* * *
At the proper time in the afternoon of my wedding day, I nervously approached the portal of the crowded and noisy ballroom, and I stopped there long enough to survey the gathering through my topaz. Then, out of vanity, I let the thonged crystal drop inside my rich new mantle before I stepped into the room. But I had seen that the new decoration of the vast hall included wall paintings which I would have recognized even unsigned—and that the crowd of nobles and courtiers and privileged commoners included a tall young man who, though his back was to me at that moment, I recognized as the artist: Yei-Ehecatl Pocuia-Chimali.
I made my way through the throng of people, some standing, chatting and drinking from golden cups; others, mostly the court noblewomen, already kneeling or seated around the countless gold-thread-embroidered cloths spread out on the floor matting. Most of the people reached out to pat my shoulder or reached up to stroke my hand, smiling and murmuring words of congratulation. But, as tradition required, I acknowledged none of the gestures or words. I went to the front of the room, where the most elegant cloth of all was spread on a high dais, and where a number of men waited for me, among them the Uey-Tlatoani Ahuítzotl and the priest of Xochiquetzal. As they greeted me, the performers from The House of Song began to play a muted music.
For the first part of the ceremony—that of my being given into full manhood—I had asked the three elder pochtéa to do me the honor, and they were also seated on the dais. Since the cloth was spread with platters of hot tamaltin and jugs of potent octli, and since it was prescribed that the Givers depart immediately after the first ritual, the three elderly men had already helped themselves, to the extent that they were noticeably gorged, drunk, and half asleep.
When the room had quieted and only the soft music could be heard, Ahuítzotl and the priest and I stood together. You might suppose that the priest of a goddess named Xochiquetzal would at least be cleanly in his habits, but that one was as professionally unkempt and unwashed and unsavory as any other. And, like any other, he took the occasion to make his speech a tediously long one, more full of dire warnings about the pitfalls of marriage than any mention of its pleasures. But he finally got done and Ahuítzotl spoke, to the three besotted and sentimentally smirking old men seated at his feet, just a few words and to the point:
"Lords pochtéa, your fellow trader wishes to take a wife. Regard this xeloloni I give you. It is the sign that Chicome-Xochitl Tlilectic-Mixtli desires to sever himself from the days of his irresponsible youth. Take it and set him free to be a full-grown man."
The scalpless one of the three accepted the xeloloni, which was a small household hatchet. Had I been an ordinary commoner getting married, the hatchet would have been a simple utilitarian tool of wood shaft and flint head, but that one had a solid silver haft and a blade of fine jadestone. The old fellow brandished it, belched loudly, and said:
"We have heard, Lord Speaker, we and all present have heard the wish of young Tlilectic-Mixtli: that henceforth he bear all the duties, responsibilities, and privileges of manhood. As you and he desire, so let it be."
He made a drunkenly dramatic chopping motion with the hatchet—and very nearly chopped off the remaining foot of his one-footed colleague. The three of them then stood and bore away the symbolic cutting tool, the one-footed man dangling and hopping between the other two, and all of them lurching as they departed from the big room. The Givers were no sooner out of sight than we heard the clamor of Zyanya's arrival at the palace: the accumulated crowd of city commoners outside the building calling to her: "Happy girl! Fortunate girl!"
The arrangements had been well timed, for she was coming just at sundown, as was proper. The ballroom, which had been getting gradually darker during the preliminary ceremony, began to glow with golden light as servants went about lighting the pine-splint torches angled out at intervals from the painted walls. When the hall was blazing bright, Zyanya stepped through the entranceway, escorted by two of the palace ladies. It was allowable for a woman at her wedding—just that one time in her life—to beautify herself to the utmost by using all the cosmetic arts of a courtesan auyaními: coloring her hair, lightening her skin, reddening her lips. But Zyanya had no need for any such artifice, and had used none. She wore a simple blouse and skirt of virginal pale yellow and she had selected, for the traditional festoon of feathers along her arms and calves, the long plumes of some black-and-white bird, obviously to repeat and accentuate the white-streaked black of her long, flowing hair.
The two women led her to the dais, through the murmurously admiring crowd, and she and I stood facing each other, she looking shy, I looking solemn, as the occasion required. The priest took from an assistant two instruments and handed one of them to each of us: a golden chain from which depended a perforated golden ball, inside which burned a bit of copali incense. I raised my chain and swung the ball around Zyanya, leaving a fragrant loop of blue smoke hanging in the air about her shoulders. Then I hunched down a bit, and she stood on tiptoe to do the same to me. The priest took back the censers and bade us sit down side by side.
At that point, there should have come forward from the crowd our relatives and friends bearing presents. Neither of us had any kinfolk in attendance, so there came only Blood Glutton, Cozcatl, and a delegation from The House of Pochtéa. They all, in turn, kissed the earth to us and laid before us their varied gifts—for Zyanya items of wearing appareclass="underline" blouses, skirts, shawls, and the like, all of the finest quality; for me also an assortment of clothing, plus an estimable armory: a well-wrought maquahuitl, a dagger, a sheaf of arrows.
When the gift bearers had retired, it was the moment for Ahuítzotl and one of Zyanya's escorting noblewomen to take turns at chanting the routine fatherly and motherly advice to the couple about to be married. In an unemotional monotone, Ahuítzotl warned me, among other things, never to be still abed when I heard the cry of the Early Bird, Papan, but to be already up and doing. Zyanya's surrogate mother recited a long list of wifely duties—everything, it seemed to me, including the lady's favorite recipe for making tamaltin. As if that had been a signal, a servant came bearing a fresh, steaming platter of the maize-and-meat rolls, and set it before us.
The priest gestured, and Zyanya and I each picked up a tamali and fed it to each other, which, if you have never tried it, is no easy matter. I got my chin well greased, and Zyanya her nose, but we each got at least a token bite of the other's offering. While we were doing that, the priest began another long, rote harangue, the which I will not bore you with. It concluded in his bending down, taking a corner of my mantle and a corner of Zyanya's blouse, and knotting them together.
We were married.
The quiet music suddenly boomed loud and exultant, and a shout went up from the assembled guests, as all the ceremonial stiffness relaxed into conviviality. Servants dashed about the hall, dispensing to all the separate dinner cloths platters of tamaltin and new jugs of octli and chocolate. Every guest was expected to gobble and guzzle until the torches burned out at dawn or until the males among them fell over unconscious and were borne home by their women and slaves. Zyanya and I would eat but daintily, and then would be led discreetly—everybody pretending we were invisible—to our wedding chamber, which was an upstairs suite in the palace, lent to us by Ahuítzotl. But at that point I departed from custom.
"Excuse me one moment, my dear," I whispered to Zyanya, and stepped down from the dais into the room, the Revered Speaker and the priest regarding me with puzzled eyes and open mouths showing half-chewed tamaltin.