calm and wait. For the Spaniards stayed in Tenochtitlan throughout that winter and, if they had not been so obviously white, we might hardly have noticed their presence. They could have been country folk of our own race, come to the big city for a holiday, to see the sights and peaceably enjoy themselves. They even behaved irreproachably during our religious ceremonies. Some of those, the celebrations involving only music, singing, and dancing, the Spaniards watched with interest and sometimes amusement. When the rites involved the sacrifice of xochimique, the Spaniards discreetly stayed inside their palace. We city folk, for our part, tolerated the white men, treating them politely but distantly. So, all during that winter, there were no frictions between us and them, no untoward incidents, not even any more omens seen or reported.
Motecuzoma and his courtiers and counselors seemed to adapt easily to their change of residence, and his governing of the nation's affairs appeared unaffected by the dislocation of the center of government. As he and every other Uey-Tlatoani had always done, he regularly met with his Speaking Council; he received emissaries from outlying Mexica provinces, from the other countries of The Triple Alliance, and from foreign nations; he gave audience to private supplicants bringing pleas and plaintiffs bringing grievances. One of his most frequent visitors was his nephew Cacima, no doubt nervous, and rightly so, about the shakiness of his throne in Texcoco. But perhaps Cortes too was bidding his allies and subordinates to 'be calm and wait.' At any rate, none of them—not even Prince Black Flower, impatient to take that throne of the Acolhua—did anything rash or unruly. Throughout that winter, our world's life seemed to go on, as Motecuzoma had promised, exactly as always.
I say 'seemed,' because I personally had less and less to do with matters of state. My attendance at court was seldom required, except when some question arose on which Motecuzoma desired the opinions of all his lords resident in the city. My less lordly job as interpreter also became less often necessary and finally ended altogether, for Motecuzoma apparently decided that, if he was going to trust the man Cortes, he might as well trust the woman Malintzin as well. The three of them were seen to spend much time together. That could hardly have been avoided, with them all under the same roof, big though that palace was. But in fact Cortes and Motecuzoma came to enjoy each other's company. They conversed often on the history and current estate of their separate countries and religions and ways of life. For a less solemn diversion, Motecuzoma taught Cortes how to play the gambling bean game of patoli—and I, for one, hoped that the Revered Speaker was playing for high wagers, and that he was winning, so that he would get to keep part of that treasury he had promised to the white men.
In his turn, Cortes introduced Motecuzoma to a different diversion. He sent to the coast for a number of his boatmen—the artisans you call shipwrights—and they brought with them the necessary metal tools and equipment and fittings, and they had woodsmen cut down for them some good straight trees, and they almost magically shaped those logs into planks and beams and ribs and poles. Within a surprisingly short time, they had built a half- size replica of one of their oceangoing ships and launched it on Lake Texcoco: the first boat ever seen on our waters wearing the wings called sails. With the boatmen to do the complicated business of steering it, Cortes took Motecuzoma—sometimes accompanied by members of his family and court—on frequent outings over and among all the five interconnected lakes.
I did not at all regret my gradual relief from close attendance at the court or on the white men. I was pleased to resume my former life of idle retirement, even again spending some time at The House of Pochtea, though not so much time as I had used to spend there. My wife did not ask, but I felt that I ought to be oftener around the house and in her company, for she seemed weak and inclined to tire easily. Waiting Moon had always occupied her empty time with womanly little crafts like embroidery work, but I noticed that she had taken to holding the work very close to her eyes. Also, she would sometimes pick up a kitchen pot or some other thing, only to drop and break it. When I made solicitous inquiry, she said simply:
'I grow old, Zaa.'
'We are almost exactly the same age,' I reminded her.
That remark seemed to give offense, as if I had abruptly begun frisking and dancing to show my comparative vivacity. Beu said rather sharply, for her, 'It is one of the curses of women. At every age, they are older than the male.' Then she softened, and smiled, and made a pallid joke of it. 'That is why women treat their men like children. Because they never seem to grow old... or even to grow up.'
