Aztec

'I take that as a compliment, Head Nodder, and I thank you. Now, was I wise to bring you here from Xaltocan?'

'I cannot say, my lord. I do not know why you did.'

'Since the time of Fasting Coyote, the city of Texcoco has been famed as a center of knowledge and culture, but such a center is not necessarily self-perpetuating. The noblest of families can breed dolts and sluggards—I could name a few of my own get—so we do not hesitate to import talent from elsewhere, and even to infuse foreign blood. You seemed a promising prospect, so here you are.'

'To stay, Lord Speaker?'

'That will be up to you, or to your tonali, or to circumstances that not you nor we can foresee. But your teachers have given good report of you, so I think it time that you became a more active participant in court life.'

'I had been hoping for a means to repay your generosity, my lord. Do you mean I am to be given some useful employment?'

'If it is to your liking. During your recent absence, I took another wife. Her name is Chalchiunenetl. Jadestone Doll.'

I said nothing, wondering confusedly if he had for some reason changed the subject. But he went on:

'She is the eldest daughter of Ahuitzotl. A gift from him to mark his accession as the new Uey-Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan. She is a Mexicali like yourself. She is fifteen years old, of an age to be your younger sister. Our ceremony of marriage has been duly celebrated, but of course the physical consummation will be postponed until Jadestone Doll is grown more mature.'

I still said nothing, though I could have told even the wise Nezahualpili something about the physical capabilities of adolescent Mexica maidens.

He continued, 'She has been given a small army of waiting women, and the entire east wing as apartments for herself, for servants' quarters, private kitchen; a private palace in miniature. So she will lack for nothing in the way of comfort, service, and female companionship. However, I wonder if you might consent, Head Nodder, to join her retinue. It would be good for her to have the company of at least one male, and he a brother Mexicatl. At the same time you would be serving me. instructing the girl in our customs, teaching her our Texcoco style of speech, preparing her to be a consort of whom I can be proud.'

I said evasively, 'Chalchiunenetzin might not take kindly to having me appointed her keeper, Lord Speaker. A young girl can be willful, irrepressible, jealous of her freedom—'

'How well I know,' sighed Nezahualpili. 'I have two or three daughters of about that same age. And Jadestone Doll, being the princess daughter of one Uey-Tlatoani and the queen wife of another, is likely to be even more spirited. I would not condemn my worst enemy to be the keeper of a mettlesome young female. But I think, Mole, that you will find her at least pleasant to look upon.'

He must have pulled a concealed bell rope some while before, for he gestured and I turned to see a slim girl in a rich ceremonial skirt, blouse, and headdress, coming slowly but regally toward the dais. Her face was perfection, her head held high, her eyes demurely lowered.

'My dear,' said Nezahualpili. 'This is Mixtli, of whom I have spoken. Would you have him in your retinue, in the role of companion and protector?'

'If my Lord Husband wishes it, I comply. If the young man agrees to it, I shall be pleased to regard him as my elder brother.'

The long-lashed eyelids lifted, and she looked at me, and her eyes were like unfathomably deep forest pools. I found out later that she habitually put into her eyes drops of juice from the herb camopalxihuitl, which greatly enlarged her pupils and made her eyes lustrous as jewels. It also forced her to avoid bright lights, even the light of day, when her dilated eyes saw almost as poorly as mine.

'Well, then,' said the Revered Speaker, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. I wondered, with some misgivings, just how long he had conferred with his counsel skull before deciding on this arrangement. To me he said:

'I ask only that you provide brotherly direction and advice, Head Nodder. I do not expect you to correct or chastise the Lady Jadestone Doll. It would, in any event, be a capital offense for a commoner to raise either his hand or his voice against a noblewoman. Nor do I expect you to play the jailer or the spy or the talebearer of her confidences. But I would be pleased, Mole, if you devote to your lady sister what time you can spare from your school work and studies. That you serve her with the same devotion and discretion with which you serve me or the First Lady Tolana-Teciuapil. Now go, young people, ximopanolti, and get acquainted with each other.'

We made the proper obeisances and left the throne room. In the corridor, Jadestone Doll smiled sweetly at me and said, 'Mole, Head Nodder, Mixtli. How many names do you have?'

'My lady may call me whatever she pleases.'

She smiled even more sweetly, and put a delicate tapered fingertip to her pointed little chin. 'I think I shall call you...' She smiled still more sweetly, and said with a sweetness like the taste of sticky maguey syrup, 'I will call you Qualcuie!'

That word is the third person singular jussive of the verb 'to fetch,' and is always pronounced forcefully and commandingly: 'Fetch!' My heart grew heavy. If my latest name was to be Fetch!, my misgivings about this arrangement seemed justified. And I was right. Though she still spoke in that maguey syrup voice, the young queen dropped all semblance of demureness, docility, and submissiveness, and said, very queen-like:

'You need not interrupt any of your daytime classwork, Fetch! However, I shall want you available in the evenings, and on call if necessary during the nights. You will please move all your effects into the apartment directly across the hall from mine.' Without waiting for me to say any word of acquiescence, without herself saying any polite word of leave-taking, she turned and walked away down the hall.

Jadestone Doll. She was named for the mineral chalchihuitl, which, though it is neither rare nor of any intrinsic value, was prized by our people because it was the color of The Center of Everything. Unlike you Spaniards, who know only the four directions of what you call the compass, we perceived five, and designated them by different colors. Like you, we had the east, north, west, and south, respectively referred to as the directions of the red, black, white, and blue. But we also had the green: to mark the center of the compass, so to speak—the place where a man was at any given moment, and all the space above that spot as far as the sky, and all below it as far as the Mictlan underworld. So the color green was important to us, and the green stone chalchihuitl was precious to us, and only a child of noble lineage and high degree could appropriately have been named Jadestone Doll.

Like a Jadestone, that girl queen was an object to be handled most respectfully and carefully. Like a doll, she was exquisitely fashioned, she was beautiful, she was a work of divine craftsmanship. But, like a doll, she had no human conscience or compunctions. And, though I did not immediately recognize my feeling of premonition, like a doll she was fated to be broken.

* * *

I must admit that I rather reveled in the sumptuousness of my new chambers. Three rooms, and the sanitary closet contained my own private steam bath. The bed in the bedroom was an even higher than ordinary pile of quilts, over which lay an enormous coverlet made of hundreds of tiny squirrel skins bleached white and sewn together. Over the whole was suspended a fringed canopy and from that hung almost invisible, fine-meshed net curtains, which I could close around the bed to keep out mosquitoes and moths.

The one inconvenience of the apartment was that it was far distant from those others which the slave Cozcatl had in his charge. But when I mentioned that to Jadestone Doll, little Cozcatl was abruptly relieved of all his other duties, to attend solely to me. The boy was ever so proud of that promotion. Even I felt rather the pampered young lord. And later, when Jadestone Doll and I were in disgrace, I would be glad that Cozcatl had always been by me and was loyally ready to testify in my defense.

For soon I learned: if Cozcatl was my slave, I was Jadestone Doll's. On that first evening, when one of her maids admitted me to her grand suite, the young queen's first words were:

'I am glad you were given to me, Fetch!, for I was getting unutterably bored, cooped up in seclusion like some rare animal.' I tried to make a demurrer regarding the word 'given,' but she overrode me. 'I am told by Pitza'—she indicated the elderly maidservant hovering behind her cushioned bench—'that you are an expert at capturing the likeness of a person on paper.'

'I flatter myself, my lady, that people have recognized themselves and each other in my drawings. But it is some while since I have practiced the craft.'