The Demon of the Air (23 page)

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Authors: Simon Levack

BOOK: The Demon of the Air
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“The boy knows, yes,” she conceded. “I'm not sure about his father.”
I frowned. “I don't understand how that can be. Anything you told Nimble would get straight back to Curling Mist, surely?”
“I'm not sure,” she said thoughtfully. “Look, this is what happened. After I saw Nimble at the ball court, on Four Vulture, the day you were attacked and brought here, I went to the marketplace. I'd left a young cousin of ours in charge of one of our pitches and I wanted to make sure everything was all right. You spoke to him, I think.”
“The boy selling feathers? Yes, I did.”
“Nimble caught up with me there after the game ended. He was quite flustered. He said he'd seen you at the ball court, and that you were looking for me. He wanted me to be sure to inform him if I saw you. As if I needed telling!”
I smiled grimly. “And you've been faithfully reporting on me ever since.” Bitterness welled up in me then, forcing me to add: “I suppose you went to him this morning, didn't you, and told him all about last night? Was that what you had in mind—getting me to whisper my secrets in your ear on the sleeping mat so you could run straight to that boy with them?”
“No!” She recoiled as if I had just struck her. “No, it wasn't like that! It was …” She lowered her voice. “You know what it was.”
“I know what it sounded like! I should have known better, shouldn't I?”
“How dare you!” She was so angry she was spitting. “What do
you think I am? Do you think I'd give myself to any serf or slave just to hear the filthy details of some squalid fling with a pleasure girl in the marketplace?”
I said nothing for a moment. I did not know whether I dared believe her, but then I thought that it hardly mattered anyway, since there was no question of my staying here. My own anger failed in the face of hers. After everything that had happened to me I had little enough left of pride, and what there was was hardly worth fighting over.
“I'm sorry,” I mumbled. “I just thought … it's been so long, you see …” I sighed wearily. “You were telling me about the boy and his father.”
She frowned and bit her lower lip. “There's something going on between them. I don't know what it is, but it was the last thing Nimble said to me. He told me to watch out. He said he never meant for anyone to get hurt, but he didn't think he knew how to stop it any more.”
And just a little while before, in the ball court, the youth had said much the same thing to me: how he had not thought his father would go so far as to have Shining Light's Bathed Slave killed on the pyramid, and how he had not known of the body in the canal. At the time I had dismissed his words out of hand; but he had quarreled with his father over me in the marketplace, and there had been that strange incident on the lake as well, when he had seen me in the water and said nothing.
“I had the feeling,” Lily went on, “that the boy was afraid of something, because he kept looking over his shoulder all the time. I wondered if it was his father.”
“Curling Mist was close enough,” I said, “along with that knife of his. He's crazy, isn't he? The boy would be right to be afraid. It doesn't explain why he tried to save me, though, or why his father wants me dead.”
The explanation struck me before the words were out of my mouth. When I saw it, all the muscles in my face went loose, my eyes widened and my mouth fell open, and it was only afterward that I noticed I was staring past the woman at nothing like a slack-jawed imbecile.
“Yaotl?” she asked, alarmed. “What is it?”
“Oh, Quetzalcoatl,” I said softly, vainly invoking the god of wisdom, “I've been such an idiot!”
“What's the matter? What are you talking about?”
“Young Warrior!”
“What about him?”
“That's who he is! Of course!” I groaned. “My enemy—who else would hate me enough to want me dead?” I put my hand to my forehead and drew it down over my eyes as though clearing them of something that had obscured my vision, like cobwebs. “Young Warrior and Curling Mist are the same man!”
It was Lily's turn to stare. “I don't understand—I thought you said Young Warrior had left years ago—before you were thrown out of the Priest House.”
“He did. He must have come back. But it makes such perfect sense—he disguises himself as a priest because that's what he used to be; and because under all that soot he could be anybody, so there's no chance of me or any of his other contemporaries recognizing him. It explains why he wanted you to find out how I left the Priest House, and about Maize Flower. He's obsessed—and he really hates me, enough to want to kill me with his own hands.”
“So why doesn't his son want you dead as well?”
“I don't know. Perhaps he just doesn't hate me as his father does. Perhaps he thinks it's all getting out of control.” There was another possibility, I knew, but the moment it occurred to me I felt the horror again, the chasms opening up around me, the accusing voice calling my name.
I could not bring myself to name that possibility out loud, but Lily did.
“Or perhaps he thinks he's your own.”
“No,” I said instantly, and as firmly as I could for the trembling that had come over me. “No, I don't believe it. Maize Flower told me the child wasn't mine—she said that, remember? And Young Warrior took her with him. He'd never have done that if she was carrying another man's child.
