Aztec Autumn

imported from Tenochtitlan taught the art of word-knowing and many other subjects—history, doctoring, geography, poetry—almost any kind of knowledge a pupil might wish to possess.

'It is also time,' said my Uncle Mixtzin, on that thirteenth birthday of mine, 'for you to celebrate another sort of graduation. Come with me, Tenamaxtli.'

He escorted me through the streets to Aztlan's finest anyanicati and, from the numerous females resident there, picked out the most attractive—a girl almost as young and almost as beautiful as his own daughter Ameyatl—and told her: 'This young man is today a man. I would have you teach him all that a man should know about the act of ahuilnema. Devote the entire night to his education.'

The girl smiled and said she would, and she did. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed her attentions and the night's activities, and I was duly grateful to my generous uncle. But I also must confess that, unknown to him, I already had been foretasting such pleasures for some months before I merited the manly loincloth.

Anyway, during those years and subsequent years, Aztlan never was visited by even a roving patrol of the Caxtilteca forces, nor were any of the nearer communities with which we Azteca traded. Of course, all the lands north of New Spain had always been sparsely populated in comparison to the midlands. It would not have surprised me if, to the north of our lands, there were hermit tribes who had not yet even heard that The One World had been invaded, or that there existed such things as white-skinned men.

Aztlan and those other communities naturally felt relief at being left unmolested by the conquerors, but we also found that our safety-in-isolation entailed some disadvantages. Since we and our neighbors did not want to attract the attention of the Caxtilteca, we sent none of our pochteca traveling merchants or even swift-messengers venturing across the border of New Spain. This meant that we voluntarily cut ourselves off from all commerce with the communities south of that line. Those had formerly been the best markets in which to sell our homegrown and homemade products—coconut milk and sweets and liquor and soap, pearls, sponges—and from them we had procured items unavailable in our lands—every sort of commodity from cacao beans to cotton, even the obsidian needed for our tools and weapons. So the headmen of various towns roundabout us—Yakoreke, Tepiz, Tecuexe and others—began sending discreet scouting parties southward. These went in groups of three, one of them always a woman, and they went unarmed and unarmored, wearing simple country clothes, seeming to be simple country people trudging to some innocuous family gathering somewhere. They carried nothing to make any Caxtilteca border guards suspicious or predaceous; usually nothing but a leather bag of water and another of pinoli for traveling provisions.

The scouts went forth with understandable apprehension, not knowing what dangers they might encounter on the way. But they went with curiosity, too, their mission being to report back to their headmen on what they saw of life in the midlands, in the towns and cities, and especially in the City of Mexico, now that all was ruled by the white men. On those reports would depend our peoples' decision: whether to approach and ally ourselves with the conquerors, in hope of a resumption of normal trade and social intercourse; or to remain remote and unnoticed and independent, even if poorer for that; or to concentrate on building strong forces and impregnable defenses and an armory of weapons, to fight for our lands when and if the Caxtilteca did come.

Well, in time, almost all the scouts returned, at intervals, intact and unscathed by any misadventures either going or coming. Only one or two parties had even seen a border sentry and, except for the scouts having been awestruck by their first sight of a white man in the flesh, they had nothing to report about their crossing of the border. Those guards had ignored them as if they were no more than desert lizards seeking a new feeding ground. And throughout New Spain, in the countryside, in villages and towns and cities, including the City of Mexico, they had not seen—or heard from any of the local inhabitants—any evidence that the new overlords were any more strict or severe than the Mexica rulers had been.

'My scouts,' said Kevari, tlatocapili of the village of Yakoreke, 'say that all the surviving pipiltin of the court of Tenochtitlan—and the heirs of those lords who did not survive—have been allowed to keep their family estates and property and lordly privileges. They have been most leniently treated by the conquerors.'

'However, except for those few who are still accounted lords or nobles,' said Teciuapil, chief of Tecuexe, 'there are no more pipiltin. Or working-class macehualtin or even tlacotin slaves. All our people are now accounted equal. And all work at whatever the white men bid them do. So said my scouts.'

