by Simon Levack
‘Xochimilco,’ I said quickly. I had already decided that it would be best if I pretended to be from out of town. To name a temple or Priest House within the city would have been too risky
‘Really? You sound as if you come from Tenochtitlan.’
I stared at him, momentarily dumbstruck, before I found the presence of mind to laugh. ‘Oh, doesn’t the whole valley, these days?’ I said casually. ‘Since Montezuma and his predecessors started sending their armies everywhere, we’ve all ended up talking like Aztec warriors. Let’s face it, half of us are probably descended from them by now! Now, what I came to ask was …’
‘It’s those robes, that’s what it is!’ he cried suddenly, as if he had just managed to put his finger on something that had been troubling him for a long time. ‘They look just like the ones the priests of Huitzilopochtli wear!’
‘They … they … they probably do. Where I come from, we have to send a score of these robes to the Heart of the World every year as tribute, so we end up dressing our own priests in seconds that look just like them.’ If nothing else, I thought, as I looked down at my clothes, I had found out which god the man I had ambushed had served. ‘Now, as I was saying …’
‘Oh, that explains it!’ He laughed. ‘Forgive me, but the bloody Tenochca, they think they own the World. I expect you know that down in Xochimilco. You know what they did to Tlatelolco? Some petty squabble broke out between some of their merchants and the women in our marketplace and the next thing anybody knew there was an army in here.’
This was for the benefit of the ignorant foreigner I was pretending to be. No one from either part of Mexico would have needed reminding that Tlatelolco had once been an independent kingdom until Montezuma’s father Axayacatl had conquered it, less than forty years before. Even now, Tenochtitlan ruled with an unusually heavy hand. Most tributary towns were allowed to keep their own kings, but our emperors had never dared take that risk with Tlatelolco: it was too close and too powerful, and so had a military governor instead.
‘It’s the same for us,’ I said. ‘The Emperor says “frog” and we end up jumping around after the slippery little buggers so that we can send to him as tribute.’ I had no idea whether live frogs, or for that matter priests’ costumes, were part of Xochimilco’s tribute, but then I was sure the priest had no idea either and it sounded plausible enough. ‘One of these days someone will come along and teach them a lesson.’
A short, uncomfortable silence followed. We were a lowly priest raging powerlessly against a force his elders had long ago come to terms with and a slave pretending to be a foreigner and denouncing his own people, and not much liking it. Neither of us was particularly keen to prolong the topic.
Suddenly my host slapped his thigh. ‘But I’m being so rude! I haven’t given you anything to eat or drink, or asked you your name or why you’re here!’
I opened my mouth to answer, but he was on his feet before I had time to think of yet another pseudonym. A moment later he was back with a dish of the steamed maize cakes called tamales, which he placed carefully in front of me.
‘Thank you,’ I said, as I reached quickly for one of the little round cakes. ‘This looks splendid.’ As my fingers brushed the food I reflected that this was as true of the dish as of what it contained. It was an oval plate, standing on three little stubby legs, which a craftsman had fashioned so that one half formed a bowl for the sauce, and which he or another equally skilled had finished off with an intricate, many-coloured pattern that followed the contours of the vessel exactly.
‘The plate’s from Chalco,’ my host confirmed, as if he had read my thoughts. ‘A gift from a grateful parishioner.’
‘I envy you.’ I spoke between mouthfuls. ‘My people can’t afford to give me anything more than lizards and grasshoppers.’
‘The featherworkers do well for themselves. Now, you were going to tell me …’
‘I’ve been touring the city,’ I said hastily. ‘We wanted to learn more about how you Aztecs worship the gods. We thought you must be doing something right, since they have made your city the most powerful in the World. So I’ve been sent to look around some of your temples, talk to priests like you …’
I watched him carefully, trying to penetrate his pitch-black mask with my eyes in case his face gave any clue as to whether he believed me or not.
