Aztec

by Gary Jennings

  “All together, three hundred rooms,” said the prince. Then he confided, with a grin, “And all sorts of concealed passages and stairways. So my father can visit one wife or another without the others’ getting envious.”

  We dismissed the deer and entered the great central doorway, a knight-sentry on either side snapping to attention, spears vertical, as we passed them. Willow led me through a spacious hall hung with feather-work tapestries, then up a broad stone staircase and along a gallery carpeted with rushes, to the elegantly appointed chambers of his stepmother. So the second person I met was that Tolána-Tecíuapil whom the old man on the hill had mentioned, the First Lady and noblest of all the noblewomen of the Acólhua. She was conversing with a beetle-browed young man, but she turned to give us an inviting smile and a gesture to enter.

  Prince Willow told her who I was, and I bent to make the motion of kissing the earth. The Lady of Tolan, with her own hand, gently lifted me from my kneeling position and, in turn, introduced me to the other young man: “My eldest son, Ixtlil-Xochitl.” I immediately dropped to kiss the earth again, for this third person I had met so far was the Crown Prince Black Flower, ordained heir to Nezahualpíli’s throne of Texcóco. I was beginning to feel a little giddy, and not just from bobbing up and down. Here was I, the son of a common quarrier, meeting three of the most eminent personages in The One World, and all three in a row. Black Flower nodded his black eyebrows at me, then he and his half brother departed from the room.

  The First Lady looked me up and down, while I covertly studied her. I could not guess her age, though she must have been well along into middle age, at least forty, to have a son as old as the Crown Prince Black Flower, but her face was unlined and lovely and kindly.

  “Mixtli, is it?” she said. “But we already have so many Mixtlis among the young folk and, oh, I am so bad at remembering names.”

  “Some call me Tozáni, my lady.”

  “No, you are much bigger than a mole. You are a tall young man, and you will be taller yet. I shall call you Head Nodder.”

  “As you will, my lady,” I said, with an inward sigh of resignation. “That is also my father’s nickname.”

  “Then we will both be able to remember it, will we not? Now, come and I will show you your quarters.”

  She must have pulled a bell rope or something, because when we stepped out of the room there was waiting a litter chair borne by two burly slaves. They lowered it for her to get in and sit down, then lofted her along the gallery, down the stairs (keeping the chair carefully horizontal), out of the palace, and into the deepening dusk. Another slave ran ahead carrying a pitch-pine torch, and still another ran behind, carrying the lady’s banner of rank. I trotted alongside the chair. At the three-sided building that Willow had already pointed out to me, the Lady of Tolan led me inside, up the stairs and around several corners, far into the left wing.

  “There you are,” she said, swinging open a door made of hides stretched on a wooden frame and varnished stiff. It was not just leaned in place, but pivoted in sockets top and bottom. The slave carried the torch inside to light my way, but I stuck only my head in, saying uncertainly, “It seems to be empty, my lady.”

  “But of course. This is yours.”

  “I thought, in a calmécac, all the students were bunched together in a common sleeping room.”

  “I daresay, but this is an annex of the palace, and this is where you will live. My Lord Husband is contemptuous of those schools and their teacher priests. You are not here to attend a calmécac.”

  “Not attend—! But, my lady, I thought I came to study—!”

  “And so you shall, very hard indeed, but in company with the palace children, those of Nezahualpíli and his nobles. Our children are not taught by unwashed zealot priests, but by my Lord Husband’s own chosen wise men, every teacher already noted for his own work in whatever it is he teaches. Here you may not learn many sorceries or invocations to the gods, Head Nodder, but you will learn real, true, useful things that will make you a man of worth to the world.”

  If I was not already gaping at her by then, I was the next moment, when I saw the slave go about with his torch, lighting beeswax candles struck in wall sconces. I gasped, “A whole room just for myself?” Then the man went through an arch into another room, and I gasped, “Two of them? Why, my lady, this is almost as big as my family’s whole house!”

