The House of Food was a great storehouse for the palace alone.
“Three hundred different types of food are prepared each day for the emperor,” he told me. “The palace has enough food, weapons, and treasure to survive—prosper, in fact—for years, even if the rest of the city starved to death.”
“Does he have a great feast for his nobles each day?” I asked, wondering why there would be so many dishes.
“The three hundred dishes are prepared just for him, so no matter what he might ask for, it would be there to satisfy him.”
Even as my own people are forced into cannibalism, I thought gloomily.
But I did not point that out to him.
The man was telling me that before the emperor ate, four beautiful women brought water for his hands, and—
And then we were interrupted by a nobleman sent by Prince Hummingbird Feather. “The emperor commands your presence.”
FIRE FROM THE SKY
Aztec Codex Telleriano-Remensis reported at around a date that translates to the early 1500s, the Aztecs observed fire from the sky shaped like a flaming pyramid.
Montezuma, the last Aztec emperor, asked Nezahualpilli, the ruler of neighboring Texcoco, the meaning of the fire in the sky.
Nezahualpilli, who was admired for his support of the arts and sciences, and had gathered astronomers, engineers, architects, and artists to his royal court, gave his fellow monarch an incredibly accurate assessment of the meaning of the phenomenon:
It was an ill omen, he told Montezuma. Terrible calamities were about to befall the land, disasters that would destroy their world.
Within a few years, both rulers were dead and the Aztec and Maya worlds had been swept away.
80
The nobleman who fetched me gave me instructions on how to present myself to the most powerful man in the One-World.
“As you walk toward the emperor, at the proper moment I will tap you on the back. You will drop down and lie flat with your nose on the floor until you are commanded to get up. Do you understand?”
I understood.
“You must never speak to the emperor unless he speaks directly to you first. That happens rarely. He speaks to a prince royal, who speaks to me, and I speak to you. Do you understand?”
I understood that I was even more insignificant in the Aztec world than I was in my own.
Ever since Prince Hummingbird Feather had told me I was going to the palace to meet the emperor, I wondered what he’d say. I feared he’d recognize me instantly as the fraud I really was, intuiting that I was here to pillage, not seek divine guidance for my king.
I could have used Sparrow’s infinite wisdom.
I was taken into a great reception hall, easily capable of seating a thousand people. The main room alone was the size of a small palace, yet it held fewer than a dozen people.
Montezuma was on an elevated throne, his back at the great hall’s far end.
The throne room of my Mayapán king paled in size and richness next to the emperor’s surroundings.
Montezuma’s clothes were burdened with imperial regalia, and his head supported a hat that was twice the height of a man. I could not imagine how he stood and walked away from his throne at the day’s end. I’m not sure I could have lifted him up from the seated position without extra assistance.
Sparrow had told me that two royal princes held him up by the arms when he walked in public because his clothes and hat were so cumbersome. I didn’t doubt it. Among other things, I did not know how else he could have kept his balance.
I knew that the emperor was forty years old, about the same age as my king. He was taller than most men, though not so tall as I. His hair fell to just over his ears, and I was surprised to note he wore a short, meticulously trimmed black beard, which most of our men can’t grow and regard with disdain.
Unlike my king, he did not lock his features in a perpetual frown. He even looked capable of smiling and laughing—assuming matters of state were not at stake.
Of course, he had much to smile about.
Even so, he was irate. As we entered his throne room, he was berating the Tlaxcalan ambassador. Tlaxcala was not in the Valley of Mexico, but down along the mountain slopes abutting the Great Eastern Waters, and although Aztecs had not conquered it, the Tlaxcala still paid tribute to the emperor, who also forced them to participate in his eternal Flower Wars. Lord Janaab had told me that Tlaxcala engaged with the greatest reluctance in these conflicts. Their sole purpose was to supply the Aztec priests with an endless river of sacrificial victims, which primarily comprised Flower War soldiers captured in battle, and Tlaxcala felt that they did not have soldiers to waste in such spectacles.
The emperor, for his part, objected to Tlaxcala’s parsimony, meaning they contributed too little treasure and too few prisoners.
Mostly, however, I sensed the emperor was incensed with Tlaxcala’s annual quota of sacrificial captives.
The emperor wanted more.
He was so furious, he would not let the ambassador stand while dressing him down.
As with most of the northern region, the Tlaxcala also spoke Nahuatl. From what I gathered from the whispered conversation between the two nobles who escorted me into the great hall, the emperor was angry about the amount of tribute the Tlaxcala had sent.
I hoped that the emperor vented all his anger on the ambassador before I was called before him.
The ambassador left, and Aztecs nobles escorted me forward, one on each side. My cheap wood-soled sandals clattered noisily on the floor. A tap on my back, and I dropped to the floor. Another tap, and I rose.
“You may look at the emperor, but do not speak,” the nobleman said. “Answer only to me.”
During the conversation, the emperor never addressed me directly nor I him. A royal prince instead repeated the monarch’s words to me and my own back.
