Aztec

by Gary Jennings

  “Oh, my darling!” exclaimed Waiting Moon, as her tears overflowed, as she knelt and held out her arms, as the little girl ran happily to be enfolded in them.

  “Death!” roared the high priest of Huitzilopóchtli, from the top of the Great Pyramid. “It was death that laid the mantle of Revered Speaker upon your shoulders, Lord Motecuzóma Xocóyotl, and in due time your own death will come, when you must account to the gods for the manner in which you have worn that mantle and exercised that highest office.”

  He went on in that vein, with the usual priestly disregard for his hearers’ endurance, while I and my fellow knights and the many Mexíca nobles and the visiting foreign dignitaries and their nobles all sweltered and suffered in our helmets and feathers and hides and armor and other costumes of color and splendor. The several thousand other Mexíca massed in The Heart of the One World wore nothing more cumbersome than cotton mantles, and I trust they got more enjoyment out of the ceremony of inauguration.

  The priest said, “Motecuzóma Xocóyotzin, you must from this day make your heart like the heart of an old man: solemn, unfrivolous, severe. For know, my lord, that the throne of a Uey-Tlatoáni is no quilted cushion to be lolled upon in ease and pleasure. It is the seat of sorrow, labor, and pain.”

  I doubt that Motecuzóma sweated like the rest of us, though he wore two mantles, one black, one blue, both of them embroidered with pictures of skulls and other symbols intended to remind him that even a Revered Speaker must die someday. I doubt that Motecuzóma ever sweated. Of course, I never in my life put my finger to his bare skin, but it always appeared cold and dry.

  And the priest said, “From this day, my lord, you must make of yourself a tree of great shade, that the multitude may take shelter under your branches and lean upon the strength of your trunk.”

  Though the occasion was solemn and impressive enough, it may have been a little less so than other coronations during my lifetime which I had not witnessed—those of Axayácatl and Tixoc and Ahuítzotl—since Motecuzóma was merely being confirmed in the office which he had already held unofficially for two years.

  And the priest said, “Now, my lord, you must govern and defend your people, and treat them justly. You must punish the wicked and correct the disobedient. You must be diligent in the prosecution of the necessary wars. You must give special heed to the requirements of the gods and their temples and their priests, that they do not lack for offerings and sacrifices. Thus the gods will be pleased to watch over you and your people, and all the affairs of the Mexíca will prosper.”

  From where I stood, the softly waving feather banners that lined the staircase of the Great Pyramid appeared to converge toward the top, like an arrow pointing to the high, distant, tiny figures of our new Revered Speaker and the aged priest who just then placed the jewel-encrusted red leather crown on his head. And at last the priest was finished and Motecuzóma spoke:

  “Great and respected priest, your words might have been spoken by mighty Huitzilopóchtli himself. Your words have given me much upon which to reflect. I pray that I may be worthy of the sage counsel you have dispensed. I thank you for the fervor and I cherish the love with which you have spoken. If I am to be the man my people would wish me to be, I must forever remember your words of wisdom, your warnings, your admonitions….”

  To be ready to shatter the very clouds in the sky at the close of Motecuzóma’s acceptance speech, the ranks of priests poised their conch trumpets, the musicians raised their drumsticks and readied their flutes.

  And Motecuzóma said, “I am proud to bring again to the throne the estimable name of my venerated grandfather. I am proud to be called Motecuzóma the Younger. And in honor of the nation which I am to lead—a nation even mightier than in my grandfather’s day—my first decree is that the office I occupy will be no longer called Revered Speaker of the Mexíca, but that it have a more fitting title.” He turned to face the crowded plaza, and he held high the gold and mahogany staff, and he shouted, “Henceforth, my people, you will be governed and defended and led to ever greater heights by Motecuzóma Xocóyotzin, Cem-Anáhuac Uey-Tlatoáni!”

