Viperhand - Douglas Niles [28]
She began to wonder if she was losing her mind.
She found occasional moments of pleasure in the great marketplace. Among the presents that had been placed in their room were sacks of cocoa beans, and feathered quills filled with gold dust-the two principal forms of currency in the great city. For the first time in her life, Erixitl had her own money to spend. She also had the most elaborate marketplace in the True World to spend it in.
There, vendors from all the lands of Maztica-except, of course, for Kultaka-offered their goods for sale or barter. The most common means of exchange was the cocoa bean, which she had seen in the abundance of its harvest in Payit. It amused her now to see peddlers counting the brown nuggets, one by one, in order to conclude a sale.
They traded for fine bolts of cloth, for bright shells and long quills filled with gold dust. Carvers offered tiny replicas, in wood or stone, of the gods. Stonechippers presented sharp-edged macas and knives, and obsidian-tipped javelins and arrows. Bowyers sold their weapons, hewn from the most resilient willow or the hardy cedar.
She stopped once, momentarily enthralled by the pluma offered by a humble featherworker. The craftsman, a wrinkled old man whose nimble fingers belied his otherwise arthritic appearance, held up a cape for her inspection. The garment was a fine mesh, interwoven with tiny tufts of the most brilliant feathers she had ever seen.
Almost ever seen, she reminded herself, unconsciously touching the token at her throat. That gift from her father was more than a decade old, yet though its feathered fringes were single, delicate strands of color, the amulet hadn't lost a single plume over the years.
"I see you know of pluma" said the old man sagely. He let go of the cape, and it hung motionless in the air. The man made a curt gesture, and the cape swirled around Erix to settle softly about her shoulders.
"Take the mantle," offered the featherworker. "May it protect your skin as the amulet protects your spirit."
Erix was about to protest, to offer the man some payment for the cape. Indeed, it was the first thing she had seen in the market that really attracted her attention. Vet the featherworker was suddenly engaged in an earnest sales talk with a tall Eagle Knight. Though Erix came past this spot a little later, she saw no sign of the old man nor his blanket of goods. Strangely, none of the other vendors nearby seemed to remember him.
But the cloak was soft and warm on her shoulders and seemed to lighten her spirits somewhat as she returned to the palace, to the apartments around the garden. And as she expected, there was no one there.
This time her solitude was short-lived, however. The rattle of the doorway curtains told her that someone stood without, and she looked up to see Poshtli, silently awaiting her permission to enter.
"Come in," she said, delighted to see the warrior. His face, which had been unusually taut since they had arrived in Nexal, seemed once again smooth and untroubled.
Erix spun, allowing the feathered cloak to rise from her shoulders and circle her in the air, a brilliantly colorful frame for her own brown skin and swirling black hair. "Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful," he said, and he meant it. "But not as beautiful as the woman it warms."
Erix stopped suddenly, looking at Poshtli in surprise. Suddenly she blushed and looked down, pleased but taken aback by his remark. He stepped to her side, and she looked up at him again.
"Erixitl… I've wanted to speak to you for weeks, since the day we met, to tell you what's been in my heart. Always something seemed to stop me. We haven't been alone, or my tongue would become tied into a knot in my mouth and I could not speak.
"But no