Aztec

a change, and somehow she even managed a maidenly blush. 'Let us now at last be married, Zaa.'

So that was it, I said to myself, remembering again how she had surreptitiously collected that mud I had made. Earlier, and for only a brief time, I had wondered if she fashioned an image of me in order to curse it with misfortune, and if that was what had deprived me of Nochipa. But that suspicion had been a fleeting one, shaming me even to think of it. I knew Beu had loved my daughter dearly, and her weeping had demonstrated a sorrow as genuine as my tearless own. So I had forgotten the mud doll—until her own words revealed that she had made it, and why. Not to blight my life but merely to weaken my will, so that I could not reject her pretendedly impulsive but transparently long-planned proposal. I did not immediately reply; I waited while she proffered her carefully marshaled arguments. She said first:

'A moment ago, Zaa, you remarked that you are ever more and more alone. So am I, you know. We both are, now. We have no one left but each other.'

And she said, 'It was acceptable that I should live with you while I was known to be the guardian and companion of your motherless daughter. But now that Nochipa... now that I am no longer the resident aunt, it would be unseemly for an unmarried man and woman to share the same house.'

And she said, with another blush, 'I know there could never be a replacement for our beloved Nochipa. But there could be... I am not too old...'

And there she let her voice fade away, in a very good simulation of modesty and inability to say more. I waited, and held her eyes, until her blushing face glowed like copper being heated, and then I said:

'You need not have troubled with conjuration and cajolery, Beu. I intended to ask you the same thing this very night. Since you seem agreeable, we will be married tomorrow, as early as I can awaken a priest.'

'What?' she said faintly.

'As you remind me, I am now most utterly alone. I am also a man of estimable estate and, if I die without an heir, my property is forfeit to the nation's treasury. I should prefer that it not go to Motecuzoma. So tomorrow the priest will draw a document affirming your inheritance as well as the paper attesting our marriage.'

Beu slowly got to her feet and looked down at me, and she stammered, 'That is not what... I never gave a thought to... Zaa, I was trying to say...'

'And I have spoiled the performance,' I said, smiling up at her. 'All the blandishments and persuasions were unnecessary. But you need not count them wasted, Beu. Tonight may have been good practice for some future use, when perhaps you are a wealthy but lonely widow.'

'Stop it, Zaa!' she exclaimed. 'You refuse to hear what I am earnestly trying to tell you. It is hard enough for me, because it is not a woman's place to say such things—'

'Please, Beu, no more,' I said, wincing. 'We have lived too long together, too long accustomed to our mutual dislike. Saying sweet words at this late date would strain either of us, and probably astound all the gods. But at least, from tomorrow on, our detestation of each other can be formally consecrated and indistinguishable from that of most other married—'

'You are cruel!' she interrupted. 'You are immune to any tender sentiment, and heedless of a hand reaching out to you.'

'I have too often felt the hard back of your tender hand, Beu. And am I not about to feel it again? Are you not going to laugh now and tell me that your talk of marriage was just another derisive prank?'

'No,' she said. 'I meant it seriously. Did you?'

'Yes,' I said, and raised high my cup of octli. 'May the gods take pity on us both.'

'An eloquent proposal,' she said. 'But I accept it, Zaa. I will marry you tomorrow.' And she ran for her room.

I sat on, moodily sipping my octli and eyeing the inn's other patrons, most of them pochtea on their way home to Tenochtitlan, celebrating their profitable journeys and safe return by getting eminently drunk, in which pursuit they were being encouraged by the hostel's numerous available women. The innkeeper, already aware that I had engaged a separate room for Beu, and seeing her depart alone, came sidling to where I sat, and inquired:

'Would the Lord Knight care for a sweet with which to conclude his meal? One of our charming maatime?'

I grunted, 'Few of them look exceptionally charming.'

'Ah, but looks are not everything. My lord must know that, since his own beautiful companion seems cool toward him. Charm can reside in other attributes than face and figure. For example, regard that woman yonder.'

