I thought I saw his lip curl. 'A merchant? A stall in the Tlaltelolco market?'
'No, no, my lord. A pochteatl, a traveling merchant.' He sat back on his bearskin and regarded me in silence. What I was asking was a promotion in civil status approximately equal to what I had been given in military rank. Though the pochtea were all technically commoners like myself, they were of the highest class of commoners. They could, if fortunate and clever in their trading, become richer than most pipiltin nobles, and command almost as many privileges. They were exempt from many of the common laws and subject mainly to their own, enacted and enforced by themselves. They even had their own chief god, Yacatecutli, the Lord Who Guides. And they jealously restricted their numbers; they would not admit as a pochteatl just anybody who applied to be one. 'You have been awarded a rank of command soldier,' Ahuitzotl said at last, rather grumpily. 'And you would neglect that to put a pack of trinkets on your back and thick-soled walking sandals on your feet? Need we remind you, young man, we Mexica are historically a nation of valiant warriors, not wheedling tradesmen.'
'Perhaps war has outlasted some of its usefulness, Lord Speaker,' I said, braving his scowl. 'I truly believe that our traveling merchants nowadays do more than all our armies to extend the influence of the Mexica and to bring wealth to Tenochtitlan. They provide commerce with nations too far distant to be easily subjugated, but rich in goods and commodities they will readily barter or sell.'
'You make the trade sound easy,' Ahuitzotl interrupted. 'Let us tell you, it has often been as hazardous as soldiering. The expeditions of pochtea leave here laden with cargoes of considerable value. They have been raided by savages or bandits before they ever arrived at their intended destinations. When they did reach them, their wares were often simply confiscated and nothing given in return. For those reasons, we are obliged to send a sizable army troop along to protect every such expedition. Now you tell us: why should we continue to dispatch armies of nursemaids and not armies of plunderers?'
'With all respect, I believe the Revered Speaker already knows why,' I said. 'For a so-called nursemaid troop, Tenochtitlan supplies only the armed men themselves. The pochtea carry, besides their trade goods, the food and provisions for each journey, or purchase them along the way. Unlike an army, they do not have to forage and pillage and make new enemies as they go. So they arrive safely at their destination, they do their profitable trading, they march themselves and your armed men home again, and they pay a lavish tax into your Snake Woman's treasury. The predators along the route learn a painful lesson and they cease to haunt the trade roads. The people of the far lands learn that a peaceable commerce is to their advantage as well as ours. Every expedition which returns makes that journey easier for the next one. In time, I think, the pochtea will be able entirely to dispense with your supportive troops.'
Ahuitzotl demanded testily, 'And what then becomes of our fighting men, when Tenochtitlan ceases to extend its domain? When the Mexica no longer strive to grow in might and power, but simply sit and grow fat on commerce? When the once respected and feared Mexica have become a swarm of peddlers haggling over weights and measures?'
'My lord exaggerates, to put this upstart in his place,' I said, purposely exaggerating my own humility. 'Let your fighters fight and your traders trade. Let the armies subjugate the nations easily within their reach, like Michihuacan nearby. Let the merchants bind the farther nations to us with ties of trade. Between them, Lord Speaker, there need never be any limit set to the world won and held by the Mexica.'
Ahuitzotl regarded me again, through an even longer silence. So, it seemed, did the ferocious bear's head above his throne. Then he said, 'Very well. You have told us the reasons why you admire the profession of traveling merchants. Can you tell us some reasons why the profession would benefit from your joining it?'
'The profession, no,' I said frankly. 'But I can suggest some reasons why the Uey-Tlatoani and his Speaking Council might thus benefit.'
He raised his bushy eyebrows. 'Tell us, then.'
'I am a trained scribe, which most traveling merchants are not. They know only numbers and the keeping of accounts. As the Revered Speaker has seen, I am capable of setting down accurate maps and detailed descriptions in word pictures. I can come back from my travels with entire books telling of other nations, their arsenals and storehouses, their defenses and vulnerabilities—' His eyebrows had lowered again during that speech. I thought it best to trail off humbly, 'Of course, I realize that I must first persuade the pochtea themselves that I qualify for acceptance into their select society...'
