Aztec a-1

by Gary Jennings

  "So the man Chimali lives," said Ahuítzotl frostily. "If you can call it life. So you complied with our prohibition against killing him, by not quite killing him entirely. So you blithely expect that we will not be outraged and vengeful as we promised." I prudently said nothing. "We grant that you obeyed our spoken word, but you understood very well our unspoken meaning, and what of that? What earthly use is the man to us in his present condition?"

  I had by then resignedly come to expect that in any interview with the Uey-Tlatoani I would be the focus of a bulging-eyed glare. Others quailed and quaked before that awful look, but I was beginning to take it as a matter of course.

  I said, "Perhaps, if the Revered Speaker would now hear my reasons for having challenged the palace artist, my lord might be inclined to leniency regarding the tragic outcome of the duel."

  He merely grunted, but I took it as permission to speak. I told him much the same history I had told Zyanya, only omitting all mention of the events in Texcóco, since they had so intimately involved Ahuítzotl's murder of my newborn son, hence my fears for my newly-wed wife, Ahuítzotl grunted again, then meditated on the matter—or so I assumed from his scowling silence—then finally said:

  "We did not engage the artist Chimali because of or in spite of his despicable amorality, his sexual proclivities, his vindictive nature, or his tendency to treachery. We engaged him only to paint pictures, which he did better than any other painter of these or bygone days. You may not have slain the man, but you most certainly slew the artist. Now that his eyeballs have been plucked out, he can no longer paint. Now that his tongue has been cut out, he cannot even impart to any of our other artists the secret of compounding those unique colors he invented."

  I remained silent, only thinking to myself, with satisfaction, that neither could the voiceless, sightless Chimali ever reveal to the Revered Speaker that it was I who had caused the public disgrace and execution of his eldest daughter.

  He went on, as if summing up the case for and against me, "We are still wroth with you, but we must accept as mitigation the reasons you have given for your behavior. We must accept that this was an unavoidable affair of honor. We must also accept that you did take pains to obey our word, in letting the man Chimali live; and our word we likewise keep. You are reprieved from any penalty."

  I said gratefully and sincerely, "Thank you, my lord."

  "However, since we made our threat in public and the whole population by now knows of it, someone must atone for the loss of our palace artist." I held my breath, thinking that surely he must mean Zyanya, But he said indifferently, "We will give it thought. The blame will be put upon some expendable nonentity, but all will know that our threats are not empty ones."

  I let out my pent breath. Heartless though it may sound, I could not really feel much guilt or sorrow on behalf of some unknown victim, perhaps a troublesome slave, who would die at that proud tyrant's whim.

  Ahuítzotl said in conclusion, "Your old enemy will be evicted from the palace as soon as the physician has finished tending his wounds. Chimali will henceforth have to scavenge a living as a common street beggar. You have had your revenge, Mixtli. Any man would rather be dead than be what you have made of that one. Now begone from our sight, lest we have a change of heart. Go to your woman, who is probably worried about your welfare."

  No doubt she was, about her own as well as mine, but Zyanya was a woman of the Cloud People; she would not have let her concern be evident to any passing palace attendant. When I entered our chambers, her placid expression did not change until I said, "It is done. He is finished. And I am pardoned." Then she wept, and then she laughed, and then she wept again, and then she plunged into my arms and held to me as if she would never let me go again.

  When I had told her all that had happened, she said, "You must be near dead from fatigue. Lie down again and—"

  "I will lie down," I said, "but not to sleep. I must tell you something. A narrow escape from danger seems always to have a certain effect on me."

  "I know," she said, smiling. "I can feel it. But Záa, we are supposed to be praying."

  I said, "There is no more sincere form of prayer than loving."

  "We have no bed."

  "The floor matting is softer than a mountainside. And I am eager to hold you to a promise you made."

  "Ah, yes, I remember," she said. And slowly—not reluctantly, but tantalizingly—she disrobed for me, discarding everything she wore except the pearly white chain necklace the artisan Tuxtem had hung about her neck in Xicalanca.