“He's not mine. He can't be. He's not!”
 
Lily stared at her hands resting in her lap and I munched my tortilla absently.
The woman broke the silence by reminding me that I had not told her what I intended to do now.
“Go away, I suppose,” I said dully. “When I came looking for you it was to give you a message for your son, but that was when I thought I was fit enough to take my enemies on. Now I need somewhere to hide from them. It's too dangerous to stay here.”
“I know.” Lily had the good grace to sound regretful.
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
“I have to see the young man again,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “I'll have to tell him what you've told me—about the pleasure girl and leaving the Priest House, I mean, not the rest. I hope …” She faltered, took a deep breath and carried on: “I hope it's enough to get Shining Light back. They can't keep him forever, surely?”
I took a sip of water and watched her over the rim of my bowl. She looked tired, and as long as her son was away she was not allowed to disguise the deep shadows under her eyes with makeup. I wondered how much sleep she had had since he had been gone. I had seen her in so many moods in such a short time, I thought: proud, kindly, passionate, angry, distraught.
I remembered her father's warning not to mention her son's tastes. I sighed, realizing that if what I suspected was true then I was going to have to make her angry again. I had no choice, however: I had to know.
“What exactly is your son's relationship with Curling Mist?”
Her expression froze.
“What do you mean?”
“I know your merchandise was taken to his warehouse. Your father told me.”
Lily let out a long shuddering breath. “Curling Mist convinced Shining Light it would be the ideal place to hide our stock. No one would ever know where it was, he said. I told the boy he was a fool, but he's a man: it was his decision. He wouldn't listen to me, and my father wouldn't intervene. And he owed the man so much money. Now—it's like living on sufferance. I don't know where this warehouse is. Shining Light couldn't tell me—he doesn't know where it is himself! I just used to hope my son and Curling Mist didn't fall out and Curling Mist would let us have enough of our own property to live on. Now, though …”
“Are Shining Light and Curling Mist lovers?”
I was not prepared for what she did next. Suddenly she was across the room with her hand in my hair and wringing it so savagely that I spat a mouthful of bread on the floor.
“Don't you dare ask me that! Never, ever! Do you understand?”
“Yes!” Pain and surprise forced tears from my eyes.
She twisted the hand in my hair still further. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, I told you, yes!”
She let go. “Just remember what's at stake for us. Shining Light and I were honored for his father's sake, but that's all over now, since … well, you know what's happened. And now that parasite, Curling Mist, has got his hands on my son and our wealth, all we have left is trade, and until Shining Light's back and can go abroad there's precious little of that. If anyone outside my family ever hears that my son is … my son is a …” She swallowed, unable to say the word. “You know what would happen. If he showed his face in the city he would be burned alive and I would never be allowed to trade again.” Lily put her face very close to my face then, close enough that her breath on my cheek felt like a kiss, and hissed: “I will kill to prevent that, do you hear me?”
She resumed her place in the corner. I took one last tentative bite at the tortilla she had given me, but although I chewed and swallowed it dutifully I found I had lost my appetite.
Y
ou're restless today.”
I had come out to sit against the fig tree but could not relax. Instead I tried to loosen up my limbs by walking around the edge of the courtyard.
Kindly felt no need of exercise.
“I wish you'd go and do that somewhere else,” he complained, “or at least walk round the other way. You're making me dizzy!”
I turned around to limp in the opposite direction. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Constant hurrying toward the street entrance.
“Why don't you have a drink?”
I surprised myself by refusing. “I need to think.”
“Suit yourself.”
My head was still full of the memories that had been stirred up over the last two days. Ever since they had abducted me, I had known that Nimble, at least, wanted me to tell him something, and that Curling Mist wanted me dead, but had not known why. Now I thought I could see why: if Curling Mist really was Young Warrior, and blamed me for his exile all those years ago, then he might well hate me. If Nimble was Maize Flower's child, perhaps he wanted to find out what had happened to me, because he thought I might be his father, although it seemed strange that Curling Mist should have been willing to cooperate with him in this. If Shining Light was Curling Mist's lover, then that could be why he had helped the other two, by agreeing to stage the farce Handy and I had witnessed on the Great Pyramid. I wondered what had happened since, and how the young merchant had changed from fellow conspirator to hostage. All I
knew about that was that it meant Curling Mist could use Lily against me, and that made my position in her house untenable.
What was I going to do? I had told Lily I would have to go away, but where could I go?
