him to achieve commodiousness by building upward. I specified a roof garden, indoor sanitary closets with the necessary flushing arrangements, and a false wall in one room with ample hiding space behind it.
Meanwhile, without calling me in for further consultation, Ahuitzotl marched south toward Uaxyacac, leading not an immense army but a picked troop of his best warriors, at most a mere five hundred men. He left his Snake Woman as temporary occupant of the throne, but took with him as his under-commander a youth whose name is familiar to you Spaniards. He was Motecuzoma Xocoyotzin, which is to say the Younger Lord Motecuzoma; he was, in fact, about a year younger than myself. He was Ahuitzotl's nephew, a son of the earlier Uey-Tlatoani Axayacatl, hence a grandson of the first and great Motecuzoma. He had until that time been a high priest of the war god Huitzilopochtli, but that expedition was his first taste of actual war. He was to have many more, for he quit the priesthood to become a professional soldier and, of course, at command rank.
About a month after the troop's departure, Ahuitzotl's swift-messengers began to return at intervals to the city, and the Snake Woman made their reports publicly known. From the news of the first returning messengers, it was obvious that the Revered Speaker was following the advice I had given him. He had sent advance notice of his approach and, as I had predicted, the Bishosu of Uaxyicac had welcomed his forces and had contributed an equal number of warriors. Those combined Mexica and Tzapoteca forces invaded the seacoast warrens of The Strangers and made short work of them—slaughtering enough that the remainder surrendered and bowed to the levy of their long-guarded purple dye.
But the later arriving messengers brought less happy news. The victorious Mexica were quartered in Tecuantepec, while Ahuitzotl and his counterpart ruler Kosi Yuela conferred there on matters of state. Those soldiers had long been accustomed to their right to pillage whatever nation they defeated, so they were disgruntled and angered when they learned that their leader was ceding the only visible plunder—the precious purple—to the ruler of that same nation. To the Mexica it seemed that they had waged a battle for the benefit of nobody but the very country they had invaded. Since Ahuitzotl was not the sort of man to justify his actions to his underlings and thereby quell their unrest, his Mexica simply rebelled against all military restraint. They broke ranks and broke discipline and ran wild through Tecuantepec, looting, raping, and burning.
That mutiny could have disrupted the delicate negotiations intended to effect an alliance between our nation and Uaxyacac. But fortunately, before the rampaging Mexica could kill anyone of importance, and before the Tzapoteca troops intervened—which would have meant a small war right there—Ahuitzotl bawled his horde to order and promised that, immediately upon their return to Tenochtitlan, he would personally pay to every least yaoquizqui of them, from his own personal treasury, a sum well in excess of what they could hope to loot from their host country. The soldiers knew Ahuitzotl for a man of his word, so that was sufficient to put down the mutiny. The Revered Speaker also paid to Kosi Yuela and the bishosu of Tecuantepec a sizable indemnity for the damage that had been done.
The reports of mayhem in Zyanya's natal city naturally worried her and me. None of the swift-messengers bearing news could tell us whether our sister Beu Ribe or her inn had been in the path of the spoilers. We waited until Ahuitzotl and his troop returned, and I made some inquiries among the officers, but still could not ascertain if anything bad had happened to Waiting Moon.
'I am most anxious about her, Zaa,' said my wife.
'It seems there is nothing to be discovered except in Tecuantopec itself.'
She said hesitantly, 'I could stay here and continue to direct our house builders, if you would consider...'
'You need not even ask. I had planned to revisit those parts in any case.'
She blinked in surprise. 'You had? Why?'
'A matter of unfinished business,' I told her. 'It could have waited a while, but the question of Beu's well- being means that I go now.'
Zyanya was quick to understand, and she said, 'You are going again to the mountain that walks in the sea! You must not, my love! Those barbarian Zyu nearly killed you last time—!'
I laid a finger gently across her lips. 'I am going south to seek news of our sister, and that is the truth, and that is the only truth you will tell to anyone who inquires. Ahuitzotl must not hear any rumor that I have any other objective.'
She nodded, but said unhappily, 'Now I will have two loved ones to worry about.'
'This one will return safe, and I will look for Beu. If she has come to harm, I will make it right. Or, if she prefers, I will bring her back here with me. And I will bring back some other precious things as well.'
