Master of the House of Darts

by Aliette de Bodard

  And they would have mocked him, for not following the path of his family; for the blood he couldn't deny or purge from his veins. What a lovely little family the army was.

  I knew a little of how things worked – and I could guess how it would have turned out. Eptli would have sought to outdo the warriors in arrogance and fanaticism, and leapt at any chance to mock his shameful heritage. "That's why he got into the shouting match with the Tlatelolco merchant?"

  "I wasn't present at the time," Neutemoc said, "so I can't help you there. But I wouldn't be surprised. Eptli was proud to be a warrior and working for the greater good of the army; he couldn't see that it's more than warriors who ensure the success of the Triple Alliance." He said this without irony, although less than a year ago he'd thought warriors were the beginning and the end of the Fifth World.

  "He wasn't liked, then," I said.

  "No." Teomitl's voice was dry. "Some arrogance is expected, but Eptli took it too far."

  "It was justified, to some extent," Neutemoc said. "He captured one prisoner in each campaign he took part in."

  I recalled the warrior's face – not that of a youth, barely out of training. "He entered the ranks old, then."

  Neutemoc grimaced. "I think there were some – issues with his family. His father wasn't in favour of his becoming a warrior."

  "Not surprising. But why did he want to become a warrior?" That was the real question – why turn his back on his father's trade, why run the risk of ridicule? Warriors had status and prestige, but so did merchants, in their fashion.

  "I don't know," Neutemoc said. "As I said – Eptli was acidic, and not pleasant to be around. I can find better company."

  Could he, I wondered. Could he turn back time and get back to the easy camaraderie he'd shared with his companions before his disgrace? "I see. Anything else?"

  "People he had quarrels with?" Teomitl suggested. "Other than Chipahua." He tugged at his feather headdress, absent-mindedly. Mazatl tugged back with an impish grin on her face.

  "Hmm. The merchant, but you know that already. And Chipahua – they never liked each other, those two…" Neutemoc pursed his lips, looking uncannily like a younger version of Father. "I can't think of anyone else. You'll find most warriors knew Eptli, and disliked him, but I don't think anyone would be crazy enough to start an epidemic just to kill him."

  Mihmatini had been fidgeting for a while. At last she spoke up. "I don't think you have the right set of priorities, Acatl. Finding out who killed him is important, yes, but we need something else first. We need to know when and how he was contaminated, in order to stop the epidemic."

  "You think it's deliberate?" I said. I had a hard time believing that.

  "No. It looks like an accident. Not everyone is fluent with magic, especially not large spells like those. Anything that touches the integrity of the three souls needs to be powerful, and power can easily overstep the mark."

  "It's a costly accident," I said.

  "Precisely. That's why we need to find out what spell was used, and how it was cast. You can solve the murder afterwards. We need to prevent deaths."

  "I can do both," I said. "If we find who was responsible…"

  Mihmatini's gaze could have cut obsidian. "You don't understand. You need to flip your way of thinking. The contagion first, the culprit last. Otherwise…"

  "I know." Gods, when had my sister turned into Ceyaxochitl, her predecessor as Guardian? She had the same natural authority, and the tendency to want everyone to fall in line – too much hanging around Ceyaxochitl's former acquaintances, I guessed. "Fine," I said with a sigh. "Go see Ichtaca – he and my clergy will give you help with this."

  Mihmatini shook her head a fraction – placated, but not enough, I guessed. "You look healthy," she said, grudgingly. She closed her eyes, and I felt a spike of power enter the room: the soft, reassuring radiance of the Duality. "I can't see any sickness clinging to you or Teomitl. But all the same – you need to be more careful of what you do."

  "We weren't the only ones around the dead warrior," Teomitl said.

  "No, but that doesn't mean you can afford to ignore your protections. Epidemics are propagated by people who feel fine – who don't imagine for a minute that they could be carrying the sickness."

  "You don't know what the vector is," I said. "It might not even be people."

  "No, but I'd rather be careful."

  Neutemoc cleared his throat. "If you children are done with preening…"

  "You–" Mihmatini said, shaking her head in the pretence of being angry. But we all knew she wasn't – at least, not seriously.

  Afterwards, Teomitl and I sat in the courtyard, watching Metzli the moon pass overheard. The night was winding to a close, though the raucous sounds of banquets still made their way to our ears: flutes and drums, and the steady drone of elders' speeches – and the smell of fried maize, of amaranth and chillies, a distant memory of what we'd consumed.

  "What now?" Teomitl asked.

  "Get some sleep, I guess." Neutemoc had agreed to lend us a room for the night, though he hadn't been happy.

  Teomitl leaned further against the lone pine tree, watching the stars glittering overhead. "Acamapichtli–"

  "If we get an early start tomorrow, he probably won't have time to catch up." I didn't mention my other fear: that the reason he hadn't caught up with us yet was that he was busy with the epidemic – and that something else might have come up, in the hours we'd been away.