To my surprise, he laughed softly. ‘You would have learned all you needed to from the priests of Huitzilopochtli, the Tenochcas’ war-god! His people have conquered the World in his name. Why bother coming here? Still, I suppose our craftsmen here in Amantlan do well enough. People will always need feathers, and men and women who know how to work with them, won’t they?’
‘Exactly!’ I cried eagerly. ‘Now, that is just what I wanted to know about. We know that no one will ever beat the Aztecs in war, and so we don’t hope to learn much from the priests of their war-god. But if your god has helped your people to riches, that’s something we would definitely be interested in.’
I took another of the tamales, swirling it thoughtfully in the sauce before taking a bite, while I studied my host and pondered the questions I wanted to ask him.
‘The featherworkers are very attentive to Coyotl Inahual,’ he acknowledged proudly. ‘We do our best to anticipate their wants. We’re always on hand whenever a sacrifice has to be made and the god’s wishes interpreted. It’s important to keep a close eye on your parish, I always think, and understand the people whose god you serve.’
‘So,’ I said casually, ‘you know the people around here pretty well. You must be in and out of their houses, and so on.’
‘Of course.’ Suspicion made his voice gruff and his manner formal. He looked away from me and pulled his hands inside his cloak as if to protect them. It made him look as if he were huddling against the cold, although his courtyard was sheltered and warm. Plainly I was asking too many questions for his liking. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just that you must know all the featherworkers. The famous ones, I mean. We’re great admirers of your featherwork in Xochimilco, you know. We can’t make anything like what your people make in Amantlan, of course, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate it.’ I tilted my head up in a gesture that I hoped conveyed the right mixture of admiration and pride, as though I wanted him to know that we poor rustics were capable of recognizing quality when we saw it.
‘I know everybody,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘Everyone in the parish comes here, and I have to go to their houses from time to time, to consecrate a feast in the name of Coyotl Inahual.’ I had to bite my tongue to stop myself laughing. Consecrating a feast was a good way for a priest to ensure he got a square meal at someone else’s expense.
‘So,’ I said eagerly, ‘you must actually have met men like … well, like Skinny and Angry?’
‘I have,’ he said. ‘What of it?’
‘What of it?’ I echoed. ‘Two of the greatest artists that ever lived? You know it’s said they’re really Toltecs, come back to life to teach us how it should be done?’
I was playing the role of the naive tourist for all it was worth. It was a wild claim I had made. The Toltecs were an ancient race who had died out many bundles of years before we Aztecs had settled in the valley, but we clung to their ideals: their buildings, their wisdom, above all their art. I had never been altogether sure what it was about Toltec art that made it so untouchable, especially by featherworkers. The loveliest plumes, including the matchless feathers of the quetzal, had never been seen in the valley of Mexico until the merchants had begun bringing them back when I was a child, and so I knew the Toltecs had never used them, but I supposed they must have had the skill to turn heron and turkey feathers into something magical. All Aztecs took it for granted that this ancient people had achieved things that we could never aspire to.
‘I dare say people say that. What’s it to you?’
‘What are these men like?’
He stared at me for a long time. It was impossi
ble to tell what he was making of my enquiries. I could see his cloak billowing as his hands moved underneath it, perhaps clasping and unclasping nervously while he tried to make up his mind whether my questions had a point or whether I was just a harmless lunatic.
At length he decided, and his hands emerged from the cloak, one of them reaching automatically for the last maize cake, which I had diplomatically left on the plate between us, as he relaxed. I had, after all, been dismissed as a madman. I felt pleased with myself. I had counted on one of the few things that, for all our differences, the Tlatelolca and the Tenochca had in common: the conviction that all foreigners were stupid.
‘Angry’s a mosaic man, probably the best maker of screens and shields we ever had. Skinny mainly works with thread and frame. Warrior costumes, headdresses, fans, banners, and so on. Worked, I should say,’ he added, correcting himself. ‘Skinny hasn’t been heard from much in the last few years.’
‘Why’s that?’
