Aztec Autumn

now, they would have taken scalps to prove the existence of such beings.'

And he was reminded by another, 'We have never seen scalps of the evil chapayekam, but we know they exist. And they are of no color at all.'

And the fifth, the elder in charge of warfare, said, 'I believe it would do our yoem'sontaom good to fight someone besides their own relatives for a change. I vote that we lend them to this outlander.'

'I concur,' said the elder in charge of the village work. 'If this outlander speaks truly about the rapacity of the white men, we may someday not have any relatives to fight, anyway.'

'I agree,' said the Leader of the Dances. 'Let us keep here only the Deer Dancer and enough other dancers to satisfy Old Man and Our Mother.'

'And to repulse the chapayekam,' said the Keeper of the Customs.

'Surely all others of our color,' said the elder who governed religion, 'will wish to join in annihilating those of different color. I vote that we invite our cousins the Opata and Kahita to participate.'

The warfare elder spoke up again. 'And why not our cousins the To'ono O'otam as well? This would be the grandest-ever alliance of relatives. Yes, that is what we will do.'

So it was arranged. Bakum would send a warrior 'bearing the staff of truce' to relay my message to all the others of the Eight Sacred Towns, and a second messenger to the far-off Desert People. I promised two things in return for such generous cooperation. I would appoint one of my own warriors to lead all the Yaki men south to our gathering place at Chicomoztotl, and the other to wait here in Bakum to guide the Desert People's warriors when they came. I would also, when all those yoem'sontaom got to Chicomoztotl, equip them with obsidian weapons far superior to theirs of flint. The elders accepted my offer of guides, but indignantly rejected the offer of weapons. What had been good enough for Old Man, and for their every male ancestor since, was good enough for modern warfare, they said, and I prudently did not argue the matter.

I was glad we had reached agreement when we did, for thereafter I was deprived of my means of communicating with the Yaki. G'nda Ke claimed to be feeling ever more ill, and incapable of even the exertion of interpreting. Indeed, she looked ill, her complexion having faded almost to the pallor of a white woman, so that her freckles were her most visible feature. When even the elder in charge of work, and the women who had worked her so hard, allotted her a domed hut of her own in which to lie and rest, it seemed they had decided—since she was not about to give birth—that she must be about to die. But I, knowing G'nda Ke, dismissed that notion. I was sure that her prostration was just another of her ruses, doubtless her way of expressing her vexation at my having been more cordially accepted by her own people than she had been.

XXIV

While we waited for the men of the other Yaki branches to assemble, Machihuiz, Acocotli and I occupied our time in doing a sort of training of the Mayo warriors of Bakum. That is to say, we mock-fought against them with our swords and javelins of obsidian edges and points, so that they would learn to parry such assaults with their primitive weapons. It was not that I expected the Yaki ever to be battling against the men of my own army. But I was fairly certain that when my army fully engaged the Spaniards, they would add to their ranks many of their native allies, such as the Texcalteca who had helped the white men in their long-ago overthrow of Tenochtitlan. And those allies would not be carrying arcabuces, but obsidian-bladed maquahuime and spears and javelins and arrows.

It was rather a slow and awkward process, training these yoem'sontaom without someone to translate my commands and instructions and advice. But warriors of every race and nation, probably even the white ones, share an instinctive understanding of each other's movements and gestures. So the Mayo men had not too much trouble learning our Azteca arts of thrusts and slashes and feints and withdrawals. They learned so well, in fact, that I and my two companions frequently got bruised by their dense-wood war clubs and pricked or scratched by their triple- flint spears. Well, of course, we three gave as good as we got, so I kept the Ticitl Ualiztli always in attendance at our training sessions, to apply his arts when necessary. And I gave no thought whatever to the absent G'nda Ke until, one day, a Bakum woman came and timidly tugged at my arm.

She led me—and Ualiztli came along—to the little cane hut that had been lent to G'nda Ke. I went in first, but what I saw made me instantly back out and motion for the ticitl to enter instead. Clearly, G'nda Ke had not been pretending; she appeared to be as near dying as the villagers had earlier supposed.

She lay stretched out naked on a reed pallet, and she was copiously sweating, and she had somehow got extremely fat, not just in the places where well-fed women often do, but all over—nose, lips, fingers, toes. Even her eyelids had become so fat that they practically closed her eyes. As she once had told me, G'nda Ke was freckled over her whole body, and now, with that body so bloated, her countless freckles were so large and distinct that she might have grown a jaguar's skin. In my one brief glance, I had seen the Mayo ticitl squatting beside her. I never yet had glimpsed that man's face, but even the grim-visaged mask he wore seemed now to have a puzzled and helpless expression, and he was only listlessly shaking his curative wooden rattle.

Ualiztli emerged from the hut, looking rather perplexed himself, and I asked him, 'What could they possibly have been feeding her, to make her so grossly fat? In this Yaki land, I have never seen a woman more than meagerly fed.'

'She has not grown fat, Tenamaxtzin,' he said. 'She is swollen with putrid fluids.'

I exclaimed, 'A simple spider bite could have done that?'

He gave me a sidelong look. 'She says it was you, my lord, who bit her.'

'What?!'

'She is in excruciating agony. And much as we all have loathed the woman, I am sure you would wish to be a little merciful. If you will tell me what kind of poison you applied to your teeth, I might be able to give her a more easeful death.'

'By all the gods!' I raged. 'I have long known that G'nda Ke is criminally insane, but are you?'

He quailed away from me, stammering, 'Th-there is a horribly gaping and suppurating sore on her ankle...'

Through gritted teeth I said, 'I grant you, I have often contemplated how I might most ingeniously slay G'nda Ke, when she was of no more use to me. But bite her to death? In your wildest imaginings, man, can you credit that I would put my mouth to that reptile? If ever I did that, I would be the one poisoned and suffering and suppurating and dying! It was a spider that bit her. While she was gathering wood. Ask any of the drabs who first attended her.'

I started to reach for the Mayo woman who had fetched us, and who was goggling at us in fright. But I desisted, realizing that she could neither comprehend nor answer a question. I simply flailed my arms in futile disgust, while Ualiztli said placatively:

'Yes, yes, Tenamaxtzin. A spider. I believe you. I should have known that the witch-woman would lie most atrociously, even on her deathbed.'

I took several deep breaths to calm myself, then said, 'She doubtless hopes that the accusation will reach the ears of the yo'otui. Worthless though they hold every woman, this one is a Mayo. If they give heed to her perjury, they might vengefully refuse me the support they have promised. Let her die.'

'Best she die quickly, too,' he said, and went again into the hut. I suppressed several different kinds of repulsion, and followed him inside, only to be further repulsed by the sight of her and—I noticed now—the rotting- meat stench of her.

Ualiztli knelt beside the pallet and asked, 'The spider that bit you—was it one of the huge, hairy sort?'

She shook her fat and mottled head, pointed a fat finger at me, and croaked, 'Him.' Even the Mayo ticitl's wooden mask wagged skeptically at that.

'Then tell me where you hurt,' said Ualiztli.

'All of G'nda Ke,' she mumbled.

'And where do you hurt worst?'

'Belly,' she mumbled and, just then, a spasm of pain must have stricken her there. She grimaced, shrieked, flung herself onto her side and doubled over—or as far as she could, her distended stomach folding into fat rolls.

Ualiztli waited until the spasm passed, then said, 'This is very important, my lady. Do the soles of your feet hurt?'