Aztec

NONA PARS

I come now to that time in our history when we Mexica, having for so many sheaves of years been climbing the mountain of greatness, at last reached its pinnacle, meaning that all unwittingly we began to descend the far side.

On my way home, after a few more months of aimless wandering in the west, I stopped in Tolocan, a pleasant mountaintop town in the lands of the Matlaltzinca, one of the smaller tribes allied to The Triple Alliance. I took a room at an inn and, after bathing and dining, I went to the town's marketplace to buy new garments for my homecoming and a gift for my daughter. While I was thus engaged, a swift-messenger came trotting from the direction of Tenochtitlan, through the market square of Tolocan, and he wore two mantles. One was white, the color of mourning because it is the color denoting the west, whither the dead depart. Over that was a mantle of green, the color signifying good news. So it was no surprise to me when Tolocan's governor made the public announcement: that the Revered Speaker Ahuitzotl, who had been dead of mind for two years, had finally died in body; that the lord regent, Motecuzoma the Younger, had been officially elevated by the Speaking Council to the exalted rank of Uey-Tlatoani of the Mexica.

The news put me in a mood to turn again, to set my back to Tenochtitlan and trudge off again toward the far horizons. But I did not. Many times in my life I have flouted authority and been rash in my actions, but I have not always behaved as a recreant or a fool. I was still a Mexicatl, hence subject to the Uey-Tlatoani, whoever he might be and however far I might roam. More, I was an Eagle Knight, sworn to fealty even to a Revered Speaker whom I personally could not revere.

Without ever having met the man, I disliked and distrusted Motecuzoma Xocoyotzin—for his attempt to frustrate his Revered Speaker's alliance with the Tzapoteca, years before, and for the ignobly perverse manner in which he had molested Zyanya's sister Beu at that time. But Motecuzoma had probably never yet heard of me, and could not know what I knew about him, and so had no reason to reciprocate my animosity. I would be a fool to give him any such reason by making my feelings evident, or even bringing myself to his notice. If, for instance, he should take a notion to count the Eagle Knights attendant at his inauguration, he might be insulted by the inexcusable absence of one knight named Dark Cloud.

So I went on eastward from Tolocan, down the steep slopes that lead from there to the lake basin and the cities therein. Arriving at Tenochtitlan, I went directly to my house, where I was received with exultation by the slaves Turquoise and Star Singer, and by my friend Cozcatl, and with somewhat less enthusiasm by his wife, who said with tears in her eyes, 'Now you will make us give up our cherished little Cocoton.'

I said, 'She and I will always be devoted to you, Quequelmiqui, and you may visit each other as often as you like.'

'It will not be the same as having her.'

I said to Turquoise, 'Tell the child her father is home. Ask her to come to me.'

They came downstairs hand in hand. At four years, Cocoton was still of an age to go about nude at home, and that made the change in her immediately evident to me. I was pleased to note that, as her mother had predicted, she was still beautiful; indeed, her facial resemblance to Zyanya was even more to be remarked. But she was no longer a formlessly pudgy infant with stubby limbs. She was recognizably a human being in miniature, with real arms and legs proportionate to her size. I had been away for two years, a span of time that a man in his middle thirties can squander unheeding. But it had been half of my daughter's lifetime, during which she had magically changed from a baby to a charming little girl. Suddenly I felt sorry not to have been present to observe her blossoming; it must have been as wonderfully perceptible, from moment to moment, as the unfolding of a water lily at twilight. I reproached myself for having deprived myself, and I made a silent vow that I would not do it again.

Turquoise made the introductions with a proud flourish: 'My little mistress Ce-Malinali called Cocoton. Here is your Tete Mixtli returned at last. Greet him with respect, as you have been taught.'

To my pleased surprise, Cocoton dropped gracefully to make the gesture of kissing the earth to me. She did not look up from the posture of obeisance until I called her name. Then I beckoned, and she bestowed on me her dimpled smile, and she came running into my arms, and gave me a shy, wet kiss, and said, 'Tete, I am happy that you have come back from your adventures.'