“Why did your king send you to our land?” was the first question.
The answer had to satisfy the emperor’s interest in my alleged prophetic gifts and also seem credible.
“Misfortune and many calamities afflict the land of my people. Because the gods have not been generous to our farmers, there has been widespread hunger—even thievery.”
“I am told it is much worse than what you describe. Starvation is widespread because the lack of rain is killing your crops. Order has broken down throughout your land. Tell me what you anticipate for your kingdom.”
“The king will fall.”
That caused a stir in the room, and if it did not come to pass, I was doomed—either here or in Mayapán. But it popped into my head, and I believed it would happen, based on what I knew. Still, I had blurted the prediction without thinking.
The emperor made a gesture with his hand. “How will the king fall?” he asked.
The noble spoke to me in an awed tone. “The Lord and Forever Almighty has spoken directly to you.”
The emperor was addressing me? I was in shock but had to respond.
I could have said that my master lusted for the king’s throne, but I could not sound as if I’d inferred his death from events. I had to imply I’d divined the king’s removal from office.
“I do not know the details, Lord and Forever Almighty. The gods act in mysterious ways, sometimes killing people, even kings, on a whim.”
“When will your king lose his throne?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. The gods have not revealed that to me.”
“Then you are not aware that your king has already fallen?”
My surprise made my prediction seem authentically prophetic.
“How did it happen?” I stammered.
“We received word only an hour ago from one of our spies in Mayapán, who brought us the news via the sea route. Having been in Prince Hummingbird Feather’s custody for three days, you could not have known what happened.” He looked at me respectfully. “So you do have the gift of prophecy.”
“No, it—it was a guess.”
> The nobleman next to me noticeably stiffened. After all, I had contradicted the emperor. Still, my denial seemed to please Montezuma.
“Those with the true gift are the last to admit it. As to your question, he made one of his brothers War Lord. The brother repaid him with treachery, killing him and seizing the throne.”
There was disapproval in the emperor’s tone. Regicide was probably not a popular act to any monarch.
“Tell me more, Jaguar Oracle, about why your king sent you to my land.”
“The king believed that the gods were not listening to his pleas for my people. He had gathered all the wisdom of the Maya to answer the question and learned nothing. He sent me here to ask Huemac the Hermit why chaos has gripped his kingdom.”
Mentioning the Hermit was risky, but I hoped a partial truth would add credence to my story. I left out the part about how I was sent to steal the codex and return it to Mayapán to be destroyed.
His features grew grave, and he appeared to mull over my statement. He was quiet for a long time, long enough that I felt my life slipping away. Just as he had wiggled his finger to tell his attendants he would speak directly to me, a second finger wiggle could terminate my earthly existence.
“We live in strange times,” he finally said. “The gods are frequently capricious, smashing kings and empires for no apparent reason at all. To the gods, we are little more than ants and flies. They kill us for their sport.” He stared down at me, frowning. “Do you foretell the future in your dreams?”
“No.”
“I don’t either, but I have had strange dreams which seem to foreshadow even stranger events. We, too, have suffered a long drought because the Rain God has been stingy with his tears, but we are still able to feed our people.
“Other things have happened that my stargazers cannot explain. For the first time while I have occupied this throne, a temple burned. A bad omen indeed, an affront to the gods, tantamount to spitting in the face. A fire then was seen in the sky, blazing as if the sky itself was aflame.
“Soon after the sky fire was seen, the ghost of a woman rose from her grave, casting off the stones covering it, sending them flying into the air. She came to me while I slept and told me that invaders had come to subjugate our land and that divine deer would transport them on their backs and—”
I gasped, and he stopped and stared wide-eyed at me.
“What is it? What did you see?” he demanded.
I took a deep breath and tried to stop the shaking in my knee. “Warriors on deer,” I said. “Another told me of his vision of them. A man I considered to be mad.”
Montezuma appeared to have trouble controlling his own emotions. “Yes,” he said, almost in a whisper, “a madman would be the source. Someone whose mind has been destroyed so the gods can speak through it.”
The room was quiet again as the emperor’s eyes grew vague, remote. He seemed to be looking inward, perhaps remembering his nightmares.
“Each year I go to Teotihuacán,” he said, “the City of Gods, to give offerings to the gods and to speak to Huemac the Hermit.” He stared down at me as if I was about to challenge his words. “I am told he was a young man five hundred years ago when he walked with the god-king Quetzalcoatl in the sacred city of Tula.
“Now for three years, Huemac has not spoken. Not to me, not to anyone—only to the gods, with whom he converses in private in a dream state. During his three years of silence, drought has killed our crops, desiccating them on the stems. Strange events have also occurred.
“I, emperor of all the Aztecs, have gone to his cave and asked for his guidance, and he stares at me, mute. I have sent emissaries, but he will not grant them an audience. I could have him cut into ten thousand pieces, and if he were an ordinary man . . .”
Montezuma left the threat hanging. It needed no elaboration.