Of course Beu Ribe was my foremost concern and my immediate reason for going back to Uaxyacac. But you will have perceived, reverend scribes, that I was also about to consummate a plan I had carefully laid in train. When I suggested to the Revered Speaker that he raid The Strangers and make them agree to surrender all the purple dye they might forever after collect, I had not mentioned to him the vast treasure of that substance they had already stored in the cave of the Sea God. From my inquiries among the returned officers I knew that even in defeat The Strangers had not handed it over or volunteered any hint of its existence. But I knew of it, and I knew the grotto where it was hidden, and I had arranged that Ahuitzotl should subdue the Zyu sufficiently that it would be possible for me to go and get that fabulous hoard for myself.
I might have taken Cozcatl with me, except that he was also busy with house building, completing the one he had inherited from Blood Glutton. So I merely asked his permission to borrow a few items from the old warrior's wardrobe there. Then I went about the city and hunted up seven of Blood Glutton's former companions-in-arms. They were younger than he had been, though some years older than myself. They were still sturdy and strong, and when, after swearing them to secrecy, I explained what I had in mind, they were keen for the adventure.
Zyanya helped spread the story that I was going out to seek the whereabouts of her sister and that, as long as I was traveling, I was making a trade expedition of it as well. So when I and the seven plodded south along the Coyohuacan causeway, we excited no comment or curiosity. Of course, had anyone looked at us very closely, he might have wondered at the incidence of scars, bent noses, and bulbous ears among the porters I had chosen. Had he inspected the men's long packs of wrapped matting, ostensibly full of goods to trade, he would have found that they contained—besides traveling rations and quills of gold dust—only leather shields, every kind of weapon more wieldy than the long spear, various colors of war paint, feathers, and other regalia of a miniature army.
We continued along the southbound trade route, but only until we were well beyond Quaunahuac. Then we abruptly turned off to the right, along a less-used westbound route, the shortest way to the sea. Since that route led us, for most of our way, through the southernmost areas of Michihuacan, we would have been in trouble if anyone had challenged us and examined our packs. We would have been taken for Mexica spies and instantly executed—or not so instantly. Though the several attempted invasions by our armies in times past had all been repulsed by the Purempecha's superior weapons of some mysteriously hard and sharp metal, every Purempe was still forever on guard against any Mexicatl's entering his land with dubious motive.
I might remark that Michihuacan, Land of the Fishermen, was what we Mexica called it, as you Spaniards now call it New Galicia, whatever that means. To its natives, it has various names in various areas—Xalisco, Nauyar Ixu, Kuanahiuata, and others—but in total it is called Tzintzuntzani, Where There Are Hummingbirds, after its capital city of the same name.
The language is called Pore and, during that journey and later ones, I learned as much as I could of it—of them, I should say, since Pore has as many variant local dialects as does Nahuatl. I know enough Pore, anyway, to wonder why you Spaniards insist on calling the Purempecha the Tarascans. You seem to have got that name from the Pore word tardskue, which a Purempe uses to designate himself as an aloof 'distant relation' of all neighboring other peoples. But no matter; I have had more than enough different names myself. I collected yet another in that land: Dark Cloud being there rendered Anikua Pakapeti.
Michihuacan was and is a vast and rich country, as rich as the domain of the Mexica ever was. Its Uandakuari, or Revered Speaker, reigned over—or at least collected tribute from—a region stretching from the fruit orchards of Xichu in the eastern Otomi lands to the trading port of Potqamkuaro on the southern ocean. And, though the Purempecha were constantly on guard against military encroachment by us Mexica, they did not balk at exchanging their riches for ours. Their traders came to our Tlaltelolco market. They even sent swift-messengers daily bearing fresh fish for the delectation of our nobles. In return, our traders were allowed to travel throughout Michihuacan unmolested, as I and my seven pretended porters did.
Had we really been of a mind to barter along the way, we could have secured many valuable things: oyster- heart pearls; pottery of rich glazes; utensils and ornaments made of copper, silver, shell, and amber; the brilliant lacquerware that could be found nowhere else but in Michihuacan. Those lacquered objects, intense black etched
