Aztec - Jennings Gary - Страница 32

"Never mind," the stranger interrupted. "Just tell me: what does the duck-billed face signify?"

"Ehecatl, the wind, my lord."

"Anything else?"

"Well, my lord, with the other figure, the closed eyelids, it says Night Wind. But—"

"Yes? Speak up, young man."

"If my lord will excuse my impertinence, that one figure does not show a duck's bill. It is the wind trumpet through which the wind god—"

"Enough." The stranger turned to Red Heron. "He is the one, Lord Governor. I have your permission, then?"

"But of course, of course," said Red Heron, quite obsequiously. To me he said, "This is the Lord Strong Bone, Snake Woman to Nezahualpili, Uey-Tlatoani of Texcoco. Lord Strong Bone brings the Revered Speaker's personal invitation that you come to reside and study and serve at the court of Texcoco."

"Texcoco!" I exclaimed. I had never been there, or anywhere in the Acolhua country. I knew no one there, and no Acolhuatl could ever have heard of me—certainly not the Revered Speaker Nezahualpili, who, in all these lands, was second in power and prestige only to Tixoc, the Uey-Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan. I was so astounded that, unthinking and unmannerly, I blurted, "Why?"

"You are not commanded," the Texcoco Snake Woman said brusquely. "You are invited, and you may accept or decline. But you are not invited to question the offer."

I mumbled an apology, and the Lord Red Heron came to my support, saying, "Excuse the youngster, my lord. I am sure he is as perplexed as I have been these several years—that such an exalted personage as Nezahualpili should have fixed his regard on this one of so many macehualtin."

The Snake Woman only grunted, so Red Heron went on, "I have never been given any explanation of your master's interest in this particular commoner, and I have refrained from asking. Of course, I remember your previous ruler, that tree of great shade, the wise and kindly Fasting Coyote, and how he used to travel alone throughout The One World, his identity disguised, to seek out estimable persons deserving of his favor. Does his illustrious son Nezahualpili carry on that same benign avocation? If so, what in the world did he see in our young subject Tlilectic-Mixtli?"

"I cannot say, Lord Governor." The haughty noble gave Red Heron almost as gruff a rebuke as he had given me. "No one questions the Revered Speaker's impulses and intentions. Not even I, his Snake Woman. And I have other duties besides waiting for an irresolute stripling to decide if he will accept a prodigious honor. I return to Texcoco, young man, at tomorrow's rising of Tezcatlipoca. Do you go with me or not?"

"I go, of course, my lord," I said. "I have only to pack some clothes, some papers, some paints. Unless there is something in particular I should bring?" I boldly added that, in hope of prying loose a hint of why I was going, for how long I was going.

He said only, "Everything necessary will be provided."

Red Heron said, "Be here at the palace jetty, Mixtli, at the rising of Tonatiu."

Lord Strong Bone glanced coolly at the governor, then at me, and said, "Best you learn, young man, to call the sun god Tezcatlipoca from now on."

From now an forever? I wondered as I hastened home alone. Was I to be an adopted Acolhuatl for the rest of my life, and a convert to the Acolhua gods?

When I told my waiting family what had occurred, my father said excitedly, "Night Wind! Just as I told you, son Mixtli! It was the god Night Wind you met on the road those years ago. And it is from Night Wind that now you will get your heart's desire."

Tzitzi looked worried and said, "But suppose it is a ruse. Suppose Texcoco merely happens to need a xochimiqui of a certain age and size for some particular sacrifice..."

"No," our mother said bluntly. "Mixtli is not handsome or graceful or virtuous enough to have been specially chosen for any ceremony I know of." She sounded disgruntled at this affair's having got out of her management. "But there is certainly something suspicious in all this. Grubbing about in picture books and wallowing idly in the chinampa, Mixtli could have done nothing to bring himself to the notice of even a slave dealer, let alone a royal court."

I said, "From the words spoken at the palace, and from the scrap of writing Lord Strong Bone carried, I think I can guess some things. That night at the crossroads I met no god, but an Acolhuatl traveler, perhaps some courtier of Nezahualpili himself, and we have just assumed he was Night Wind. During the years since then, though I do not know why, Texcoco has kept track of me. Anyway, it now seems that I am to attend a Texcoco calmecac, where I shall be taught the art of word knowing. I will be a scribe, as I have always wanted. At least," I finished with a shrug, "that is what I surmise."

"And you call it all coincidence," my father said sternly. "It is just as likely, son Mixtli, that you really did meet Night Wind and took him to be a mortal. Gods, like men, can travel in disguise, unrecognized. And you have profited from the encounter. It would do no harm to give thanks to Night Wind."

"You are right, father Tepetzalan. I will do so. Whether or not Night Wind was directly involved, he is the dispenser of hearts' desires when he chooses to be, and it is my heart's desire I am about to realize."

"But only one of my heart's desires," I said to Tzitzi, when at last we had a moment together in private. "How can I leave the sound of small bells ringing?"

"If you have good sense, you will leave here dancing and cheering," she said, with feminine practicality, but not with any perceptible cheer in her own voice. "You cannot spend your life pulling weeds, Mixtli, and inventing futile ambitions like your notion of becoming a trader. However this all happened, you now have a future, a brighter one than has ever been offered to any macehuali of Xaltocan."

"But if Night Wind or Nezahualpili or whoever could send one opportunity my way, there might be others, even better. I always dreamed of going to Tenochtitlan, not to Texcoco. I can still decline this offer—Lord Strong Bone said so—and I can wait. Why should I not?"

"Because you do have good sense, Mixtli. While I was still at The House of Learning Manners, the Mistress of the Girls told us that Tenochtitlan may be the strong arm of The Triple Alliance, but Texcoco is the brain. There is more than pomp and power at the court of Nezahualpili. There is a long heritage of poetry and culture and wisdom. The Mistress also said that, of all the lands which speak Nahuatl, the people of Texcoco speak the purest form of our language. What better destination for an aspiring scholar? You must go and you will go. You will study, you will learn, you will excel. And, if you truly have won the patronage of the Revered Speaker, who knows what high plans he may have for you? When you talk of refusing his invitation, you know you talk nonsense." Her voice dropped. "And only because of me."

"Because of us."

She sighed. "We had to grow up sometime."

"I always hoped we would do it together."

"We can still and always hope. You will be coming home at festival times. We will be together then. And when your schooling is done, why, you could become rich and powerful. You could become Mixtzin, and a noble can marry whomever he chooses."

"I hope to become an accomplished word knower, Tzitzi. That is ambition enough for me. And few scribes ever do anything to get themselves entitled -tzin."