Shadow of the Lords Read Free Page A

mine, naturally, but his career had been no less remarkable. Unlike me, he owed his advancement to his own prowess rather than the day of his birth. Like almost any commoner’s child he had gone to the House of Youth as a boy and learned all the skills needed to fit a man or woman for life as an Aztec. In the case
of boys that meant rudimentary instruction in song and dance, medicine, history and polite speech, and advanced and intensive training in physical fitness, tactics and weapon handling. Lion had excelled at his studies, and then, when turned loose on our enemies, had fought his way to fame and fortune, dragging home more distinguished captives than he could count himself, and winning one of the highest ranks a commoner could attain: Atenpanecatl , Guardian of the Waterfront. With his rank had come the marks of distinction and high office: the yellow cotton cloak with the red border, the cotton ribbons that bound his hair, the distinctive earplugs and the special sandals with oversized straps that he was allowed to wear within the city’s limits.
    â€˜What’s funny?’ I echoed his question. ‘Why, this. I mean, look around us. Tezcatlipoca has really surpassed himself this time, hasn’t he?’
    Lion’s retort was choked off as he lurched forward involuntarily. Someone had barged into him from behind. He was a porter, probably on the last leg of a long journey from one of our tributary provinces. He had not been looking where he was going, probably because he had his head bowed against the weight of the bale hanging from his brow by a tump-line. From the faintly resinous smell about him I guessed the bale was full of copal incense.
    The man muttered something that might have been apologetic in his own language, and my brother’s outraged rebuke died in his throat. Lion turned on me instead.
    â€˜If you mean having me rub shoulders with peasants and barbarians is Tezcatlipoca’s idea of a joke, brother, then perhaps you could tell your patron god that I don’t get it!’
    If he was trying to sound belligerent then he spoiled the effect by sending a hasty glance skyward, as if anxious that he might have said too much.

    â€˜I didn’t mean you,’ I assured him, although I could easily imagine the god laughing at the picture my brother presented now: the illustrious warrior with his hair hopelessly tangled, his cloak torn and bloody and one of his sandals missing. ‘I was being purely selfish. Look at me: I was born on this day, remember? On One Death: Tezcatlipoca’s name-day. I was always going to achieve everything or nothing. So our father got me into the priesthood, no doubt expecting me to end up as the Keeper of the God of the Mexicans or something similarly illustrious, and what do I find myself doing? Celebrating the god’s name-day, and mine, as one of his own creatures – a slave. You have to admit, that is funny.’
    â€˜It was your choice. You didn’t have to sell yourself. You could have come back home.’
    â€˜And done what? Spend my days with a digging-stick, stirring shit into the soil?’
    â€˜Honest labour in the fields was good enough for our father. I suppose you thought all that was beneath you. Well, brother, let me remind you …’
    â€˜Don’t!’ I could guess what was coming: a resume of my downfall, culminating in the moment when I had had my head shaved, and sparing no detail – especially my brother’s role in wielding the razor himself, after he had persuaded the judges to spare my life. ‘I didn’t need your lectures then and I don’t need them now. Didn’t you think I’d suffered enough?’ Seeing a gap in the throng in front of me, I plunged into it, hoping to shake off both my brother and the things he made me remember.
    The crowd had parted to make room for a raucous quarrel between two pleasure-girls. No doubt it had begun as a trivial dispute over