Ahuítzotl was the highest-ranking noble I ever actually saw interred, but if any other personage ever took his retinue with him in death it would have been common knowledge. And I have seen the burial places of other lands: old, uncovered tombs in the deserted cities of the Maya, the ancient crypts of the Cloud People at Lyobaan. In none of them did I ever see the remains of any but the one rightful occupant. Each had of course taken along his tokens of nobility and prestige: jeweled insignia and the like. But dead wives and slaves? No. Such a practice would have been worse than barbaric, it would have been foolish. Though a dying lord might have yearned for the company of family and servants, he would never have decreed it, for he and they and everyone else knew that such lesser persons went to an entirely different afterworld.
The only creature which died at Ahuítzotls graveside that day was the small dog brought along by Prince Cuautemoc, and for that trivial killing there was a reason. The first obstacle to the afterworld—or so we were told—was a black river flowing through a black countryside, and the dead person always arrived there at the darkest hour of a black night. He could cross only by holding on to a dog, which could smell the far shore and swim directly to it, and that dog had to be of a medium color. If it was white, it would refuse the task, saying, "Master, I am clean from having already been in water too long, and I will not bathe again." If it was black, it would also decline, saying, "Master, you cannot see me in this darkness. If you should lose your grip on me, you would be lost." So Cuautemoc had provided a dog of a jacinth color, as red-gold as the red-gold chain by which he led it.
There were numerous other obstacles beyond the black river, but those Ahuítzotl would have to surmount on his own. He would have to pass between two huge mountains that, at unpredictable intervals, suddenly leaned and ground together. He would have to climb another mountain composed entirely of flesh-cutting obsidian chips. He would have to make his way through an almost impenetrable forest of flagpoles, where the waving banners would obscure the path and flap in his face to blind and confuse him; and then through a region of ceaseless rainfall, every raindrop an arrowhead. In between those places he would have to fight or dodge lurking snakes and alligators and jaguars, all eager to eat out his heart.
If and when he prevailed, he would come at last to Mictlan, where its ruling lord and lady awaited his arrival. There he would take from his mouth the jadestone with which he had been buried—if he had not been cowardly enough to scream and lose it somewhere along the way. When he handed the stone to Mictlantecutli and Mictlanciuatl, that lord and lady would smile in welcome and point him toward the afterworld he deserved, where he would live in luxury and bliss forever after.
It was very late in the afternoon when the priests finished their instructive and farewell prayers, and Ahuítzotl was seated in his grave with the yellow-red dog beside him, and the earth was piled in and tamped hard, and the simple stone covering was laid over it by the attending masons. It was dark when our fleet of acaltin docked again on Tenochtítlan, where we regrouped our procession as before, to march again to The Heart of the One World. The plaza was by then empty of the crowd of city folk, but we of the retinue had to stay in our respectful ranks while the priests said still more prayers from the torch-lighted top of the Great Pyramid, and burned special incense in urn fires about the plaza, and then ceremoniously escorted the rag-clad, barefooted Motecuzóma into the temple of Tezcatlipóca, Smoldering Mirror.
I should mention that the choice of that god's temple was of no special significance. Though Tezcatlipóca was regarded in Texcóco and some other places as the highest of gods, he was rather less glorified in Tenochtítlan. It simply happened that that temple was the only one in the plaza which had its own walled courtyard. As soon as Motecuzóma stepped into the yard, the priests closed its door behind him. For four nights and days, the chosen Revered Speaker would stay there alone, fasting and thirsting and meditating, being sun-burned or rain-sodden as the weather gods chose, sleeping on the courtyard's uncushioned hard stone, only at specified intervals going into the shelter of the temple to pray—to all the gods, one after another—for guidance in the office upon which he would shortly enter.
The rest of us tramped wearily off toward our several palaces or guest lodgings or homes or barracks, grateful that we would not have to dress up and endure another day-long ceremony until Motecuzóma emerged from his retreat.
I dragged my heavy, taloned sandals up my front steps and, if I had not been so fatigued, I would have evinced some surprise when Ticklish, not Turquoise, opened the door to me. A solitary wick lamp burned in the entry hall.
I said, "It is very late. Surely Cocóton has long been safely tucked in bed. Why have you and Cozcatl not gone home?"
"Cozcatl has gone to Texcóco on school business. As soon as there was an acáli free after the funeral, he engaged it to take him over there. So I was glad of the opportunity to spend the extra time with my—with your daughter. Turquoise is preparing your steam room and bath."
"Good," I said. "Well, let me call Star Singer to light your way home, and I will hurry to bed, so the servants can lay out their own pallets."
"Wait," she said nervously. "I do not want to go." Her normally light-copper face had flushed to a very ruddy copper, as if the hall's wick lamp were not behind her but inside her. "Cozcatl cannot be home again before tomorrow night at the earliest. Tonight I would like you to take me into your bed, Mixtli."
"What is this?" I said, pretending not to comprehend. "Is something wrong at home, Ticklish?"
"Yes, and you know what it is!" Her color heightened still more. "I am twenty and six years old, I have been married for more than five years, and I have yet to know a man!"
I said, "Cozcatl is as much a man as any I have ever met."
"Please, Mixtli, do not be deliberately dense," she entreated. "You know very well what it is I have not had."
I said, "If it will ease your sense of deprivation, I have reason to believe that our new Revered Speaker is almost as badly impaired in that respect as is your husband Cozcatl."
"That is hard to believe," she said. "As soon as Motecuzóma was appointed to the regency, he took two wives."
"Then presumably they are almost as unsatisfied as you seem to be."
Ticklish impatiently shook her head. "Obviously he is adequate enough to make his wives pregnant. They each have an infant child. And that is more than I can hope for! If I were the Revered Speaker's woman, I could at least bear a child. But I did not come here on behalf of Motecuzóma's wives. I do not give a little finger for Motecuzóma's wives!"
I snapped, "Neither do I! But I commend them for staying in their own connubial beds and not besieging mine!"
"Do not be cruel, Mixtli," she said. "If only you knew what this has cost me. Five years, Mixtli! Five years of submitting and pretending to be satisfied. I have prayed and made offerings to Xochiquetzal, begging that she help me to be content with the attentions of my husband. It does no good. All the time I suffer the curiosity. What is it really like, for a real man and woman? The wondering and the temptation and the indecision, and finally this abasement of asking for it."
"So you ask me, of all men, to betray my best friend. To put myself and my best friend's wife at risk of the garrotte."
"I ask you because you are his friend. You will never drop sly hints, as another man might do. Even if Cozcatl should somehow find out, he loves both you and me too much to denounce us." She paused, then added, "If Cozcatl's best friend will not do this, then he does Cozcatl a terrible disservice. I tell you true. If you refuse me, I will not humiliate myself further by approaching anyone else of our acquaintance. I will hire a man for a night. I will solicit some stranger in a hostel. Think what that would do to Cozcatl."