Harbinger of the Storm

by Aliette de Bodard

  "An innocent man shouldn't have to," Acamapichtli said.

  This time, he was the one who went too far. "I don't read minds. And there are no innocents. You're all embroiled in one intrigue or another," I said, more forcefully than I'd intended to. "Don't you dare parade your purity before me."

  "And you your sickening self-righteousness." Acamapichtli spat on the ground, without even a gesture asking for the forgiveness of the dead Revered Speaker, whose funeral room he had just soiled. "You're no better than the rest of us, Acatl."

  "Of course he is," Teomitl said, in the growing silence.

  I stood unmoving, trying not to give in to the wave of contempt and hatred which spread over me for this man, who was not even fit to wear the robes of the lowest priest in the service of Tlaloc, not even fit to sweep the floors of the Great Temple. But this was not the time for such divisions, not a time for quarrels, not the place. I couldn't afford to be sucked into his game.

  My nails dug into my hands, sending spikes of pain up my arm. "If you persist in this obstruction, I'll have no choice," I said, more calmly.

  "You have no choice," Acamapichtli said.

  Other than letting him go? I didn't think so. I went on, as if heedless of his words, "I'll refer this to the She-Snake, as current head of the state, representative of the Southern Hummingbird amongst us." I didn't trust the She-Snake; but I'd already seen that he didn't support Acamapichtli.

  Acamapichtli's beady eyes widened slightly, but then he laughed. "Do try, Acatl, do try. I'll enjoy seeing you making a fool of yourself."

  Then he swept out, the curtain falling back over the entrance in a slow, almost peaceful tinkle of metal bells.

  And that might have been it, save that, in the brief moment before the curtain swept down, I caught a glimpse of the silhouette standing at the entrance, which slouched too much to be a guard, and was much too tall to be the She-Snake.

  "Acatl-tzin," Teomitl started.

  I lifted a hand to silence him. An uncomfortable few moments passed; and then the watcher outside grew bored of our inactivity. The entrance-curtain lifted again to admit Quenami in all the finery of his rank as High Priest of Huitzilpochtli, smiling as widely as a jaguar that has found prey.

  "Acatl," he said. "What a coincidence to find you here."

  "Indeed," I said. And, tired of evasions, "how long have you been outside, Quenami?"

  He smiled even more widely. His teeth were the same deep blue as his costume, meticulously dyed. "Long enough."

  "Playing spy like a merchant looking for a bargain?" Teomitl asked.

  I lifted a hand again before the insult went too far. Quenami looked entirely too satisfied, which meant nothing good for either of us.

  "Confirming an opinion. But, as they say, the game was played long before I got here." He looked at both of us in turn, his eyes narrowing in what might have been disapproval, or disappointment.

  I hadn't thought anyone could get on my nerves more than Acamapichtli, but Quenami was running a close second. "What do you want, Quenami? There's no need to dance around each other like warriors on the gladiator stone."

  He pretended to look thoughtful, even though he had to know he couldn't keep us waiting forever. "No, there might not be. A message was entrusted to me, and I pass it on to you both. Tizoc-tzin will see both of you."

  "It's evening now," Teomitl pointed out. "Surely my brother can wait–"

  Quenami shook his head. "Now, Teomitl-tzin."

  Given the unhealthy joy that danced in Quenami's eyes, I was certain that Tizoc-tzin would not congratulate us. In fact, I might be happy to get out of there with my rank intact. With Axayacatl-tzin's demise, both he, as Master of the House of Darts, and the She-Snake received the right to name High Priests. While the She-Snake would keep me around for the sake of appearances, Tizoc-tzin, who hated anything to do with the clergy, would leap at the first chance to dismiss me.

  FIVE

  Imperial Blood

  Tizoc-tzin's quarters were in a courtyard on the same layout as the Imperial Chambers: a wide terrace over two state rooms where his followers sat, gorging themselves on amaranth seeds, and cooked fowls. It was… not exactly indecent, I guessed, not exactly forbidden, but still unseemly, with the palace in mourning.

  Upstairs massed mostly warriors – Eagle Knights in their cloaks of feathers, and Jaguar Knights in full regalia, with their helmets in the shape of a jaguar's head. They watched Quenami and I pass by with predators' smiles. The division between priests and warriors ran deep. They saw us as uptight fools, we saw them as arrogant men obsessed with appearances. Even Teomitl, who paid less attention to this than other warriors, proudly bore the orange scorpion cloak and the shaved head that denoted him as a Leading Youth.

  The entrance-curtain was wide open, even though the evening was colder than usual. Inside, bare-chested warriors lounged on mats, picking frogs, fish and other delicacies from bowls set in front of them.

  Quenami wove his way through the crowd with supreme ease, stopping here and there to greet a particular table, ignoring their gazes of frank contempt. Teomitl's face was frozen in ill-concealed anger, and he walked with the haughty pride of a sacrifice victim.

  At the back of the room, five windows opened on another courtyard, a garden from which came the chatter of birds. The wind, blowing through the apertures, brought in the smell of the distant jungle, strong enough to overwhelm the aroma of copal incense.