  FIVE

  Tlatelolco

  The night was short – too short, in fact. I woke up in a room I didn't recognise – and it took me a moment to remember I was in Neutemoc's house, and not in a room belonging to some parishioner, or in some quarters of the palace unknown to me. I made my devotions, drawing my worship-thorns through my ears to greet the Fifth Sun, and to honour my patron Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death.

  From outside came the familiar rhythm of pestle striking mortar – and another sound I couldn't quite place, a dull knock of wood on wood – but no, not quite either. I got up, and followed it to the courtyard – where I found Neutemoc and Teomitl sparring together. Their macuahitl swords, lengths of wood with embedded obsidian shards, were the ones making that odd noise, every time they crossed.

  "Men," Mihmatini said, with a snort. She'd raised her hair in the fashion of married women, piling it above her head to form two slight horns; but her dress still marked her as a Guardian. "They're going to be at it for a while. Come on, let's get breakfast."

  "I don't think–" I started.

  "There's always time."

  I didn't agree – I kept having this vision of the blue and white cloaks of Tlaloc's priests overrunning the courtyard, demanding to speak to us, to put every single one of us into enforced containment. By now, Acamapichtli was going to be in full flow – and knowing him and his natural antagonism for warriors, he would want to add Neutemoc's household to his list of potential sickness carriers.

  But Mihmatini looked in a mood to make water flow uphill, so I merely followed her into the reception room, where I hastily swallowed a bowl of maize porridge, before pronouncing myself ready to leave.

  By that time, Teomitl and Neutemoc had come back. Teomitl grabbed a handful of maize flatbreads, folded them deftly into a small package, and nodded. "We need to go," he said to Mihmatini.

  "Why?"

  Teomitl shook his head. "I'll tell you at the palace."

  "You'd better." Mihmatini grumbled, but she made no further objection.

  No, that was left to Neutemoc.

  As we left the courtyard, neither Teomitl nor I paid attention to him, beyond a simple goodbye gesture – and we all but jumped when he said, "Acatl."

  I turned. He wore a simple feather headdress, the plumes falling down on the nape of his neck; and the sunlight emphasized the small wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, making him older than he seemed, like some kind of family patriarch. "You're going to warn us."

  Neutemoc didn't have much of
a sense of humour, especially for grave matters. "Yes, I am."

  "Go ahead. I'm listening."

  He looked surprised. Did he expect me to ignore him? I would have, a year before. But things had changed, and he had to know that. "Look, Acatl. You're not in the army, so you don't have much information on how it's going."

  "I am, though," Teomitl said.

  Neutemoc stubbornly avoided his gaze. "The army is losing faith with Tizoc-tzin. The deaths of the council a few months ago were bad enough, but the campaign was just one series of setbacks after the other. Some of the higher-level warriors are still with him, some others are wavering. And some never had faith at all."

  I didn't ask him which of those categories he fitted into; neither, I noticed, did Teomitl. "And now the death of the warrior and a prisoner… it's a lot. You're going to have touchy people, and not only among the warriors."

  "The merchants?" I asked. They preceded the armies on campaigns, and followed them, too, gathering goods from newly conquered provinces.

  "Yes. Tensions everywhere," Neutemoc said. "It's a bad time for a priest to come barging in with questions." He raised a placatory hand. "I don't see you that way, but I'm your brother."

  I thought about it for a while. Being High Priest didn't make me exempt from the contempt of warriors for noncombatants – but then again, what choice did I have? "It's my calling," I said. "Making sure this stops before it becomes a threat to us all. Keeping the Fifth Sun in the sky, Grandmother Earth fertile. I don't have a choice."

  "I know." Neutemoc grimaced. "Nevertheless – Chicomecoatl walk ahead of you, brother. You're going to need Her luck."

  • • • •

  Mihmatini insisted on giving Teomitl and me amulets to protect against magical attacks. I had no idea how effective they were, but she had had a point on the previous night – much as I hated to admit it, she and Acamapichtli might be right. The last thing we needed was Teomitl and I carrying the sickness everywhere over Tenochtitlan.

  I left Mihmatini at my temple – the last I saw of her, she was in deep conversation about the epidemic with Ichtaca, my moon-faced second-in-command. He looked a little dazed, as if unsure of what had happened to him – he had expected her to be meek and compliant, like most women; criteria which had never applied to my sister – and even less now that she had become Guardian.

  Teomitl went back to the palace, to find the mysterious woman who had been visiting our prisoner, and I set out to see Yayauhqui, the merchant who had had such a blazing argument with Eptli.

  I'd thought that Yayauhqui would be from Pochtlan, like Eptli and his father, but he was unknown there. After spending a good hour enquiring from one blankfaced compound to another, I finally gave up. The man had been with the army and his return couldn't have passed unnoticed: therefore, the more probable explanation was that he wasn't from Tenochtitlan at all. That left Tlatelolco, our sister city to the north – where the largest market in the Anahuac valley congregated daily.

  I dared not take a boat from the temple docks, and in any case it wasn't far. I walked on foot through the canals, gave the Sacred Precinct a wide berth – and went on north, into the district of Cuopepan. Then north again, crossing the canals on foot – I stopped to buy water from a porter by a bridge, handing him a few cacao beans.

