“I… I don’t understand,” he mumbled, but Chantli was grabbing his hand with both of hers, pressing it urgently, with much desperation.
“You must help me find them and free them. You must!”
“Stop yelling!” This time, it was Tlemilli again, over her initial startle, apparently, and as furious with their intruder as in the beginning. “You’ll bring this entire altepetl here. There is a reason why your savior is huddling here with me. But for me, the people who were after him would have gotten him long ago.” The angry girl shook her head, talking as loudly as Chantli before, oblivious of her own demand. “Also, my father is not after you or your stupid friends. He has no interest in Tenochtitlan and its unruly youths running around, getting in trouble. So leave him alone and stop talking nonsense. He has enough troubles without you!”
But this time, Chantli turned to face her adversary with matching spirit and spitefulness. “You won’t tell me how to talk to him, you slimy fowl. I will ask him whatever I like, and I will talk to him in any way I want, and you can go and jump into the lake if you don’t like it.” The enraged girl drew a deep breath. “I’ve known him for long enough, longer than you surely, to be allowed to talk to him when I want to, and I don’t care how richly you dress and how important your father may be. You can stick your sparkling bracelets you know where! And your pretty sandals as well!”
At this point, Tlemilli was drawing such a long breath, Miztli was afraid she would faint from a mere lack of air. Her chiseled cheeks were definitely changing their coloring to something glaring and fiery.
He pushed himself between both furious girls. “Stop it, both of you. It’s not the time, and anyway, you don’t have to argue because of me. Those boys...” He turned to the panting Tlemilli, liking the sight of her smoldering eyes and the glowing face, like the braziers in the melting room, like the beautifully dangerous liquid of flaming copper mixed with gold. “Those boys, they are my friends and I will help them. We were in it together.” The thought occurred to him, and he turned to Chantli, his stomach contorting in an uncompromising knot. “Did you come here because of that tunnel? You and Necalli. Did you find something there?”
Her eyes were still wild, darting from him to his extra-spirited company. “Yes,” she said finally, nodding with atypical stiffness. “We went there looking for you when you didn’t come back and, well, one thing led to another…” Her eyes narrowed toward Tlemilli. “We thought you were in trouble, hurt, or killed, maybe. Not running around with Tlatelolcan would-be nobility.”
The royal girl snorted loudly. “He chooses his company well, obviously.”
“You came here looking for me?” he repeated, incredulous.
“Well, yes.” Chantli’s gaze softened reluctantly. “We were worried. You didn’t come back and there was blood in that temple. Patli said all sorts of marks said that it might be yours, and Necalli argued. But then Ahuitzotl found your talisman. And then –”
This time, he gasped outright. “You found…” Again, his mind struggled with the incredibility of it all. “You found the obsidian… the obsidian…” The words refused to formulate. “You found… but how… how did you know? Where is it?”
She frowned, then dropped her gaze. “The obsidian puma, yes. Patli said it was your talisman. He said you carried it with you all the time.” Her shrug was brief, full of uncertainty. “Ahuitzotl kept it. I hope he didn’t lose it back in the lake or even now, when the warriors were fishing him out…” Her eyes lost their spark, filled with tears once again. “You have to help them! You have to do something!”
He pushed away the thoughts of the sacred figurine with much effort. “Where are they? Where did the warriors take them?”
She shrugged miserably.
“Where did you see them last? Where did it all happen?”
“Back on the shore, down there, behind that incline, where the reeds and the water birds are.” She sniffed through her nose. “They killed plenty of birds, shot them with slings for some reason. It was scary. Those clay balls they shot, they were everywhere, falling from the sky. Necalli shielded us both and he was bleeding, his forehead…” Again, the convulsive breath turned her words into an incomprehensible flow. “He was… he was… brave…” Another loud snuffle. “Why would warriors shoot flying birds?”