'Only one of my scouts returned,' said Tototl, headman of Tepiz. 'He reports that the City of Mexico is almost complete, except for a few very grand buildings still under construction. Of course there are no more temples to the old gods. But the marketplaces, he said, are thronged and thriving. That is why my other two scouts, a married couple, Netzlin and Citlali, chose to stay there and seek their fortune.'

'I am not surprised,' growled my Uncle Mixtzin, to whom the other chiefs had come to report. 'Such peasant oafs would never before in their lives have seen any city. No wonder they report favorably on the new rulers. They are too ignorant to make comparisons.'

'Ayya!' bleated Kevari. 'At least we and our people made an effort to investigate, while you and your Azteca sit lumpishly here in complacency.'

'Kevari is right,' said Teciuapil. 'It was agreed that all of us leaders would convene, discuss what we have learned and then decide our course of action regarding the Caxtilteca invaders. But all you do, Mixtzin, is scoff.'

'Yes,' said Tototl. 'If you so disdainfully dismiss the honest efforts of our peasant oafs, Mixtzin, then send some of your educated and refined Azteca. Or some of your tame Mexica immigrants. We will postpone any decisions until they return.'

'No,' my uncle said, after a moment of deep thought. 'Like those Mexica who now live among us, I too once saw the city of Tenochtitlan when it stood in its zenith of might and glory. I shall go myself.' He turned to me. 'Tenamaxtli, make ready, and tell your mother to make ready. You and she will accompany me.'

So that was the sequence of events that took the three of us journeying to the City of Mexico—where I would get my uncle's reluctant permission to remain and reside for a time, and where I would learn many things, including the speaking of your Spanish tongue. However, I never took the time to learn the reading and writing of your language—which is why I am at this moment recounting my reminiscences to you, mi querida muchacha, mi inteligente y bellisima y adorada Veronica, so that you may set the words down for all my children and all our children's children to read someday.

And the culmination of that sequence of events was that my uncle, my mother and myself arrived in the City of Mexico in the month of Panquetzaliztli, in the year Thirteen-Reed, what you would call Octubre, of the Ano de Cristo one thousand five hundred thirty and one, on the very day—anyone but the prankish and capricious gods would have deemed it coincidence—that the old man Juan Damasceno was burned to death.

I can still see him burning.

  II

To govern Aztlan during his absence, Mixtzin appointed his daughter Ameyatl and her consort Kauri as co- regents—with my great-grandfather Canautli (who must have been nearly two sheaves of years old by then, but who evidently was going to live forever) to be their sage adviser. Then, without further ado, and without ceremonious leave-takings, Mixtzin and Cuicani and I departed the city, heading southeastward.

It was the first time I had ever gone very far from the place where I had been born. So, although I was well aware of the serious intent of our venture, still, to me, the horizon was a wide and welcoming grin. It beckoned me to all manner of new sights and experiences. For instance, at Aztlan the dawn had always come late and in full- blown radiance, because it had first to clear the mountains inland of us. Now, when I had crossed those mountains into flatter country, I could really see the dawn breaking—or, rather, unfurling, one colored ribbon after another: violet, blue, pink, pearl, gold. Then the birds began to bubble over in greeting of the day, singing a music all of green notes. It was autumn, so there came no rains, but the sky was the color of wind, and through it wafted clouds that were always the same but never the same. The blowing, dancing trees were music visible, and the nodding, bowing flowers were prayers that said themselves. When twilight darkened the land, the flowers closed, but the stars opened in the sky. I have always been glad that those star blooms are out of the reach of men, else they would have been snatched and stolen long ago. At last, at nightfall, there arose the soft dove-colored mists, which I believe are the grateful sighs of the earth going tired to bed.

The journey was long—more than two hundred one-long-runs—because it could not be done in a direct, straight line of march. It was also sometimes arduous and frequently wearisome, but never really hazardous, because Mixtzin had traveled that route before. He had done that about fifteen years before, but he still