Aztec

reason to detest—he is called Motecuzoma—and I believe he regarded Ahuitzotl's treaty of alliance with us as a sign of weakness. I believe he wanted the Cloud People as subjects of the Mexica, not as equals. I strongly suspect he fomented that riot in hope of setting us at each other's throats again. If you do have Ahuitzotl's ear, young traveler, I suggest you insinuate a word of warning about his nephew. That new and upstart Motecuzoma, if he retains a position of any power, could undo all the good his uncle might seek to accomplish.'

* * *

At the causeway to Tenochtitlan, where the city loomed before us luminous white in the dove-colored dusk, I sent my men ahead of me by twos and threes. By the time I set foot on the island, the night had come down, and the city was ablaze with firelight, candlelight, and lamplight. In that inconstant illumination I could see that my house was finished, and that it was a sightly one, but I could not make out all its exterior details. Since it was set on pillars about my own height above ground level, I had to climb a short stair to the entrance. There I was admitted by a middle-aged female I had never seen before, obviously a new-bought slave. She introduced herself as Teoxihuitl, or Turquoise, and said, 'When the porters arrived, the mistress went upstairs, that you might have privacy for the business of men. She will await you in your chamber, master.'

The woman showed me into the lower-floor room where my seven companions were devouring a cold meal she had hurried to lay for them. When dishes had also been provided for me, and we had all allayed our hunger, the men helped me pivot the false wall of that room and secrete their packs behind it, where some others of my goods had already been stored. Then I paid the men the homecoming share of their wages, and paid them rather more than I had promised, for they had performed admirably. They all kissed the earth to me as they departed, after making me swear that I would summon them again if I should conceive any other projects that would be to the taste of seven elder warriors otherwise consigned to peace and stagnation.

Upstairs, I found the sanitary closet exactly as I had told the architect it should be: as complete and efficiently self-emptying as those I had admired in palaces. In the adjacent steam room, the slave woman Turquoise had already heated and laid the glowing stones and, when I had finished my first bath, she poured water over them to make the clouds of steam. I sweated there for a good while, then returned to the bathing basin again, until I was satisfied that I had got all the dust and grime and smell of travel out of my pores.

When, naked, I stepped through the connecting door to the bedchamber, I found Zyanya equally naked, lying invitingly supine atop the bed stack of soft quilts. There was only a dim red light from a brazier in the room, but it glinted on the pale streak in her hair and outlined her upthrusting breasts. Each of them was a beautifully symmetrical mound, with on top of it the smaller mound of her areola, exactly like the profile of Popocatepetl as you see it through the window there, my lords friars: a cone upon a cone. No, of course there is no need for me to regale you with such details. I only explain why my breathing altered as I moved toward Zyanya, and why I spoke only a few words:

'Beu is safe. There is other news, but it can wait.'

'Let it wait,' she said, and she smiled, and she reached for the nearest approaching part of me.

So it was quite some time later that I told about Beu Ribe: that she was alive and safe, but dismally unhappy. I am glad that we had made love first. It gave Zyanya the usual lasting languor of pleasure and satisfaction which, I hope, softened the words I had to speak. I told of Beu's unfortunate encounter with the Mexicatl officer, and tried to make it sound—as indeed Beu had made it sound—more of a farce that a tragedy.

I concluded, 'I think it is her stubborn pride that makes her stay on there, keeping the inn. She is determined to take no notice of what the townspeople may think of her, whether they think shame or sympathy. She will not leave Tecuantepec for any good reason or for any better life, because it might be taken as a sign that she had weakened at last.'

'Poor Beu,' Zyanya murmured. 'Is there nothing we can do?'

Suppressing my own opinion of 'poor Beu,' I meditated and finally said, 'I can think of nothing but for you to suffer a misfortune. If her only sister needed her desperately, I believe she would come to you. But let us not tempt or provoke the gods. Let us not discuss mischance.'