  Even if all of us in the plaza had been lulled to sleep by the half a day of speech making we had just endured, we would have started awake at the blast of sound that seemed to make the whole island quake. It was a simultaneous shriek of flutes and whistles, a blare of conch horns, and the incredible thunder of some twenty of the drums that tear out the heart, all massed together. But the musicians could also have been asleep, and their instruments mute, and we would all have come wide awake just from the impact of Motecuzóma’s closing words.

  The other Eagle Knights and I exchanged sidelong glances, and I could see the numerous foreign rulers exchanging scowls. Even the commoners must have been shocked by their new lord’s announcement, and no one could have been much pleased by the audacity of it. Every previous ruler in all the history of our nation had been satisfied to call himself Uey-Tlatoáni of the Mexíca. But Motecuzóma had just extended his dominion to the farthest extent of the horizon in all directions.

  He had bestowed upon himself a new title: Revered Speaker of The One World.

  When I dragged myself home that night, again eager to be out of my plumage and into a cleansing cloud of steam, I got only an offhand greeting from my daughter, instead of the usual scamper to fling herself upon me in a four-limbed hug. She was sitting on the floor, undressed, in an awkwardly backward-arched posture, holding a tezcatl mirror over her head as if she was trying to get a view of her bare back, and was too engrossed in the attempt to take much notice of my arrival. I found Béu in the adjoining room and asked her what Cocóton was doing.

  “She is at the age of asking questions.”

  “About mirrors?”

  “About her own body,” said Béu, adding scornfully, “She was told a number of ignorant mistruths by her Tene Ticklish. Do you know that Cocóton once asked why she does not have a little dangle in front, like the boy up the street who is her favorite playmate? And do you know what that Ticklish told her? That if Cocóton is a good girl in this world, she will be rewarded in her afterlife by being reborn as a boy.”

  I was tired and grumpy, not too happy at that moment with my own burden of body, so I muttered, “I will never know why any woman should think it rewarding to be born a male.”

  “Exactly what I told Cocóton,” Béu said smugly. “That a female is far superior. Also much more neatly made, not having an excrescence like the dangle in front.”

  “Is she trying instead to grow a tail behind?” I asked, indicating the child, who was still trying with the mirror to look down her back.

  “No. Today she noticed that every one of her playmates has the tlacihuítztli, and she asked me what it is, not realizing she has one herself. Now she is trying to examine it.”

  Perhaps, reverend scribes, like most recently arrived Spaniards, you are unfamiliar with the tlacihuítztli mark, for I understand it does not appear on any white children. If it appears on the bodies of your blackamoors, I suppose it would be unnoticeable. But all our infants are born with it: a dark spot like a bruise in the small of the back. It may be as large as a dish or as little as a thumbnail, and it seems to have no function, for it gradually diminishes and fades and, after ten years or so, entirely disappears.

  “I told Cocóton,” Béu went on, “that when the tlacihuítztli is all gone, she will know she has grown into a young lady.”

  “A lady of ten years old? Do not give her too fanciful ideas.”

  Béu said loftily, “Like some of the foolish notions you have given her, Záa?”

  “I?” I said, astonished. “I have answered all her questions as honestly as I know how.”

  “Cocóton told me how one day you took her walking in the new park at Chapultépec, and she asked you why the grass was green, and you told her it was so she would not walk on the sky by mistake.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, it was the most honest answer I could think of. Do you k
now a better one?”

  “The grass is green,” Béu said authoritatively, “because the gods decided it should be green.”

  I said, “Ayya, that never occurred to me.” I said, “You are right.” I nodded and said, “Beyond a doubt.” She smiled, pleased with her wisdom and with my acknowledgment of it. “But tell me,” I said. “Why did the gods choose green instead of red or yellow or some other color?”

  Ah, Your Excellency arrives just in time to enlighten me. On the third day of Creation, was it? And you can recite our Lord God’s very words. “To every thing that creepeth upon the earth, I have given every green herb.” One can hardly dispute it. That the grass is green is evident even to a non-Christian, and of course we Christians know that our Lord God made it so. I merely wonder, still—after all the years since my daughter inquired—why did our Lord God make it green instead of …?

  Motecuzóma? What was he like?