  At last, I reached the markers: the huge grey-stone cacti driven into the ground that marked the separation between Tenochtitlan and Tlalelolco. They were, by now, purely symbolic, since Tlalelolco's last Revered Speaker had perished in a short and messy war, eleven years before – putting the Tlatelocan merchants under the direct authority of the Mexica.

  I headed straight for the marketplace, reckoning that a merchant such as Yayauhqui wouldn't waste an opportunity for profit, even after having barely returned from the war.

  The marketplace of Tlatelolco was a city within the city, its stalls aligned in orderly rows according to the category of goods sold, so that there was one section for live animals and another for jewellery, and yet another for slaves. At this hour of the morning the crowd was out, humming and murmuring: friends greeting each other in the alleys; men out to pay a debt, loaded under the weight of the precious cloth-rolls; women entertaining themselves by watching an Otomi savage, who had descended from the hills to sell a few deer-hides. I wove my way through the crowd, making for the section of the market reserved for luxury goods.

  Everything dazzled: the merchandise was spread on coloured cloths, and encompassed everything from the vibrant feathers of the southlands, to gold and silver jewellery, to mounds of precious items such as turquoise and coloured shells.

  Behind one such stall, I found Yayauhqui. The merchant certainly believed in sampling his own merchandise: though his cloak was of sober cotton, he compensated by wearing jewels of translucent jade, from his necklace to the rings on his fingers. I'd expected a man running to fat; but he was still as lean as a well-toned warrior, his face as sharp as hacked obsidian, his eyes deeply sunk into his tanned face.

  The stall was full when I arrived – one serious buyer, engaged in negotiations with Yayauhqui, and dozens more who had come to stare at the wealth on display. When Yayauhqui saw me, though, he dismissed his buyer with a wave of his fingers, pointing to one of the two collared slaves who kept an eye on the merchandise. "See to the details with him. I have other business."

  If the buyer protested, I didn't hear it. Yayauhqui pulled himself to his feet without apparent effort, and bowed – very low, almost as a peasant would to the Revered Speaker. "The High Priest for the Dead. You honour my modest stall."

  I tore my gaze from the crowd gathered around it. "Not so modest."

  Yayauhqui laughed – briefly, without joy. "Perhaps not."

  "I need to speak to you," I said. "Privately."

  He shrugged. He didn't seem surprised. "Let's go somewhere quieter, then."

  We strolled out of the merchants' quarters, into the slave section – the slaves stood with their wooden collars, waiting resignedly for their purchasers – and then further on, outside of the market, into a quieter street bordering a small canal. There was only one old woman there, selling tamales. The smell of meat, chillies and beans wafted up, a pleasant reminder of the meal I'd had. I waited while Yayauhqui bargained for her to leave.

  He came back with a tamale in his hand – and a disarming shrug. "She didn't mind leaving while we had our conversation, but she insisted I buy some of the food. I don't suppose you're hungry."

  "I ate this morning," I said, spreading my hands.

  "Pity." Yayauhqui gazed speculatively at the tamale. "I hate to waste food. So, you're here because of Eptli."

  Taken aback by the abrupt change of subject, I said only, "News travels fast."

  "I'm not without friends in the army," Yayauhqui said. "I can't say I'm surprised to see officials here. I was expecting something a little more – energetic, shall we say?"

  His voice was low and cultured – the accents of the calmecac school unmistakable. Like Eptli, he'd have sat with future priests and warriors, learning the songs and the rituals, the dance of the stars in the sky – all things he might well have found useful in his travels to faraway lands.

  "It's only me for the moment. Though the others might not be long in catching up," I said.

  One corner of Yayauhqui's mouth twitched upwards. "You reassure me."

  I decided to take the offensive – or we'd still be standing there when the Fifth World collapsed. "If you were expecting me, then you know what I'm going to ask."

  Yayauhqui shook his head. "Please. My quarrel with Eptli was hardly a secret matter."

  "No," I said. "I was a little unclear on what it was about, though."

  "Eptli–" and, for a moment, his expression shifted, slightly, into something that might have been anger, that might have been disdain – "Eptli was a conceited fool. His father was elevated into the nobility – do you even imagine how rare that is, for merchants to be recognised that way?"

  "I can
imagine," I said. His sudden intensity frightened me.

  "I don't think you can." Yayauhqui's gaze took in my finery – the embroidered cloak, the feather headdress, the fine mask of smoothened bone – and he shook his head, contemptuously. "Anyway, Eptli's father is another matter. He might have moved out of Pochtlan entirely, but he still kept his ties with us. Never forgot to tell us when a child was born in his family, or to invite us to banquets. Never forgot to consult us for important decisions. Why, I attended Eptli's birth myself – of course, I was a youth at the time, barely returned from my first expedition."

  He didn't look young, not anymore, but he didn't look old, either: well-preserved, but there was something about him that bothered me, something I couldn't quite grasp even though it was right there in front of me.

  "So Eptli and you–"