The next day, when Ahuitzotl received me in his grisly throne room, I again told my confected story: that I had gone to see that my wife's sister had not suffered in the sack of Tecuantepec and, while there, had taken the opportunity to go farther south and procure more of the magical crystals. I again ceremoniously made him a present of one, and he thanked me without great enthusiasm. Then, before bringing up a subject which I expected would bulge his eyeballs and fire his irascibility, I told him something to sweeten his temper.

'My travels, Lord Speaker, took me into the coastal land of the Xoconochco, whence comes most of our cotton and salt. I spent two days among the Mame people, in their main village of Pijijia, and there the elders called me into council. They desired me to bring a message to the Uey-Tlatoani of the Mexica.'

He said indifferently, 'Speak the message.'

'Know first, my lord, that the Xoconochco is not a nation, but a vast extent of fertile land inhabited by various peoples: the Mame, the Mixe, the Comiteca, and even smaller tribes. Their territories all overlap, and their allegiance is only to such tribal elders as those in Pijijia. The Xoconochco has no central capital or governing body or standing army.'

'Interesting,' muttered Ahuitzotl. 'But not very.'

I went on, 'To the east of the rich and fruitful Xoconochco is the unproductive jungle country of Quautemalan, The Tangled Wood. Its natives, the Quiche and Lacandon, are degenerate remnants of the Maya. They are poor and dirty and lazy, and heretofore have been accounted beneath contempt. However, they have recently summoned the energy to emerge from Quautemalan and make raids into the Xoconochco. Those scavengers threaten that their raids will increase in frequency, will become an unremitting war, unless the Xoconochco peoples agree to pay them heavy tribute of cotton and salt.'

'Tribute?' grunted Ahuitzotl, interested at last. 'Our cotton and salt!'

'Yes, my lord. Now, we can hardly expect peaceable cotton farmers and sea fishers and salt panners to mount a fierce defense of their lands. But they do have spirit enough to resent those demands. They are unwilling to give to the Quiche and Lacandon what they have formerly and profitably sold to us Mexica. They believe our Revered Speaker should be equally outraged at the idea.'

'Spare us your emphasis of the obvious,' growled Ahuitzotl. 'What did those elders propose? That we go to war for them against Quautemalan?'

'No, my lord. They offer to give us the Xoconochco.'

'What?' He was honestly staggered.

'If the Uey-Tlatoani will accept the Xoconochco lands as a new province, all its petty rulers will relinquish their offices, all its separate tribes will relinquish their identities, all will swear loyalty to Tenochtitlan as voluntary Mexica. They ask only two things: that they be allowed to go on living and working as they always have, unmolested, and that they continue to receive a living wage for their labor. The Mame speak for all their neighbor tribes in requesting that a Mexicatl noble be appointed ruler and protector of the Xoconochco, and that a strong garrison of Mexica troops be established and maintained there.'

Looking pleased for a change, even dazzled, Ahuitzotl murmured to himself, 'Incredible. A rich land, free for the taking, freely given.' To me he said, more warmly than he had ever before addressed me, 'You do not always bring annoyances and problems, young Mixtli.'

I modestly said nothing.

He went on, thinking aloud, 'It would be the farthest dominion of The Triple Alliance. Put an army there and we would have much of the entire One World, from sea to sea, between two jaws. The nations thus flanked would evermore hesitate to be troublesome, lest those jaws gnash together and chew them up. They would be apprehensive, biddable, servile....'

I spoke up again: 'If I may point out another advantage, Lord Speaker. That army will be far from here, but it need not depend on supply trains from Tenochtitlan. The Mame elders promised me that it will be supported and provisioned without stint. The soldiers will live well in the abundance of the Xoconochco.'

'By Huitztli, we will do it!' Ahuitzotl exclaimed. 'We must of course present the proposition to our Speaking Council, but that will be only a formality.'

I said, 'My lord might care to tell the Speaking Council this, too. Once the garrison is established, the soldiers could be joined by their families. Tradesmen would follow. Still other Mexica might wish to leave these crowded lake