  “You will get used to comfort,” she said, and smiled. She almost had to push me inside. “This is your room for studying. That one yonder is your sleeping chamber. Beyond it is the sanitary closet. I expect you will want to use that one first, to wash after your journey. Just pull the bell rope, and your servant will come to assist you. Eat well and have a good sleep, Head Nodder. I will see you soon again.”

  The slave followed her out of the room and shut the door. I was sorry to see such a kind lady leave, but I was also glad, for now I could scurry around my apartment, veritably like a mole, peering nearsightedly at all its furnishings and appointments. The study room had a low table and a cushioned low icpáli chair to sit on, and a wickerwork chest that I could keep my clothes and books in, and a lava-rock heating brazier already laid with mizquitl logs, and a sufficiency of candles so that I could study comfortably even after dark, and a mirror of polished tezcatl—the rare clear crystal that gave a definitive reflection, not the cheaper dark kind in which one’s face was only dimly visible. There was a window opening, with a split-cane covering that could be rolled up and dropped shut by means of a string arrangement.

  The sleeping chamber contained no woven reed pallet, but a raised platform, and on that some ten or twelve thick quilts apparently stuffed with down; anyway, they made a pile that felt as soft as a cloud looks. When ready to sleep, I could slide myself in between the quilts at any layer, depending on how much softness I wanted under me and how much warmth on top.

  The sanitary closet, however, I could not so easily comprehend. There was a sunken tiled depression in the floor, in which to sit and bathe, but there were no water jugs anywhere about. And there was a receptacle on which to sit and perform the necessary functions, but it was solidly fixed to the floor and obviously could not be emptied after each use. Each of those, the bath and the slop jar, had a curiously shaped pipe jutting from the wall above it, but neither pipe was spouting water or doing anything else that I could ascertain. Well, I would never have thought that I should have to ask instruction in cleaning and evacuating myself, but, after studying the utilities in bafflement for a while, I went to pull the bell rope over the bed, and waited with some embarrassment for the appearance of my assigned tlacótli.

  The fresh-faced little boy who came to my door said pertly, “I am Cozcatl, my lord, and I am nine years old, and I serve all the young lords in the six apartments at this end of the corridor.”

  Cozcatl means Jeweled Collar, rather a high-flown name for such as he, but I did not laugh at it. Since a name-giving tonalpóqui would never deign to consult his divinatory books for a slave-born child, even if the parents could afford it, no such child ever had a real and registered name. His or her parents simply picked one at whim, and it could be wildly inappropriate, as witness Gift of the Gods. Cozcatl appeared well fed and bore no marks of beatings, and he did not cringe before me, and he wore a spotlessly white short mantle in addition to the loincloth that was customarily a male slave’s only apparel. So I assumed that among the Acólhua, or at least in the palace vicinity, the lower classes were fairly treated.

  The boy was carrying in both hands a tremendous pottery vessel of steaming hot water, so I quickly stepped aside, and he took it to the sanitary closet and poured it into the sunken tub. He also spared me the humiliation of having to ask to be shown how the closet’s facilities worked. Even if Cozcatl took me to be a legitimate noble, he could have supposed that any noble from the provinces would be unaccustomed to such luxury—and he would have been right. Without waiting to be asked, he explained:

  “You can cool your bathw
ater to the temperature you prefer, my lord, like this.” He pointed to the clay pipe jutting from the wall. It was pierced near its end by another, shorter piece of pipe stuck vertically through it. He merely twisted that short pipe and it gushed clear cold water.

  “The long pipe brings water from our main supply line. The short pipe has one hole in its side, and when you twist it to make that hole face inward to the long pipe, the water can run as needed. When you are through with your bath, my lord, just remove that óli stopper in the bottom and the used water will drain away through another pipe beneath.”

  Next he indicated the curiously immobile slop jar and said, “The axixcáli works the same way. When you have relieved yourself in it, simply twist that short pipe above, and a gush of water will wash the wastes away through that hole in its bottom.”

  I had not even noticed the hole before, and I asked in ignorant horror, “The excrement falls into the room below?”

