The Demon of the Air by Simon Levack Page A

wasted journey.

    Quauhtenanco was no mere symbolic victory and the merchants secured more than just their own lives. It was the key to the hot lands in the South, whose wealth included rubber, cocoa, emeralds and above all feathers—the long, soft, shining green quetzal feathers that Aztecs coveted more than anything and could get nowhere else. It was chiefly for this that the merchants had been awarded their privileges, including the right to dress as warriors and offer slaves to the war-god at the festival of the Raising of Banners. If Shining Light’s father had helped win them their status, especially if he had died in the process, then I could see why Shining Light had been allowed to sacrifice a Bathed Slave at the festival.
    â€œWe were there together, Shining Light’s father—my son-in-law—and I,” the merchant’s grandfather explained. “Shining Light was only a baby when we set out, so he never knew his father, and his mother … well, she had no word of us for four years, and then I came home, laden down with the spoils of war and gifts from the Emperor’s hand, and her husband didn’t. I’m not sure she ever got over it.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked. “Quauhtenanco was twenty years ago. She can’t still be in mourning, surely?”
    â€œI don’t mean she breaks out weeping every day,” the old man said impatiently, “but maybe having only the boy left made her a little overprotective. I’ve sometimes wondered if, well …” He tapped the gourd absently with his fingers, making a hollow drumming sound, and frowned as he searched for the right words. “I sometimes think she’s trying to smother the lad, and it hasn’t always been for the best. How she’ll cope now Shining Light’s gone, I don’t know—but look, you might be able to judge for yourself.”
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move, and I heard the sound of a wicker screen being drawn aside from a doorway.
    â€œI think she can see you now.”
    A little group emerged, blinking, into daylight. Their faces had all been tanned like old leather by years of exposure to sun and wind, and they all had plain cloaks, lank hair and a proud, stiff bearing. As the seven of them walked silently past us toward the courtyard’s street entrance I realized they must be the leaders of the merchant parishes. Despite their lack of cotton cloaks, lip-plugs, feathers or sandals, these were among the richest men in Mexico.

    Just as the last of them was about to leave, he paused and looked back at my companion.
    â€œKindly,” he said curtly, “your grandson has gone too far this time.”
    â€œTell it to Oceloxochitl.” The old man suddenly sounded weary. “I don’t care anymore.”
    â€œWe’ve told her,” the other man assured him. “She knows we’ve only been as patient as we have because of the way his father died. When Shining Light comes home,” he added ominously, “his account will be settled.”

2
    T he servant showed me into a small room. Conventionally pious images of the gods decorated the walls: I recognized Two Lord and Two Lady, who allotted our birth dates and, along with those, our destinies. A low table, spread with delicacies—savory tamales, stuffed tortillas, fruit and assorted sweetmeats—stood in the middle of the room. The only other furniture was a large reed box. It lay open, displaying its contents. They looked like an elaborate suit of clothes: I recognized a colorful, feather-bordered jacket, obsidian sandals and wooden earplugs. They puzzled me at first, until I saw the lock of hair lying in the middle of the heap, and then I understood: these were the clothes the Bathed Slave had danced in during his last days and nights. Afterward they would have become his owner’s most treasured possessions, to be kept as long as he lived and