“Because this is what they were supposed to do.” Tlemilli’s voice tore the dimness of the air, ringing tersely, reminding them of her presence. Poised next to the opening, half turned toward the outside, she regarded them with her eyes narrow and her head tossed very high. “Our warriors are the best warriors around the entire Great Lake and beyond it. They have shown their valor and skill today, taking off the stone statue with their slings, the wooden statue with their spears, and the soaring birds in their flight.” Her shoulders jerked lightly, in open resentment, her eyes glancing at him, their reproach on display. “We would have seen it too but for your troubles and your need to hide.” Another offended shrug. “As it was, I missed it all.” Her chin thrust forward again in a familiar gesture. “I wish you well in your flight wherever you are heading and wherever you came from.”
“Tlemilli!” Without thinking, he darted toward her, covering the crammed space with one leap, catching her thin wrist before she could bolt away. No, she wasn’t bluffing, lingering there to be persuaded to return. Not her. Somehow, he knew it for certain. “Wait. Don’t go.”
She struggled to break free, yet not as fiercely as he expected, pulling her hand away, her nostrils widening with each taken breath.
“Listen!”
But what did he want to tell her? He searched through his mind frantically. Why did he want her to stay? To help them along? She was very helpful until now, there could be no argument about it. Overwhelmingly chatty and bubbling, unpredictable and as impulsive as no human being that he had known so far. She was something different; challenging but refreshing, reliable in her own wild way, solid and trustworthy, and somehow, he just didn’t want her to leave and be gone.
“What do you want me to stay here for?” she pouted, turning her face away, studying the cracked wooden floor. “You don’t need me. You have her now.” A grudging half a nod indicated Chantli, gaping from her far corner, another unseemly sight.
He had no time to puzzle over this statement. What did Chantli have to do with any of it?
“Stay here, at least for a little while. Please.” Curiously comfortable with doing this, he reached for her chin, pushing it up with his fingers, gently but firmly, making her face him, not about to take ‘no’ for an answer. “Stay!”
Her pointed eyebrows were nothing but a solid line, her high forehead creased like a wrinkled blanket; still, her eyes, which peered at him now, held nothing but expectation, a childlike anticipation, a touching hope. It made him feel strange.
His stomach hollow and quivering, he took his hand away, the sensation of her skin lingering upon his fingertips, not helping the confusion. She was so smooth to the touch, so pleasantly cool, like a mask made out of jade, slick and perfectly polished, not soft or tender but glossy and sharp-edged, yet more pleasing because of it. He fought the urge to touch her face again, if for no other reason than to verify the sensation. It was the strangest thing, wasn’t it?
“Come with us and help us find those boys, will you?” he repeated more briskly than intended, his embarrassment difficult to hide. It came out as an outright demand. “You know places around here. You can find them faster than either of us.”
“Oh well...”
One of her slim shoulders jerked, indicating the indefinite ‘maybe,’ so childish it made him wish to laugh in a hysterical manner. For a good measure, he moved away a pace, the wish to touch her face still strong, interfering with his ability to think reasonably.
“Yes, without me, you won’t find anyone here, not in a hurry,” she went on, the smug chattiness itself once again, speaking too many words in a heartbeat. “Those boys, your friends, who are they? What did they look like?
Why did she say my father wanted to question them? It doesn’t make any sense. My father has nothing to do with Tenochtitlan troublemaking boys. He has important matters to take care of.” A dark glance shot at Chantli, who was still standing where she was, watching them through her eyes narrowed into slits, glimmering with professed defiance, challenging. “I don’t believe my father would want to question those boys. But maybe the Emperor. They are from Tenochtitlan, you said?”
He paid the flooding of her words no attention. “Chantli, come. We’ll sneak back to the shore and start looking from there. We’ll be careful. Come.”
She neared them warily, bestowing mistrustful glances on them both. Tlemilli answered that with her fiercest of glares. He pushed his way past them, too busy thinking to roll his eyes. But wouldn’t he be better off trying to find the calmecac boy all by himself, without quarrelling girls to hinder his progress? He knew the answer to that.