While I was fretting about this question, Constant reappeared, with another man scurrying behind him. He disappeared indoors before I got a proper look at him.
My mind kept returning to the things Lily and I had talked of the day before. I tried to remember Young Warrior, but after a dozen years or so all that came to mind was a priest, emaciated as we all were from the fasts, his face obscured by soot and dried blood. The pleasure girl I could recall a little more clearly: her braided hair swinging provocatively around her shoulders, the red flash of her cochineal-stained teeth when she smiled …
There had been a thousand girls in the market just like Maize Flower: why had I kept going back to her?
“Anybody would think you had woman trouble,” muttered Kindly sardonically.
“Maybe I have.”
He laughed: a short, harsh, barking sound. “Never my daughter? Well, good luck to you. You'll need it. I was wondering why she'd taken to wandering around the courtyard at night.”
“It's not like that at all,” I said impatiently. “She thinks I'm a nuisance—no, more than that. A threat.” My scalp itched where she had twisted my hair.
Kindly groaned. “You never repeated what I told you about Shining Light?”
“I had to,” I said helplessly. “I have to find out what Curling Mist is up to. He's tried to kidnap me twice, remember?”
The old man mumbled something into his drink. It sounded like “Idiot.”
Constant's harsh voice cut across my thoughts. “Yaotl! Come here!”
The servant was standing in the entrance to my room. Behind him, half hidden, lurked the shadowy figure of the stranger who had come in with him.
“What do you want?” I felt a twinge of foreboding. Who was the stranger?
“Time for your medicine!”
“What medicine?”
Constant stepped outside, giving me room to pass indoors and leaving the stranger behind him. “How should I know what medicine?” he answered testily. “Am I a physician? This man says the mistress sent for him, so get on with it!”
There was a snort of laughter from Kindly. “Better go, then, son. Once my daughter's taken it into her head that something needs doing, you don't want to start asking questions!”
“But I don't need any medicine,” I protested, although I limped toward the door anyway. “Lily didn't tell me anything about this.” And I could not ask her, as she had left the house before I had woken up.
She had gone to talk to Nimble. She had made no secret of it.
Now here was this stranger, claiming she had sent him to give me medicine I had not asked for.
Dreadful, cold certainty gripped my bowels as I realized this could hardly be a coincidence.
I had left it too late to run away. The confrontation I had sought when I first went to look for Lily was about to happen, and whether I felt strong enough or not, I had to face my enemy now.
Constant muttered: “Just get in there. The gods know what this is costing. She must have spent three times your worth keeping your miserable body and soul together already!”
Kindly laughed again.
Ignoring them both, I stepped through the doorway.
 
“Yaotl.”
The voice was like claws scrambling up my backbone. He was still talking like a priest, sounding as though there was something wrong with his mouth. I supposed it must have become a habit.
He squatted in the shadows, in the corner of the room. I sidled away from the doorway, keeping as much distance between us as I could and wishing the room were larger. I wondered whether he still had his knife. Fresh from the whitewashed brightness of the courtyard, my eyes told me nothing about him.
“What do you want?”
I heard a brief, unpleasant, throaty laugh. “To offer you some medicine!”
“No you don't,” I said tautly, fighting to suppress the panic that was threatening to render me speechless. “I know who you are. I know what you've come for.” At my sides, my fingernails dug into my palms. I forced my clenched fists to relax slightly. I had no idea what was going to happen, or when, or how to prepare for it.
“Oh, but I think you'll like this medicine, Yaoti—it's mostly sacred wine!”
A hand snaked toward me out of the gloom, bearing a small gourd whose contents sloshed faintly.
I looked at it the way you might look at a live scorpion. Then I glanced through the doorway, as if reassuring myself that I had an escape route—a mistake, as the glare of the courtyard at midday blinded me again to whatever was to be seen in the room.
“Come on, Yaotl,” said the voice coaxingly. “I'm offering you a drink!”
The gourd was unstoppered. I could smell the contents, heady and sour. It smelled like good sacred wine, although there was a hint of something else, a slightly bitter undertone.
“I don't want it!” I cried. “Just tell me what you want from me!”
Curling Mist erupted out of the darkness. He slammed into me, hurling me backward onto the floor, and the gourd was jammed against my lips, its contents running down my throat so that I must either swallow them or drown.
“Come on, drink it, you bastard!” he hissed.
Punching and kicking did no good. My hands and feet flailed uselessly in the darkness above me. The man holding me down was far too strong for my wasted, injured muscles. With a gourd jammed against my lips I could not even call for help. He held it there until it had emptied itself into me and then wrenched it away and tossed it aside.