The man shuffled uncomfortably, obviously wondering whether he had said too much. ‘Steady on! You really expect me to share my devotee’s problems with a stranger? Look, I don’t how it is with the priests where you come from, but men and women come to me in confidence. I may not be quite like the priests of the Filth Goddess, hearing confessions and sworn to secrecy and all that, but if I’m to intercede with the god and make offerings then I have to know what the trouble is, and people have to be able to trust me. I don’t know what you’re about, but I think you’re asking too much.’
I lowered my eyes. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘You’re absolutely right, of course. It’s the same with us. I should have realized. It was just that when you said Skinny hadn’t been heard of in years I was curious about what happened to him.’
He seemed to relax a little. ‘I suppose you would be. But what can I say? It was always difficult for him. Do you know – I don’t think this is a secret – he isn’t an Amantecatl by birth at all?’ I raised my eyebrows in what I hoped was an expression of surprise. ‘He comes from some filthy bog at the northern edge of the city. He was adopted into one of our families.’
‘Is that usual?’
‘No, not at all. But his mother – sorry, his mother here, I mean – she was barren, and her husband had no one to pass on his craft to – no son, and as it happened no brothers or nephews either. He was in despair at one time because he thought his work was going to die with him, but then this lad turned up, with his ideal day sign and a god-given gift for craftsmanship.’
‘That was lucky,’ I said sceptically.
‘It was. I gather it was some merchant who sorted it all out, because he happened to know both families. That’s not uncommon between merchants and featherworkers – we’re neighbours and do a lot of business together and go back a long way. A pity he couldn’t have done something with Skinny’s brother, too … well, never mind. I don’t know what the connection with Skinny’s real parents would have been.’
I kept my face very still. I could guess exactly what the connection might have been, and for that matter who the merchant was, but once more it would not have done to say so. ‘You said it was difficult for him?’
‘Skinny wasn’t exactly a baby when he was adopted. He picked the craft up easily enough, but he struggled at the Priest House. A loner, had trouble mixing with the lads who’d grown up here and known all their lives what their future was going to be. Sensitive type. He took setbacks and criticism hard, especially after he came out of the House of Tears. It ended up that he wouldn’t talk about his work or show it to anyone unless he thought it was perfect, and in the end I suppose it just got too much for him. He couldn’t go on.’
‘Which meant he had nothing to live on, I suppose,’ I commented.
‘True. He got more and more desperate. He tried everything. At one time I had him up here almost every day, sacrificing to the god, pleading with him for inspiration. He was drinking a lot of sacred wine, although he knew the penalties, and he tried mushrooms, and he even got married!’
I just stared.
He looked up then. ‘Look, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. If you’re off back to Xochimilco or whatever desolate hole you say you come from, then I don’t suppose it matters anyway But that’s how desperate Skinny was. He never showed much interest in women – I don’t mean to say he was interested in men or boys or anything else, in that way – he lived for what he did. But something made him think marrying that girl would help.’
‘You mean …’ I had to choke back her name. So far as the priest was concerned I had never heard of Butterfly.
‘He came to me once, with tears in his eyes, and asked me if he was doing the right thing, if I thought the gods would restore his abilities to him. He thought maybe Tezcatlipoca resented him for spurning the chance to become a father.’ Tezcatlipoca, the Lord of the Here and Now, was the god who chose whether to grace a woman’s womb with children. ‘What I could say?’ The priest laughed once, briefly, a sound like a small dog with a bone stuck in its throat. ‘I’m a priest – well, so are you. You know how much use we are where women are concerned!’ I could only agree: my own experience with women, both when I really had been a priest and afterwards, had been less than happy
He sighed. ‘The girl’s family had already hired a soothsayer to check that their birthdays were compatible, of course, as anybody would, so there wasn’t much I could tell him about that. I just said treat her well and hope for the best. And told him not to let her know why he was marrying her, if he valued his sanity!’
‘And did it help?’ I asked.
‘What, my advice? I doubt it!’
‘No, I mean the marriage – did it help him to work?’