“Where to?” he asked when the brilliance of the sunlight poured on them unrestrained, hot but so very welcome despite the possibility of exposure it brought along. The semi-darkness of the abandoned construction was depressing.
“The shore. Where else?” Tlemilli took the lead firmly, over her previous bout of uncertainty and back to her impulsive bossy self. “They must have stopped shooting by now. Or we would have heard and seen much of it.” Excitedly, she pointed toward the cloudless sky. “Like back on the Plaza, eh? The sky went black from all those flying missiles.”
“Yes.” He remembered the orating ruler and the various noblemen and noblewomen upon the dais, the spearmen keeping the crowds away, the crushing grip of his captor’s rock-hard fingers upon his arm. Shivering, he put the thought of that terrible nobleman Teconal away, the ruthless politician, the Head Adviser of the local ruler, involved in plenty of dubious enterprises no matter what the girl claimed – oh, but did he remember the smugglers from the wharves, ruthless killers but groveling before this man, so very afraid of him! He must have readily available killers everywhere, prepared to do his bidding, on the wharves or among the crowds, where his kidnapper was knifed, or even in Tenochtitlan. But didn’t they track him back there so easily and so fast?
He clenched his teeth tight, suppressing an involuntary shiver, suddenly cold in the fierce midday sun. One thing at a time. No one was chasing him as of now, but Chantli and the calmecac boy needed his help.
“There are different shores here,” whispered Chantli, looking haunted, her furtive glances making him wish to bolt back toward their previous hiding place.
“Take us toward the one where you were caught.”
People rushed past them, talking excitedly, crowding the alleys adjacent to the pebbled incline, waving baskets and bags. A few carried dripping corpses of water birds in their bare hands, swinging their catch or, rather, plunder proudly, happy with their prospective meals. Miztli could relate to that. But wouldn’t it be nice to snatch one such thing for oneself? His stomach churned in reply.
“If they recognize me, I’m done for,” declared Tlemilli all of a sudden, peering at the crowd next to the clearly improvised dais, the familiar gesticulating figure already posed upon its edge, waving its hands. The orating ruler! Shielding his eyes, he watched the warriors crowding the spacious square, the guarding spearmen mixed with the victorious contestants, easy to recognize by their shorter cloaks and spark of their jewelry.
“Are there more competitions expected to be held? More shooting or fighting?” His stomach turned once again at the mere thought.
“No, this shooting was the last thing.” The wideness of her lips twisted in a mocking grimace. “Do you expect them to run back to the Plaza now, all smeared in mud and what-not, to crowd the pyramids and shoot at more statues?”
“I don’t know what to expect from your people,” he replied tersely, suddenly out of patience. “So far, I learned to expect anything unexpected.”
Surprisingly, she took it well enough to giggle in response. “Yes, they can be that way. I keep expecting the unexpected too sometimes. Even from myself.”
He could hear Chantli snorting softly, muttering to herself.
“We must go there and sniff around,” he said, shrugging. “Blend with the crowds.”
“Not her surely,” offered Chantli, nodding toward their noble company quite reluctantly.
“Yes, I can! I can blend all I like.” As expected, Tlemilli reared like a cloud snake from his home village, the ground-colored, striped, dangerous thing, raising its upper body high when surprised into attacking. “You will be the one sticking out like a torch in your stupid torn commoner clothes.”
“And you will be sticking out with your stupid yelling and all the rest,” retorted Chantli, as spirited and as venomous as her rival. “Why do we have drag around with her?” she demanded. “Why can’t we go looking for Necalli and Ahuitzotl by ourselves?”
He had no answer to that, yet before he could say something non-committal, hoping that both girls did not plunge into a new row full of mutual insults and accusations, a roaring of the crowds they were heading toward caught their attention, making them lower their tones. The Emperor was still speaking, leaning forward, stretching his arms. Praising the warriors and their achievements, certainly. About to reward the best shooters again, like Tlemilli said he had promised. Well, he himself heard the orating ruler declare that.
