Naamah's Blessing - By Jacqueline Carey Page 0,118

“That is a flaw in your plan.”

“They had no reason not to!” Pochotl defended himself. He gestured at the campsite. “In their eyes, I would have given them a great gift!”

“No,” Eyahue said as slowly as though he were speaking to a dim-witted child. “In their eyes, you would have proved yourself an oath-breaker unworthy of trust. It is likely they would have killed us rather than take any chances. That is why a pochteca’s word of honor is so important. Trade is built on trust. I am sorry you never understood this.” He glanced at me. “The Cloud People attacked us. They will not hold us to blame for their defeat, and I do not believe they will try again.” He nodded at Temilotzin. “You may kill him now.”

Obligingly, the spotted warrior raised his club.

“Wait!” I pleaded once more. Temilotzin sighed and lowered his club. I turned to Pochotl. “You said you found someone among the Cloud People who had seen Prince Thierry’s party on the road. Was that true?”

Pochotl gave me a flat stare. “No,” he said. “I lied.”

“Now may I kill him?” Temilotzin asked in a tone of long-suffering patience.

I thought of Edouard Durel held under guard in Orgullo del Sol. He had betrayed us as surely as Pochotl had, but gods willing, he would be returned to Terre d’Ange to bear witness against Claudine de Barthelme and her son. He would be tried fairly in a court of law, and mayhap even granted some form of clemency for cooperating.

Executing a man in cold blood was not a deed that sat well with me.

But Pochotl had betrayed us; and if his plan had succeeded, there was no chance we would have survived. The Cloud People would have crept into our camp and bludgeoned us to death in our sleep. Pochotl had slit poor Clemente DuBois’ throat with his own hand, and five other men were dead because of his treachery. He had disobeyed the Nahautl Emperor’s direct order.

By the implacable looks on Eyahue and Temilotzin’s faces, I could see that there was no sparing him.

“Yes,” I said to the latter. “You may.”

The Jaguar Knight hoisted his obsidian-studded club. “You may wish to stand back,” he warned us. “This will be messy.”

The rest of us retreated a few paces.

Pochotl stood unmoving, his expression stoic. Temilotzin swung his macahuitl club in one hard, level blow at the fellow’s neck. The edges of the obsidian flakes lining his club may have been brittle, but they were razor-sharp. His strike sheared Pochotl’s head clean away from his body. The head bounced and rolled on the plain, while blood jetted in a crimson geyser from the stump of his neck. The headless body remained upright for the space of a few heartbeats before crumpling to the ground.

Denis de Toluard turned away and vomited.

I would have liked to do the same, but I fought against the surge of nausea, swallowing bile and struggling to keep my face expressionless. Temilotzin gave me an approving look, then clapped Denis on the shoulder. “Your stomach will grow stronger in time,” he assured him, then stooped to pick up Pochotl’s head by its long black hair. “Do you want him buried with the others, old man?” he asked Eyahue.

The old pochteca regarded his nephew’s disembodied head with disgust. “No,” he said. “Leave him to the scavengers.”

We did.

FORTY-FIVE

In the wake of our first battle, once the worst of the aftermath had been dealt with, I found I had a rebellion on my hands.

Alain Guillard, the hotheaded Azzallese baron’s son who had bunked in one of the wardroom’s cabins aboard Naamah’s Dove with us, was arguing that we should turn back; and he’d convinced at least three others.

“This was madness from the beginning!” he railed. “What in Elua’s name were we thinking, any of us?”

“I was thinking I abandoned some of my dearest friends and the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange to their fate!” Denis de Toluard retorted with unexpected force. “And that I’d been given a chance to redeem myself!”

“That’s your burden, Denis,” Alain said in a remorseless tone. “I didn’t.”

“Be glad I carry it!” Denis shouted at him. “It gives me nightmares until I can’t sleep at night!” He jerked his chin at the waiting common grave dug into the earth and the line of D’Angeline dead nearby, stripped of their armor. “If it didn’t, we’d all be like them!”

“And so we all will sooner or later!” Alain shouted back at him. He gestured savagely in my direction.