  Have I already told you, my lords, that Zyanya was like a shapely vessel of burnished copper, brimming with honey, set in the sun? The beauty of her face I had known for some time, but the beauty of her body I had known only by touch. But then I saw it and—she had been right in her promise—it might have been our first time together. I literally ached to possess her.

  When she stood naked before me, all the womanly parts of her seemed to thrust forward and upward, ardently offering themselves. Her breasts were set high and tilted, and on their pale copper globes her cacao-colored areolas protruded like lesser globes, and from them her nipples extended, asking to be kissed. Her tipíli was also set high and forward so that, even though she stood with her long legs modestly pressed together, those soft lips parted just the slightest bit at their upper joining, to allow a glimpse of the pink pearl of her xacapili, and at that moment it was moist, like a pearl just out of the sea—

  Enough.

  Although His Excellency is not now present, and so cannot be driven out by his usual revulsion, I will not recount what happened then. I have been frankly explicit about my relations with other women, but Zyanya was my beloved wife, and I think I will miserly hoard most of my memories of her. Of all that I have possessed in my life, my memories are the only things remaining to me. Indeed, I believe that memories are the only real treasure any human can hope to hold always. That was her name. Always.

  But I wander. And our delicious lovemaking was not the last event of that notably eventful day. Zyanya and I were lying in each other's arms, I just falling into sleep, when there came a scratching at the door like that of Cozcatl earlier. Foggily hoping I was not being summoned to fight another duel, I struggled to my feet, slung my mantle about me, and went to investigate. It was one of the palace under-stewards.

  "Forgive the interruption of your devotions, lord scribe, but a swift-messenger brings an urgent request from your young friend Cozcatl. He asks that you make all haste to the house of your old friend Extli-Quani. It seems the man is dying."

  "Nonsense," I said in a furred voice. "You must have mistaken the message."

  "I hope so, my lord," he said stiffly, "but I fear I did not."

  Nonsense, I said again—to myself—but I began hurriedly to dress while I explained my errand to my wife. Nonsense, I kept telling myself; Blood Glutton could not be dying. Death could not get its teeth into that leathery, sinewy old warrior. Death could not suck him dry of his still-vital juices. Old he might be, but a man still so full of manly appetites was not old enough for death. Nevertheless, I made all haste, and the steward had an acáli waiting at the courtyard bank of the canal, to take me faster than I could run to the Moyotlan quarter of the city.

  Cozcatl was waiting at the door of the yet unfinished house, and he was anxiously wringing his hands. "The priest of Filth Eater is with him now, Mixtli," he said in a frightened whisper. "I hope he will have breath enough left to tell you good-bye."

  "Then he is dying?" I moaned. "But of what? He was in the prime of health at the banquet last night He ate like a whole flock of vultures. He kept running his hand up the skirts of the serving girls. How could something have stricken him so suddenly?"

  "I suppose the soldiers of Ahuítzotl always strike suddenly."

  "What?"

  "Mixtli, I thought the four palace guards had come for me, because of what I did to Chimali. But they brushed me aside and burst in upon Blood Glutton. He had his maquahuit
l handy, as he always does, so he did not succumb without a fight, and three of the four were bleeding copiously when they departed. But one sweep of a spear blade had laid the old man open."

  Realization made a cold shudder rack my whole body. Ahuítzotl had promised to execute an expendable nonentity in my stead; he must have chosen even while he told me that. He had once described Blood Glutton as being overage for anything more useful than playing nursemaid to my trading expeditions. And he had said that all must know that his threats were not empty ones. Well, the all included me. I had congratulated myself on my reprieve from punishment, and I had celebrated it by frolicking with Zyanya, and at that very time this was being done. It was not meant just to horrify and grieve me. It was meant to dispel any illusions I might entertain of my own indispensability, to warn me never again to flout the wishes of the implacable despot Ahuítzotl.

