Simon Levack - The Demon of the Air

“You think I should go to Coyoacan,” I said at last. “You want me to see for myself what old Black Feathers did, don’t you?”

It was no great distance from Montezuma’s palace to the Chief Minister’s house, through streets that now, in the early afternoon, were largely empty. After parting company with my brother I walked home slowly, giving myself just enough time to work out how many kinds of trouble I was in.

Montezuma wanted me to find his sorcerers, on pain of death. He thought my master had them. My master claimed he did not have them, and since he had asked me to find them himself, I was inclined to believe him. However, he obviously knew more about them than he was letting on. And now it seemed my brother had some interest in this affair as well, something connected with whatever had happened at Coyoacan, but I would have to go there to find out what that was all about.

And all I had found at the prison was that it truly was impregnable. Maybe, I thought morosely, I was dealing with magic after all.

Thoughts were still chasing each other around my head when I reached my master’s house. I was so caught up with them that I did not see the big man until I almost walked into him.

“Yaotl!”

The voice was familiar: it belonged to Handy, my comrade in our encounter with the priests.

I greeted him like an old friend. Anyone who was neither old Black Feathers nor his steward was a welcome sight. We sat in a quiet corner of my master’s patio and drew our cloaks over our knees while we exchanged pleasantries. He asked me where I had been. I replied by asking him what he was doing here.

“Carrying a message. Come to think of it, you might like to hear about it.”

I wondered what sort of message he could have to deliver here.

“The same young lad who put me on to that last job sought me out in the marketplace. They must have been impressed, in spite of what happened, hey? It turned out they wanted me to go all the way to Pochtlan to pick up this letter …”

“Pochtlan?”

“Yes, odd, isn’t it? You’d think they’d have found someone in Tlatelolco market, where they’d have had more choice, but anyway … Guess who it was from?”

“No idea.”

“Shining Light.”

“Really?” Considering what I had been through on the young merchant’s account the day before and what I had heard about him from my master since, any news of him was bound to get my attention. “What did it say?”

“How would I know? I’m just a commoner, I got my schooling at the House of Youth, and you know they don’t teach reading there. I was just told the message was an urgent one for the Chief Minister. I’d sort of hoped to see him-never met a great lord before.” He suddenly had the half-hopeful, half-anxious manner commoners often adopted at the prospect of meeting their rulers. “As he was out when I got here, I had to give it to the steward, though … was that right?”

“Oh, yes.” The steward could be relied upon to pass a letter straight to my master-and to hang around afterward in the hope of overhearing its contents. “It’ll get to His Lordship, don’t worry.”

“Good. Shining Light seemed very anxious about it.”

“You saw him, then? I thought he’d vanished off the face of the Earth, yesterday. What else did he have to say for himself?”

“We didn’t have time to talk. He was in a rush. He was just setting off in his canoe. He was actually sitting in it when he gave me the letter. It looked as if he had a long way to go, judging by what he had with him-bags of provisions, toasted maize, stuff like that-the sort of stuff you’d take on a long journey.”

“Hang on!” That could not be right, I thought. I glanced quickly up at the clouds chasing each other briskly across the sky and notedthe promise of fresh wind and rain in the evening. “You’re telling me you saw Shining Light setting off on a long journey today-on One Reed?”

“That’s what it looked like. I know what you’re going to say-it’s not the most auspicious day he could have chosen. I thought it was strange too, especially for a merchant. This sorcerer I go to every time the gods lumber us with another child, he tells me merchants are some of his best clients. They’re so superstitious they never go anywhere without consulting the Book of Days.”

One Reed was a day influenced by Tezcatlipoca: the Smoking Mirror, the most unruly and capricious of our gods. There could hardly be a worse day for setting out on a long journey. “I wonder where he’s going?”

We sat silently for a moment, each wrapped up in his own thoughts. Shining Light had left in a hurry, it seemed, but he had still had something to tell my master so urgent that Handy had to trot halfway across the city for the sake of it.

“Yaotl?”

“Sorry.” I looked up. “I was thinking.”

“I was just asking if you knew of any work going around here? I thought I was on to a good thing with Shining Light, you see, but if he’s gone away, then I’m short of an employer …”

I looked at his muscular arms and recalled his efforts of the day before. What had happened had not been his fault, I thought generously, any more than it had been mine. “I’ll suggest my master bear you in mind,” I promised.

I went to see the Chief Minister the moment I finished speaking to Handy, to tell him about my visit to the prison.

In the event my master paid scant attention to my conversations with the majordomo and his guards. He seemed distracted, toying impatiently with a piece of paper on his lap. He did not show me the paper but I assumed it was the letter from Shining Light that Handy had delivered. He kept looking down at it and then at me in a speculative way, as if its contents concerned me.

When I had finished speaking he tapped the paper on his knee and asked: “What am I going to do about Shining Light?”

“My Lord, I was going to see him today, but Handy says he’s gone away.”

“Gone away-a merchant, going on a journey on an unlucky day like One Reed? Rubbish! He’ll be hiding somewhere-and no wonder! He must have a pretty good idea what I’m going to do to him-that’s if the other merchants don’t get their hands on him first!”

“Then you want me to go to his house today, after all?”

“Yes. No,” he corrected himself hastily. He looked at his letter again, and a curious half-smile appeared on his face, as if a pleasing thought had just struck him.

“I think it’s too late to go today. Go, by all means, but leave it till tomorrow.”

“As you wish, my Lord.” I had no urgent wish to go all the way to Pochtlan that afternoon.

“Is that man Handy still around?”

“Yes-I believe he’s looking for work.”

“Good! Tell him not to go anywhere. I will have a letter for him to carry and we’ll make it worth his while if he delivers it tonight.”

The slave who greeted me at Shining Light’s house was barely polite. After staring at me for so long that I began to wonder whether there was something wrong with his eyes, he showed me into the courtyard and told me to rest there, among the foliage plants and empty flowerpots of a winter garden. He offered me something to eat, although when I turned to him to accept he had vanished, leaving me to the courtyard’s only other occupant.

An old man sat with his back to an immaculately whitewashed wall, against which the dull mottled brown of his ragged cloak stood out like a stain. His head was bowed, and he seemed to be asleep. A thin trail of saliva ran from a corner of his mouth across his chin.

I shifted my weight indecisively from one foot to the other while I wondered how to get into the house without causing offense. The slave seemed prepared to leave me where I was, alone save for the unconscious old man, for the rest of the day.