Aztec Autumn

'Or I will accept your word of honor—what little honor you may have retained—that each of you will go from here to your home, prop the point of your javelin against your chest and lean onto it, thus dying at the hand of a warrior, though it be your own hand.'

Most of the men nodded at that, if somberly, but a few still waited to hear my third suggestion.

'Or you may choose another, even more honorable means of self-sacrifice to the gods. You may volunteer for a mission I have planned. And'—I said with scorn—'it will mean your turning against your friends, the Spaniards. Not a man of you will survive this mission, I kiss the earth to that. But you will die in battle, as every warrior hopes to do. And to the gratification of all our gods, you will have spilled enemy blood as well as your own. I doubt that the gods will be mollified enough to grant you the warriors' happy afterlife in Tonatiucan. But even in the drear nothingness of Mictlan, you can spend eternity remembering that, at least once in your days, you behaved like men. How many of you will volunteer?'

They all did, to a man, stooping in the tlalqualiztli gesture to touch the earth, signifying that they kissed it in fealty to me.

'So be it,' I said. 'And you, Arrow Knight, I appoint to lead that mission when the time comes. Until then, all of you will be imprisoned in the temple of Coyolxauqui, under guard. For now, speak your names to the Tequiua Nocheztli, that a scribe may record them for me.'

To the men still in the square, I called out, 'I thank the rest of you—not least, for your unswerving loyalty to Aztlan. You are dismissed until I again call assembly.'

As Tiptoe and I reentered the palace courtyard, she chided me, 'Tenamaxtli, until this very evening, you slew men as abruptly and uncaringly as I would do. But then you put on that headdress and cloak and bangles—and, with them, an unbecoming mood of leniency. A Revered Governor should be more fierce than ordinary men, not less. These traitors deserved to die.'

'And they will,' I assured her. 'But in a way that furthers my cause.'

'Executing them here, and publicly, would help your cause, too. It would deter all other men from trying any future duplicity. If Butterfly and her troop of women were here to do the executing by, say, slitting open those men's bellies—carefully, not fatally—and then pouring fire ants inside, certainly no onlooker would ever risk incurring your wrath again.'

I sighed. 'Have you not looked upon enough dying already, Pakapeti? Then look yonder.' And I pointed. At the distant rear of the palace's main building, in the area of the kitchens, a line of slaves was emerging from a lighted doorway, each bent under the weight of a body he was carrying off into the darkness. 'On my order, and at one stroke, so to speak, the Yaki woman has slain every servant employed in this palace.'

'And you did not even allow me to assist in that!' Tiptoe said angrily.

I sighed again. 'Tomorrow, my dear, Nocheztli will be listing for me the local citizens who—like the warriors —abetted Yeyac's crimes or benefited from them. If you promise to cease nagging at me, I promise to let you practice your delicate feminine arts on two or three of those.'

She smiled. 'Now, that is more like the old Tenamaxtli. However, it will not satisfy me entirely. I want you also to promise that I may go along with the Arrow Knight and the others on that mission you propose, whatever it is.'

'Girl, have you gone tlahuele? That will be a suicidal mission! I know you enjoy killing men. But dying with them...?'

She said loftily, 'A woman is not obliged to explain her every whim and fancy.'

'I am not asking that you explain this one. I am commanding that you forget it!' And I strode away from her, into the palace and up the stairs.

I was seated at Ameyatl's bedside—I had been keeping vigil there all night—when finally in late morning she opened her eyes.

'Ayyo!' she exclaimed. 'It is you, cousin! I feared I had only dreamed that I had been rescued.'

'You have been. And happy I am that I came in time, before you wasted entirely away in that fetid cell.'

'Ayya!' she said now. 'Turn aside your gaze, Tenamaxtli. I must look like the skeletal Weeping Woman of the old legends.'

'To me, beloved cousin, you look as you ever did, even when you were a girl-child all knees and elbows. Pleasing to my eye and to my heart. You will soon be your former self again, beautiful and strong. You need only nourishment and rest.'

She said urgently, 'My father, your mother, did they come with you? Why were you all so long away?'

'I regret being the one to tell you, Ameyatl. They are not with me. They will never be with us again.'

She gave a small cry of dismay.

'I also regret having to tell you that it was your brother's doing. He secretly slew them both—and later slew your husband Kauri as well—long before he imprisoned you and supplanted you as ruler of Aztlan.'

She pondered this for a while in silence, and wept a little, and at last said, 'He did such horrible deeds... and for only a paltry little eminence... in a negligible little corner of The One World. Poor Yeyac.'

'Poor Yeyac?!'

'You and I both knew, from our childhood, that Yeyac was born with an inauspicious tonali. It has made him suffer unhappiness and dissatisfaction all his life.'

'You are far more tolerant and forgiving than I, Ameyatl. I do not regret telling you that Yeyac suffers no longer. He is dead, and I am responsible for his death. I hope you will not hold me hateful on that account.'

'No... no, of course not.' She reached for my hand and squeezed it affectionately. 'It must have been ordained by the gods who cursed him with that tonali. But now'—she visibly braced herself—'have you imparted all the bad news?'

'You must judge of that yourself. I am in the process of ridding Aztlan of all Yeyac's confederates and confidants.'

'Banishing them?'

'Far, far away. To Mictlan, I trust.'

'Oh. I understand.'

'All of them, anyway, except the woman G'nda Ke, who was warder of your prison cell.'

'I know not what to make of that one,' said Ameyatl, sounding perplexed. 'I can hardly hate her. She had to obey Yeyac's orders, but sometimes she would contrive to bring me bits of food more tasty than atoli, or a perfumed cloth with which I could wash myself a little. But something... her name...'

'Yes. You and I are probably the only two who would even dimly recognize that name, now that my great- grandfather is dead. It was he, Canautli, who told us about the long-ago Yaki woman. Do you recall? We were children then.'

'Yes!' said Ameyatl. 'The evil woman who sundered the Azteca—and led half of them away to become the all-conquering Mexica! But, Tenamaxtli, that was back at the beginning of time. This cannot be the same G'nda Ke!'

'If not,' I growled, 'she has certainly inherited all the base instincts and motives of her namesake ancestress.'

'I wonder,' said Ameyatl, 'did Yeyac realize this? He heard Canautli's account at the same time we did.'

'We will never know. And I have not yet inquired whether Canautli has been succeeded by another Rememberer of History—or whether Canautli passed on that story to his successor. I am inclined to think not. Surely that new Rememberer would have incited the people of Aztlan to rise up in outrage, once the woman joined Yeyac's court. Especially when she inveigled Yeyac into offering his friendship to the Spaniards.'

'Yeyac did that?' gasped Ameyatl, appalled. 'But... then... why are you sparing the woman?'

'I have need of her. I will tell you why, but it is a long story. And—ah!—here is Pakapeti, my faithful companion on the long way hither, and now your handmaiden.'

Tiptoe had arrived with a platter of light viands—fruits and such—for Ameyatl's breaking of her fast. The two young women greeted one another amiably, but then Tiptoe, realizing that my cousin and I were in serious converse, left us to it.

'Tiptoe is more than your personal servant,' I said. 'She is chamberlain of this whole palace. She is also the