  Tizoc-tzin was seated on a mat behind a wooden screen so polished it shone with yellow reflections. Beside me I felt Teomitl stiffen. "Does he wear turquoise too?" he whispered angrily.

  As it turned out, Tizoc-tzin – a middle-aged man with sallow skin – did not wear turquoise, but a deep blue that was uncomfortably close to the imperial colour. I couldn't help but notice that several of the warriors we'd passed had also removed their sandals out of reverence.

  "Ah, our High Priest for the Dead. What a pleasure," he said. He dismissed Quenami with a wave of his long fingers, and then turned his attention back to me.

  He had never made me comfortable, but in a very different way than the She-Snake. I could trust the She-Snake to act in his own interests; but with Tizoc-tzin I never knew if he was going to do something just out of caprice.

  His eyes were two small, black beads that pierced me like a spear. He considered me for a moment with growing anger. "I've always known that priests couldn't be trusted. You have just exceeded my expectations."

  "The star-demons –"

  "Save your breath." His voice had an aura of command: cutting, merciless. "I know all about the star-demons, Acatl."

  "Then you'll know this isn't the time for quarrels."

  "On the contrary." Tizoc-tzin smiled, an expression that didn't reach his eyes. "This is a time of flux. What better opportunity for change?"

  Oh gods, what a fool. But a scrap of self-preservation prevented me from saying that aloud. "My Lord–"

  "I know everything there is to know about you, and you have gone too far."

  "Too far?" I asked. I might have, with Acamapichtli, but there was no way he could know about that, not unless Quenami could communicate by thought alone.

  Tizoc-tin's gaze moved to Teomitl. "Don't act so innocently, Acatl. Did you think I would never realise? A prince will marry a noblewoman or a princess, never the daughter of peasants."

  So that was what it was all about. How dare he? "If you refer to my sister," I said, coolly, "she is no longer the daughter of peasants. She is the sister of a Jaguar Knight, and of the High Priest for the Dead."

  Teomitl's face had gone pale. I had to admit we did not have much to stand on. Mihmatini would have made a wonderful concubine, but to reach any higher would have been the worst kind of arrogance.

  "The daughter of peasants," Tizoc-tzin repeated. "And you… you have the audacity to think her fit to join the imperial family? It is not enough to have my brother in your thrall, always following you. You must have more, Acatl. You place yo
ur pawns everywhere advantageous and hope that I won't notice. Well, I'm no fool, and I have seen."

  I'd listened in growing perplexity, and then anger. "You accuse me wrongly. I have never had any intention of holding power in this court."

  "That was the game you played at first." Tizoc-tzin's face had turned the colour of muddy earth. "Last year, when you came before me, having never set a foot at Court. But that's no longer true."

  "I have the best interests of my order and of the Fifth World at heart."

  "No doubt, no doubt." His face was creased in a smirk I longed to wipe off.

  Star-demons take the man, how could he not see that I was sincere? Out of all those he had to face within the Imperial Court, I was possibly the one with the least reason to set myself against him…

  Except, of course, for the treacherous little voice that kept whispering that the She-Snake and Manatzpa were right, that he was no man fit to be Revered Speaker, no man fit to rule Huitzilpochtli's empire.

  "My Lord…"

  His eyes were on me. I saw then that he'd dismiss me. That out of his rivals, I was the one enjoying the least support, an isolated priest whom no one would miss. That was the reason why Quenami, the Storm Lord's lightning blind him, had looked so happy, one fewer man in his path.

  "Enough."

  It was Teomitl who had spoken. For the first time since entering the room, his voice had the same cutting edge as Tizoc-tzin's. "Brother, look at you. You disgrace yourself."

  "So says the man who follows him," Tizoc-tzin snapped.

  "So says the man who sees clearly," Teomitl said. "Do you truly wish to dismiss the High Priest for the Dead, at a time like this? What an auspicious way to start your reign."

  Tizoc-tzin did not move, but his whole stance hardened. "You're young," he said to Teomitl. "You understand nothing of politics."

  "No," Teomitl said. "And I'm not sure I ever will."

  Tizoc grimaced. "You'll have to. Can't you see?" His voice softened, no longer the ruler chastising his subjects. "In less than a week, you'll be Master of the House of Darts. In a few dozen years…"

  "The Revered Speaker is anointed by Huitzilpochtli," Teomitl said, at last, and Tizoc-tzin, who believed more in men than in gods, grimaced. "He leads us forth into battle, to extend the boundaries of the Mexica Empire from sea to sea. This isn't about politics."

  "You'd marry her, then?" Tizoc-tzin's lips had thinned to a slash across his face. "The little peasants' daughter?"

  If that was intended as a reconciliation – a shared moment of prejudice – it failed utterly. Teomitl's face froze, took on the cast of jade. I reached out and squeezed his arm hard enough to bruise. "No, you fool," I whispered.

  "What I choose to do or not to do does not belong to you," Teomitl said. "Nothing has been decreed yet, brother."

  "It will not be long." I wondered where Tizoc-tzin's confidence came from, when the council was so split, and one of his own followers had just been slaughtered?