  “No, no, my lord. Like the bathwater, into a pipe that carries it clear away. Into a pond from which the manure men dredge fertilizer for the farm fields. Now, I will order my lord’s evening meal prepared, so it will be waiting when he has finished his bath.”

  It was going to take me a while to stop playing the rustic and to learn the ways of the nobility, I reflected, as I sat at my own table in my own room and dined on grilled rabbit, beans, tortillas, and batter-fried squash blossoms … with chocolate to drink. Where I came from, chocolate had been a special treat doled out once or twice a year, and only weakly flavored. Here, the foamy red drink—of precious cacao, honey, vanilla, and scarlet achíyotl seeds, all ground up and beaten together to a stiff froth—was as free for the asking as spring water. I wondered how long it would take me to lose my Xaltócan accent, to speak the precise Náhuatl of Texcóco, and gracefully to “get used to comfort,” as the First Lady had phrased it.

  In time I came to realize that no noble, not even an honorary or temporary one like myself, ever had to do anything for himself. When a nobleman reached one hand up to undo the shoulder clasp of his magnificent feather mantle, he simply walked away from the garment, and it never hit the floor. Some servant was always there to take it from his shoulders, and the noble knew there would be someone there. If a nobleman folded his legs to sit down, he never looked behind him—even if he collapsed suddenly, involuntarily, from an excess of octli drinking. But he never fell. There was always an icpáli chair slid under him, and he knew the chair would be there.

  I wondered: were the noble folk born with such a lofty assurance, or could I possibly acquire it by practice? There was only one way to find out. At the first opportunity—I forget the occasion—I entered a room crowded with lords and ladies, made the proper salutations, sat down with assurance, and without looking behind me. The icpáli was right there. I did not even glance back to see whence it came. I knew then that a chair—or anything I wanted and expected from my inferiors—would always be there. That small experiment taught me a thing I never forgot. To command the respect and deference and privileges reserved for the nobility, I need only dare to be a noble.

  On the morning after my arrival, the slave Cozcatl came with my breakfast and with an armload of new clothes for me, more clothes than I had ever worn and worn out during my whole previous life. There were loincloths and mantles of glossy white cotton, beautifully embroidered. There were sandals of rich and pliable leathers, including one gilded pair for ceremonial wear, which laced nearly to my knees. The Lady of Tolan had even sent a small gold and bloodstone clasp for my mantle, which heretofore I had worn only knotted at the shoulder.

  When I had donned one of those stylish outfits, Cozcatl led me again around the palace grounds, pointing out the buildings containing schoolrooms. There were more classes available than in any calmécac. I was most interested, of course, in those dealing with word knowing, history, geography, and the like. But I could also, if I chose, attend classes in poetry, gold and silver work, feather work, gem cutting, and various other arts.

  “The classes that do not require tools and benches are held indoors only in bad weather,” said my little guide. “On fine days like this, the Lord Teachers and their students prefer to work outside.”

  I could see the groups, sitting on the lawns or gathered about the marble pavilions. The teacher of every class was an elderly man wearing a distinctive yellow mantle, but his students were an assortment: boys and men of varying sizes and ages, here and there even a girl or a woman or a slave sitting slightly apart.

  “The students are not graded by age?” I asked.

  “No, my lord, but by their ability. Some are much further along in one subject than in another. When you first attend, you will be interrogated by each Lord Teacher to determine in which of his classes you will fit best—for example, among the Beginners, the Learners, the Somewhat Learned, and so on. He will grade you according to what knowledge you already have and what he judges to be your capacity for learning more.”

  “And the females? The slaves?”

  “Any daughter of a noble is allowed to attend, all the way through the highest grades, if she has the ability and the desire. The slaves are allowed to study as far as is consistent with their particular employments.”

  “You yourself are well spoken, for such a young tlacótli.”

  “Thank you, my lord. I went as far as learning good Náhuatl, deportment, and the rudiments of housekeeping. When I am older I may apply for further training, in hope of someday becoming Master of the Keys in some noble household.”

  I said grandly, expansively, generously, “If ever I have a noble household, Cozcatl, I promise you that position.”

