Aztec Autumn

I had never been a Uey-Tecutli before, and the only other one I had ever observed in the exercise of that office had been my Uncle Mixtli. It had seemed to me—then—that to accomplish anything whatsoever that required accomplishing, all Mixtzin had to do was smile or scowl or wave a hand or put his name-sign to some document. I soon learned—now—that being a Revered Governor was no easy occupation. I was being continually petitioned—I could say pestered—for decisions, judgments, pronouncements, intercessions, advice, verdicts, consents or denials, acceptances or rejections...

The other officials of my court, charged with various governing responsibilities, regularly came to see me with their various problems. A dike restraining the swamp waters needed crucial repairs, or the swamp would soon be in our streets; would the Uey-Tecutli authorize the cost of materials and the rounding-up of workmen? The fishers of our ocean fleet were complaining that the long-ago draining of that same swamp had resulted in the gradual silting up of their accustomed seaside harbors; would the Uey-Tecutli authorize the dredging of those harbors deep again? Our warehouses were bulging with sea-otter pelts, sponges, shark skins and other unsold goods, because, for years now, Aztlan had been trading only with lands to the north of us, none to the south; could the Uey-Tecutli devise a plan to get rid of that glut, and at a profit?...

I had to contend with not just my court officials and major matters of policy, but also with the most trivial doings of the common folk. Here a quarrel between two neighbors over the boundary between their plots of land; there a family squabbling over the division of their recently dead father's meager estate; here a debtor asking relief from an usurious and harassing moneylender; there a creditor asking permission to oust a widow and her orphans from their home, to satisfy some obligation her late husband had failed to meet...

It was exceedingly difficult for me to find time to attend to matters that were—to me—of much more urgency. But somehow I managed. I instructed all the loyal knights and cuachictin of my army to put their forces (and every available conscript) to intensified training, and to make place in their ranks for the additional warriors levied and daily arriving from the other communities subordinate to Aztlan.

I even found time to take out of hiding the three arcabuces Pakapeti and I had brought, and to give personal training in the use of them. Needless to remark, every warrior was, at first, timorous of handling these alien weapons. But I selected only those who could overcome their trepidation, and who showed an aptitude for using the thunder-stick efficiently. Those eventually numbered about twenty, and when one of them asked, diffidently, 'My lord, when we go to war, are we to take turns employing the thunder-sticks?' I told him, 'No, young iyac. I expect you to wrest from the white men their arcabuces with which to arm yourselves. Furthermore, we will also be confiscating the white men's horses. When we do, you will be trained in the handling of them, as well.'

My being continuously busy had at least one gratifying aspect: it kept me from having anything to do with the Yaki woman G'nda Ke. While I was occupied with affairs of state, she occupied herself with overseeing the palace household and its domestics. She may have been a nuisance to those servants, but she had little opportunity to be a nuisance to me. Oh, occasionally we might meet in a palace corridor, and she would utter some taunting or teasing remark:

'I weary of waiting, Tenamaxtli. When do you and I go forth together and commence our war?'

Or 'I weary of waiting, Tenamaxtli. When do you and I go to bed together, so that you may kiss every one of the freckles that sprinkle my most intimate parts?'

Even if I had not been kept too busy to bed anybody, and even if she had been the last human female in existence, I would not have been tempted. Indeed, during my tenure as Uey-Tecutli—when by custom I could have had any Aztlan woman I wanted—I was having none at all. Pakapeti seemed staunch in her determination never again to couple with any man. And I would not have dreamed of intruding myself into Ameyatl's sickbed, even though she was getting healthier and stronger and more beautiful every day.

I did visit my cousin's bedside whenever I had a free moment, simply to converse with her. I would apprise her of all my activities as Uey-Tecutli, and of all happenings in and about Aztlan—so that she could the more easily resume her regency when the time came. (And, frankly, I was yearning for that time to come, so I could be off to war.) We talked of many other things, too, of course, and one day Ameyatl, looking vaguely troubled, said to me:

'Pakapeti has taken loving care of me. And she looks lovely, now that her hair is nearly as long as my own. But the dear girl might as well be repellently ugly, because the anger in her is so very nearly visible.'

'She is angry toward men, and she has reason. I told you of her encounter with those two Spanish soldiers.'

'White men, then, I could understand. But—excepting only you—I think she would gladly slay every man alive.'

I said, 'So would the venomous G'nda Ke. Perhaps her propinquity has influenced Pakapeti to an even deeper hatred of men.'

Ameyatl asked, 'Including the one inside her?'

I blinked. 'What are you saying?'

'Then you have not noticed. It is just beginning to show, and she is carrying it high. Tiptoe is pregnant.'

'Not by me,' I blurted. 'I have not touched her in—'

'Ayyo, cousin, be at ease,' said Ameyatl, laughing despite her evident concern. 'Tiptoe blames that encounter of which you spoke.'

'Well, she could reasonably be bitter about carrying the mongrel child of a—'

'Not because it is a child. Or a mongrel. Because it is a male. Because she detests all males.'

'Oh, come now, cousin. How could Pakapeti possibly know it will be a boy?'

'She does not even refer to it as a boy. She speaks savagely of 'this tepuli growing inside me.' Or 'this kuru'—the Pore word for that same male organ. Tenamaxtli, is it possible that Tiptoe's distress is causing her to lose her mind?'

'I am no authority,' I said with a sigh, 'on madness or women. I will consult a ticitl of my acquaintance. Perhaps he can prescribe some palliative for her distress. In the meantime, let us both—you and I—be watchful that Tiptoe does not try to do some hurt to herself.'

But it was a while before I got around to summoning that physician, because I had other distractions. One was a visit from one of the guards at the Coyolxauqui temple, come to report that the imprisoned warriors were most miserable, having to sleep on their feet, eating nothing but mush, being so long unbathed, and so forth.

'Have any of them yet suffocated or starved?' I demanded.

'No, my lord. They may be near dead, but one hundred thirty and eight were confined in there, and that number still remain. However, even we guards outside the temple can hardly endure their stink and their clamor.'

'Then change the guard more frequently. Unless those traitors begin to die, do not trouble me again. Near dead is not punishment enough for them.'

And then Nocheztli returned from his mission as a quimichi in Compostela. He had been gone for about two months—and I had begun to worry that he had again defected to the enemy—but he came back, as promised, and came brimming with things to tell.

'Compostela is a much more thriving and populous town, my lord, than when I last saw it. Most numerous of the male white inhabitants are the Spanish soldiers, whom I estimate to number about a thousand, half of those horse-mounted. But many of the higher-ranking soldiers have brought their families, and other Spanish families have come as colonists, all of those families having built houses for themselves. The governor's palace and the town church are of well-worked stone; the other residences are of dried-mud brick. There is a marketplace, but all the goods and produce for sale there have been brought by trains of traders from the south. The whites of Compostela do no farming or raising of herds—they all prosper on the output of the many silver mines now being worked in the vicinity. And evidently they prosper sufficiently to afford the expense of importing all their comestibles and other necessities.'

I asked, 'And how many of our own people are resident there?'

'The indio population is about equal to that of the whites. I speak only of those who serve as domestic slaves in the households of the Spanish—and there are numerous black slaves as well, those creatures called Moros. If the slaves are not domiciled with their masters, they have derelict huts and shacks on the town's outskirts. There is