  I understand. Your Excellency is concerned to hear matters of import; you are rightly impatient of trivial subjects like the color of the grass or the small, dear things I remember of my little family in the long-ago. Nevertheless, the great Lord Motecuzóma, in whatever forgotten place he lies now, is but a buried smudge of decomposed matter, perhaps discernible only if the grass grows a brighter green where he lies. To me, it seems that our Lord God cares more for keeping His grass green than He cares for keeping green the memory of the greatest noblemen.

  Yes, yes, Your Excellency. I will cease my unprofitable musings. I will cast my mind back, that I may satisfy your curiosity about the nature of the man Motecuzóma Xocóyotzin.

  And a man is all he was, a mere man. As I have said, he was about a year younger than myself, which would mean he was thirty and five when he took the throne of the Mexíca—or of the entire One World, as he would have it. He was of average height for a Mexícatl, but his body was of slender build and his head was a trifle large, and that touch of disproportion made him appear somewhat shorter than he really was. His complexion was of a fine, light copper color, his eyes were coldly bright, and he would have been handsome but for a slightly flat nose which made his nostrils spread a bit too broadly.

  At his ceremony of inauguration, when Motecuzóma doffed the black and blue mantles of humility, he was draped with garments of surpassing richness, which indicated the kind of taste he would always thereafter indulge. At his every public appearance, he wore a costume that was never twice the same in every detail, but in sumptuosity was always on the order of what I now describe:

  He wore either a red leather or an ornately embroidered cotton maxtlatl, the flaps of which hung below his knees front and back. That excessively ample loincloth, I suspect, he may have adopted to prevent any accidental exposure of the genital malformation I have alluded to. His sandals were gilded and sometimes, if he was required only to appear and not do much walking, their soles were of solid gold. He might wear any number of ornaments—a golden necklace with a medallion that covered most of his chest; a labret in his lower lip, made of crystal enclosing a feather of a fisher bird; ear plugs of jadestone and a nose plug of turquoise. On his head was either a coronet or diadem of gold, tufted with tall plumes, or one of those great overarching headdresses all of arm-long quetzal tototl tail feathers.

  But the most striking feature of his costume was the mantle, always of a length to hang from his shoulders to his ankles, always of the most beautiful feathers from the most rare and precious birds, always of the most painstaking feather work. He had mantles made of all scarlet feathers, or all yellow, all blue or green, or a mingling of various colors. But the one I remember best was the voluminous mantle made all of the iridescent, scintillating, varicolored feathers of none but hummingbirds. When I remind you that the largest feather on a hummingbird is scarcely bigger than the little tufty eyebrow of a moth, Your Excellency may appreciate the feathersmiths’ talent and labor and ingenuity that went into the making of that mantle, and the inestimable worth of it as a true work of art.

  Motecuzóma had not evinced such luxurious tastes during his two years as regent, while Ahuítzotl was still alive—or half alive. Motecuzóma and his two wives had lived simply, occupying just a few corner rooms of the old and by then rather derelict palace built by his grandfather Motecuzóma the Elder. He had dressed inconspicuously, and had eschewed pomp and ceremony, and had refrained from exercising all the powers inherent in the regency. He had promulgated no new laws, founded no new frontier settlements, instigated no new wars. He had confined his attention only to those day-to-day affairs of the Mexíca domains that required no momentous decisions or pronouncements.

  However, on his installation as Revered Speaker, when Motecuzóma shed those somber blue and black robes, he threw off all humility at the same moment. I think I can best illustrate by recounting my first meeting with the man, some months after his accession, when he began calling in all his nobles and knights for interviews, one by one. His expressed intent was that he wished to become familiar with those subordinates he did not yet know except as names on a roster, but I believe his true intent was to awe and impress us all with his new air of majesty and magnificence. Anyway, when he had worked his way down through courtiers and nobles and wise men and priests and seers and sorcerers, he came eventually to the ranks of the Eagle Knights, and in due time I was summoned to present myself at court in the forenoon of a certain day. I did so, resplendent and uncomfortable again in all my feathered regalia, and the steward outside the throne room door said:

  “Will my lord the Eagle Knight Mixtli divest himself of his uniform?”