I said, 'I am happy to find such a mannerly little lady awaiting me.' To Ticklish I said, 'Thank you for keeping your promise. That you would not let her forget me.'

Cocoton leaned from my embrace to look around, saying, 'I did not forget my Tene either. I want to greet her too.'

The others in the room stopped smiling, and discreetly turned away. I drew a long breath and said:

'I must tell you with sadness, little girl, that the gods needed your mother's help in some adventures of their own. In a far place where I could not accompany her, a place from which she cannot return. And such a request from the gods cannot be refused. So she will not be coming home; you and I must make our lives without her. But still you must not forget your Tene.'

'No,' the child said solemnly.

'But just to make sure you remember her, Tene sent you a memento.' I produced the necklace I had purchased in Tolocan, some twenty small firefly stones strung on a fine silver wire. I let Cocoton briefly handle it and coo over it, then clasped it at the nape of her slender neck. Seeing the little girl standing clad only in an opal necklace made me smile, but the women gasped with delight and Turquoise went running to bring a tezcatl mirror.

I said, 'Cocoton, each of those stones sparkles as your mother did. On each of your birthdays, we will add another and a larger one. With so many fireflies twinkling all about you, their light will remind you not to forget your Tene Zyanya.'

'You know she will not,' said Cozcatl, and he pointed to Cocoton, who was admiring herself in the mirror held by Turquoise. 'She has only to do that whenever she wishes to see her mother. And you, Mixtli, you have only to look at Cocoton.' As if embarrassed by his show of sentimentality, he cleared his throat and said, with an emphasis meant for Ticklish, 'I think the temporary parents had best be going now.'

It was obvious that Cozcatl was eager to move from my house to his own rebuilt one, where he could better supervise his school for servants. But it was equally obvious that Ticklish had grown to feel for Cocoton the love of an otherwise childless mother. That day's parting entailed a struggle—almost a literal, physical struggle—to peel the young woman's arms from around my daughter. During the subsequent days, when Cozcatl and Ticklish and their porters made repeated trips to remove their possessions, it was Cozcatl who directed the removal. For his wife, each trip was an excuse to spend 'one last time together' with Cocoton.

Even after Cozcatl and his wife were ensconced in their own household and she should have been helping him with the management of the school, Ticklish still contrived to invent errands which brought her to our neighborhood so that she could drop in for a visit with my daughter. I could not really complain. I understood that, while I was trying to win Cocoton's love, Ticklish was trying to relinquish it. I was making every effort to have the child accept as her Tete a man who was almost a total stranger. So I sympathized with the pain it was costing Ticklish to cease being a Tene, after two years in the role, and her need to do it gradually.

I was fortunate in that there were no other demands on me during my first several days back home, and I was free to devote that time to renewing my acquaintance with my daughter. Though the Revered Speaker Ahuitzotl had died two days before my return, his funeral—and Motecuzoma's coronation—naturally could not take place without the attendance of every other available ruler and noble and notable personage from every other nation in The One World, and many of them had to come from afar. During that time of gathering the celebrants, Ahuitzotl's body was preserved by a continuously supplied packing of snow brought by swift-messengers from the volcano peaks.

The funeral day came at last, and I, in my Eagle Knight regalia, was among the multitude filling the grand plaza, to cry the owl hoot when the litter bearers brought our late Uey-Tlatoani on his last journey through the upper world. The whole island seemed to reverberate to our long-drawn 'hoo-oo-ooo!' of lament and farewell. The dead Ahuitzotl sat upright on the litter, but hunched, knees to chest, his arms wrapped around his knees to hold them so. His First Widow and the lesser widows had washed the body in water of clover and other sweet herbs, and had perfumed it with copali. His priests had clothed the body in seventeen mantles, but all of cotton so fine that they did not make a bulky wad. Over that ritual swathing, Ahuitzotl wore a mask and robe to give him the aspect of Huitzilopochtli, god of war and foremost god of us Mexica. Since Huitzilopochtli's distinguishing color was blue, so