“You will go there,” the emperor said, “to the cave of the Hermit. He will speak to the Jaguar Oracle of the Maya. He will reveal to you the plan of the gods for our future. And what I must do to ensure our prosperity. There is said to be a book of fates in which the plans of the gods are laid out. You will find that book. You will bring me that codex.”
It was not a request or even a command. It was a statement of fact—I would go, get the book, and return. And what if Huemac the Hermit spit in my eye instead of revealing the machinations of the gods or where the book was hidden?
If I failed, I would receive no more mercy from the Aztec emperor than I would from my late king.
I would also be well “protected” on my journey to the City of the Gods.
And on my return.
Escape would not be an option.
81
“You are truly honored,” a guard captain told me after I was brought to the room where I would spend the night. “We will bring an auianime to pleasure you along with good food and drink.”
An auianime was a woman assigned to entertain warriors who fought well. Not a prostitute, but more akin to the erotic women of the love temple. I was honored as well as titillated.
After I had sweated body and soul in a House of Stone Fire, I washed the perspiration off in a cool pool.
Despite being placed in a palace room, I had a guard at the door, who brought me food. For all the luxurious palace living, I was still a prisoner.
The food was as good as Lord Janaab himself feasted upon: turtle, fresh fish, and pheasant, with vegetables I had never seen before. I was even given a chocolate drink with peppers and a small jug of Aztec nectar—not the three hundred dishes the emperor enjoyed, but the finest meal I had ever eaten. Yet I still felt like a fly caught in a spiderweb rather than an honored guest.
Spiderwebs had been everywhere I stepped since I left my village, enveloping me even tighter when I tried to pull loose. This one was perhaps the tightest, because I was in a foreign land and in the hands of the mightiest monarch in the One-World.
I gave little thought to the fate of my king, but wondered how my fellow stoneworkers fared in the chaos. And what I would face when I returned—if I lived long enough to return.
I was relaxing on a bed of straw on the floor when the guard officer opened my door. He gave me a wide grin and ushered in my companion for the night.
I gaped, but Sparrow kept a straight face.
“Enjoy,” he said, shutting the door behind him as he left.
We stared at each other for a long moment. Then I wiggled my finger as I’d seen the emperor do and told her, “Come over here, and show me how an Aztec woman makes love.”
82
“Fine food, good drink, a beautiful woman—what could make life better?” I asked Sparrow as she lay naked in my arms.
“Surviving long enough to see the Sun God journey across the sky one more day?”
I could not argue the point.
She had paced ahead of Prince Hummingbird Feather’s procession on the road and arrived in Tenochtitlán in time to make contacts at the Temple of Love. She told me Axe had arrived just hours earlier and found her by hanging around the temple, their agreed plan.
After bribing the woman from the Temple of Love who’d been selected to entertain me, she sent the priestess off to be with her own secret lover, while she came to me. So far, making love was the limit of our intrigues and plans.
Getting up, she dressed and gave me a smile. “Time to leave,” she said.
“I wish I were a bird, so I could fly out of here and join you.”
“You’ll wish you had wings if the vine doesn’t hold.”
I blinked. “What vine?”
She went to the small window that overlooked a street and indicated something outside. “That one.”
I stuck my head out the window. My room was on the third floor, the top floor. Vines from a dirt bed rose all along the wall. The vines looked strong enough to hold a woman. But I was a solidly built man.
“It’s a long ways down,” I said.
“You’ll be halfway down if it breaks.”
> “You don’t know that.”
She shrugged. “If you are too much of a woman to try, I’ll leave by the door and go to the City of the Gods without you.”
Eyo! I was tempted to have her leave through the window, headfirst. The woman had a unique ability to stir my blood both when I was on my back and on my feet.
“How do you know I’m being sent to Teotihuacán? Did you have a spy in the emperor’s own chamber?”
She shook her head at my obvious ignorance. “How long do you think it took for the news to get from the emperor’s lips to the women at the Temple of Love?”
I was slowly realizing that my biggest fault was in failing to fathom not royal intrigues but those of the women around me.
She took a piece of charcoal and wrote in Nahuatl on the wall, CALLED BY THE GODS.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Confusion. The emperor is very superstitious. He will debate for at least several hours whether he should have you hunted down.”
I took another look at the vine and the street below. “What about the guards?” I asked, not seeing any.
“The city is the least protected, most impregnable in the One-World. No sane king would attack it, and if they did, Montezuma’s advance sentries and partisans would warn him far in advance. Moreover, the invading army would have to come across the causeways, bridges, and the lake-moats. Montezuma considers the city so impregnable that its only regular security is the causeway guards, whose main function is to collect taxes on the goods that merchants bring in and out of the city.”
“What happens when I’m missed?”
I already knew what would happen if I were caught.
“We have a plan. No more talk. I’ll go down first. If the vines hold me, they’ll hold you.”
Untrue, but pulling her toward me, I stole a kiss. Then I stepped aside so she could slip out the window. “I love you,” I said.
She stroked my claw marks with her fingers. “I love you, too—even if you are ugly.”