‘Why?’ I responded. ‘Are we meeting someone important?’
He smiled indulgently. ‘We’re simply thinking of your own comfort. You will have complete privacy, I assure you.’
I led Victoria inside without further comment, closing the door behind us. There was lemon-scented soap, perfumed towels, a shower and a shell-shaped corner bath. Water came out of the mouths of golden taps shaped like squatting frogs.
Were they simply toying with us, delaying the inevitable moment of our punishment? I told myself it didn’t matter, at least not for the moment. Though Victoria and I had washed twice daily in our cell, we both felt grubby.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s make the most of it!’
We spent over an hour in the bathroom, soaking in hot water saturated with bath crystals, washing and conditioning our hair, applying moisturizing lotions to our skins. We dried ourselves slowly, at our ease.
The clothes we had been wearing were dirty and stale. On a heated rail were draped long dresses of plain white cotton. There were no undergarments.
Victoria looked at me. I shrugged, trying to make light of the fact that the dresses would only emphasize our lack of status. I reached for one and slipped it over my shoulders.
The Aztec officer was still waiting patiently outside the door with the escort. He smiled at us, as if to say that he had expected to be kept waiting, then led us without a word to another door at the end of the corridor.
The room inside was small and windowless, hung with patterned curtains. The only furniture was a Victorian-style dining table and two matching chairs. They looked out of place, as if they had been brought to the room specifically for this occasion.
The table was laden with hot food, and as soon as the smell of cooked meat reached my nostrils, I began to salivate. Two places had been set with white napkins and shining cutlery. There was a pair of wine bottles in a silver cooler.
‘No doubt you are hungry,’ the officer said. ‘This is for you. Please feel free to eat.’
I turned to him. ‘What is this? The condemned women’s last meal?’
Another smile. ‘I don’t believe it’s a tradition we follow.’
‘Perhaps it’s poisoned, then. Is that it? Is that how you plan to be rid of us?’
‘I assure you there’s nothing here to endanger your life. Would you like me to taste it for you?’
I said nothing.
‘You aren’t forced to eat it. It’s there if you want it. Now we shall leave you alone.’
He withdrew with his men before I had a chance to argue.
After the door was closed, I heard them marching away. I went to the door and turned the handle. It was locked.
On the further side of the room was a second door. It, too, was locked.
Victoria and I inspected the food on the table. There were meat dishes with mushrooms and chillies, plates of sautéed vegetables and pulses in rich sauces, multicoloured maize-cobs drenched in garlic butter. The food was still hot, its aromas assailing us. My stomach felt like a yearning void and my mouth was drenched.
‘What should we do?’ Victoria asked.
She was just as ravenous as I. The idea of dying by poisoned food held little appeal, even though it was preferable to some forms of death. But I doubted they intended to kill us this way: it was somehow too blatant. We had been left alone, which suggested they weren’t yet ready to pass final judgement. I had a feeling that a very public example would be made of us.
‘We’ve nothing to lose,’ I said. ‘Let’s eat.’
Cautiously at first, then with increasing abandon, we spooned food on to our plates. Most of the dishes were white meats such as pork or turkey, heavily spiced and quite delicious. We were so hungry that almost anything would have tasted wonderful, poisoned or not. I shared a bottle of Zaachila Chardonnay with Victoria, drinking as freely as she, hoping the alcohol would blunt any terrors to come. It was to prove a futile hope.
Were we being watched as we ate? Probably, and yet the room had a hermetic feel, encouraging the sense that we were totally alone. I was unused to wine in any quantity, but when the first bottle was emptied, we took the second from the cooler and uncorked it.
There were persimmons in honey for dessert, with vanilla ice cream from a refrigerated bowl. Victoria and I sated ourselves, conscious that this was probably the last time we would be allowed any luxury. And so it was to prove.
I began to feel light-headed, frivolous, even. Victoria and I started making jokes about our predicament; we started to giggle, to whisper pretended secrets, as if playing to our unseen audience. The room was dimly lit with wall lights, and I began to imagine shadows moving at the periphery of my vision while at the same time remaining certain no one was there. The wall lights seemed to give off a soft prismatic play of colours which entranced me. I grew hot, and had to resist the urge to loosen my dress. Victoria had no such inhibitions: she untied the thong at her neck.
I can’t remember what we talked about, but we kept chattering blithely. My voice sounded distant, as if someone else were using it. I continued to chase the shadows at the edges of my gaze. Victoria was sharply in focus across the table, but her own speech also had a remote yet hypnotic quality so that what I reacted to was not what she said but rather the sound and cadence of her voice.
I don’t know how long it was before I realized that someone had entered the room. The light seemed to have dimmed at this point so that I felt as if I was viewing everything through an amber haze. The figure was in shadow at first, but as he stepped forward into the light, I gasped.
It was Extepan.
He was dressed in a similar fashion to us, in a simple tunic of white cotton. His feet were bare except for gold circlets around his ankles, and his hair had been cropped to a stubble. He looked like a prisoner, a sacrificial victim just like ourselves. Behind him stood two other Aztecs, both in ceremonial costumes with cloaks, ear pendants, coiled serpent staffs of black wood.
Extepan held out both his hands and said, ‘Come.’
His two companions raised Victoria and me from our chairs. I felt detached from what was happening, as if the core of my consciousness had retreated to a private place that was inside me yet not part of me. As if I had become an observer, a watcher and a listener, in my own actions.
We were led up a long stairway into another room, where Teztahuitl and numerous other Aztecs were waiting. All wore traditional costume, a plethora of feathered ornaments, richly patterned cloaks and gold jewellery which shone in the flickering light of torches in brackets on the bare stone walls. The light entranced me, making shadows loom and ripple. Voices were distant yet occasional sounds sharp and distinct: the rustling of a fabric, the chink of metal on stone, a cough.
Extepan went forward and stood before Tetzahuitl, who promptly lifted the cotton tunic from his body, leaving him standing naked before us, light gleaming on his body. Then the cihuacoatl draped a mantle around him. It was turquoise, the imperial colour.
The other figures seemed to retreat, to dissolve into the shadows, so that now there were only the four of us, Victoria and I facing Extepan and the cihuacoatl.
‘I thought you were in Potomac,’ I heard myself say.
It was Tetzahuitl who spoke: ‘The siege was ended. We have destroyed the enemy’s capital. The New English have sued for peace.’
I could feel my tongue, rough and bloated, in my mouth. It was hard to speak.
‘Where’s Maxixca?’ I asked.
‘He’s been sent to accept the surrender,’ Tetzahuitl replied.
I laboured with my tortuous thoughts, with the effort of speaking Nahuatl.
‘I thought you were going to make him tlatoani.’