“Anyway,” he mumbled ungratefully, “how did they find out what I was going to do? You must have told them!”
She stepped away from him, probably wishing she had let the hard limestone knock some sense into his skull after all. “It would serve you right if I did!” she cried indignantly. “You would keep boasting about having an edge over the others!”
Heron squirmed, either in pain or anger, but did not get up. Instead he turned his head to glare at the girl. “I knew it!” he snapped. “Who did you tell, you bitch? Was it Firstborn Son or Owl?”
I watched shock and hurt cross the girl’s features, making her blink in time to the young man’s words. “No, I...”
I decided I had heard enough. Strolling into the courtyard I said, deliberately loudly: “You’re absolutely sure it wasn’t the steward who poisoned you, then?”
The girl squealed and darted to one side. Heron gasped, squirmed again, and fell onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and soiled cloth.
I smiled at the girl. “I’m Yaotl. His great-uncle told me to find out what had happened.”
She stared at me through big, moist eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Did you tell anyone about the trick with the tube?”
“She must have done!” the young man protested, heaving himself back onto his seat. “How else did they know to put the mushrooms in that jar?”
“Oh, shut up,” I told him. I looked at the girl.
She did not lower her eyes. “No,” she replied firmly. “I didn’t, and I will eat earth.” She bowed down and touched the ground with a fingertip, then put it to her mouth, in the gesture that was an Aztec’s most sacred oath.
The young man was sitting up now, with his knees slightly apart, and seemed to be watching something fascinating on the ground between them. “It can’t have been Huitztic,” he said indistinctly. “He’s my pal. Keeps my great-uncle off my back — covers up for me when I’m out late. When the old man’s gone and I get my share of his lands, there’ll be something in it for old Huitztic — he knows that.”
“So he expects to profit from your advancement?”
“That’s it,” the youngster said eagerly. He looked up. “The old man told me you were a priest, so you know what winning that contest would mean, especially now that I’ve taken my first captive.” I wondered whether that had been arranged for him too. “Why would Huitztic want to screw it up for both of us?”
It made sense, I realized. I realized something else, too: My master was too shrewd not to know what was going on between his steward and his great-nephew. That was why I had been told to look into it with Huitztic. Old Black Feathers had not been able to think of any explanation for what had happened that did not implicate the steward, but he had not been able to work out what Huitztic’s motive for humiliating his great-nephew might have been either.
“So who else did you tell, apart from Precious Flower here?”
“I didn’t! And I’ll eat earth too, if you want!”
“Don’t bother. Just tell me about those two you mentioned — Owl and Firstborn Son. Who are they, young toughs like you?”
“That’s right. Thought they were my friends, too, but Owl in particular...” He shot a venomous look at the girl.
“What was I supposed to do?” she cried out, colouring. “He asked for me. I’m a pleasure girl, Heron, I’m not allowed to save myself for you, you know that!” And then, suddenly, she burst into tears. “It wasn’t me, really it wasn’t. I wouldn’t tell anyone, even though I was angry with you. And I was only angry because you kept boasting about what you were going to do!”
As she went to embrace him, and he allowed her to, I decided it was time to withdraw. I had learned all I was going to here, and I had seen enough of Heron’s smirking, winking face.
I decided it was time I paid a visit to the temple of the god of sacred wine.
To my surprise, the temple was deserted. As I approached its precinct I had to shoulder my way through the city’s usual evening crowd — traders taking unsold goods back from the marketplaces, youngsters going home from the Houses of Youth, labourers returning from the fields — but as soon as I was within the walls, all the bustle and noise was gone, replaced by a strange, echoing silence. The sudden change gave the place a forlorn air, added to by the way it had been left. Normally the flagstones would have been carefully swept, but not today. It did not appear to have been touched since the chaotic events of the previous afternoon. The large pottery jars stood where they had been put out for the dancers, mostly empty now but still filling the air around them with a stale, sour smell. On the ground around them were scattered the reeds, apparently lying where they had been dropped. Some were slightly flattened, probably squashed by the young men as they squabbled over them. Here and there a scrap of torn cloth or a severed sandal strap showed where a fight had broken out.
I had been hoping to find the head priest, Two Rabbit, here, but he was clearly not coming back today. I noticed that the brazier in front of the temple, which ought to have been permanently lit, had gone out. I wondered whether after what had happened, the priest was afraid that the gods might have withdrawn their favour. Maybe he thought the place was now unlucky. I remembered that Lord Feathered in Black had sent his serfs to taste the sacred wine that had been left in the pots, but presumably he did not care what curses he might bring down on their heads.
I shivered. I felt suddenly sick, not with fear but from the smell of all that sacred wine. Some of the old craving had returned, and I was glad the pots were empty, because my body had started telling me that what I needed at that moment was a drink.
“I’m wasting my time,” I muttered, kicking at the straws scattered at my feet. “I got nothing out of Heron and his girl, and there’s nothing here either. I still don’t even know how they managed to get the poison into that jar, never mind who did it.” For a few moments I pretended to look for clues, although I had no idea what I hoped to find: something that looked like powdered mushrooms, perhaps. I soon gave up in disgust.
“Nothing here,” I repeated. “Just fifty-two empty pots and two hundred and sixty straws no one could drink out of.” I thought about that. “No, two hundred and fifty-nine, of course.”
Then I thought about it again.
I looked at the straws scattered around me, now looking pale as bones in the gathering dusk. I whispered a curse, and then set to gathering them, scooping them up in handfuls and carrying them to a corner.
After I had taken a last look around to ensure that none had rolled away unnoticed, I began to count them.
By the time I had finished my task, sorting the reeds into thirteen neat piles, the light in the plaza was too poor to see by, and I was working by touch, stooping to put the last few straws in place. I finished the job in haste. Night and the things that haunted it frightened me less than they did most Aztecs — my priest’s training helped with that — but there was something about this place that unnerved me, making me feel as though I were being watched. I wanted to be done as soon as I could.
By the time I had finished, however, I knew how the chief minister’s great-nephew had been poisoned, and I could make a good guess at who might have done it. I had to smile as I thought about the trick: It was clever and somehow fitting.
I could feel my smile fading as I contemplated the report I would have to give my master. I remembered the vain young man I had seen arguing with the pleasure girl, Precious Flower, and wondered whether the person who had decided to teach him a lesson truly deserved whatever brutal punishment Lord Feathered in Black had in mind. But I could not see what I could do to prevent it without bringing the old man’s wrath down on my own head.