"Warriors—stand tall!"Nochéztli roared, as if he had been commanding troops all his life. The few men who had been slumping or fidgeting instantly stiffened erect. Nochéztli boomed again, "Hark to the words of your Uey-Tecútli Tenamáxtzin!"
Whether obediently or apprehensively, the crowd of men was so silent that I did not have to shout. "You were summoned to assembly by my order. Also by my order, the Tequíua Nochéztli here will now go up and down your lines and touch the shoulder of certain men. Each of those will step forward from the ranks and stand against this wall. There will be no dawdling, no remonstrance, no questions, no sounduntil I speak again."
Nochéztli's process of selection took such a long while that I will not recount it step by step and man by man. But when he had finished with the last, farthermost line of warriors, I counted one hundred thirty and eight standing along the wall, looking variously unhappy, ashamed or defiant. They ranged from rankless yaoquízquin recruits upward through the ranks of íyactin and tequíuatin to the cuáchictin under-officers. I myself was ashamed to see that all the accused miscreants were Aztéca. Among them was not a one of the old Mexíca warriors who had long ago come from Tenochtítlan to trainthis army, nor were there any younger Mexíca who might have been the sons of those proud men.
The highest-ranking officer against the wall was a single Aztécatl knight, but he was only of the Arrow order. The Jaguar and Eagle orders confer their knighthood on true heroes, warriors who have distinguished themselves in many battles and have slain enemyknights. The Arrow Knights are honored merely because they have become skilled at wielding the notoriously inaccurate bow and arrow, whether or not they have felled many enemies with those weapons.
"All of you know why you stand here," I said to the men at the wall, and loudly enough for the rest of the troops to hear. "You are accused of having sided with the unrightfully Revered Governor Yeyac, though all of you knew that he seized that false title by assassinating his own father and affinal brother. You followed Yeyac when he made alliance with the white men, our One World's conquerors and oppressors. Pandering to those Spaniards, you fought with Yeyac against brave men of your own race, to stop their resisting the oppressors. Do any of you deny these allegations?"
To their credit, none of them did. That was to Nochéztli's credit, as well; obviously he had acted honestly in singling out the collaborators. I asked another question:
"Do any of you plead any circumstance that might mitigate your guilt?"
Five or six of them did step forward, at that, but each of them could say only words to this effect: "When I took the army oath, my lord, I swore to obey the orders of my superiors, and that is what I did."
"You swore oath to the army,"I said, "not to any individuals whom you knew to be acting against the army's interests. Yonder stand some nine hundred other warriors, your comrades, who did notlet themselves be led into treachery." I turned to Tiptoe, and quietly asked her, "Does your heart feel compassion toward any of these deluded wretches?"
"Toward none," she said firmly. "Back in Michihuácan, when we Purémpecha had the rule of it, such men would have been staked out on the ground—and left there until they became so weak that the scavenger vultures did not even have to wait for them to die before beginning to eat them. I would suggest you do the same to all of these, Tenamáxtli."
By Huitzli, I thought, Pakápeti had become as bloodthirsty as G'nda Ké. I spoke again aloud, to be heard by all, though I addressed the men accused:
"I have known two womenwho were more manly warriors than any of you. Here beside me stands one of them, who would merit knighthood if she were not a female. The other brave woman died in the act of destroying an entire fortress full of Spanish soldiers. You, by contrast, are a disgrace to your comrades, to your battle flags, to your oath, to us Aztéca and every other people of The One World. I condemn you, without exception, to death. But I will, in mercy, let you each decide on the manner of your dying."
Tiptoe made a murmur of indignant protest.
"You may choose one of three endings to your lives. One would be your sacrifice tomorrow on the altar of Aztlan's patron goddess, Coyolxaúqui. Since you would be going not of your own free will, that public execution would shame all your family and descendants to the end of time. Your houses, property and possessions will be confiscated, leaving those families in destitution as well as shame."
I paused, to let them think about that.
"Or I will accept your word of honor—what little honor you may have retained—that each of you will go from here to your home, prop the point of your javelin against your chest and lean onto it, thus dying at the hand of a warrior, though it be your own hand."
Most of the men nodded at that, if somberly, but a few still waited to hear my third suggestion.
"Or you may choose another, even more honorable means of self-sacrifice to the gods. You may volunteer for a mission I have planned. And"—I said with scorn—"it will mean your turning against your friends,the Spaniards. Not a man of you will survive this mission, I kiss the earth to that. But you will die in battle, as every warrior hopes to do. And to the gratification of all our gods, you will have spilled enemy blood as well as your own. I doubt that the gods will be mollified enough to grant you the warriors' happy afterlife in Tonatíucan. But even in the drear nothingness of Míctlan, you can spend eternity remembering that, at least once in your days, you behaved like men.How many of you will volunteer?"
They all did, to a man, stooping in the tlalqualíztli gesture to touch the earth, signifying that they kissed it in fealty to me.
"So be it," I said. "And you, Arrow Knight, I appoint to lead that mission when the time comes. Until then, all of you will be imprisoned in the temple of Coyolxaúqui, under guard. For now, speak your names to the Tequíua Nochéztli, that a scribe may record them for me."
To the men still in the square, I called out, "I thank the rest of you—not least, for your unswerving loyalty to Aztlan. You are dismissed until I again call assembly."
As Tiptoe and I reentered the palace courtyard, she chided me, "Tenamáxtli, until this very evening, you slew men as abruptly and uncaringly as I would do. But then you put on that headdress and cloak and bangles—and, with them, an unbecoming mood of leniency. A Revered Governor should be morefierce than ordinary men, not less. These traitors deserved to die."
"And they will," I assured her. "But in a way that furthers my cause."
"Executing them here, and publicly, would help your cause, too. It would deter all other men from trying any future duplicity. If Butterfly and her troop of women were here to do the executing by, say, slitting open those men's bellies—carefully, not fatally—and then pouring fire ants inside, certainly no onlooker would ever risk incurring your wrath again."
I sighed. "Have you not looked upon enough dying already, Pakápeti? Then look yonder." And I pointed. At the distant rear of the palace's main building, in the area of the kitchens, a line of slaves was emerging from a lighted doorway, each bent under the weight of a body he was carrying off into the darkness. "On my order, and at one stroke, so to speak, the Yaki woman has slain every servant employed in this palace."