number of white wafers of delicate bread, quite unlike anything baked by these Indians. Diaz at once recognized them, and we, when they were brought to us, verified them as the Host. How these sacramental wafers came to be in that place and in a native-made pyx, how many centuries they may have been secreted there, and how it is that they did not long ago dry and crumble and perish, no one can guess. Could it be that Your Erudite Majesty has supplied the answer? Could the Communion wafers have been left as a token by the evangelist St. Thomas?
We are this day relating all these data in a communication to the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, giving due credit to Your Majesty's inspired contribution, and will eagerly await the opinion of those theologians at Rome, far more sapient than ourself.
May Our Lord God continue to smile upon and favor the enterprises of Your Imperial Majesty, to whom unbound admiration is due and professed by all your subjects, not least by your S.C.C.M.'s chaplain and servant,
DECIMA PARS
For the same reason that I do not have much recollection of the events just prior to the obliteration of Yanquitlan, I do not clearly remember the things that happened immediately afterward. I and Beu and our escort marched north again toward Tenochtitlan, and I suppose the journey was unremarkable, for I recall little of it except two brief conversations.
The first was with Beu Ribe. She had been weeping as she walked, weeping almost constantly, ever since I told her of Nochipa's death. But one day, somewhere on the return route, she suddenly stopped both weeping and walking, and looked about her, like someone roused from sleep, and she said to me:
'You told me you would take me home. But we are going north.'
I said, 'Of course. Where else?'
'Why not south? South to Tecuantepec?'
'You have no home there,' I said. 'No family, probably no friends. It has been—what?—eight years since you left there.'
'And what have I in Tenochtitlan?'
A roof under which to sleep, I might have remarked, but I knew what she really meant. So I said simply, 'You have as much as I have, Waiting Moon. Memories.'
'Not very pleasant ones, Zaa.'
'I know that too well,' I said, without sympathy. 'They are the same ones I have. And we will have them wherever we wander, or wherever we call home. At least you can grieve and mourn in comfort in Tenochtitlan, but no one is dragging you there. Come with us or go your own way, as you choose.'
I walked on and did not look back, so I do not know how long it took her to decide. But the next time I lifted my gaze from my own inward visions, Beu was again walking at my side.
The other conversation was with Angry at Everybody. For many days the men had respectfully left me to my brooding silence, but one day he strode along with me and said:
'Forgive my intrusion on your sorrow, friend Mixtli. But we are getting near home, and there are things you should know. They are some things which we four elders have discussed and presumed to settle among ourselves. We have made up a story, and we have instructed the Tecpaneca troops to tell the same. It is this. While all of us —you and we and the soldiers—were making that embassy to the court of Teohuacan, while we were necessarily absent with good reason, the colony was set upon by bandits, and looted and massacred. On our return to Yanquitlan, we naturally went raging and searching for the marauders, but found no trace of them. Not so much as one of their arrows, whose feathering would have told us from what nation they came. That uncertainty of the bandits' identity will prevent Motecuzoma from instantly declaring a war upon the innocent Teohuacana.'
I nodded and said, 'I will tell it exactly so. It is a good story, Qualanqui.'
He coughed and said, 'Unfortunately, not good enough for you to tell, Mixtli. Not to Motecuzoma's face. Even if he believed every word of it, he would not hold you blameless for the failure of that mission. He would either order you throttled by the flower garland or, if he happened to be feeling kindly, he would give you another chance. Meaning you would be commanded to lead another train of colonists, and probably to the same unspeakable place.'
I shook my head. 'I could not and would not.'
'I know,' said Angry at Everybody. 'And besides, the truth is bound to leak out, soon or later. One of those Tecpaneca soldiers, when he gets home safe to Tlacopan, is sure to boast of his part in the massacre. How he raped and slew six children and a priest, or whatever. It would get back to Motecuzoma; you would be caught in a lie; and you would certainly get the garrotte, if not worse. I think it better that you leave the lying to us old men, who are only hirelings, beneath Motecuzoma's notice, hence in less danger. I also think you might consider not returning to Tenochtitlan at all—not for some time, anyway—since your future there seems to offer only a choice of capital punishment or renewed banishment to Yanquitlan.'
I nodded again. 'You are right. I have been mourning the dark days and roads behind me, not looking toward those ahead. It is an old saying, is it not, that we are born to suffer and endure? And a man must give thought to his enduring, must he not? Thank you, Qualanqui, good friend and wise adviser. I will meditate upon your counsel.'
When we came to Quaunahuac, and that night took lodgings at an inn, I had a dining cloth set apart for me and Beu and my four old comrades. When we had done eating, I took from my waistband my leather sack of gold dust and dropped it on the cloth, and said:
'There is your pay for your services, my friends.'
'It is far too much,' said Angry at Everybody.
'For what you have done, it could not possibly be. I have this other purse of copper bits and cacao beans, sufficient for what I will do now.'
'Do now?' echoed one of the old men.
'Tonight I abdicate command, and these are my last instructions to you. Friend officers, you will proceed from here around the western border of the lakes, to deliver the Tecpaneca troops to Tlacopan. From there you will cross the causeway to Tenochtitlan and escort the lady Beu to my house, before you report to the Revered Speaker. Tell him your nicely concocted story, but add that I have inflicted on myself a punishment for the failure of this expedition. Tell him that I have voluntarily gone into exile.'
'It will be done so, Commander Mixtli,' said Angry at Everybody, and the other three men murmured agreement.
Only Beu asked the question: 'Where are you going, Zaa?'
'In search of a legend,' I said, and I told them the story that Nezahualpili had not long ago told to Motecuzoma in my hearing, and I concluded, 'I will retrace that long march our forefathers made in the time when they still called themselves the Azteca. I will go northward, following their route as nearly as I can construe it and as far as I can trace it... all the way to their homeland of Aztlan, if such a place still exists or ever did. And if those wanderers truly did bury armories of weapons and stores at intervals, I will find them too, and map their locations. Such a map could be of great military value to Motecuzoma. Try to impress that upon him when you report to him, Qualanqui.' I smiled ruefully. 'He may welcome me with flowers instead of a flower garland when I return.'
'If you return,' said Beu.
I could not smile at that. I said, 'It seems my tonali forces me always to return, but every time a little more alone.' I paused, then said between my teeth, 'Someday, somewhere, I will meet a god and I will ask him: Why do the gods never strike me down, when I have done so much to deserve their anger? Why do they instead strike down every undeserving one who has ever stood close to me?'
The four elderly men appeared slightly uneasy at having to hear my bitter lament, and they seemed relieved when Beu said, 'Old friends, would you be kind enough to take your leave, that Zaa and I may exchange a few private words?'
They got up, making a cursory gesture of kissing the earth to us, and, when they went off toward their quarters, I said brusquely, 'If you are going to ask to accompany me, Beu, do not ask.'
She did not. She was silent for a considerable time, her eyes downcast to her nervously twining fingers. Finally she said, and her first words seemed totally irrelevant, 'On my seventh birthday I was named Waiting Moon. I used to wonder why. But then I knew, and I have known for years now, and I think Waiting Moon has waited long enough.' She raised her beautiful eyes to mine, and somehow she had made them entreating instead of mocking for
