Long low buildings were dotted among the fields and plantations, and peasant shacks beside the road increased in number until the road turned into a street. They passed a big open space where stalls had been set up, selling a variety of goods. Not long after that, the shacks started to give way to more substantial stone buildings. Simon noticed that these, like the shacks, had no doors as such, but the curtains that covered the doorways were of ornate beadwork instead of simple reeds.
The road they were on was crossed by others, and they passed through squares where four roads met. Eventually they reached a vast plaza lined with buildings. They were impressive, but looked insignificant when viewed against what stood in the centre of the plaza. It was the tower they had seen from far out on the plain.
They halted, staring, and Lundiga gave a small cry of astonishment. Bos, who had seen the temples and palaces of Rome as well as Londinium, was reduced to silence. Even for Brad and Simon, with memories of London and New York, it was awe-inspiring.
It was square-based, and built in stepped blocks to form a pyramid that rose at least a hundred and fifty feet from the ground. Each block was five or six feet high, making scaling difficult if not impossible, but a ramp was built into the side facing them, giving access to the top. The ramp had stone steps, which a man in a white and purple robe was climbing. There was a pavilion at the apex, its walls brightly coloured in contrast with the dazzling white stucco of the rest of the pyramid.
“A temple?” Bos asked.
“Yes.” Brad was staring at it with a puzzled look.
Bos said: “I wonder what gods they worship there?”
The Incas, Simon recalled, had been heavily into human sacrifice. He said: “Not very nice ones.”
Brad said: “I got it wrong.”
“Not like you,” Simon said. “What are we talking about, by the way?”
“Bos’s question about the gods they worship . . . the Incas took their sun god with them wherever they conquered: they allowed their subjects a certain amount of freedom of choice, but not in religion. But that’s not a sun god temple. See those carvings on either side of the ramp? The one on the right’s the God of War. The other is the Feathered Snake, otherwise Tlaloc, the Rain God.
“The two empires met, all right, and fought it out. I thought the Incas must have won, because of the road system. But it’s very easy, and not unusual, to pick up technical know-how from the peoples you subdue. What you don’t take on is religion: you impose your own. That temple is dedicated to Aztec gods, which means it was the Aztecs who won out. This is an Aztec city.”
“They practised human sacrifice, too, didn’t they?”
Brad nodded. “Even more than the Incas.”
Simon looked up at the pyramid. It was awesome, beautiful in its way; but hideous at the same time. He said: “Let’s move on.”
No one argued.
• • •
In marked contrast to their experience among the Indian villages, they were offered no hospitality or help in the city, which they learned was called Palzibil. Its population consisted of three classes of people: the rich, the poor, and the slaves of the rich. The gulf between rich and poor was very great.
The city was still growing, or at least its stone-built inner area was expanding out into the part occupied by shacks, and they managed to find work as labourers in the construction industry. They were paid in cocoa beans tied up in small bags that held varying quantities. This was the general basic currency, though at higher levels small silver ingots and duck or turkey quills packed with gold dust were in use. Their daily wage enabled them to buy food, but did not leave much over.
They were not the only foreigners in the city: there was a considerable number of Indians who had left their villages for one reason or another and made their way here. These mostly slept in the open, and Simon and the others found themselves obliged to follow suit. Many of the larger buildings had external porticoes, and they were able to sleep under them, obtaining protection against rain at least. It was necessary to be up and away early, though, to avoid being kicked into a gutter by the servants of the owners of the house.
After a week, Brad proposed moving on. “This is a dead-end situation. We’re not even earning enough money to buy new clothes when these wear out. And you can bet your life no one here is going to give us any.”
“It’s early days,” Simon said.
“What difference does that make? Early, middle or late, we’re still going to be on the bread line. It’s a rigid setup. The rich are very rich and the poor are very poor, and they don’t change places. There’s no ladder of success in Aztec society.”
“Some things are not so bad,” Bos said. “They do not have wine, but that liquor they sell in the market is very cheap.” He shook his head in reminiscence. “And fiery.”
“I still think we ought to move on,” Brad said.
It was the midday break from work, and they were sitting in bright sunshine, their backs against the wall they had been building.
Lundiga, beside Brad, said: “No one bothers us. We get enough to eat. We do not know what it will be like in another place.”
“I’ve told you—much better than this.”
“It is warmer here than it was on the island,” Lundiga said, “and there is summer yet to come. We are in no hurry.” She stroked his cheek, making him pull away in irritation. “Do not worry, little Bradus. We will go with you to your wonderful land of California.”
“But not just yet,” Simon said. “It’s three to one again, buddy, but this time against you.”
Life in fact was not all that unpleasant, even for the poor. The work they did was not too arduous. They had a reasonable amount of free time, and there was plenty to see. They steered clear of the frequent religious processions, but there were other entertainments. Some of the buildings were theatres, with wooden benches in tiers above a central stage. There was no admission charge, but the working classes were confined to the cramped upper benches. The lower rows, wider and improved by the addition of gaudy cushions, were reserved for the well-to-do, who did not pay for admission, either, but who tossed things—cloths, feathers, shells, bags of cocoa beans, occasionally silver—to the entertainers at the end of the show.
