The Emperor of Mexico might rule the World, but he had nothing like this: a prospect that reduced his own city to a small dark smudge in the middle of the pale, moonlit waters.
‘It looks magnificent, doesn’t it?’ Hungry Child said softly as he led us over a broad causeway towards the cedar trees and the colonnaded walls of the palace.
‘Yes,’ I said simply. It was more than magnificent, it was entrancing, and I found myself craning my neck to look around me and straining to catch the tiny splashes as ripples on the water caught the sides of the causeway.
‘Well, the winter rains have left it fairly full. Come the end of the dry season, half the water will be gone, all the pretty streams and waterfalls you saw will have disappeared and the place will be buzzing with mosquitoes. But the view down the hill will still be good.’
The wry comment shook me out of my reverie. I looked ahead, and for the first time since meeting Hungry Child I saw strangers, a little knot of people among the tall dark trees, some watching us, others gazing raptly out over the valley.
It was all I could do not to break into a run as I approached and began to realize that some of them were not strangers at all.
The King of Tetzcoco sat in a high-backed chair that had been positioned to let him look out over the valley, although he seemed too deep in thought to be merely contemplating the view. He leaned forward, with one elbow on his knee and his chin resting on his hand, and when the dappled moonlight falling between the branches overhead shifted to his face it looked as if his eyes were shut.
The King had been the last person I had noticed. As we walked towards the trees, I had spied, with mounting disbelief and delight, not merely my son but also Lily’s father, Mother of Light and, squatting close by Maize Ear’s throne as casually as if he had been her uncle, Little Hen. None of them looked as if they had been harmed in any way. In fact, Kindly seemed to be bored, from the way he kept shuffling his feet.
1 wanted to smile and laugh and call out to my son, but I had appeared before an Emperor before and I knew what I had to do. Stopping well short of the King on his seat, I threw myself upon the immaculately swept ground, crying: ‘Oh, lord! My lord! Oh, Great lord!’
There was silence for a moment. Then the King spoke, in a soft, clear voice that was like a younger version of his uncle Montezuma’s.
‘You have expended breath to come here,’ he said formally. ‘You are weary; you are hungry. You must rest and have some food.’
I got to my knees and risked a look around. To my surprise, Hungry Child had rendered his son the same obeisance I had, and his feathers fell forward over his face as he began to rise. Lily, however, had remained standing. Her wounded hands would have made prostrating herself exquisitely painful, and from the way she was swaying she was now so tired that she might not have been able to get to her feet again.
Evidently the King noticed her condition as well, for as his servants appeared with cups and jugs and platefuls of delicacies, little intricately shaped tamales with sweet and savoury fillings, he called for a chair. While Lily was being lowered gently into it, I munched on one of the snacks and studied Maize Ear slyly through the corner of my eye.
He was a young man, a little over twenty. He had been on the throne less than three years, but in that time he had seen more trouble than many of his elders. There were plenty in his kingdom who still mourned the days when Tetzcoco had been the chief power on this side of the valley and resented the Aztecs and our invincible city on the lake. They resented him, because he was half-Aztec and they thought he was his uncles puppet. He had had to cede many of his richest provinces to his brother in the North, knowing that Black Flower would not be happy until he had the throne as well. Now, on top of all that, he had discovered that the last King, his father, whose body he had seen burned with all the pomp and sacrifices due to him, had not died at all but had been living within shouting distance of his own palace.
None of this showed in the young man’s face. The eyes he fixed on Hungry Child were clear and steady, and there was no sign of tension under his smooth skin or in the hands resting on his lap.
‘I sent for the woman and the slave. Father,’ he said simply. ‘And the old man also — he was picked up outside the court.’
Hungry Child replied: ‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘You will have something for me.’
Hungry Child looked sideways at me. ‘I believe the slave does, my lord.’
I looked from one to the other of them, suddenly conscious that I might have crumbs on my chin. ‘My lord — er, lords? — I’m not sure…’
‘Tell him about the message, Yaotl!’ Hungry Child hissed. ‘What Little Hen was trying to tell us!’
The King added: ‘My father has been able to tell us something of the little girl’s past. But there was one thing he was unsure about, and it may be the most important detail of all. He seems to think that you may be able to help.’ He leaned forward. ‘Don’t forget how much blood has been spilled over this already!’
I understood him. He was reminding me how important what I was about to tell him might be, perhaps, in his eyes, important enough to be worth all the fives that had been lost over it. I might have taken his