  "I thought you'd know," Teomitl's voice could have frozen water, "you who will dedicate yourself to the Southern Hummingbird, to the Smoking Mirror, the gods of all that is fluid and impermanent. Nothing in the Fifth World is ever certain."

  "Oh, you're mistaken." Tizoc-tzin's smile, for once, was sincere, and quietly confident. "Very much mistaken, brother."

  "Then we'll see, won't we?" Teomitl put his hands palms up; and then turned them towards the floor in a clink of jade and metal. "How the dice fall. Meanwhile–"

  Tizoc-tzin's gaze rested on me, dark and angry. "Meanwhile, I will let things rest. But be assured, Acatl, I won't forget."

  Neither would I.

  I came out of our interview with Tizoc-tzin shaking like reeds in the wind. Teomitl, who viewed all such displays as cowardice, appeared unmoved. It was only when he stopped in a small courtyard and just stood there, staring at the sky, that I knew he had not been unaffected.

  "He's not a bad man," he said.

  Around us, the night was cold and heavy, the stars above pulsing softly, the owls hooting in the night, the faint smell of copal and scented sweatbaths. "I'm not sure," I said.

  "You don't know him. He was always like this." His hands clenched. "He can't see the world through other people's eyes, but he knows his own faults, all too well."

  No, I didn't know Tizoc-tzin. But, somehow, I doubted that Teomitl, who was ten years his junior and had grown up in the seclusion of a priests' school, would know him any better. "He's your brother," I said. I'd do the same for any of mine. Heavens, I'd even defended my brother Neutemoc last year, even though I'd believed him to be as guilty as the evidence indicated. "Your loyalty–"

  "It's not about loyalty." Teomitl paced in the courtyard, around a small basin decorated with coloured stones. His eyes were still on the sky. "I know how he is."

  "You didn't grow up together–"

  "No, of course not. But he's grooming me to be Master of the House of Darts in his stead."

  "That doesn't mean–"

  "I'm not a fool!" He stabbed the empty air with his right hand.

  "I never said you were." I'd never seen him in such a state, and it worried me. Throughout the previous day, he'd gone into the palace, more or less picking quarrels with everyone he met. He seemed to have reverted to the prickly boy Ceyaxochitl had entrusted to me a year ago, one who had "grown up like a wild flower", as she had said. It was as if all my teachings, all my exercises, had been for nothing. Was it Axayacatl-tzin's death? His brother had been Revered Speaker for most of Teomitl's life. It would be hard to admit the world was about to change irretrievably.

  "You don't understand. I take his lessons, and I learn." His voice was softer now, almost spent.

  I asked the question he wanted me to ask. "And what do you learn, Teomitl?"

  "Not the lessons he wants to teach me." He stopped pacing, and would not look at me. "I learn that he stopped trusting others a long time ago. I learn that he has enemies and sycophants, but no friends. I learn," and his voice was a whisper by now, "that power took him and gnawed him from the inside out, and that he is but a frightened shell, that the only goal he can still dream of is to sit on Axayacatl's mat. Everything else tastes like ashes."

  I was silent for a while. "That's what you learnt. But not what I see." Not to mention that this gave him a motivation to influence the vote, perhaps to the point of using supernatural help to do it.

  "Acatl-tzin–"

  I had always been honest with him, and even when it came to this moment, I could not give him some comforting lie. "No," I said. "I can only believe what I see."

  He looked at me for a while. His hands were still, preternaturally so. "I see. I see."

  "Teomitl–"

  "No, you're right. It's not that at all, and I am a fool. Good night, Acatl-tzin."

  "Teomitl!"

  But he was already gone.

  I remained for a while, sitting in the courtyard, wondering what I could have said that would have made things go differently. I didn't like those bleak moods, or the quick way he took offence. He'd always been susceptible, but tonight he had looked as though his nerves were rubbed raw.

  Something was wrong, but I couldn't work out what.

  Footsteps on the stones tore me from my reflection. Looking up, I saw Ceyaxochitl looming over me, her slight silhouette highlighted by moonlight. "I thought I'd find you here."

  "Here?" I said, gesturing to the small courtyard. The only remarkable thing about it was that it contained us both.

  "In the palace." She grimaced, and slid to sit cross-legged next to me on the warm stones. "I've told you before: you don't get enough sleep."

  "I should think I've outgrown the need for a mother."

  Ceyaxochitl's gaze grew pensive. "Yes, I should think you have. Most impressively."

  A small, almost muted jab. Even though they'd both been dead for years, my parents had loomed large over my life, until the previous year, when I'd finally realised I was no longer beholden t
o them. "What do you want, Ceyaxochitl? I assume you didn't come here to talk."

  She shrugged. "Perhaps I did. Perhaps I do care about your welfare."

  Now she scared me. The last time Ceyaxochitl had interfered in my life, she'd got me nominated as High Priest, a position I didn't want and didn't particularly appreciate. That I'd grown into it over the years didn't change the original intent. "You can't get me higher than this," I said. I tried not to think of Teomitl, my student, the boy-prince who would one day become Revered Speaker.

  Ceyaxochitl smiled, the lines of her face softening in the moonlight. "We'll see."