So she lightly dismissed the matter, and it was a long time before I realized that she was in fact showing the first symptoms of the ailment that would gradually bring her to the sickbed she now has occupied for years. Beu never complained of feeling bad, she never requested any attention from me, but I gave it anyway, and, although we spoke so little, I could tell that she was grateful. When our aged servant Turquoise died, I bought two younger women—one to do the housekeeping, one to devote herself entirely to Beu's needs and wishes. Because for so many years I had been accustomed to calling for Turquoise whenever I had any household orders to give, I could not break myself of the habit. I called the two women interchangeably Turquoise, and they got used to it, and to this day I cannot remember what their real names were.
Perhaps I had unconsciously adopted the white men's disregard for proper names and correct speech. During that nearly half a year of the Spaniards' residence in Tenochtitlan, none of them made any effort to learn our Nahuatl tongue, or the rudiments of its pronunciation. The one person of our race with whom they were most closely associated was the woman who called herself Malintzin, but even her consort Cortes invariably mispronounced that assumed name as Malinche. In time, so did all our own people, either in polite emulation of the Spaniards or mischievously to spite the woman. For it always made Malintzin grind her teeth when she was called Malinche—it denied her the -tzin of nobility—but she could hardly complain of the disrespect without seeming to criticize her master's own slovenly speech.
Anyway, Cortes and the other men were impartial; they misnamed everybody else as well. Since Nahuatl's soft sound of 'sh' does not exist in your Spanish language, we Mexica were for a long time called either Mes-sica or Mec-sica. But you Spaniards have lately preferred to bestow on us our older name, finding it easier to call us Aztecs. Because Cortes and his men found the name Motecuzoma unwieldy, they made of it Montezuma, and I think they honestly believed they were doing no discourtesy, since the new name's inclusion of their word for 'mountain' could still be taken to imply greatness and importance. The war god's name Huitzilopochtli likewise defeated them, and they loathed that god anyway, so they made his name Huichilobos, incorporating their word for the beasts called 'wolves.'
* * *
Well, the winter passed, and the springtime came, and with it came more white men. Motecuzoma heard the news before Cortes did, but only barely and only by chance. One of his quimichime mice still stationed in the Totonaca country, having got bored and restless, wandered a good way south of where he should have been. So it was that the mouse saw a fleet of the wide-winged ships, only a little distance offshore and moving only slowly northward along the coast, pausing at bays and inlets and river mouths—'as if they were searching for sight of their fellows,' said the quimichi, when he came scuttling to Tenochtitlan, bearing a bark paper on which he had drawn a picture enumerating the fleet.
I and other lords and the entire Speaking Council were present in the throne room when Motecuzoma sent a page to bring the still uninformed Cortes. The Revered Speaker, taking the opportunity to pretend that he knew all things happening everywhere, broached the news, through my translation, in this fashion:
'Captain-General, your King Carlos has received your messenger ship and your first report of these lands and our first gifts which you sent to him, and he is much pleased with you.'
Cortes looked properly impressed and surprised. 'How can the Don Senor Montezuma know that?' he asked.
Still feigning omniscience, Motecuzoma said, 'Because your King Carlos is sending a fleet twice the size of yours—a full twenty ships to carry you and your men home.'
'Indeed?' said Cortes, politely not showing skepticism. 'And where might they be?'
'Approaching,' said Motecuzoma mysteriously. 'Perhaps you are unaware that my far-seers can see both into the future and beyond the horizon. They drew for me this picture while the ships were still in mid-ocean.' He handed the paper to Cortes. 'I show it to you now because the ships should soon be in sight of your own garrison.'
'Amazing,' said Cortes, examining the paper. He muttered to himself, 'Yes... galleons, transports, victuallers... if the damned drawing is anywhere near correct.' He frowned. 'But... twenty of them?'
Motecuzoma said smoothly, 'Although we have all been honored by your visit, and I personally have enjoyed your companionship, I am pleased that your brothers have come and that you are no longer isolated in an alien land.' He added, somewhat insistently, 'They have come to bear you home, have they not?'
'So it would appear,' said Cortes, though looking a trifle bemused.