‘Oh.’ He pursed his lips thoughtfully ‘I suppose it must have done, in the end. Something did. I know he was working on something big the last time he came to see me, anyway. Some private commission.’
‘Who from?’ I asked automatically, and regretted it instantly: from the parish priest’s point of view this was clearly none of my business.
But he grinned in response. He could not resist answering my question, because it gave him a chance to utter the one name that he knew would register, even with a foreigner, because it was known and feared throughout the World.
‘Montezuma.’
2
After I left the priest’s lodging I stood in the plaza of his temple for a few moments, turning over in my mind everything I had seen and heard that morning and trying to decide what to do next.
I was tempted to go straight back to Pochtlan and spend the rest of the day scouring the parish’s streets for any sign of my son, but I knew it would be futile. The Otomies were looking for us both. If Nimble stayed in plain sight for long enough for me to find him then the captain would be sure to get to him first. The only way I could hope to reach him was to trace his movements, starting on the night the costume was taken and the knife used. Reluctantly, I admitted to myself that Kindly had been right: I had to find his property, because it was the key to finding my son. That task would be easier now: thanks to the priest of Amantlan and his acolyte, I now knew for certain that Skinny had lied when he denied all knowledge of the costume, and that whoever had taken it was involved in Idle’s murder. I resolved to confront the featherworker, overawe him in my disguise as a priest, and force him to admit the truth.
Fear gripped me as I set off for Atecocolecan, and I could not shrug it off. I could deal with Skinny and his wife, but now I knew there was someone else in the background whose terrible presence was going to overshadow everything I did until the work he had commissioned was returned to him. Sweat broke out on my forehead, threatening to make my sooty disguise run as I thought about the most powerful man on Earth, a man who could end my life as quickly or slowly as he chose with a casual word: the Emperor of Mexico, Montezuma.
‘You stupid, greedy old bastard,’ I muttered, imagining Kindly chortling over the costume he had bought. ‘What have you got us into now?’
>
If Butterfly was at all disconcerted by the sight of a strange priest in her doorway, asking for her husband, she did not show it.
‘He’s not here,’ she said shortly. ‘I don’t know when he’ll be back.’
Her hair was unbound, as it had been when I had seen her before. It fell over her shoulders and bare arms in dark, glossy waves, and had certainly been combed that morning. Her eyes shone and her skin had the pale yellow tinge of ochre. It looked so soft and deep that I felt a wild urge to stretch a hand towards her cheek just to see if its surface yielded to my touch. For a moment I was too taken aback to speak. A woman whose brother-in-law had died just three days before should be in deep mourning. I would have expected red-rimmed eyes and tangled, split and matted hair, not the glow of skilfully applied cosmetics.
‘What do you want?’
‘I have to talk to him about his brother.’
Suddenly she giggled. She took a step back, reaching for a door post for support as laughter threatened to overwhelm her. Her teeth flashed at me. They were as perfectly white as when they had first broken through her gums.
‘I know your name! You’re that slave, Joker, who was here a couple of days ago! You’re from what’s-his-name, the merchant, Kindly.’ She puckered her forehead with the innocent curiosity of a little girl asking her mother how it was that embroidery threads came in so many colours. ‘Why are you dressed like a priest?’
I wanted to swear. My disguise obviously fooled no one who had met me even once before. I toyed with the idea of simply running away, hoping to get clean out of the city before she raised a hue and cry, but then I forced myself to think.
If the girl had thought I had killed her brother-in-law, she would be screaming her throat raw, not laughing. Probably, I reasoned, nobody had bothered to tell her I was suspected of the murder. There were some households – my parents’ was one, and I had no doubt that Lily’s was another – where you kept the women in the dark at your peril. In most, though, a woman’s world was bounded by the walls of her courtyard and her interests and knowledge were expected to begin and end there. There was no reason to suppose that Butterfly, a young girl whose husband had apparently only married her because of some whimsical notion that she would bring him inspiration, would be let into men’s talk.
