Since I was again without so much as a cacao bean, I borrowed a small quantity of trade currency from the girls, for traveling expenses, and an additional sum which I sent by messenger to Nozibe, to be delivered to whatever family that ill-fated boatman might have left bereaved. I also reported the incident to the bishosu of Tecuantépec, who said he would in turn inform the Lord Kosi Yuela of that latest savagery committed by the despicable Zyu Huave.

On the eve of our departure, Béu surprised us with a festive party, such as she would have done to celebrate if Zyanya had been marrying a man of the Ben Záa. It was attended by all the inn's current patrons and by invited guests from among the city folk. There were hired musicians to play, and splendidly costumed dancers doing the genda lizaa, which is the traditional "spirit of kinship" dance of the Cloud People.

With at least a semblance of good feeling having been restored among the three of us, Zyanya and I bade farewell to Béu the next morning, with solemn kisses. We did not go immediately or directly toward Tenochtítlan. She and I each carrying a pack, we headed straight north across the flatland isthmus, the way I had come to Tecuantépec. And, since I had someone other than myself to think of, I was especially wary of villains lurking on the road. I carried my maquahuitl ready to my hand, and kept a sharp lookout wherever the terrain might have concealed an ambush.

We had not walked more than one-long-run when Zyanya remarked simply, but with an excited anticipation in her voice, "Just think. I am going farther from home than I have ever been."

Those few words made my heart swell, and made me love her the more. She was venturing into what was for her a vast unknown, and doing it trustingly, because she was in my keeping. I glowed with pride, and with thankfulness that her tonáli and mine had brought us together. All the other people in my life were left over from yesterday or yesteryear, but Zyanya was someone fresh and new, not made commonplace by familiarity.

"I never believed," she said, spreading wide her arms, "that there could be so much land of nothing but land!"

Even viewing the lackluster vista of the isthmus, she could thus exclaim, and make me smile and share her enthusiasm. It was to be like that through all our todays and tomorrows together. I would have the privilege of introducing her to things prosaic to me but new and foreign to her. And she, in her unjaded enjoyment of them, would make me see them, too, as if they were sparklingly novel and exotic.

"Look at this bush, Záa. It is alive, aware! And it is afraid, poor thing. See? When I touch a twig, it folds all its leaves and flowers tight shut, and reveals thorns like white fangs."

She might have been a young goddess lately born of Teteoinan, mother of the gods, and newly sent down from the skies to get acquainted with the earth. For she found mystery and wonderment and delight in every least detail of the world—including even me, even herself. She was as spirited and sportive as the never still light that lives inside an emerald. I was continually to be surprised by her unexpected attitudes toward things I took for granted.

"No, we will not undress," she said, our first night on the road. "We will make love, oh yes, but clothed, as we did in the mountains." I naturally protested, but she was firm, and she explained why. "Let me save that one last small modesty until after our wedding, Záa. And our being naked, then, for the very first time together, should make it all so new and different that we might never have done it before."

I repeat, Your Excellency, that a full account of our married life would be most undramatic, because feelings like contentment and happiness are much harder to convey in words than are mere events. I can only tell you that I was then twenty and three years old, and Zyanya was twenty, and lovers of that age are capable of the most extreme and enduring attachment they ever will know. In any event, that first love between us never diminished; it grew in depth and intensity, but I cannot tell you why.

Now that I think back, though, Zyanya may have come close to putting it into words, on that long-ago day we set out together. One of the comical swift-runner birds scampered along beside us, the first she had ever seen, and she said pensively, "Why should a bird prefer the ground to the sky? I would not, if I had wings to fly with. Would you, Záa?"

Ayyo, her spirit did have wings, and I partook of that joyous buoyancy. From the first, we were comrades who shared an ever unfolding adventure. We loved the adventure and we loved each other. No man and woman could ever have asked anything more of the gods than what they had given to me and Zyanya—except perhaps the promise of her name: that it be for always.

On the second day, we caught up to a northbound company of Tzapoteca traders, whose porters were laden with tortoise-shell of the hawkbill turtle. That would be sold to the Olméca artisans, to be heated and twisted and fashioned into various ornaments and inlays. The traders made us welcome to their company and, though Zyanya and I could have traveled faster on our own, for safety's sake we fell in with them and accompanied them to their destination, the crossroad trading town of Coatzacoalcos.

We had scarcely arrived in the marketplace there—and Zyanya had begun excitedly flitting among the goods-piled stalls and ground cloths—when a familiar voice bawled at me, "You are not dead, then! Did we throttle those bandits for nothing?"

"Blood Glutton!" I exclaimed happily. "And Cozcatl! What brings you to these far parts?"

"Oh, boredom," said the old warrior in a bored voice.

"He lies. We were worried about you," said Cozcatl, who was no longer a little boy, but had grown to adolescence, all knees and elbows and gawky awkwardness.

"Not worried, bored!" insisted Blood Glutton. "I ordered a house built for me in Tenochtítlan, but the supervising of stonemasons and plasterers is not the most edifying work. Also they hinted that they could do better without my ideas. And Cozcatl found his school studies somewhat tame after all his adventures abroad. So the boy and I decided to track you and find out what you have been doing for these two years."

Cozcatl said, "We could not be sure we were on the right trail—until we first came here and found four men trying to sell some valuables. We recognized your bloodstone mantle clasp."

"They could not satisfactorily account for their possession of the articles," said Blood Glutton. "So I hauled them before the market tribunal. They were tried, convicted, and dispatched by the flower garland. Ah, well, they doubtless deserved it for some other misdeed. Anyway, here is your clasp, your burning crystal, your nose trinket..."

"You did well," I said. "They robbed and beat me. They thought me dead."

"So did we, but we hoped you were not," said Cozcatl. "And we had no other demands on our time. So we have just been exploring up and down this coast ever since. And you, Mixtli, what have you been doing?"

"Also exploring," I said. "Seeking treasure, as usual."

"Find any?" growled Blood Glutton.

"Well, I found a wife."

"A wife." He hawked and spat on the ground. "And we feared you had only died."

"The same old grouch." I laughed. "But when you see her..."

I looked about the square and called her name and in a moment she came, looking as queenly as Pela Xila or the Lady of Tolan, but infinitely more beautiful. In just that little time, she had purchased a new blouse and skirt and sandals, and changed from her travel-stained garb, and bought what we called a living jewel—a many-colored iridescent beetle—to fix in that lightning streak of white hair. I think I gazed as admiringly as did Cozcatl and Blood Glutton.