Additionally there were the ball games, which took place in a large building containing four rectangular courts. A stone ring projected from one side of each court, some fifteen feet above the ground. The ring was approximately four feet across, its internal diameter about half that.
The games were played by two teams of four players, who wore short coats and a lot of padding underneath. With good reason—the proceedings were fast, furious, and liable to cause injury. The players carried what looked like sawed-off versions of lacrosse sticks, and used the pockets at the end of the sticks to catch and subsequently to hurl a small hard rubber ball. The object was to get the ball through the ring, but this was not at all easy; before that happened the ball bounced murderously fast from wall to wall of the court, not infrequently felling one of the participants.
The games were divided into three periods with short breaks between them. The winning side was rewarded, like the entertainers in the theatre, from the lower benches of the tiered seating area.
The Aztecs were fanatically enthusiastic about the sport. Apart from the official contests, scratch games were played everywhere in the streets: in a number of places ramshackle courts had been constructed, and wherever two walls formed an intersection, there were likely to be children hammering a ball against them. Bos became interested first and succeeded in interesting the others. You could buy a stick in the market for one of the smallest bags of beans and, as Brad agreed, it passed the time.
They had begun to get a smattering of the Aztec language, with Brad as usual picking it up the fastest. The humbler Aztecs were reasonably sociable, and some of the Indians now living in the city were Algonquian-speaking and could help interpret.
One day they were resting after a game, m
unching tortillas they had bought from a street vendor, when Brad said: “I suppose it’s not so bad here.”
“That,” Simon said, “is what we’ve been telling you.”
“Put it this way—not bad, but it could be a lot nicer if we were better off financially.”
“So dream on. You said it yourself: no ladder of success in Aztec society.”
“I was talking about people on a daily wage.”
“Well?”
“No ladders, I agree, but what about a springboard? Dancers and musicians don’t collect a little bag of beans: they get something worthwhile thrown to them. That juggler we saw last night has six slaves carrying him to the theatre in a litter.”
“What do you suggest we do—form a pop group?”
Simon said that in English. Bos and Lundiga were used to their habit of switching into the strange tongue, which they assumed was the language of their homeland in the west.
Brad shook his head. “I don’t think the Aztecs are quite ready for rock ’n’ roll. Pity. Four’s a good number for a group.” He paused. “It would also make up a team for the ball game.”
“That’s even more ridiculous. Every Aztec in the city, from the age of three onwards, would like to get into that. We wouldn’t get to first base.”
“First base? You’re in the wrong ball game. Though in fact it’s an interesting line to follow. You know some of the little kids play with their hands instead of using sticks? The original game was a form of handball, and on our side of the fireball, there’s no record of it being played any other way. Here it changed, most likely as a result of expansion northwards bringing them into contact with the Indians who played lacrosse. They must have picked up the notion of using sticks from them.”
“So what?”
“You’ve seen the technique of the game. You have to capture the ball in the pocket, hold it, and then sling it at the ring. It requires a lot of skill.”
“I agree,” Simon said. “Rather more than we’ve got or are likely to develop.”
“But if instead of lacrosse sticks you used something more like a tennis racket . . . you’d get greater impact and a much better control of direction.”
“I don’t see . . .”
“If we were to modify the sticks—tighten up the leather strips so they formed a flat, resilient surface rather than a pocket . . .”
“They’d never let us use them.”
“Why wouldn’t they? Someone had the bright idea, maybe a couple of hundred years ago, of switching from handball, and he wasn’t disqualified. It made the game faster, and I guess the Aztecs appreciated that. This would make it faster still.”
Simon shook his head. “I can’t believe we’d get away with it.”
“I’ve been talking to Strong Feather.”
Strong Feather was an Algonquian-speaking Indian who had lived in the city for some years and was a valuable source of information on local customs.
Brad went on: “The year’s big games take place six weeks from now; they’re tied up with some special religious festival, of course. A week before that there’s a sort of open qualifying contest, in which new teams slug it out for a place in the main games. We could try out our version of the sticks in that.”
“We wouldn’t be allowed to.”
“What do we have to lose?”
The question, Simon realized, was unanswerable; and anyway it might be fun. Beside him, Bos was snoozing. Simon prodded him with a toe. “Wake up, Bos.”
“I am tired—tired of listening to you gabble in that ugly tongue of yours.”
“Well, you can start listening in Latin. Bradus has had an idea.”
