Simon Levack - The Demon of the Air

“What about tomorrow?” the youth asked.

“Tomorrow? Oh, the ball game. Do you know, I’d forgotten all about it.” A flicker of the old eagerness and energy stirred in the Chief Minister’s voice. “What odds is your father offering?”

“Three to one against the team from Huexotla.”

My master snorted. “Sometimes your father’s a fool to himself!” There was silence while he considered the proposition. “Of course, I’ll have to back the Emperor’s team, publicly,” he announced at last, “but I’ll have twenty large capes on Huexotla. Tomorrow is going to be a better day!”

It was as much as I could do not to gasp audibly. Almost everyone who had the wealth to spare gambled on the ball game at one time or another; and so did some who did not have it to spare and whose pastime ended up costing them their liberty. But bets were required to be placed openly, the stakes displayed by the side of the ball court for the players and the spectators to see. Surreptitious arrangements such as the one my master had just made were strictly illegal.

I barely saw the boy as he passed me on the stairway, although I heard the sharp hiss of his indrawn breath-the sound made by an especially venomous snake-as he noticed me. All I could think about, as I mounted the rest of the steps up to His Lordship’s patio, was my master’s casual, barely considered gamble.

Twenty large capes! I had sold myself into slavery for that amount!

I found old Black Feathers as I had pictured him, sitting in a bearskin-covered wicker seat under the magnolia tree in the middle of the patio.

He was formally dressed. A gorgeous cotton cloak, ornamented with the faces of eagles and bordered with eyes, floated over his knees and fell to his ankles. A gold labret fashioned like a pelican hung from his lower lip and a double spray of bright plumes, red, blue, yellow and green, towered above his head. Even in the dark of the evening, with his back bent forward with age and a rabbit’s-fur mantle slung over his shoulders for warmth, he was magnificent.

He was also furious. Even if I had not heard what he had said tothe boy, I could have told as much by the soft tapping of a jeweled sandal on the stuccoed floor. I wondered how long he had been waiting for me before the boy had turned up. I wished he had sat indoors, enjoying a cup of chocolate or the attentions of his favorite concubine, rather than out here, feeling the gathering chill seeping into his bones.

“My Lord.” I made my obeisance, throwing myself abjectly on the floor.

“Yaotl. You’re late. Where have you been?”

The Chief Minister was capable of rages that could make a volcano seem tame, but I knew he was never to be feared more than when refined, controlled anger lowered his voice to an intimate whisper.

“I’m sorry. I fell asleep, after the sacrifice …”

“You’re lying. You’ve been to see the Emperor.”

I stared fixedly at the floor, thankful that at least I did not have to meet my master’s eyes.

“That brother of yours was here.” My master’s deceptively gentle voice hardened. His own father had been Guardian of the Waterfront in his youth, and old Black Feathers often bemoaned the fact that a man of Lion’s humble birth should be allowed to hold the rank. “Everyone knows what a toady he is. He was obviously running some errand for Montezuma. Do you think I’m so stupid I can’t work out what you’ve been up to?”

“I couldn’t help it!” I protested. There was no point in denying that I had been with the Emperor but at all costs I must not let my master know what I had been ordered to do. “He sent for me to give him my account of the sacrifice-there was no way I could refuse!”

“Oh, the sacrifice!” he said as if he had forgotten all about it. “And tell me, slave, are you going to favor me with your account as well? Or do I have to make do with getting it secondhand from some passerby?” He was no longer whispering.

“My Lord, I came as soon as I could …”

“After all, I could ask anyone, couldn’t I? The whole city heard what that Bathed Slave said and saw how he died. ‘Watch out for the big boat.’ That’s it, isn’t it?” Now he was shouting. Age had not weakened his voice. “Anyone could tell me how my fool of a slave let him go-if they could only stop laughing long enough, that is!”

“My Lord, I’m truly sorry, we couldn’t hold him.” I cast about frantically for something that would mollify him. “But he did say something else, before he went-and no one else heard it.”

“What?” Something creaked-either his bones or his seat’s wicker frame-as my master leaned forward urgently. “What else did he say?”

I told him. I had no idea what the words might mean to him. “He said: ‘Tell the old man.’”

He stiffened visibly. Watching discreetly through lowered eyes, I saw his face darken to the shade of the sky above us. For a moment I thought he was going to be taken ill. Then he slumped in his chair.

“What do you suppose he meant?”

“My Lord, I’ve no idea. Unless …” I could just see one of his knuckles in the corner of my vision, and the answer was there, in the tautness of his skin over the swollen joint. The merchant’s slave’s last words had been a message for my master.

“Unless he meant you, my Lord.”

“Me?” he asked sharply. “Why should he have meant me?”

“I …” I hesitated. It was all too easy to guess why: because Montezuma and my brother had been right. The man who had died this evening had been one of the Emperor’s escaped sorcerers and my master had been behind it all. “I don’t know,” I added wretchedly.

It must be more complicated than that, I realized. Whatever my master’s involvement may have been in the sorcerers’ disappearance, it could not explain how one of them had come to throw himself off the Great Pyramid, or account for the anger and distress old Black Feathers felt on account of his death. Whatever plans my master may or may not have made for the sorcerers, something had clearly happened to frustrate them.

“Where do you think the merchant got his victim from?” my master demanded.

“The market at Azcapotzalco?”

“Don’t be stupid! You know perfectly well he was never anywhere near a slave market!”

“Then … my Lord, you do know where he came from!”

“Know?” Old Black Feathers’ sudden laughter was a dry, mirthless cackle. “Of course I know! That young man used him to make a fool out of me. No doubt it suited him to have the man raving like a lunaticjust before he died, with my own slave in attendance to make sure every word was passed on to me. No doubt he thinks he’ll get away with it, keeping them all from me, just to make sure I keep dancing to his tune, but he won’t.”

“You mean the merchant has the sorcerers?” Simple astonishment made me blurt the words out even as I realized they were a mistake.

I was still prostrated before my master, with my hands stretched out flat on the floor in front of me. Suddenly something was squeezing each of them: the rough sole of a sandal. I heard a creak as my master leaned forward in his chair, and felt his breath on the back of my neck as he bent down to speak once again in that deadly whisper.

“I may be old, but I can still break every finger in both your hands before you can even scream-and that’s before I give you to my steward to play with. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I gasped.

“Now I know Montezuma didn’t summon you just so that you could tell him about a botched sacrifice. He told you about the sorcerers and ordered you to spy on me. What else did he say to you? Don’t lie or leave anything out. You know what I will do to you if you do.”