  "The old man bequeaths the house and all his other possessions to you, boy," said a new voice. It was the priest, materializing in the doorway, addressing Cozcatl. "I have taken down his testament and I will bear witness—"

  I shoved past him and through the front rooms into the rearmost. Its still unplastered stone walls were splashed with blood and my old friend's pallet was drenched with it, though I could see no wound upon him. He wore only a loincloth, and he lay sprawled on his belly, his grizzled head turned in my direction, his eyes closed.

  I threw myself down on the pallet beside him, unmindful of the gore, and said urgently, "Master Cuáchic, it is your student Fogbound!"

  The eyes slowly opened. Then one of them closed briefly again, in a wink accompanied by a weak smile. But the signs of death were there: his once piercing eyes gone an ashy dull color around the pupils, his once fleshy nose gone thin and sharp like a blade.

  "I am sorry for this," I choked out.

  "Do not be," he said faintly and in hard-forced little gasps.

  "I died fighting. There are worse ways. And I am spared them. I wish you... as good an end. Good-bye, young Mixtli."

  "Wait!" I cried, as if I could command him to. "It was Ahuítzotl who ordered this, because I vanquished Chimali. But you had no part in the affair. You did not even take sides. Why should the Revered Speaker take vengeance on you?"

  "Because it was I," he labored to say, "who taught you both to kill." He smiled again, as his eyes closed. "I taught well... did I not?"

  Those were his last words, and no one could have pronounced a more appropriate epitaph. But I refused to believe he would speak no more. I thought perhaps his breathing might have been pinched off by the position in which he lay; it might resume if he reposed more comfortably on his back. Desperately, I took hold of him and lifted and turned him, and all his insides fell out.

  * * *

  Though I mourned Blood Glutton and seethed with anger at his assassination, I could take some consolation in a fact that Ahuítzotl would never know. In trading blow for vengeful blow, I still had precedence of him. I had deprived him of a daughter. So I made a determined effort to swallow my bile, to put the past behind me, to begin hopefully preparing for a future free of further bloodshed and heartache and rancor and risk. Zyanya and I turned our energies to the building of a home for ourselves. The site we had selected had been purchased by the Revered Speaker as his wedding present to us. I had not declined the offering at the time, and it would have been impolitic for me to spurn it even after our mutual hostilities, but in truth I had no need of gifts.

  The pochtéa elders had marketed my first expedition's cargo of plumes and crystals with such profitable acumen that, even after dividing the proceeds with Cozcatl and Blood Glutton, I was affluent enough to live out a comfortable existence without ever having to engage in trade again, or lift my hand to any other kind of labor. But then my second delivery of foreign goods had astronomically increased my wealth. If the burning crystals had been a notable commercial success, the carved-tooth artifacts caused a positive sensation and a frenzy of bidding among the nobility. The prices brought by those objects could have enabled me and Cozcatl to settle down, if we had so wished, and become as bloated, complacent, and sedentary as our elders in The House of Pochtéa.

  The homesite Zyanya and I had chosen was in Ixacualco, the best residential quarter of the island, but it was occupied by only a small, drab house of mud-brick adobe. I engaged an architect, told him to pull the thing down and to construct a solid limestone edifice that would be both a fine home and a pleasurable sight for the passerby, but not ostentatious in either respect. Since the plot was, like all on the island, a narrow and constricted one, I told him to achieve commodiousness by building upward. I specified a roof garden, indoor sanitary closets with the necessary flushing arrangements, and a false wall in one room with ample hiding space behind it.

  Meanwhile, without calling me in for further consultation, Ahuítzotl marched south toward Uaxyacac, leading not an immense army but a picked troop of his best warriors, at most a mere five hundred men. He left his Snake Woman as temporary occupant of the throne, but took with him as his under-commander a youth whose name is familiar to you Spaniards. He was Motecuzóma Xocoyotzin, which is to say the Younger Lord Motecuzóma; he was, in fact, about a year younger than myself. He was Ahuítzotl's nephew, a son of the earlier Uey-Tlatoani Axayácatl, hence a grandson of the first and great Motecuzóma. He had until that time been a high priest of the war god Huitzilopóchtli, but that expedition was his first taste of actual war. He was to have many more, for he quit the priesthood to become a professional soldier and, of course, at command rank.

