Days of the Dead.pdf - Upgrade Systems

out with me to­morrow to look at the pyramids-they were infinitely wise, those ancients, and infinitely
powerful. The priests used to wear masks made of the detached facial bones of former victims,
exquisitely set with crystal and turquoise. Quite remarkable."
"I should very much like to see them," said January, and the old man smiled, a baring of teeth, like an
animal about to bite.
"Ignorant folk seem to think the priests cut through the victim's breastbone vertically to tear out the
heart," Don Prospero said. "But in fact they slit the thorax in a horizontal curve just beneath the curve of
the rib cage and reached up under the sternum, something that can be ac­complished in a few seconds."
Past the Don's shoulder, January saw Don Anastasio, on his way out the door, pause and look back.
Concern and something like fear flickered in his dark eyes.
Out in the corredor, January had to smile at the way the women had divided themselves up, like liquids
in one of Rose's chemical experiments stratifying immediately and automatically, literally unable to
combine. Rose sat beside Consuela, talking of stage machinery and how to make fire effects without
burning the theater down. Natividad, January guessed, would probably have joined them had her mother
permitted her to even acknowledge the presence of a woman of color in the long, furnished arcade, much
less exchange words with her: not that Señora Lorcha was much less than three-quarters Indian herself,
and her daughter close to that. But as Señora Lorcha snubbed Rose, Doña Imelda snubbed her, forming
the nucleus of the criollo Spanish group of Josefa, Valentina, and Valla's duenna. All puffed on their
cigarettos with little golden clips and ignored the existence of the other women as they would have
ignored flies upon the wall.
At the sight of Santa Anna's aides-handsome young men in uniforms as gorgeous as their
chief's-Valentina rose, smiling. Doña Imelda was immediately at her side.
"See, Vallacita, here is Rafael, your novia," she said in a voice that carried a command to Rafael in
no uncertain terms. Torn from his approach to Natividad, Don Rafael came over obediently to join his
mother and Valentina on the leather-covered bench and launched into an informative account of the
re-upholstering of his carriage. Valentina turned her face coldly away.
Down in the darkness of the courtyard, one of the va­queros around their fire played a sharp
quickstep baille. Hannibal's violin caught the melody and turned it, weav­ing the air into a lilting
barcarole and tossing it back into the shadows. The guitar replied, quicker now and challeng­ing; the
violin answered lightly, quadrupling each note into cascades of riffles. January heard the vaqueros around
the fire laugh at the guitarist's expression, and as the two in­struments merged into a lively duet, he
realized General Santa Anna had quietly joined him.
"So Sir Henry Ward gave you a mandate to look into your friend's little problem, eh?" The General's
teeth gleamed as he took the cigar from his mouth. "That was gracious of him."
January met his eyes. Santa Anna was a man of average height for the United States, though he was
accounted tall in Mexico-he carried himself like a king. Had he looked this gracious and noble six months
ago, January wondered, when he'd turned his troops loose on the women and non­combatants of the
captured rebel city of Zacatecas, after slaughtering the prisoners taken in arms?
"Whether Señora Montero spoke in truth or in antici­pation-or merely out of a desire to annoy Capitán
Ylario-I will endeavor to see Sir Henry Ward at the earli­est opportunity, Your Excellency."
Santa Anna chuckled. "It is true that Capitán Ylario is officious. The pettifogging of bureaucrats did not