in the old, pre-antibiotics days . . . and served in the temples of Cybele as priests and dancers.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 27