  I did not mean “if,” I meant “when.” I was no longer idly wishing for a rise to eminence, I was already envisioning it. I stood there in that lovely parkland, my servant at my side, and I stood tall in my fine new clothes, and I smiled to think of the great man I would be. I sit here now, among you, my reverend masters, and I sit bent and shriveled in my rags, and I smile to think of the puffed-up young pretender I was.

  The Lord Teacher of History, Neltitíca, who looked old enough to have experienced all of history, announced to the class, “We have with us today a new píltontli student, a Mexícatl who is to be known as Head Nodder.”

  I was so pleased to be introduced as a “young noble” student that I did not wince at the nickname.

  “Perhaps, Head Nodder, you would be good enough to give us a brief history of your Mexíca people….”

  “Yes, Lord Teacher,” I said confidently. I stood up, and every face in the class turned to gaze at me. I cleared my throat and said what I had been taught in Xaltócan’s House of Learning Manners:

  “Know, then, that my people originally dwelt in a region far to the north of these lands. It was Aztlan, The Place of Snowy Egrets, and at that time they called themselves the Aztlantláca or the Aztéca, the Egret People. But Aztlan was a hard country, and their chief god Huitzilopóchtli told them of a sweeter land to be found to the south. He said it would be a long and difficult journey, but that they would recognize their new homeland when they reached it, for they would see there a nopáli cactus on which perched a golden eagle. So all the Aztéca abandoned their fine homes and palaces and pyramids and temples and gardens, and they set out southward.”

  Someone in the class snickered.

  “The journey took sheaves upon sheaves of years, and they had to pass through the lands of many other peoples. Some were hostile; they fought and tried to turn the Aztéca back. Others were hospitable and let the Aztéca rest among them, sometimes for a short while, sometimes for many years, and those peoples were repaid by being taught the noble language, the arts and sciences known only to the Aztéca.”

  Someone in the class murmured, and someone else gave a low chuckle.

  “When the Aztéca came finally into this valley, they were kindly received by the Tecpanéca people on the western shore of the lake, who gave them Chapultépec for a resting place. The Aztéca liv
ed on that Grasshopper Hill while their priests continued to range about the valley in search of the eagle on the nopáli. Now, in the Tecpanéca dialect of our language, the nopáli cactus is called tenóchtli, so those people called the Aztéca the Tenóchca, and in time the Aztéca themselves took that name of Cactus People. Then, as Huitzilopóchtli had promised, the priests did find the sign—a golden eagle perched on a cactus—and this they found on a not-yet-peopled island in the lake. All the Tenóchca-Aztéca immediately and joyfully moved from Chapultépec to that island.”

  Someone in the class laughed openly.

  “On the island they built two great cities, one called Tenochtítlan, Place of the Cactus People, and the other Tlaltelólco, The Rocky Place. While they were building the cities, the Tenóchca noticed how every night they could see from their island the moon Metztli reflected in the lake waters. So they also referred to their new habitation as Metztli-Xictli, In the Middle of the Moon. In time, they shortened that to Mexítli and then to Mexíco, and eventually came to call themselves the Mexíca. For their sign they adopted the symbol of the eagle perched on the cactus, and the eagle holds in its beak the ribbonlike symbol which represents war.”

  A number of my new classmates were laughing by now, but I persevered.

  “Then the Mexíca began to extend their dominion and influence, and many peoples have benefited, either as adoptive Mexíca or as allies or as trading partners. They learned to worship our gods, or variations of them, and they let us appropriate their gods. They learned to count with our arithmetic and mark time by our calendars. They pay us tribute in goods and currency, for fear of our invincible armies. They speak our language out of deference to our superiority. The Mexíca have built the mightiest civilization ever known in this world, and Mexíco-Tenochtítlan stands at its center—In Cem-Anáhuac Yoyótli, The Heart of the One World.”

  I kissed the earth to the aged Lord Teacher Neltitíca and sat down. My classmates were all waving their hands for permission to speak, meanwhile making a clamor of noises ranging from laughter to hoots of derision. The Lord Teacher gestured imperiously, and the class sat still and silent.