Miztli made a face, then tried to see the elevated platform better. Who was behind the speaking noble? His regular entourage? He hoped this would be the case. Less dangerous to have that ominous Teconal up there and busy than sniffing around, interrogating Tenochtitlan intruders or sending killers to get rid of the ones he didn’t manage to interrogate the night before.
“My brave warriors of Tlatelolco,” thundered the gesturing ruler, so loudly he could be heard even here, on the edge of the crowds, his words muffled by the agitated whispers and talks but still there, vibrating quite clearly. “You have shown your valor and I have been pleased to see the skill and the spirit you possess in abundance. The best warriors of the entire valley of the Great Lake, even though our neighbors do not know it as yet. But they will.” The arms spread once again, encompassing the listeners, making them shift alongside with the motion. Somehow, they were again surrounded by pressing people, and he had a hard time trying to shield both girls with his own arms and body, not to let them be crushed or jostled too badly.
“If one day, you find yourself waging a war to defend our beloved altepetl, you will know that the enemy’s flesh is no stone, no wood to resist the strength of your spears. Even so, your intrepid arms broke the stone, tore the wood into splinters, your weapons superior, your strength and your determination more so.”
The crowds were going wild with excitement, yelling and shoving, veering whichever way. Tlemilli cried out as a wide-shouldered fisherman, judging by the stench of his hair and his clothes, pushed himself past them, barreling his way in, shoving her aside as though she was nothing but a reed-woven doll, with no weight and no width whatsoever.
He caught her before she could crush into the packed figures to their right, then pressed her closer to his body, shielding. All angles and sharp edges, he still found himself enjoying the contact greatly, relishing the unfamiliar feeling, embarrassed by it. Even her elbow, jutting against his hurting ribs, was not something he would push away given a choice. Which wasn’t offered them anyway. He tried to make sure Chantli did not disappear from the corner of his eye. Tlaquitoc’s daughter seemed to be at ease and not afraid, elbowing her way in and out with no additional thought; still, he felt responsible for her wellbeing as well. She had come all the way from Tenochtitlan, trying to find and save him. She and the calmecac boy. Oh, but they were so good to him, so incredibly kind, so trustworthy, people worthy of being called friends or doing anything he could for them.
“My brave people of Tlatelolco,” went on the man on the dais, well in his stride and oblivious to the passing of time. “How much easier it will be on the battlefiel
d, fighting against a flesh-and-blood enemy. No stone giants or wooden monsters, no soaring birds. On the battlefield, you will be like ferocious jaguars and pumas. You will know that our enemies are not birds to soar in order to escape your missiles, even though very few nimble flyers managed to escape your atlatls and slings today. Have courage and soon our people will be more important than Tenochtitlan Mexicas and our city will be revered as theirs never has been before.”
Perturbed by yet another wave of agitation all around, Miztli put it all into the attempt to propel both his charges into a momentary gap that was opening to their left. An easy fit with Tlemilli pressed tightly against his body, snug under the crook of his arm. Chantli presented a more difficult challenge with her independent movements. For a heartbeat, he saw her head diving inside, disappearing in the vacillating crowd. Worried, he prepared to throw himself in, in order to catch hold of her, yet before he could figure out what to do about his frightened noble charge in the meanwhile, her face popped out again, flushed and out of breath, glaringly red but beaming.
“See this?” she yelled, struggling to pull her hand up, unsuccessful on this score.
“Let’s get out of here,” he shouted, exasperated. “Grab my hand.”
A glimpse of greener ground gave him hope and he pushed with renewed vigor, welcoming the light breeze that managed to reach them on the outskirts of the agitating hordes, refreshing, promising relief. The Tlatelolcan girl was pressing into him with too much force, frightened now, volunteering no comments and no independent reactions, following his lead. It pleased him, made him struggle to clear their way with renewed vigor and force.