Aztec

into guarded safe-rooms, and our dogs were let to forage in the garbage heaps of the kitchen yards.

During five days of travel, we were still within the area where the southern trade routes radiated out from Tenochtitlan, or into it, so there were many inns conveniently situated for overnight stops. In addition to providing shelter, storage, hot baths, and passable meals, each hostel also provided women for hire. Not having had a woman for a month or so, I might have been interested, except that all those maatime were extremely homely, and in any case they neglected even to flirt with me, but concentrated their winks and suggestive gestures on the men of homecoming trains.

Blood Glutton explained, 'They hope to seduce the men who have been long on the road, who have forgotten what a really pretty woman looks like, and who cannot wait until they get to the beauties of Tenochtitlan. You and I may be hungry enough to take a maatitl on our return, but for now I suggest we do not waste the energy and expense. There are women where we are going, and they sell their favors for a mere trinket, and many of them are lovely. Ayyo, wait until you feast your eyes and other senses on the women of the Cloud People!'

On the sixth morning of our journey, we emerged from the area where the trade roads converged. Sometime on that same morning, we crossed an invisible boundary and entered the impoverished lands of the Mixteca, or the Tya Nuu, as they called themselves, Men of the Earth. While that nation was not inimical to the Mexica, neither was it inclined to take measures for the protection of traveling pochtea, nor to put up inns and shelters for them, nor to prevent its own people from taking what criminal advantage they could of merchant trains.

'We are now in the country where we can likeliest expect to meet bandits,' Blood Glutton warned. 'They lurk hereabouts in hope of ambushing traders either coming from or going to Tenochtitlan.'

'Why here?' I asked. 'Why not farther north, where the trade routes come together and the trains are more numerous?'

'For that precise reason. Back yonder, the trains are often traveling in company and are too big to be attacked by anything smaller than an army. Out here, the southbound trains have parted company and the homecoming ones have not yet met and mingled. Of course, we are small game, but a bunch of robbers will not ignore us on that account.'

So Blood Glutton moved out alone to march far ahead of the rest of us. Cozcatl told me he could only intermittently see the old soldier as a distant dot when we were crossing an extremely wide and flat place clear of trees or brush. But our scout shouted no warning, and the morning passed, with us marching along a still distinct but stiflingly dusty road. We tugged our mantles up to cover nose and mouth, but still the dust made our eyes water and our breathing laborious. Then the road climbed a knoll and we found Blood Glutton waiting for us, sitting halfway up it, his weapons laid neatly side by side on the dusty grass, ready for use.

'Stop here,' he said quietly. 'They will already know you are coming, from the dust cloud, but they cannot yet have counted you. There are eight of them, Tya Nuu, and not delicate types, crouched right in the road where it passes through a clump of trees and undergrowth. We will give them eleven of us. Any fewer would not have raised such a dust. They would suspect a trick, and be harder to handle.'

'To handle how?' I asked. 'What do you mean: give them eleven of us?'

He motioned for silence, went to the top of the rise, lay down and crawled out of sight for a moment, then crawled backward again, stood up and came to rejoin us.

'Now there are only four of them to be seen,' he said, and snorted scornfully. 'An old trick. It is midday, so the four are pretending to be humble Mixteca travelers, resting in the tree shade and preparing a midday bite to eat. They will courteously invite you to partake, and when you are all friends together, sitting companionably about the fire, your weapons laid aside, the other four hidden roundabout will close in—and yya ayya!'

'What do we do, then?'

'The very same thing. We will imitate their ambush, but from a farther surround. I mean some of us will. Let me see. Four and Ten and Six, you are the biggest and the handiest with arms. Drop your packs, leave them here. Bring only your spears and come with me.' Blood Glutton himself picked up his maquahuitl and let his other weapons lie. 'Mixtli, you and Cozcatl and the rest march right on into the trap, as if you had not been forewarned. Accept their invitation to stop and rest and eat. Just do not appear too stupid and trusting, or that too would give them cause for suspicion.'