“This is obsidian wine!” I spluttered. There was no mistaking the taste of the little mushrooms we called the Food of the Gods. I tried getting up again but there was a hand weighing me down like a rock on my chest. “Why?” I gasped.
“I think you know. You said it yourself: you've drunk the obsidian wine, the stuff they give captives before they die!”
I could feel the stuff reaching my belly, hot and indigestible, like a tortilla snatched straight from the griddle. I had to get rid of it before it started to spread through my veins, and the mixture of sacred wine and sacred mushrooms loosened my soul and deprived me of my will. I struggled furiously, contracting my stomach muscles and gulping air in the hope of making myself sick and expelling the poison.
“Not that I made you drink it because I'm going to kill you, Yaotl.” Curling Mist spoke in a throaty whisper. “I'd rather have you fully conscious. I want you to know exactly what's happening to you, I don't want you to miss a thing …”
I could feel myself weakening, the weight on my chest turning from a rock to a boulder, my head spinning, the tips of my fingers starting to tingle. Was it the drug or lack of breath which was doing this? Saliva filled my mouth and I swallowed it, bolting it down with more air as I fought to clear my stomach.
“But I made a promise, see? I told Nimble I wouldn't kill you until you'd told us what he wanted to know. So I've given you something to get your tongue working. In a moment you won't be able to help yourself.”
I bit my tongue to add blood to the fluid and air I was forcing into my stomach. The voice came to me over the roaring in my ears like the voice of a god speaking from the back of a cave.
“Do you remember the Priest House, Yaotl? Do you remember Young Warrior, and the girl in the market? You're going to tell me all about her—what you did with her, everything!”
The mushrooms were beginning to work. I thought I heard footsteps and voices, a long way away, and someone calling my name: “Yaotl! What is it? What's happening?”
I opened my mouth.
The twisting in my belly caught me by surprise, doubling me up with such force that the hand was thrown from my chest, and out of my mouth the poison, the sacred wine and the mushrooms and everything else poured in a jet that caught the other man just as he was struggling to keep his own balance.
As he cursed me I used the last of my strength to roll over and cry out, in a strangled voice, “Help! Help! Murder!”
Constant must have been waiting outside. I wanted to call out a warning but had no breath left to do it. My enemy hurled himself at
the slave, barged him out of the way and raced into the courtyard, but I knew from Constant's cry that he had hit him with something more than his fists.
 
I staggered outside, my feet catching on Constant's prone body and splashing through his blood.
“Help! Murder!” I croaked again. “Stop that man!”
The floor of the courtyard rose and fell beneath me as I blundered drunkenly across it, until finally I lost my footing and the ground came up and hit me in the face.
I lay there, with the sun-heated ground hard against my cheek and my voice still bleating vaguely about murder, until it occurred to me that no one was responding.
I got to my knees and looked around.
Kindly had left his seat by the wall and was bending over Constant. Without looking round he said: “Forget it. You were much too slow. He's long gone.”
I stood up. My stomach heaved. The walls seemed to rush in toward me and then recede equally fast. I took a couple of steps toward the fig tree and leaned on it gratefully.
“Didn't you try to stop him?”
“You must be joking!” He straightened up, putting a gnarled hand to the small of his back. “I'd be as dead as he is.” He prodded Constant with his toe. “That's if I could have got near the man in the first place, and there was no chance of that.”
I stepped cautiously over to the body.
“Did you get a good look at him, at least?”
“With eyes like mine? I haven't had a good look at anything in years. Besides, I was listening to you howling and watching Constant's blood running away. I can't be everywhere.”
“You didn't see him at all?”
He sighed impatiently. “Tall man, long untidy hair, face blacked up, puke all over his cloak. Is that enough?”
I looked at the body curled up at our feet. “I'm sorry,” I added belatedly.
“So am I,” said Kindly. “He may have been a bit of an old woman but he had his uses. You knew where you were with him.” He tried bending down toward the body again, groaned, thought better of it
and stood up. “My daughter will miss him. Look, make yourself useful and turn him over for me, will you?”
I obliged, although my head was still swimming. It took a little effort as the dead man was stuck to the floor with congealing blood. As he flopped over on to his back I heard Kindly give a triumphant growl.
“Thought so! What do you think of that?”
He did not have to show me what he meant. A knife jutted from under Constant's second rib. To pull it free I had to jerk it up and down, feeling it scrape against bone as I did so. When it finally sprang out, like a decayed tooth from its socket, I saw that its blade was like nothing else in Mexico: a long glittering sliver of brown metal.

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