  About a month after the troop's departure, Ahuítzotl's swift-messengers began to return at intervals to the city, and the Snake Woman made their reports publicly known. From the news of the first returning messengers, it was obvious that the Revered Speaker was following the advice I had given him. He had sent advance notice of his approach and, as I had predicted, the Bishosu of Uaxyicac had welcomed his forces and had contributed an equal number of warriors. Those combined Mexíca and Tzapoteca forces invaded the seacoast warrens of The Strangers and made short work of them—slaughtering enough that the remainder surrendered and bowed to the levy of their long-guarded purple dye.

  But the later arriving messengers brought less happy news. The victorious Mexíca were quartered in Tecuantépec, while Ahuítzotl and his counterpart ruler Kosi Yuela conferred there on matters of state. Those soldiers had long been accustomed to their right to pillage whatever nation they defeated, so they were disgruntled and angered when they learned that their leader was ceding the only visible plunder—the precious purple—to the ruler of that same nation. To the Mexíca it seemed that they had waged a battle for the benefit of nobody but the very country they had invaded. Since Ahuítzotl was not the sort of man to justify his actions to his underlings and thereby quell their unrest, his Mexíca simply rebelled against all military restraint. They broke ranks and broke discipline and ran wild through Tecuantépec, looting, raping, and burning.

  That mutiny could have disrupted the delicate negotiations intended to effect an alliance between our nation and Uaxyacac. But fortunately, before the rampaging Mexíca could kill anyone of importance, and before the Tzapoteca troops intervened—which would have meant a small war right there—Ahuítzotl bawled his horde to order and promised that, immediately upon their return to Tenochtítlan, he would personally pay to every least yaoquizqui of them, from his own personal treasury, a sum well in excess of what they could hope to loot from their host country. The soldiers knew Ahuítzotl for a man of his word, so that was sufficient to put down the mutiny. The Revered Speaker also paid to Kosi Yuela and the bishosu of Tecuantépec a sizable indemnity for the damage that had been done.

  The reports of mayhem in Zyanya's natal city naturally worried her and me. None of the swift-messengers bearing news could tell us whether our sister Béu Ribé or her inn had been in the path of the spoilers. We waited until Ahuítzotl and his troop returned, and I made some inquiries among the officers, but still c
ould not ascertain if anything bad had happened to Waiting Moon.

  "I am most anxious about her, Záa," said my wife.

  "It seems there is nothing to be discovered except in Tecuantopec itself."

  She said hesitantly, "I could stay here and continue to direct our house builders, if you would consider..."

  "You need not even ask. I had planned to revisit those parts in any case."

  She blinked in surprise. "You had? Why?"

  "A matter of unfinished business," I told her. "It could have waited a while, but the question of Béu's well-being means that I go now."

  Zyanya was quick to understand, and she said, "You are going again to the mountain that walks in the sea! You must not, my love! Those barbarian Zyu nearly killed you last time—!"

  I laid a finger gently across her lips. "I am going south to seek news of our sister, and that is the truth, and that is the only truth you will tell to anyone who inquires. Ahuítzotl must not hear any rumor that I have any other objective."

  She nodded, but said unhappily, "Now I will have two loved ones to worry about."

  "This one will return safe, and I will look for Béu. If she has come to harm, I will make it right. Or, if she prefers, I will bring her back here with me. And I will bring back some other precious things as well."

  Of course Béu Ribé was my foremost concern and my immediate reason for going back to Uaxyacac. But you will have perceived, reverend scribes, that I was also about to consummate a plan I had carefully laid in train. When I suggested to the Revered Speaker that he raid The Strangers and make them agree to surrender all the purple dye they might forever after collect, I had not mentioned to him the vast treasure of that substance they had already stored in the cave of the Sea God. From my inquiries among the returned officers I knew that even in defeat The Strangers had not handed it over or volunteered any hint of its existence. But I knew of it, and I knew the grotto where it was hidden, and I had arranged that Ahuítzotl should subdue the Zyu sufficiently that it would be possible for me to go and get that fabulous hoard for myself.