Blood Glutton quietly gave the three armed slaves instructions I could not hear. Then he and Ten disappeared around one side of the knoll, Four and Six around the other. I looked at Cozcatl and we smiled to give each other confidence. To the remaining nine slaves I said, 'You heard. Simply do what I command, and speak not a word. Let us go on.'

We went in single file over the rise and down its other side. I raised an arm in greeting when we sighted the four men. They were feeding sticks to a just-kindled fire.

'Welcome, fellow travelers!' one of them called as we approached. He spoke Nahuatl and he grinned amiably. 'Let me tell you, we have come many one-long-runs along this cursed road, and this is the only patch of shade. Will you share it with us? And perhaps a bite of our humble fare?' He held up two dead hares by their long ears.

'We will rest, and gladly,' I said, motioning for the rest of my train to dispose themselves as they liked. 'But those two scrawny animals will scarcely feed the four of you. I have others of our porters out hunting right now. Perhaps they will bring back the makings of a more sumptuous meal, and you will share with us.'

The speaker changed his grin for a hurt look and said reproachfully, 'You take us for bandits. So you quickly speak of your numbers. That sounds unfriendly, and it is we who should be wary: only four against your eleven. I suggest that we all put aside our weapons.'

Pretending purest innocence, he unslung and tossed away from him the maquahuitl he carried. His three companions grunted and did the same. I smiled friendlily, leaned my spear against a tree, and gestured to my men. They likewise ostentatiously put their weapons out of reach. I sat down across the fire from the four Mixteca, two of whom were threading the long-legged carcasses onto green sticks and propping them across the flames.

'Tell me, friend,' I said to the apparent leader. 'What is the road like, from here southward? Is there anything we should beware of?'

'Indeed, yes!' he said, his eyes glinting. 'Bandits do abound. Poor men like us have nothing to fear from them, but I daresay you are carrying goods of value. You might do well to hire us to go with you for your protection.'

I said, 'I thank you for the offer, but I am not rich enough to afford a retinue of guards. I will make do with my porters.'

'Porters are no good as guards. And without guards you will surely be robbed.' He said that flatly, stating a fact, but then spoke with a mock wheedle in his voice. 'I have another suggestion. Do not risk your goods on the road. Leave them with us for safekeeping, while you go on unmolested.'

I laughed.

'I think, young friend, we can persuade you that it would be in your best interest.'

'And I think, friend, that now is the time for me to call in my porters from their hunting.'

'Do that,' he sneered. 'Or allow me to call for you.'

I said, 'Thank you.'

For an instant he looked a little puzzled. But he must have decided that I was expecting to escape his trap through sheer bluster. He gave a loud hail, and at the same moment he and his three companions lunged for their weapons. At that moment, too, Blood Glutton, Four, Six, and Ten all stepped simultaneously into the road, but from different places in the trees roundabout. The Tya Nuu froze in surprise, all on their feet, all with their maquahuime raised, like so many statues of warriors posed in action.

'A good hunt, Master Mixtli!' boomed Blood Glutton. 'And I see we have guests. Well, we bring enough and to spare.' He dropped what he was carrying, and so did the slaves with him. They each threw down a severed human head.

'Come, friends, I am sure you recognize good meat when you see it,' Blood Glutton said jovially to the remaining bandits. They had edged into a defensive position, all of them with their backs to the same big tree, but they looked rather shaken. 'Drop the weapons, and do not be bashful. Come, eat hearty.'

The four nervously looked about. All the rest of us were armed by then. They jumped when Blood Glutton raised his voice to a bellow: 'I said drop the blades!' They did. 'I said come!' They approached the lumps lying on the ground at his feet. 'I said eat!' They winced as they picked up the relics of their late comrades and turned to the fire. 'No, not cook!' roared the relentless Blood Glutton. 'The fire is for the hares and the hares are for us. I said eat!'

So the four men squatted where they were, and began miserably to gnaw. On an uncooked head there is