Aztec

'You are not a girl,' I said firmly. 'You are far less so than the scoundrel Chimali, who knifes from behind, in the way only a woman would fight. Why, there have been many warriors who have suffered that same wound in combat, Cozcatl, and they have gone on being warriors of manly strength and ferocity. Some have become more mighty and famous heroes afterward than they were before.'

He persisted, 'Then why did the doctor—and why do you, master—look so long-faced about it?'

'Well,' I said, 'it does mean that you will never father any children.'

'Oh?' he said, and, to my surprise, seemed to brighten. 'That is no great matter. I have never liked being a child myself. I hardly care to make any others. But... does it also mean that I can never be a husband?'

'No... not necessarily,' I said hesitantly. 'You will just have to seek the proper sort of wife. An understanding woman. One who will accept what kind of husbandly pleasure you can give. And you did give pleasure to that unmentionable lady in Texcoco, did you not?'

'She said I did.' He began to smile again. 'Thank you for your reassuring me, master. Since I am a slave, and therefore cannot own a slave, I would like to have a wife someday.'

'From this moment, Cozcatl, you are not a slave, and I am no longer your master.'

The smile went, and alarm came into his face. 'What has happened?'

'Nothing, except that now you are my friend and I am yours.'

He said, his voice tremulous, 'But a slave without a master is a poor thing, master. A rootless and a helpless thing.'

I said, 'Not when he has a friend whose life and fortunes he shares. I do have some small fortune now, Cozcatl. You have seen it. And I have plans for increasing it, as soon as you are fit to travel. We are going south, into the alien lands, as pochtea. What do you think of that? We will prosper together, and you will never be poor or rootless or helpless. I have just come from asking the Revered Speaker's sanction of the enterprise. I have also asked him for the official paper which says that Cozcatl is no longer my slave but my partner and friend.'

Again there were tears and a smile on his face at the same time. He laid one of his small hands on my arm, the first time he had ever touched me without command or permission, and he said. 'Friends do not need papers to tell them they are friends.'

* * *

Tenochtitlan's community of merchants had, not many years before, erected its own building to serve as a combined warehouse for the trading stock of all the members, as their meeting hall, accounting offices, archival libraries, and the like. The House of Pochtea was situated not far from The Heart of the One World and, though smaller than a palace, it was quite palatial in its appointments. There was a kitchen and a dining room for the serving of refreshments to members and visiting tradesmen, and sleeping apartments upstairs for those visitors who came from afar and stayed overnight or longer. There were many servants, one of whom, rather superciliously, admitted me on the day of my appointment and led me to the luxurious chamber where three elderly pochtea sat waiting to interview me.

I had come prepared to be properly deferential toward the august company, but not to be intimidated by them. Though I made the gesture of kissing the earth to the examiners, I then straightened and, without looking behind me, undid my mantle's clasp and sat down. Neither the mantle nor I hit the floor. The servant, however surprised he may have been by this commoner's magisterial air, somehow simultaneously caught my garment and whisked an icpali chair under me.

One of the men returned my salute with the merest movement of a hand, and told the servant to bring chocolate for us all. Then the three sat and regarded me for some time, as if taking my measure with their eyes. The men wore the plainest of mantles, and no ornaments at all, in the pochtea tradition of being inconspicuous, unostentatious, even secretive about their wealth and station. However, their constraint in dress was a bit belied by their all three being almost oilily fat from good eating and easy living. And two of them smoked poquieltin in holders of chased gold.

'You come with excellent references,' one of the men said acidly, as if he resented not being able to reject my candidacy forthwith.

'But you must have adequate capital,' said another. 'What is your worth?'

I handed over the list I had made of the various goods and currencies I possessed. As we sipped our frothy chocolate, on that occasion flavored and scented with the flower of magnolia, they passed the list from hand to hand.

'Estimable,' said one.

'But not opulent,' said another.

'How old are you?' the other asked me.

'Twenty and one, my lords.'

'That is very young.'

'But no handicap, I hope,' I said. 'The great Fasting Coyote was only sixteen when he became the Revered Speaker of Texcoco.'

'Assuming you do not aspire to a throne, young Mixtli, what are your plans?'

'Well, my lords, I believe my richer cloth goods, the embroidered mantles and such, could hardly be afforded by any country people. I shall sell them to the nobles of the city here, who can pay the prices they are worth. Then I shall invest the proceeds in plainer and more practical fabrics, in rabbit-hair blankets, in cosmetics and medicinal preparations, in those manufactured things procurable only here. I shall carry them south and trade for things procurable only from other nations.'

'That is what we have all been doing for years,' said one of the men, unimpressed. 'You make no mention of travel expenses. For example, a part of your investment must go to hire a train of tamemime.'

'I do not intend to hire porters,' I said.

'Indeed? You have a sufficient company to do all the hauling and toiling yourselves? That is a foolish economy, young man. A hired tamemi is paid a set daily wage. With companions you must share out your profits.'

I said, 'There will be only two others besides myself sharing in the venture.'

'Three men?' the elder said scoffingly. He tapped my list. 'With just the obsidian to carry, you and your two friends will collapse before you get across the southern causeway.'

I patiently explained, 'I do not intend to do any carrying or to hire any porters, because I will buy slaves for that work.'

All three men shook their heads pityingly. 'For the price of one husky slave, you could afford a whole troop of tamemime.'

'And then,' I pointed out, 'have to keep them fed and shod and clothed. All the way south and back.'

'But your slaves will go empty-bellied and barefooted? Really, young man...'

'As I dispose of the goods carried by the slaves, I will sell off the slaves. They should command a good price in those lands from which we have captured or conscripted so many of the native workers.'

The elders looked slightly surprised, as if that was an idea new to them. But one said, 'And there you are, deep in the southern wilds, with no porters or slaves to carry home your acquisitions.'

I said, 'I plan to trade only for those goods that are of great worth in little bulk or weight. I will not, as so many pochtea do, seek jadestone or tortoiseshell or heavy animal skins. Other traders buy everything offered them, simply because they have the porters to pay and feed, and they might as well load them down. I will barter for nothing but items like the red dyes and the rarest feathers. It may require more circuitous traveling and more time to find such specialized things. But even I alone can carry home a bag full of the precious dye or a compacted bale of quetzal tototl plumes, and that one bundle would repay my entire investment a thousandfold.'

The three men looked at me with a new if perhaps grudging respect. One of them conceded, 'You have given this enterprise some thought.'

I said, 'Well, I am young. I have the strength for an arduous journey. And I have plenty of time.'

One of the men laughed wryly. 'You think, then, that we have always been old and obese and sedentary.' He pulled aside his mantle to show four puckered scars in the flesh of his right side. 'The arrows of the Huichol, when I ventured into their mountains of the northwest, seeking to buy their Eye-of-God talismans.'

Another lifted his mantle from the floor to show that he had but one foot. 'A nauyaka snake in the Chiapa