The way Teomitl attempted to look at his arms and legs convinced me he hadn't known. But he didn't look happy about it: his face darkened, a change of mood that was visible even in the wavering light of his torch.
"A protective spell some fool laid on me without my consent," he muttered, darkly. "Nothing worth worrying about."
I did wonder, though: it was powerful magic, and I wasn't entirely sure how it would withstand the assaults of a beast of shadows – some spells just shattered, crippling the people on whom they'd been laid. "You'd better stay back," I said.
Teomitl shook his head and didn't answer.
Under my fingers, the heart beat at its steady rhythm as we ran through the deserted streets. The grand houses became smaller, turning from adobe to mud, the flat roofs replaced by high, tapered ones painted with abstract patterns; finally turning into the humble mud dwellings of peasants, ringed by fields of maize. We were almost at the lake shore.
Teomitl's hands held the torch steady as we ran out of the city altogether, and found ourselves in the midst of dried maize husks, crunching under our feet.
I turned the heart right and left; and it beat again, in the direction of a group of small, squat islands on the edge of the lake.
Teomitl saw the way I faced, and groaned. "Oh no. Not the Floating Gardens."
The chinamitls, or Floating Gardens, were artificial islands reclaimed from the lake. A mass of stones and clay, dumped at the bottom of the lake, served as a support for muddy, fertile earth. Over the years, the Floating Gardens had grown more numerous as well as closer to each other, and now formed a district of their own: a grid of fields separated by small canals, another city on the water.
"We need a boat," Teomitl was saying, his torch wavering left and right. "There." He all but ran to a small reed boat, moored to the bank ahead of us. "Let's take this one."
"It's not ours," I said, shocked. "At least ask for permission."
His eyes were wide in the torchlight. "Why?" he asked. "We'll bring it back."
"Before dawn?" I asked. "I can't guarantee that, and neither can you." A boat like that would be a family's sole means of transport, the only way to gather fish from the lake, to carry merchandise to the marketplace. To wake up in the morning, and discover it lost, to think it stolen… that would truly be disastrous. I scanned the banks: close by was the dark shape of a hut, its coloured thatch roof reflecting the torchlight. "Let's warn them."
"Acatl-tzin." Teomitl's voice shook on the verge of exasperation. "A life is at stake, and you worry about peasants?"
My own parents had been peasants. I had grown up in fields much like those we were walking in; and the weak were so easily overlooked in the scheme of things. Teomitl's attitude, while not unexpected, disappointed me. I'd hoped for more – intelligence? Compassion? "That boat is a family's living," I said, more sharply than I'd intended to. "I won't trample lives to save just one."
"But," Teomitl said, shaking his head, "you said you were looking for Priestess Eleuia…"
I was already walking towards the hut. With all the noise we were making, they would no doubt be awake.
A man dressed in a simple loincloth stood on the threshold of the dwelling, holding a trembling torch in his hand.
"We need to borrow your boat," I said.
His eyes focused on me, on my grey cloak, its colour uncertain in starlight, on the streaks of makeup that marked my face. I could have been anyone to him. But he saw that I was armed.
"Take what you need," he said. "But don't…" A sweeping gesture with his hands, encompassing the hut and those sleeping within.
"Oh, for the Duality's sake," Teomitl said. He threw something in the air. It glittered as it fell, and landed with the harsh sound of metal striking metal. "Buy a new boat with that, if we damage it. Come on, Acatl-tzin. Let's go."
The man bent down to pick up Teomitl's offering: quills of gold, tied together at the end, enough to ensure two months' living, if not more. Tossed casually into the mud, as if they were worth nothing at alclass="underline" the quintessential warrior gesture. Some student. Obedience, like humility, was a foreign notion to him.
"Teomitl," I said as he untied the boat: an interesting feat, since he had one hand taken by his torch. "I thought I'd made things clear. You follow my lead."
He raised his gaze, briefly, to the sky. "You'd have stayed for hours arguing with the man."
"No," I said, stung. I knew how to handle such situations. "I would merely have eased things a little."
"Money eases things wonderfully," Teomitl said. He gestured for me to climb aboard.
The boat rocked as I stepped into it. My body, remembering gestures from more than twenty years ago, adjusted itself to the motion.
"Money won't buy him a better life," I said.
"No, but it will make the next months easier." Teomitl held out his torch to me, and I took it in my free hand, without thinking. "I'll row."
I watched him manoeuvre the boat into the canal, shifting my weight from leg to leg to compensate for the rocking. He had this natural authority, I guessed: something that made him hard to ignore when he gave you a command.
He also, quite obviously, had never rowed in his life. The boat spun to and fro in a haphazard fashion, and the jade heart in my right hand shifted from beating to still to beating again, as he directed us towards the nearest Floating Garden.
"Which one?" he asked.
"I have no idea," I said, annoyed, more because of the natural, insidious way he'd taken charge than because of his rowing. "If you kept us on course, I'd have an easier time."
"Not my fault," Teomitl snapped. "The thing won't stay still."
"It's a boat. They rarely stay still, The Duality curse you! Where were you raised? In the mountains?" Tenochtitlan was built on an island; every street doubled as a canal, and it was almost impossible for a boy to grow up without ever seeing a boat.
In the unsteady light, I felt his exasperation more than I saw it. "I'm doing my best, Tlaloc blind you! I'm just not used to this contraption."
The least that could be said. I sighed; and instead of holding the jade heart steadily in front of me, attempted to keep it on an even orientation. Not obvious, with only the starlight to go by. It kept becoming motionless without warning; but slowly, step by step, I managed to direct Teomitl to one of the furthest islands.
The boat ran aground in a spectacular fashion, scattering dried, slashing pieces of reeds over my legs. Teomitl leapt on the shore and snatched the torch from me. He stared at me, once more daring me to mock him.
I wasn't in a mood to reproach him, for the heartbeat under my fingers was faster than it had been on shore. "It's close," I whispered.
"Where?" Teomitl asked.
"On this island." I suddenly wondered why we were whispering. A beast of shadows would have hearing much keener than that of any jaguar on the prowl, and a sense of smell to match. It would sense me, a priest for the Dead, as it would sense the heart I carried in my hands. "Come."
This Floating Garden was, like most of them, a huge maize field. Dry husks crackled under my sandals, no matter how hard I strove to be silent.