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."
I thought. And I remembered his saying once that if this woman would not have him, he would somehow make an end to his own life. I believed him then, and I believed also that he would do the same if ever he learned of her betraying him.
I said, "All other considerations aside, Ticklish, I am so fatigued at this moment that I would be of no use to any woman. You have waited five years. You can wait until I have bathed and slept. And you say we have all day tomorrow. Go to your home now, and think further on this matter. If then you are still determined..."
"I will be, Mixtli. And I will come here again tomorrow."
I summoned Star Singer, and he lit a torch, and he and Ticklish went off into the night. I was undressed and had steamed myself and was in my bathing basin when I heard him come back to the house. I could easily have fallen asleep in the bath, but the water got so chilly as to force me out. I lurched into my chamber, fell onto the bed and dragged the top quilt over me, and fell asleep without even bothering to blow out the wick lamp Turquoise had lighted.
But, even in my heavy sleep, I must have been half anticipating and half dreading the impetuous return of the impatient Ticklish, for my eyes opened when the bedroom door did. The lamp had burned low and feeble, but there was a grayness of first dawn at the window, and what I saw made my hair prickle on my head.
I had heard no noise from downstairs to give me warning of the unexpected and unbelievable apparition—and surely Turquoise or Star Singer would have uttered a shriek if either of them had glimpsed that particular wraith. Though she was dressed for traveling, in a head shawl and a heavy over-mantle of rabbit skins, though the light was dim, though my hand shook when I raised the topaz to my eye... it was Zyanya I saw standing there!