village between Tenochtitlan and the southern ocean, and commanded him to make of it another fortified and thriving community on the model of Tapachtlan.
For that, Motecuzoma was given another sizable army troop and a sizable number of civilians. Those were families and individuals who may or may not have been dissatisfied with life in Tenochtitlan or its environs, but when the Revered Speaker said, 'You will go,' they went. And when Motecuzoma allotted them estimable landholdings in and around Teloloapan, they all settled down under his governorship, to make of that miserable village a respectable town.
So, as soon as Teloloapan had a garrison built and was feeding itself with its own harvests, Motecuzoma the Younger was again relieved of command and sent to do the same thing elsewhere. Ahuitzotl ordered him to one petty village after another: Oztoman, Alahuiztlan—I forget all their names, but they were all situated on the farther borders of The Triple Alliance. As those remote colonies multiplied and each of them grew, they accomplished three things pleasing to Ahuitzotl. They drained away more and more of the excess population of our lake district—from Texcoco, Tlacopan, and other lake cities as well as from Tenochtitlan. They provided us with strong frontier outposts. And the continuing process of colonization kept Motecuzoma both profitably occupied and far from any possibility of intriguing against his uncle.
But the emigrations and removals could only stop the increase of population in Tenochtitlan; there was never enough of an outpouring to lessen the crowding and elbowing of those who remained. The island-city's chief need was of more fresh water. A steady supply of that had been arranged by the first Motecuzoma when he built the aqueduct from the sweet springs of Chapultepec, more than a sheaf of years before, about the same time he built the Great Dike to protect the city from windblown floods. But the flow from Chapultepec could not be persuaded to increase just because more was needed. That was proved; a number of our priests and sorcerers tried all their means of suasion, and all failed.
It was then that Ahuitzotl determined to find a new source of water, and sent those same priests and sorcerers and a few of his Speaking Council wise men to scout other regions of the nearby mainland. By whatever means of divination, they did tap into a previously undiscovered spring, and the Revered Speaker at once began to plan a new aqueduct. Since that newfound stream near Coyohuacan gushed up more strongly than that of Chapultepec, Ahuitzotl even planned for it to make fountains spout in The Heart of the One World.
But not everybody was so enthusiastic, and one who advised caution was the Revered Speaker Nezahualpili of Texcoco, when he was invited by Ahuitzotl to inspect the new spring and the work just getting under way on the new aqueduct. I did not hear their conversation with my own ears; there was no reason for me to be present on that occasion; I was probably at home playing games with my baby daughter. But I can reconstruct the consultation of the two Revered Speakers from what I was told by their attendants long after the event.
For one thing, Nezahualpili warned, 'My friend, you and your city may have to choose between having too little water and having too much of it,' and he reminded Ahuitzotl of some historical facts.
This city is now and has for sheaves of years been an island surrounded by water, but it was not always so. When the earliest ancestors of us Mexica came from the mainland to make their permanent habitation here, they walked here. It was no doubt a sloppy and uncomfortable march for them, but they did not have to swim. All the area that is now water between here and the mainland to the west, to the north, to the south, was in those days only a soggy swamp of mud and puddles and sawgrass, and this place was then merely the one dry and firm extrusion of land in that widespread marsh.
Over the years of building a city here, those early settlers also laid firmer paths for easier access to the mainland. Perhaps their first paths were no more than ridges of packed earth, a trifle higher than the bog. But eventually the Mexica sank double rows of pilings and tamped rubble between them, and on top of those foundations laid the stone pavings and parapets of the three causeways that still exist. Those causeways impeded the marsh's draining its surface waters into the lake beyond, and the blocked swamp waters began perceptibly to rise.
