Shadow of the Lords Read Online Free PDF Page B

Princesses, the ghosts of mothers dead in childbirth who avenged themselves on men by bringing sickness upon them.
    â€˜I think there was a feast,’ my neighbour said defensively. ‘Maybe some of the guests …’
    â€˜Maybe some of the guests had had a few too many sacred mushrooms. They might have seen anything!’
    â€˜Do you want to hear about this or not?’ He took my
silence as assent. ‘The god was running – or trying to run. He was staggering along the side of a canal, and shouting – cursing. It was like he was drunk.’
    â€˜What made everyone think he was Quetzalcoatl?’
    â€˜He looked like him! He had a serpent’s face, all smooth and glittery, and the rest of him was covered in feathers – feathers sprouting from his head and down his back and even from his pendant and the shield he was carrying, great long green feathers everywhere. You should have seen it!’ he went on, breathlessly. ‘The most beautiful quetzal feathers ever, like nothing I’ve ever seen – and I’m a featherworker!’
    I was still cautious. The description sounded too accurate: too much like the images that decorated countless shrines and temples. ‘Did you really see all this?’
    â€˜I’m telling you, I was there! He was right in front of me – as close as you are now.’
    â€˜You weren’t a guest at this feast you mentioned, I suppose?’ The more I heard, the more convinced I was it was the sacred mushrooms talking.
    â€˜No,’ he said, plainly nettled. ‘Look, I was as sober as I am now, all right?’
    I sighed; I had really not meant to start a row. ‘All right. I’m sorry, it just sounds incredible. Weren’t you scared?’
    â€˜Scared? Look,’ he said, with a perverse note of pride, ‘I’m not ashamed to say it – I was so scared I wet myself!’
    â€˜So you were wandering around in Tlatelolco by yourself …’
    â€˜I was walking by the canal that separates Pochtlan from Amantlan – you know it?’ I did: I could picture the broad waterway, edged on both sides by landing stages and the whitewashed walls of houses and courtyards, most of them large and well kept, since Pochtlan and Amantlan were two of the richest parishes in the city. ‘I heard the commotion on the other
side – someone shouting, and running feet. It was too dark to see much in the way of detail from the other side of the water.’ The only light would have been the stars and the flickering glow of the temple fires burning at the tops of nearby pyramids. ‘All I could see was someone moving in the same direction as I was. I remember wondering if he was going to cross the bridge in front of me – then he did!’ I heard the man swallow nervously. ‘I was so frightened I couldn’t even run. I just watched him staggering across that little wooden bridge – I don’t know if he was drunk but he was definitely unsteady on his feet – and the next thing I knew, I was face to face with a god!’
    Face to face with a god. In the man’s expression, in his staring eyes and bared teeth, I saw something of the terror he must have felt. He was telling the truth, I had no doubt of that. To have learned from others that they had seen what he had and that it had not been just a bad dream could only have added to his fear.
    I was about to ask him what had happened next – where the god had gone, whether he had fainted or run away – when an urgent tugging at the hem of my cloak interrupted me.
    â€˜Your visitor, slave,’ the Prick hissed.
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    My visitor would not come into the courtyard. The steward had to lead me out to him. He did so with ill grace, flapping the ground at his heels with the hem of his long cotton cloak in the hope of stirring some dust up into my face as I walked in his footsteps. By the time we got to the foot of the broad flight