Ahuitzotl said drily, 'We doubt that they would long remain obdurate toward a candidate proposed by their Uey-Tlatoani. Is that all you ask, then? That we sponsor you as a pochteatl?'
'If it pleases my lord, I should like to take two companions. I ask that I be assigned not a troop of soldiers, but the Cuachic Extli-Quani, as our military support. Just the one man, but I know him of old, and I believe he will be adequate. I ask also that I may take the boy Cozcatl. He should be ready to travel when I am.'
Ahuitzotl shrugged. 'The cuachic we shall order detached from active army duty. He is overage for anything more useful than nursemaiding, anyway. As for the slave, he is already yours, and yours to command.'
'I would rather he were not, my lord. I should like to offer him his freedom as a small restitution for the accident he suffered yesterday. I ask that the Revered Speaker officially elevate him from the status of tlacotli to that of a free macehuali. He will accompany me not as a slave, but with a free partner's share in the enterprise.'
'We will have a scribe prepare the paper of manumission,' said Ahuitzotl. 'Meanwhile, we cannot refrain from remarking that this will be the most quaintly composed trading expedition ever to set out from Tenochtitlan. Whither are you bound on your first journey?'
'All the way to the Maya lands, Lord Speaker, and back again, if the gods allow. Extli-Quani has been there before, which is one reason I want him along. I hope we will return with a considerable profit to be shared with my lord's treasury. I am certain we will return with much information of interest and value to my lord.'
What I did not say was that I fervently hoped also to return with my vision restored. The reputation of the Maya physicians was my overriding reason for choosing the Maya country as our destination.
'Your requests are granted,' said Ahuitzotl. 'You will await a summons to appear at The House of Pochtea for examination.' He stood up from his grizzled-bear throne, to indicate that the interview was terminated. 'We shall be interested to talk to you again, Pochteatl Mixtli, when you return. If you return.'
I went upstairs again, to my apartment, to find Cozcatl awake, sitting up in the bed, hands over his face, crying as if his life were finished. Well, a good part of it was. But when I entered and he looked up and saw me, his face showed first bewildered shock, then delighted recognition, then a radiant smile beaming through his tears.
'I thought you were dead!' he wailed, scrambling out from the quilts and hobbling painfully toward me.
'Get back in that bed!' I commanded, scooping him up and carrying him there, while he insisted on telling me:
'Someone seized me from behind, before I could flee or cry out. When I woke later, and the doctor said you had not returned to the palace, I supposed you must be dead. I thought I had been wounded only so I could not warn you. And then, when I woke in your bed a little while ago, and you still were not here, I knew you must —'
'Hush, boy,' I said, as I tucked him back under the quilt.
'But I failed you, master,' he whimpered. 'I let your enemy get past me.'
'No, you did not. Chimali was satisfied to injure you instead of me, this time. I owe you much, and I will see that the debt is paid. This I promise: when the time comes that I again have Chimali in my power, you will decide the fitting punishment for him. Now,' I said uncomfortably, 'are you aware—in what manner he wounded you?'
'Yes,' said the boy, biting his lip to stop its quivering. 'When it happened, I knew only that I was in frightful pain, and I fainted. The good doctor let me stay in my faint while he—while he did what he could. But then he held something of a piercing smell under my nose, and I woke up sneezing. And I saw—where he had sewn me together.'
'I am sorry,' I said. It was all I could think to say.
Cozcatl ran a hand down the quilt, cautiously feeling himself, and he asked shyly, 'Does this mean I am a girl now, master?'
'What a ridiculous idea!' I said. 'Of course not.'
'I must be,' he said sniffling. 'I have seen between the legs of only one female undressed, the lady who was late our mistress in Texcoco. When I saw myself—down there—before the doctor put on the bandage—it looked just the way her private parts looked.'