• • •
Modifying the sticks did not prove as easy as Brad had anticipated. He came up with a racket that was roughly triangular in shape and small in playing area; moreover, because the wooden surround was not complete, it lacked tautness and consequently was not very resilient. He tried to bend the end round to eliminate the gap, but the wood was much thicker and less yielding than the small saplings they had used in making snowshoes, and he had to abandon the attempt. It was a poor affair altogether. He and Simon tried hitting a ball with it but the results were uninspiring; it seemed no more likely to produce an accurate shot than the original sticks.
“The shape’s wrong,” Simon said, “and it’s too small. It would be like trying to play lawn tennis with a table tennis bat.”
Brad stared despondently at the fruit of his labours. “Ah well. One more good idea for the discard pile.”
Bos, who had been whittling a piece of wood, strolled over. He asked what they had been doing. When Simon outlined the problem, he said critically: “You need a more curved stick.”
“Sure,” Simon said. “A branch that curves right round in a circle. There must be thousands of them.”
The sticks were made from branches of pecan trees which grew in plantations on the outskirts of the city and were selected for the natural curvature to which the small leather pouch could be fitted. Bos picked up the stick and studied it. “We can bend this.”
Brad said: “I suppose you might just be able to, but how do you keep it bent?”
“In the same manner that coopers make staves for barrels. With steam.”
Brad stared at him. “I’m an idiot. And you’re a genius, Bos. Of course!”
Once his interest was captured, Bos took over operations. There was a communal washing place, where, on payment of a small bag of cocoa beans, people could take their clothes to wash in huge vats of bubbling water. They took the sticks, held them in the steam over the vats and Bos’s powerful muscles did the rest. It was a long and arduous procedure, but it worked.
The result was scarcely elegant but produced a stick whose end curved round to enclose an oval space about eighteen inches long and half that across. They grooved the sides at half-inch intervals and fitted leather strips horizontally, then added cross strips to complete the grid. Bos handed the completed racket to Simon, who swung it experimentally.
“It wouldn’t do for Wimbledon, but it’s a big improvement on the other. Throw me a ball, Brad.”
Brad tossed him a ball, and Simon hit it hard with the intention of bouncing it against the high stone wall of the washing place. But he got too far under it and it soared up and over the wall.
“You find the ball,” Brad said, “or else buy a new one. But I guess we can say we’re in business.”
• • •
They found a good place to practise. Some of the bigger buildings were unoccupied because their owners had gone out to their ranches in the country, and though a patrol checked to ensure squatters didn’t move in, this happened at set hours, and they were able to work out the timetable. Once the patrol had passed, it was easy to get inside. They picked a room whose dimensions were reasonably close to those of the ball court and hung up a wooden ring. Then they got down to playing.
It was fun, but also exhausting. Eventually Simon suggested they had done enough for one day. Brad disagreed. “Five weeks isn’t long to go from amateur to top pro. I say keep playing.”
He got Bos’s vote and, even more enthusiastically, Lundiga’s. Nor was this, Simon realized, just her customary habit of supporting whatever her little Bradus proposed; she was really hooked on the game. She had a surprisingly good eye and considerable strength of arm—one of her angled shots, ricocheting unexpectedly, almost knocked Simon out when he failed to get out of the way. She was a somewhat comic sight, swinging her racket with the fur hat firmly planted on her head, and Brad again suggested she take it off: there was no one to see her, apart from them.
Her chin jutted firmly. “It is not proper.”
They practised each day until the room’s high windows no longer gave them enough light to see by. At the beginning, their muscles ached abominably, but gradually they toughened up. The standard of play improved, too; whereas originally it had been an achievement to get the ball through the ring a couple of times in the course of an ev
ening, they began to score more regularly.
There was a ball game three weeks after they started, and they went along to watch.
Bos said: “We are not good enough.”
“No,” Brad agreed. “I suppose they’re about three times better than we are. When we started, it would have been thirty times better. We need more practice.”
The city began to fill with people from outside, a week before the tryout games. They watched from across the street as a convoy of servants with pack llamas arrived at the house they had been using, and started making it ready for their masters.
Bos said: “Shall we look for another? There are houses still empty.”
Simon shook his head. “Not worth it.”
Brad said reluctantly: “No. They’ll all be filling up now.”
Lundiga said: “There is a ruin where the children play ball. We could go there.”
“The moment we do,” Simon said, “everyone will know about the new sticks.”
“Would that matter?” Brad asked. He considered it. “I guess you’re right. The element of surprise is probably worth more than the extra practice.”
That night Simon was awakened from an exhausted sleep to see Brad’s figure silhouetted against bright moonlight. The first moment of consciousness had the curious effect of obliterating from his memory everything that had happened since the fireball. He thought he was at home in Surrey and could not understand why his American cousin was squatting beside him, nor why they were not in their beds. Memory came back with a bang, and brought with it a fierce hunger for all the things he had lost—a soft bed, his portable radio ready to switch on, his grandmother’s voice calling him to a bacon and egg breakfast . . . He said resentfully. “What is it?”
“A clear night is what,” Brad said, “which we can have to ourselves. We can get more practice in.”