Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,45
in a peasant’s hut in the Floating Gardens.” I hated politics, but I could see the shape of the game, all too clearly.
Yaotl watched me for a while, and relented. “Fine. But if you’re not here at the Hour of the Earth Mother, my men and I will go in regardless.”
• • • •
For once, I was lucky. Manatzpa and Echichilli were both in the council room, going over some papers.
”See, the province of Cuahacan hasn’t delivered their tribute of jaguar pelts,” Manatzpa was saying.
”I think it was waived this year,” Echichilli said, his wrinkled face creased in thought. “Let me see…” He reached for some of the other papers in the pile, and stopped when I entered in a tinkle of bells. “Acatl-tzin?”
He looked up when I came in, genuinely surprised. “Acatl-tzin?”
”We need your help,” I said.
”Our help?” Manatzpa sounded sceptical.
”I know who poisoned Ceyaxochitl.”
”That’s a grave accusation,” Echichilli said. “Do you have evidence?”
”Yes.” I outlined, briefly, what had led us to this.
When I finished, Echichilli did not look satisfied. “It’s scant. Too scant.”
”The Guardian was poisoned,” I said.
”But if you’re wrong… It will mean war with Texcoco.”
”I know.” I wanted to scream, but I had more decorum than that. “But we can’t let that kind of thing go unpunished. Otherwise, who knows what else might happen?”
Echichilli looked at Manatzpa for a while. At length, the younger councillor set aside his writing reed. “I think it’s enough,” he said. “It’s a presumption, to be sure, but we can find a way to apologise if it doesn’t turn out the right way. The presence of a strong sorcerer inside the palace at this juncture is enough to be suspicious.”
”You were always good with words.” Echichilli sounded sad. “See how we can tear ourselves apart.”
”I wasn’t the one who started.” Manatzpa sounded angry. He rose, wrapping his cloak around his shoulders. “I’ll go with you, Acatl-tzin.”
He and Echichilli both looked polished and clean, their ornaments from embroidered cloaks to feather-headdresses impeccable, suited to attending the imperial presence. Manatzpa himself would be all but useless in a fight, merely giving us his support, but little else.
I needed Teomitl. “We’ll need to collect someone first,” I said.
The palace was a big place, and it seemed even bigger when searching for someone. We headed straight to Teomitl’s rooms, a small courtyard by the side of where Tizoc-tzin was holding court, where the entrance-curtain fluttered orange in the breeze, the same colour as Teomitl’s cloak. Unlike Tizoc-tzin’s, the room was on the ground floor, but then, Teomitl had never cared overmuch about pomp. He applied his own exacting standards to himself, and the opinions of his peers mattered little to him.
At least, that was what I’d thought before Tizoc-tzin started teaching him.
”Teomitl?”
No answer came from within. I’d expected guards, or at the very least a slave, but nothing moved beyond the curtain. I debated whether to enter, and finally settled for silently drawing the curtain aside, to make sure that Teomitl was not sleeping inside.
I had been in the courtyard outside those rooms, but in the year I’d taught him Teomitl had never invited me inside. The room was decorated with rich frescoes in vivid colours, depicting our ancestors in Aztlan, the fabled heartland of Huitzilpochtli’s strength. Fish and leaping frogs filled water as clear as that of a spring, and little figures withdrew nets under the gaze of the god and of His mother Coatlicue, a wizened, harsh-looking woman wearing a dress of woven rattlesnakes, her large breasts obscured by a necklace of human hands and hearts.
The furniture, however, was at odds with the wealth of the decoration. A single, thin reed mat lay in the furthest corner, turned yellow by age. A stone box, a shallow vessel in the shape of an eagle, a three-legged clay pot with a chipped rim and two worn wicker chests completed the furniture. It would have seemed almost unlived in, save for the three grass balls pierced through with bloody thorns.
Carefully, I released the curtain; I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed at discovering more of Teomitl’s intimacy that he’d ever revealed to me.
Well, he was not here, that was certain. Where in the Fifth World could he have hidden himself?
I cast a hesitant glance towards the south, where the redtinged silhouette of Tizoc-tzin’s chambers towered over Teomitl’s small courtyard. Could he be at Court with his brother? If that was the case, we were lost. I couldn’t risk coming back, not on such stakes.