He pointed to what must surely have been the least appealing female in the establishment. Her features and her breasts sagged like moist clay. Her hair, from having been so often bleached and recolored, was like wire grass dried to kinky hay. I grimaced, but the innkeeper laughed and said:

'I know, I know. To contemplate that woman is to yearn for a boy instead. At a glance, you would take her for a grandmother, but I know for a fact that she is scarcely thirty. And would you believe this, Lord Knight? Every man who has ever once tried Quequelyehua always demands her on his next visit here. Her every patron becomes a regular, and will accept no other maatitl. I do not indulge, myself, but I have it on good authority that she knows some extraordinary ways to delight a man.'

I raised my topaz and took another, more searching look at the draggle-haired, bleary-eyed sloven. I would have wagered that she was a walking pustule of the nanaua disease, and that the effeminate innkeeper knew it, and that he took malicious pleasure in trying to peddle her to the unsuspecting.

'In the dark, my lord, all women look alike, no? Well, boys do too, of course. So it is other considerations that matter, no? The highly accomplished Quequelyehua probably already has a waiting line for tonight, but an Eagle Knight can demand precedence over mere pochtea. Shall I summon Quequelyehua for you, my lord?'

'Quequelyehua,' I repeated, as the name evoked a memory. 'I once knew a most beautiful girl named Quequelmiqui.'

'Ticklish?' said the innkeeper, and giggled. 'From her name, she must have been a diverting consort too. But this one should be far more so. Quequelyehua, the Tickler.'

Feeling rather sick at heart, I said, 'Thank you for the recommendation, but no, thank you.' I took a large drink of my octli. 'That thin girl sitting quietly in the corner, what of her?'

'Misty Rain?' said the innkeeper, indifferently. 'They call her that because she weeps all the time she is, er, functioning. A newcomer, but competent enough, I am told.'

I said, 'Send that one to my room. As soon as I am drunk enough to go there myself.'

'At your command, Lord Eagle Knight. I am impartial in the matter of other people's preferences, but sometimes I am mildly curious. May I ask why my lord chooses Misty Rain?'

I said, 'Simply because she does not remind me of any other woman I have known.'

The marriage ceremony was plain and simple and quiet, at least until its conclusion. My four old stalwarts stood as our witnesses. The innkeeper prepared tamaltin for the ritual meal. Some of the inn's earlier-rising patrons served as our wedding guests. Since Quaunahuac is the chief community of the Tlahuica people, I had procured a priest of the Tlahuica's principal deity, the good god Quetzalcoatl. And the priest, observing that the couple standing before him were somewhat past the first greening of youth, tactfully omitted from his service the usual doleful warnings to the presumably innocent female, and the usual cautionary exhortations to the presumably lusting male. So his harangue was mercifully brief and bland.

But even that perfunctory ritual elicited some emotion from Beu Ribe, or she pretended it did. She wept a few maidenly tears and, through the tears, smiled tremulous smiles. I must admit that her performance enhanced her already striking beauty, which, as I have never denied, was equal to and almost indistinguishable from the sublime loveliness of her late sister. Beu was dressed most enticingly and, when I looked at her without the clarification of my crystal, she appeared still as youthful as my forever twenty-year-old Zyanya. It was for that reason that I had made repeated use of the girl Misty Rain throughout the night. I would not risk Beu's making me want her, even physically, so I drained myself of any possibility of becoming aroused against my will.

The priest finally swung his smoking censer of copali around us for the last time. Then he watched while we fed each other a bite of steaming tamali, then he knotted the corner of my mantle to a corner of Waiting Moon's skirt hem, then he wished us the best of fortune in our new life.

'Thank you, Lord Priest,' I said, handing him his fee. 'Thank you especially for the good wishes.' I undid the knot that tied me to Beu. 'I may need the gods' help where I am now going.' I slung my traveling pack on my shoulder and told Beu good-bye.