I had endured it only because I had known I was going to get blind drunk the moment I was set free.
I had paid for my next gourd full of sacred wine, and many more after that, by selling myself into slavery.
Slavery was not all bad. An Aztec could sell himself to cover his debts or provide for his family when times were hard or, as in my case, to keep himself in drink for a little longer. The deal had to be struck openly, in the market, before four witnesses. Then the law allowed the slave his freedom during the time it took to run through the money he was given, before he had to surrender himself to his master and do his bidding.
After that, his master owned his time but not his life. A slave’s property was his own, not his master’s. His master had no rights over his family or his children. A slave could not be ill treated or killed or even sold without good reason — although once he had given his master cause to get rid of him he might well find himself being bought by the priests as a cheap sacrifice.
There were worse fates than slavery that could befall a man, so long as he had no self-respect. A slave could not glorify and enrich himself by going to war and dragging home captives, or pay his debt to his city by giving his labour to some greatpublic work, as it was not his to give. In the eyes of my people, I counted for nothing more than an extension of the Chief Minister’s right arm.
‘What’s so funny?’ my brother demanded.
We were standing on the Tlacopan causeway, the broad road connecting the island of Mexico with the lake’s western shore.
Handy had put us all ashore, ferrying us in relays to the small town of Popotla. There my master and the woman had found canoes to take them home, leaving Lion and me to walk. Ordinarily Lion could easily have hired a boat himself, but he had no money with him, and in his present state no one would have taken him for the distinguished and wealthy man he was.
Now he and I found ourselves in the middle of a dense, jostling crowd. In the northern part of the city the great market of Tlatelolco alone drew at least forty thousand men, women and children every day: buyers and sellers of everything from feathers and jewels to slaves, building materials and human dung to spread in the fields. Most of the bulky items, such as hides or tree trunks or stone from the quarries, came in by canoe, but there was enough traffic left over to jam the roads. Lion had just avoided having his eye pecked out by a live turkey slung over a farmer’s wife’s shoulder, and his snarl as he recoiled and caught my involuntary grin reminded me that this was not what he was used to.
My elder brother’s origins had been as humble as mine, naturally, but his career had been no less remarkable. Unlike me, he owed his advancement to his own prowess rather than the day of his birth. Like almost any commoner’s child he had gone to the House of Youth as a boy and learned all the skills needed to fit a man or woman for life as an Aztec. In the caseof boys that meant rudimentary instruction in song and dance, medicine, history and polite speech, and advanced and intensive training in physical fitness, tactics and weapon handling. Lion had excelled at his studies, and then, when turned loose on our enemies, had fought his way to fame and fortune, dragging home more distinguished captives than he could count himself, and winning one of the highest ranks a commoner could attain: Atenpanecatl, Guardian of the Waterfront. With his rank had come the marks of distinction and high office: the yellow cotton cloak with the red border, the cotton ribbons that bound his hair, the distinctive earplugs and the special sandals with oversized straps that he was allowed to wear within the city’s limits.
‘What’s funny?’ I echoed his question. ‘Why, this. I mean, look around us. Tezcatlipoca has really surpassed himself this time, hasn’t he?’
Lion’s retort was choked off as he lurched forward involuntarily. Someone had barged into him from behind. He was a porter, probably on the last leg of a long journey from one of our tributary provinces. He had not been looking where he was going, probably because he had his head bowed against the weight of the bale hanging from his brow by a tump-line. From the faintly resinous smell about him I guessed the bale was full of copal incense.
The man muttered something that might have been apologetic in his own language, and my brother’s outraged rebuke died in his throat. Lion turned on me instead.
‘If you mean having me rub shoulders with peasants and barbarians is Tezcatlipoca’s idea of a joke, brother, then perhaps you could tell your patron god that I don’t get it!’
If he was trying to sound belligerent then he spoiled the effect by sending a hasty glance skyward, as if anxious that he might have said too much.
‘I didn’t mean you,’ I assured him, although I could easily imagine the god laughing at the picture my brother presented now: the illustrious warrior with his hair hopelessly tangled, his cloak torn and bloody and one of his sandals missing. ‘I was being purely selfish. Look at me: I was born on this day, remember? On One Death: Tezcatlipoca’s name-day. I was always going to achieve everything or nothing. So our father got me into the priesthood, no doubt expecting me to end up as the Keeper of the God of the Mexicans or something similarly illustrious, and what do I find myself doing? Celebrating the god’s name-day, and mine, as one of his own creatures — a slave. You have to admit, that is funny.’
‘It was your choice. You didn’t have to sell yourself. You could have come back home.’
‘And done what? Spend my days with a digging-stick, stirring shit into the soil?’
‘Honest labour in the fields was good enough for our father. I suppose you thought all that was beneath you. Well, brother, let me remind you …’
‘Don’t!’ I could guess what was coming: a resume of my downfall, culminating in the moment when I had had my head shaved, and sparing no detail — especially my brother’s role in wielding the razor himself, after he had persuaded the judges to spare my life. ‘I didn’t need your lectures then and I don’t need them now. Didn’t you think I’d suffered enough?’ Seeing a gap in the throng in front of me, I plunged into it, hoping to shake off both my brother and the things he made me remember.
The crowd had parted to make room for a raucous quarrel between two pleasure-girls. No doubt it had begun as a trivial dispute over who was going to ply her trade from what spot in one of the city’s many markets, and so far they had not got much beyond cracking chewing-gum in each other’s faces,but it had potential. I found myself grinning at the thought of what my stiff-necked, pious brother would run into if he followed me: black hair flying around him, fleshy, tattooed arms, stained pale with yellow ochre, reaching out to him with wickedly long fingernails, the air heavy with the vanilla scent of cheap perfume and ringing with inhuman shrieks from those vivid red mouths …
I forgot that there was more to being a great warrior than brute strength. The hand that tugged sharply at my cloak’s hem and almost wrenched the garment from my shoulders reminded me that Lion was more agile than I was and there was almost nothing I could get into or out of faster than he could.
‘I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you,’ he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the cries behind us, ‘that your family might have helped?’
‘I’d had your help,’ I said shortly. ‘Sorry, brother, but it came at too high a price.’
‘And the disgrace? What about the shame you brought on yourself?’