It made a considerable improvement over previous conditions. The water covered the stinking mud and the leg-slashing sawgrass and the standing puddles from which swarms of mosquitoes were endlessly being born. Of course, if the water had continued to mount, it could eventually have covered this island, too, and flooded into the streets of Tlacopan and other mainland cities. But the causeways were built with wooden-bridged gaps in them at intervals, and the island itself was trenched with its many canals for the passage of canoes. Those spillways allowed a sufficient overflow of the waters into Lake Texcoco on the island's eastern side, so the artificially created lagoon rose only so high and no higher.
'Or it has not yet,' Nezahualpili said to Ahuitzotl. 'But now you propose to pipe new water across from the mainland. It must go somewhere.'
'It goes to the city for our people's consumption,' Ahuitzotl said testily. 'For drinking, bathing, laundering...'
'Very little water is ever consumed,' said Nezahualpili. 'Even if your people drink it all the day long, they must urinate it as well. I repeat: the water must go somewhere. And where but into this damned-in part of the lake? Its level could rise faster than it can drain out through your canals and causeway passages into Lake Texcoco beyond.'
Beginning to swell and redden, Ahuitzotl demanded, 'Do you suggest we ignore our newfound spring, that gift of the gods? That we do nothing to alleviate the thirst of Tenochtitlan?'
'It might be more prudent. At least, I suggest you build your aqueduct in such a way that the flow of water can be monitored and controlled—and shut off if necessary.'
Ahuitzotl said in a growl, 'With your increasing years, old friend, you become increasingly a fearful old woman. If we Mexica had always listened to those who told us what could not be done, we should never have done anything.'
'You asked my opinion, old friend, and I have given it,' said Nezahualpili. 'But the final responsibility is yours, and'—he smiled—'your name is Water Monster.'
The Aqueduct of Ahuitzotl was finished within a year or so after that, and the palace seers took great pains to choose a most auspicious day for its dedication and the first unloosing of its waters. I remember well the date of the day, Thirteen Wind, for it lived up to its name.
The crowd began to gather long before the ceremony commenced, for it was almost as much of an event as the dedication of the Great Pyramid had been, twelve years earlier. But of course all those people could not be let onto the Coyohuacan causeway where the main rituals were to be performed. The mass of commonfolk had to clump together at the southern end of the city, and jostle and lean and peer for a glimpse of Ahuitzotl, his wives, his Speaking Council, the high nobles, priests, knights, and other personages who would come by canoe from the palace to take their places on the causeway between the city and the Acachinanco fort. Unfortunately, I had to be among those dignitaries, in full uniform and in the full company of Eagle Knights. Zyanya wanted also to attend, and to bring Cocoton with her, but again I dissuaded her.
'Even if I could arrange for you to get close enough to sec anything,' I said, as I wriggled into my quilted and feathered armor that morning, 'you would be buffeted and drenched by the lake wind and spray. Also, in that crush of people, you might fall or faint, and the child could be trampled.'
'I suppose you are right,' said Zyanya, sounding not much disappointed. Impulsively, she hugged the little girl to her. 'And Cocoton is too pretty to be squeezed by anybody but us.'
'No squeeze!' Cocoton complained, but with dignity. She slipped out of her mother's arms and toddled off to the other side of the room. At the age of two years, our daughter had a considerable store of words, but she was no chattering squirrel; she seldom exercised more than two of her words at a time.
'When Crumb was first born, I thought her hideous,' I said, as I went on dressing. 'Now I think her so pretty that she cannot possibly get any more so. She can only deteriorate, and it is a pity. By the time we want to marry her off, she will look like a wild sow.'
'Wild sow,' Cocoton agreed, from the corner.
'She will not,' Zyanya said firmly. 'A child, if it is pretty at all, reached its utmost infant beauty at two, and goes on being lovely—with subtle changes, of course—until it reaches its utmost childhood beauty at six. Little boys stop there, but little girls—'
I growled.
'I mean boys stop being beautiful. They may go on to become handsome, comely, manly, but not beautiful. Or at least they should hope not. Most women dislike pretty men as much as other men do.'
