She was silent for a while. "I see. What wonderful plan has Acatl come up with?"
Teomitl shook his head. "It wasn't his plan. Look, there are stardemons outside the palace…" He trailed off into silence; she let him flounder, without a word.
"How interesting," she said. "So many words to tell me nothing."
Teomitl blushed. I'd never seen such a sheepish expression on his face. "We need to keep them at bay, and, well…" He took a deep breath, started again. "They need to designate a new Guardian. Us. I mean, you, on account of the imperial connection and the virginity…"
Mihmatini raised an eyebrow. I winced, wishing I could look away. I knew that expression all too well.
Teomitl, too, apparently, for he hurriedly got a more coherent explanation of why we needed a new Guardian, and why it needed to be her. "It's symbolic. They need a couple who can stand for the Empire in the eyes of the Duality, and we don't have much time to find one. And, well, Ceyaxochitl had had an eye on you for a while, and thought you might be suitable for the job anyway…"
When Teomitl was finished, Mihmatini was silent again, deep in a dangerous kind of musing, just before she lashed out. She'd never shied from telling me or my brothers exactly what she thought of our heroic acts, and I had no doubt she would.
"I presume you're desperate," Mihmatini said, finally. "If you're coming to ask me."
I could imagine the smile on Yaotl's face without turning around.
"I'm not doing this for pleasure."
"Oh, for the Duality's sake, don't be so serious," Mihmatini said.
"It is a rather serious matter," Teomitl said.
"Most things are." She smiled again, half-amused, half-angry. "But you have no sense of humour, either of you. You should give some thought to working on that, Acatl. It's clearly missing from his education."
"Much as I love your wit–"
"I know, I know." She was sober again. "It's not exactly innocuous."
"Most of it was my idea," Yaotl admitted behind me. "If it helps."
Dear gods, we must really have been desperate, as she was saying. Since when had Yaotl owned up to having an opinion of his own? It was more sobering than I'd ever imagined it would be.
"No, it doesn't." Mihmatini's voice was low and dangerous now, as cutting as a jaguar's claws. "Let me make matters clear. I'm not a tool to be used at your convenience, just because there's a need for a well-connected virgin. I'm not a fool either, and I know what you're asking."
"Mihmatini–" Teomitl started.
We were asking her to step into a position equivalent to that of a High Priest, to take Ceyaxochitl's place, for the rest of her life.
"Look," I said. "I know you wanted to get married–"
"It doesn't seem to be incompatible," Mihmatini said, dryly. "But I'm not a fool. Whatever is needed is bad, if it's got both of you pushing for me to accept."
Teomitl tried speaking again, a little more forcefully. "I told Acatltzin I would–"
"I can guess what you told him. We both know it's not what you want that matters most," Mihmatini said, with a small sigh. "Otherwise it would have gone differently. Courtships don't last a year, Teomitl."
This time, he reddened. "I'll find a way."
"I don't see what would make it different."
"You think I'll renege on a promise?" Teomitl drew himself to his full height, Jade Skirt's magic hovering around him, lengthening his shadow on the ground.
"I think you'll do what you can," Mihmatini said. "I very much doubt it will be all you want, but it doesn't matter. Come on, Acatl, let's go."
She walked out of the courtyard without a backward glance for the spluttering Teomitl. Yaotl followed, leaving both of us alone under the Fifth Sun's gaze.
"She's angry," I said. "She doesn't mean what she says."
Teomitl's face was dark with something more than anger. "I think she means exactly what she says when she's angry, Acatl-tzin. That's always been the problem. But it doesn't matter. This is a promise I intend to keep." His hands had clenched into fists, so tightly his nails had drawn blood.
Not for the first time, I wished – desperately – that I could believe him.
The ritual for Mihmatini's designation was a fairly lengthy one; not quite as complicated as the investiture of a new Revered Speaker, but still heavy enough to need a night and a morning to be prepared.
We arrived at the Duality House early on the following morning. While the priests explained the ritual to Teomitl and Mihmatini, I excused myself; and went inside Ceyaxochitl's rooms to pay my respects.
My second-in-command Ichtaca sat cross-legged on the ground by the side of the funeral mat. His lips moved, silently intoning a litany for the Dead; he looked up at me when I came in, but left me time to contemplate the corpse.
Ceyaxochitl had been washed and garbed in many-coloured cotton. The jade bead had been threaded through her lips. In death she looked small and pathetic, her vibrancy extinguished. Yaotl had said he kept expecting her to rise and take charge. Looking at the thin, bloodless lips, at the pale, blue-tinged face, I knew she wouldn't come back. She was down there in the underworld, making her slow way to the throne of Lord Death, just as the rest of us would, someday.
It was unfair; she had been so much more than the rest of us.
"Acatl-tzin." Ichtaca bowed to me.
I nodded, briefly. "Thank you for undertaking the vigil."
His gaze suggested that I didn't need to thank him; that he was doing nothing more than his work.
"She will be missed," Ichtaca said. His round face was grave, and he wasn't talking about sentiments.
"I know," I said. She had held us together. No matter how abrasive, or authoritative, she had cared for all of us.
"You could…" He swallowed. "You could summon her."
I shook my head. "Not until her vigil is complete." I could go down into the underworld to hunt her soul, but it was starting to be dangerous. I could feel the world, lurching slightly out of kilter. To further breach the boundaries at this stage might not be a good idea. Not to mention a summoning would force Ceyaxochitl to turn aside, slowing down her progression in the underworld. I had no wish to make her stay there longer than it had to be.
I spoke a little more with Ichtaca, mostly over administrative matters; and left the room in a much worse mood than I'd entered it.
The shrine to the Duality was atop a pyramid, like the shrine in my own temple. From the smooth marble platform, I could see all the way into the courtyard, into the silent room, its entrance-curtain fluttering in the breeze, where Ceyaxochitl's body would be resting, washed and garbed for her funeral vigil. And, further on, into the city, the canals glittering in the afternoon sun like strings of jewels, the houses of noblemen gradually giving way to the high, steepled roofs of peasants' dwellings, all the heart and blood of our empire, as vulnerable as a jaguar with its throat bared.
Below, in the courtyard, most of the high-ranking priests had gathered, dressed in sober blue and black, a dizzying sea of featherheaddresses and ash-stained faces.