Simon Levack - Shadow of the Lords

It moved. It became a long, white form, sliding along the ground so smoothly that I took it for a snake until I saw that it moved upon feet. One foot was advanced at a time, the paw put deliberately and silently in place before another was lifted, andthe legs were bent as tensely as a bow, keeping the body as close to the floor as it could be without scraping along it. It was stalking something. Its sharp-pointed, triangular ears were erect and its eyes, strangely pale against its white face, were wide open.

I saw its prey only in the instant of its death.

It was a small dog. The keepers had tethered it by a long rope to a peg in the middle of the clearing, although they need not have bothered. It was one of the little fat hairless creatures we kept for food, born and bred for the pot, and any instinct that it might have had to survive, to run away or turn and fight for its life, had been lost many generations before. It simply had no idea what was going to happen until the moment when the jaguar sprang.

The creature became a white streak. Only when its great claws clapped together around it did its victim at last react. The dog let out a single yip and shot into the air, escaping momentarily until it reached the end of its rope and was cruelly snatched back to earth. Before it landed a paw swiped it out of the air, slamming into it with a blow that knocked it sideways and snapped its neck at the same time.

The great head stooped and picked its meal up. It held it aloft, and for a moment those strange pale eyes looked straight into the Emperor’s. It seemed to know that it was the only creature in Mexico that might do that and live.

It growled surprisingly softly. It shook the dog once and dropped it contemptuously.

As it began to feed, I heard a long sigh from the man in the chair.

‘You may watch,’ the interpreter said solemnly. ‘You may never see this again.’

I could not have taken my eyes off the animal in any case. My brother exhaled loudly. I guessed he had been holding his breath for a long time.

Then we heard the Emperor’s voice again. When he was speaking half to himself he did not seem to mind being overheard.

‘A white jaguar. Such a perfect creature. The most noble of beasts, and the colour of the East, the direction of light, and life!’

‘It is a beautiful animal, my Lord,’ ventured my brother.

There was a pause. Montezuma mumbled something and his interpreter translated it: ‘Indeed. They come from the country around Cuetlaxtlan, near the shore of the Divine Sea. When he was Chief Minister it amused the great Lord Tlacaelel — your master’s father, Yaotl — to punish the people of that city for rebelling against us by making them send white jaguar pelts in tribute in place of spotted ones. He thought it would take up so much of their time to find anything so rare that they would never be able to foment another revolt!’ There was more mumbling from the chair. ‘I told them I would remit some of their annual tribute if they could furnish me with a live specimen. And here he is!’

Hearing my own name fall from the Emperor’s lips — or at least his interpreter’s — shocked me into speaking up. ‘My Lord, why have you shown us this?’

There was another long pause, during which the figure in the chair showed no sign of movement. Then he began to speak again, his interpreter picking it up before he had finished: ‘This white jaguar is surely the emperor of all beasts. He fears nothing, and nothing is his equal. Yet he is almost blind! If you saw him in daylight you would see that his eyes are pink. He cannot bear the Sun, and can only come out at night.

‘I could have you killed as easily as that dog, Yaotl. You know that. Even your famous brother — I only have to command it and you will both be dead on the floor before me. But that power — without understanding, without knowing what isto come, what is that power? I am as blind as the white jaguar, who for all his strength would be dead if he had not been captured as a cub and brought here!’

There was a long silence. ‘My Lord,’ I asked eventually, ‘what do you want?’

Neither Montezuma nor the interpreter spoke at first. The Emperor seemed engrossed in watching his favourite pet devouring his food. Only when the contented growls and sounds of grinding teeth began to diminish did he start mumbling again. What he said was as indistinct as ever, but there was one word that I understood: the name ‘Skinny’.

‘Last night,’ the interpreter said, ‘a man named Skinny, a featherworker, died in the canal between Pochtlan and Amantlan. This morning two of Pochtlan’s parish policemen found you at his house. I am told that their canoe capsized while they were taking you to the Governor of Tlatelolco and you took advantage of the confusion to escape.’

I could not restrain myself. ‘I didn’t escape! I was kidnapped!’

My brother groaned. The interpreter looked uncertainly at the figure in the chair, and then leaned towards me.

‘Interrupt me again,’ he advised me in a confidential tone, ‘and you’re likely to end up like that dog!’

‘Sorry …’ I swallowed. I had forgotten myself, but at least I could see what had happened. Shield must have taken the Otomi captain’s warning to heart.

‘Now,’ the interpreter went on, ‘the Emperor requires you to tell him what you know about Skinny and his work.’

I told them the same story I had told Upright and Shield. It took a little while, because I kept hesitating, afraid that some mistake or inconsistency might prompt a question that would reveal what I had really been up to in Tlatelolco. I did not want Montezuma to know about my son. I had no idea whathe might do if he did know but I thought Nimble, wherever he was, probably had enough to contend with, without coming to the Emperor’s notice.

As darkness gathered, even the animal noises and bird calls from the other parts of the Zoo came to an end, and apart from my own voice the only sounds were the soft padding of the jaguar’s paws as he left the remains of the dog and a faint creaking as the Emperor shifted in his chair.

After I had finished he asked me, through the interpreter, what I thought I had seen, on the night I had gone to meet Kindly and encountered an apparition in the form of Quetzalcoatl.

‘I saw a man dressed as a god,’ I said confidently. ‘The costume he was wearing had gone missing from Kindly’s house two nights before, and that was when the vision was first seen.’

‘Why was the thief wearing it?’

‘It’s a good disguise. Most people who saw it would run away rather than challenge what they thought was a god.’

The Emperor and the interpreter were now only indistinct shadows, and the mumblings of one and the other’s speech had become harder to distinguish as well, so that they seemed to blend together, as though the two men shared a single voice. I was not sure whether it was the Emperor’s voice or the interpreter’s that replied to me.

‘You are wrong. The thief wore the costume because he wanted to. The raiment of a god has power of its own. The man who wears it takes the form of the god, and his attributes. He becomes the god.’

I tried to remember what Stammerer, the featherworker’s apprentice from the temple in Amantlan, had told me. The costume was like an idol, to be prayed to and handled with care.

‘My Lord, may I ask — did Skinny make the costume for you?’

I could easily tell where the reply came from this time. The Emperor’s high-pitched giggle was unmistakable. ‘For me to wear? No. At my command — yes.’ There was a pause, and then it was the interpreter’s voice again. ‘What I will tell you now is not to be repeated, not even within the walls of this palace. If it is, both of you will die, and your families will die, and your houses — your parents’, and that mansion of yours, Lion — will be demolished. It will be death to mention your names. Nobody in Mexico will remember anything about either of you. Is that understood?’