  “No,” I said flatly. It had been trouble enough to get into.

  “My lord,” he said, seeming as nervous as a rabbit, “it is required by order of the Revered Speaker himself. If you will please to take off the eagle head and the mantle and the taloned sandals, you can cover the body armor with this.”

  “With rags?” I exclaimed, as he handed me a shapeless garment made of the maguey-fiber cloth we used for sacking. “I am no supplicant or petitioner, man! How dare you?”

  “Please, my lord,” he begged, wringing his hands. “You are not the first to resent it. But henceforth the custom is that all appearing before the Revered Speaker will come barefooted and in beggarly garb. I dare not admit you otherwise. It would cost my life.”

  “This is nonsense,” I grumbled, but, to spare the poor rabbit, I put off my helmet, shield, and outerwear, and draped myself in the sackcloth.

  “Now, when you go in—” the man started to say.

  “Thank you,” I said crisply, “but I know how to comport myself in the presence of high personages.”

  “There are some other new rules of protocol,” said the wretch. “I entreat you, my lord, not to draw displeasure on yourself or on me. I merely tell you the orders given.”

  “Tell me,” I said, through my teeth.

  “There are three chalk marks on the floor between the door and the Revered Speaker’s chair. As you enter, the first mark is just beyond the threshold. There you stoop and make the gesture of tlalqualíztli—finger to floor to lips—saying, ‘Lord.’ Walk to the second mark, again make obeisance, and say, ‘My lord.’ Walk to the third mark, kiss the earth again, and say, ‘My great lord.’ Do not rise then until he gives you leave, and do not approach closer to his person than that third chalk mark.”

  “This is unbelievable,” I said.

  Avoiding my stare, the steward went on, “You will address the Revered Speaker only when he asks a direct question requiring your reply. Do not at any time raise your voice above a discreet murmur. The interview will be concluded when the Revered Speaker says it is. At that moment, make the tlalqualíztli where you stand. Then walk backward—”

  “This is insanity.”

  “Walk backward, always keeping your face and front respectfully to the throne, dropping to kiss the earth at each chalk mark, and continue to walk backward until you are out the door and in this corridor again. Only then may you resume your g
arb and your rank—”

  “And my human dignity,” I said sourly.

  “Ayya, I beseech you, my lord,” said the terrified rabbit. “Do not essay any such jest in yonder, in the presence. You would come out not backward, but in segments.”

  When I had approached the throne in the prescribed humiliating manner, saying at the proper intervals, “Lord … my lord … my great lord,” Motecuzóma let me remain crouched for a long moment before he condescended to drawl, “You may rise, Eagle Knight Chicóme-Xochitl Tliléctic-Mixtli.”

  Ranked behind his throne stood the elderly men of the Speaking Council, most of them, of course, left over from previous reigns, but there were two or three new faces. One of the new ones was the newly appointed Snake Woman, Tlácotzin. All the men were barefooted and, instead of their customary yellow mantles of distinction, wore the same drab sacking cloth that I did, and looked unhappy about it. The Revered Speaker’s throne was a modestly low icpáli chair, not even raised on a dais, but the elegance of his costume—especially in contrast to the others in the room—belied any pretense of modesty. He had a number of bark papers unfolded full length across his lap and trailing to the floor on either side, and evidently he had just read from one of them my full name. Next he made a show of consulting several different panels of several different papers, and said:

  “It appears that my uncle Ahuítzotl entertained the idea of someday elevating you to the Speaking Council, Knight Mixtli. I entertain no such idea.”

  “Thank you, Lord Speaker,” I said, and meant it. “I have never aspired to—”

  He interrupted, in a biting voice, “You will speak only when I indicate by a question that your reply is required.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And that reply was not required. Obedience need not be expressed; it is taken for granted.”

  He studied the papers again, while I stood mute, hot with anger. I had once thought Ahuítzotl foolishly pompous, always speaking of himself as “we,” but in retrospect he seemed warm and outgoing, compared to this icily aloof nephew of his.