"And you did not even allow me to assist in that!" Tiptoe said angrily.
I sighed again. "Tomorrow, my dear, Nochéztli will be listing for me the local citizens who—like the warriors—abetted Yeyac's crimes or benefited from them. If you promise to cease nagging at me, I promise to let you practice your delicate feminine arts on two or three of those."
She smiled. "Now, that is more like the old Tenamáxtli. However, it will not satisfy me entirely. I want you also to promise that I may go along with the Arrow Knight and the others on that mission you propose, whatever it is."
"Girl, have you gone tlahuéle? That will be a suicidal mission! I know you enjoy killing men. But dyingwith them...?"
She said loftily, "A woman is not obliged to explain her every whim and fancy."
"I am not asking that you explain this one. I am commandingthat you forgetit!" And I strode away from her, into the palace and up the stairs.
I was seated at Améyatl's bedside—I had been keeping vigil there all night—when finally in late morning she opened her eyes.
"Ayyo!" she exclaimed. "It isyou, cousin! I feared I had only dreamed that I had been rescued."
"You have been. And happy I am that I came in time, before you wasted entirely away in that fetid cell."
"Ayya!" she said now. "Turn aside your gaze, Tenamáxtli. I must look like the skeletal Weeping Woman of the old legends."
"To me, beloved cousin, you look as you ever did, even when you were a girl-child all knees and elbows. Pleasing to my eye and to my heart. You will soon be your former self again, beautiful and strong. You need only nourishment and rest."
She said urgently, "My father, your mother, did they come with you? Why were you all so long away?"
"I regret being the one to tell you, Améyatl. They are not with me. They will never be with us again."
She gave a small cry of dismay.
"I also regret having to tell you that it was your brother's doing. He secretly slew them both—and later slew your husband Káuri as well—long before he imprisoned you and supplanted you as ruler of Aztlan."
She pondered this for a while in silence, and wept a little, and at last said, "He did such horrible deeds... and for only a paltry little eminence... in a negligible little corner of The One World. Poor Yeyac."
"Poor Yeyac?!"
"You and I both knew, from our childhood, that Yeyac was born with an inauspicious tonáli. It has made him suffer unhappiness and dissatisfaction all his life."
"You are far more tolerant and forgiving than I, Améyatl. I do notregret telling you that Yeyac suffers no longer. He is dead, and I am responsible for his death. I hope you will not hold me hateful on that account."
"No... no, of course not." She reached for my hand and squeezed it affectionately. "It must have been ordained by the gods who cursed him with that tonáli. But now"—she visibly braced herself—"have you imparted allthe bad news?"
"You must judge of that yourself. I am in the process of ridding Aztlan of all Yeyac's confederates and confidants."
"Banishing them?"
"Far, far away. To Míctlan, I trust."
"Oh. I understand."
"All of them, anyway, except the woman G'nda Ké, who was warder of your prison cell."
"I know not what to make of that one," said Améyatl, sounding perplexed. "I can hardly hate her. She had to obey Yeyac's orders, but sometimes she would contrive to bring me bits of food more tasty than atóli, or a perfumed cloth with which I could wash myself a little. But something... her name..."
"Yes. You and I are probably the only two who would even dimly recognize that name, now that my great-grandfather is dead. It was he, Canaútli, who told us about the long-ago Yaki woman. Do you recall? We were children then."
"Yes!"said Améyatl. "The evil woman who sundered the Aztéca—and led half of them away to become the all-conquering Mexíca! But, Tenamáxtli, that was back at the beginning of time. This cannot be the same G'nda Ké!"
"If not," I growled, "she has certainly inherited all the base instincts and motives of her namesake ancestress."
"I wonder," said Améyatl, "did Yeyac realize this? He heard Canaútli's account at the same time we did."
"We will never know. And I have not yet inquired whether Canaútli has been succeeded by another Rememberer of History—or whether Canaútli passed on that story to his successor. I am inclined to think not. Surely that new Rememberer would have incited the people of Aztlan to rise up in outrage, once the woman joined Yeyac's court. Especially when she inveigled Yeyac into offering his friendship to the Spaniards."
"Yeyac did that?"gasped Améyatl, appalled. "But... then... why are yousparing the woman?"
"I have need of her. I will tell you why, but it is a long story. And—ah!—here is Pakápeti, my faithful companion on the long way hither, and now your handmaiden."
Tiptoe had arrived with a platter of light viands—fruits and such—for Améyatl's breaking of her fast. The two young women greeted one another amiably, but then Tiptoe, realizing that my cousin and I were in serious converse, left us to it.
"Tiptoe is more than your personal servant," I said. "She is chamberlain of this whole palace. She is also the cook, the laundress, the housekeeper, everything. She and you and I and the Yaki woman are the only persons still resident here. All the domestics who served under Yeyac have joined him in Míctlan. G'nda Ké is at present seeking replacements."
"You were about to tell me why G'nda Ké still lives, when so many others do not."
So, while Améyatl dined, with good appetite and obvious pleasure, I recounted all—or most—of my doings and adventurings since our parting. I touched only lightly on some of the occurrences. For instance, I did not describe in all its gruesome detail the burning of the man who I later learned had been my father—and whose death had impelled me to do so many of the things I did afterward. Also I condensed the telling of my education in the Spanish language and the Christian superstitions and my learning how to make a working thunder-stick. Also I did not dwell on my brief carnal connection with the mulata girl Rebeca, or the deep devotion that the late Citláli and I had shared, or the various Purémpe women (and one boy) I had sampled before I met Pakápeti, and I made it clear that sheand I had for quite a long time now been no more than fellow travelers.
But I did tell Améyatl, in painstaking detail, the plans—and the so-far few preparations—I had made for leading an insurrection against the white men that would drive them utterly out of The One World. When I had done, she said pensively:
"You were ever valiant and ambitious, cousin. But this sounds like a vainglorious dream. The entire mighty Mexíca nation collapsed at the onslaught of the Caxtiltéca—or the Spaniards, as you call them. Yet you believe that you alone—"
"Your own august father Mixtzin said that very thing, among the last words he ever spoke to me. But I am not alone. Not every nation succumbed as did the Mexíca. Or as Yeyac would have had Aztlan do. The Purémpecha fought so nearly to the last man that the land of Michihuácan is now almost entirely populated by women. And even they will fight. Pakápeti rallied a goodly troop of them before she and I left there. And the Spaniards have not yet dared engage the fierce nations of the north. All that is required is someone to lead those disparate diehard peoples in a concerted effort. I know of no one else vainglorious enough to do that. So—if not I— who?"