Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,15

aback, but not surprised. Teomitl had absolutely no sense of humour when his face and his heart were questioned, or his reputation cast in doubt.

Better stop this before it went too far. Given the tense atmosphere of the palace, I had no intention of explaining why my student had attacked two guards. “Teomitl.”

He lifted his eyes – ageless, cruel, malicious – towards me. “They’re wasting our time with lies.”

”Yes,” I said, carefully. “I think dismissing them would be enough, don’t you? There’s been a lot of blood shed.”

For a moment I saw not him but Jade Skirt in the murky reflections within his eyes, in the way he seemed to grow taller. “There is never enough blood, priest,” She whispered, Her gaze piercing my flesh, holding me squirming like a fish on a pike. Distant, rhythmic voices whispering in my mind, like songs through underwater caves and then She left, the divinity draining out of Teomitl like water through a pierced vessel.

If I was shocked for a moment, and had to pause to recover my breath, it was nothing compared to the guards. The colour had gone from their faces, leaving them as white as sacrifice victims or drowned bodies.

The veteran looked from his colleague to Teomitl, and finally spat on the ground. “Who cares about her?” he said. “She’s not even Mexica. It was Xahuia-tzin, my Lord. She asked us.”

Xahuia was one of Axayacatl-tzin’s oldest wives, the daughter of Nezahualcoyotl, former ruler of our neighbour Texcoco, given to the Mexica Revered Speaker in marriage to cement the Triple Alliance. Her father had been a canny politician, and he had no doubt taught her all she would need to survive at Court. I was a fool; I had been so obsessed on imagining foreigners within the city that I had forgotten the most obvious, those already in the palace.

”What did she want?” I asked.

”An interview with Ocome,” the veteran said, cautiously. “She had an offer to make.”

”And she asked you?” Teomitl’s voice was contemptuous.

The burly guard, still visibly shaken, said, “Xahuia-tzin wanted us to let her inside, and leave her alone with him. She said he wouldn’t dare throw her out if she could find her way into his rooms, that turning her away at the door was one matter, but once inside, she’d have enough time to speak to him.”

I didn’t ask what Xahuia had wanted to speak to him about; it was obvious. Ocome, as Teomitl had said, was small and insignificant, a failure by his family’s standards, except now, at the one moment when his opinion would make a difference.

”So Xahuia came here,” I said. “And you left?” The body had been discovered in the middle of the night, around the Hour of Lord Death; but the death could have occurred well before that.

The guards glanced at each other. “Yes, soon after nightfall. She said she’d warn us when she was done.”

And they hadn’t returned until the She-Snake sought them out, which made a good four hours unaccounted for. Four hours left unguarded.

By their gazes, they knew they’d made a mistake; and I didn’t need to tell them. I wondered how much Xahuia had offered, what riches she’d turned their heads with. And why she’d wanted them away, at all costs. What was it that she’d done, that warranted total privacy?

The answer seemed obvious, a little too much so.

”I see,” I said.

”About the dismissal–” the burly guard started, but the veteran cut him off.

”There is something else you should know, my Lord.”

I wasn’t quite sure if he’d addressed me or Teomitl; but Teomitl was the one who reacted fastest, inclining his head towards the man in a grave, regal fashion. The feathers of his headdress bent, like hundreds of birds bowing at the same time. “What is it?” he asked.

”He was a man much in demand,” the veteran said. His lips curled into a smirk. “Many people came to see him, the other councilmen, Tizoc-tzin, Quenami-tzin, and Acamapichtli-tzin.”

The Master of the House of Darts, and my two peers. Not much surprise here.

”There were envoys, too,” the veteran said. “They came two or three times, and they didn’t look very friendly.”

”What envoys?”

”They had blackened faces, and heron-feathers spread in a circle around their heads. It was silent inside when they came.” He paused, and smiled without much amusement. “I imagined they didn’t find it necessary to talk much.”

”Intimidation?” Teomitl asked. The wrath of his protector

Jade Skirt was creeping back into his features. Had the boy learnt nothing in