The arrangements had been well timed, for she was coming just at sundown, as was proper. The ballroom, which had been getting gradually darker during the preliminary ceremony, began to glow with golden light as servants went about lighting the pine-splint torches angled out at intervals from the painted walls. When the hall was blazing bright, Zyanya stepped through the entranceway, escorted by two of the palace ladies. It was allowable for a woman at her wedding—just that one time in her life—to beautify herself to the utmost by using all the cosmetic arts of a courtesan auyaními: coloring her hair, lightening her skin, reddening her lips. But Zyanya had no need for any such artifice, and had used none. She wore a simple blouse and skirt of virginal pale yellow and she had selected, for the traditional festoon of feathers along her arms and calves, the long plumes of some black-and-white bird, obviously to repeat and accentuate the white-streaked black of her long, flowing hair.

The two women led her to the dais, through the murmurously admiring crowd, and she and I stood facing each other, she looking shy, I looking solemn, as the occasion required. The priest took from an assistant two instruments and handed one of them to each of us: a golden chain from which depended a perforated golden ball, inside which burned a bit of copali incense. I raised my chain and swung the ball around Zyanya, leaving a fragrant loop of blue smoke hanging in the air about her shoulders. Then I hunched down a bit, and she stood on tiptoe to do the same to me. The priest took back the censers and bade us sit down side by side.

At that point, there should have come forward from the crowd our relatives and friends bearing presents. Neither of us had any kinfolk in attendance, so there came only Blood Glutton, Cozcatl, and a delegation from The House of Pochtéa. They all, in turn, kissed the earth to us and laid before us their varied gifts—for Zyanya items of wearing apparel: blouses, skirts, shawls, and the like, all of the finest quality; for me also an assortment of clothing, plus an estimable armory: a well-wrought maquahuitl, a dagger, a sheaf of arrows.

When the gift bearers had retired, it was the moment for Ahuítzotl and one of Zyanya's escorting noblewomen to take turns at chanting the routine fatherly and motherly advice to the couple about to be married. In an unemotional monotone, Ahuítzotl warned me, among other things, never to be still abed when I heard the cry of the Early Bird, Papan, but to be already up and doing. Zyanya's surrogate mother recited a long list of wifely duties—everything, it seemed to me, including the lady's favorite recipe for making tamaltin. As if that had been a signal, a servant came bearing a fresh, steaming platter of the maize-and-meat rolls, and set it before us.

The priest gestured, and Zyanya and I each picked up a tamali and fed it to each other, which, if you have never tried it, is no easy matter. I got my chin well greased, and Zyanya her nose, but we each got at least a token bite of the other's offering. While we were doing that, the priest began another long, rote harangue, the which I will not bore you with. It concluded in his bending down, taking a corner of my mantle and a corner of Zyanya's blouse, and knotting them together.

We were married.

The quiet music suddenly boomed loud and exultant, and a shout went up from the assembled guests, as all the ceremonial stiffness relaxed into conviviality. Servants dashed about the hall, dispensing to all the separate dinner cloths platters of tamaltin and new jugs of octli and chocolate. Every guest was expected to gobble and guzzle until the torches burned out at dawn or until the males among them fell over unconscious and were borne home by their women and slaves. Zyanya and I would eat but daintily, and then would be led discreetly—everybody pretending we were invisible—to our wedding chamber, which was an upstairs suite in the palace, lent to us by Ahuítzotl. But at that point I departed from custom.

"Excuse me one moment, my dear," I whispered to Zyanya, and stepped down from the dais into the room, the Revered Speaker and the priest regarding me with puzzled eyes and open mouths showing half-chewed tamaltin.

In my long life, no doubt I have been hated by many persons; I do not know how many. I have never cared enough even to try remembering and counting them. But I had then, that night, in that room, one mortal enemy, one enemy sworn and implacable and already bloody-handed. Chimali had mutilated and murdered others close to me. His next victim, even before myself, would be Zyanya. That he should attend our wedding was his threat of it and his defiance of my doing anything to stop it.

As I walked in search of him, winding my way among the quadrangles of seated guests, their chattering dwindled to a wondering silence. Even the musicians lowered their instruments to pay attention. The room's silence was finally broken by the crowd's collective gasp, when I swung backhanded and knocked away the golden goblet Chimali was raising to his mouth. It rang musically as it bounced off his own wall painting.

"Do not drink too much," I said, and everyone heard. "You will want a clear head in the morning. At dawn, Chimali, in the wood of Chapultepec. Just the two of us, but any kind and number of weapons you like. To the death."

He gave me a look compounded of loathing, contempt, and some amusement, then glanced about at his goggling neighbors. A private challenge he could have refused, or set conditions to, or even warded off by abasing himself. But that challenge had been prefaced by an insulting blow; it had been seen and heard by every leading citizen of Tenochtítlan. He shrugged, then reached for someone else's cup of octli, raised it in wry salute to me, and said clearly, "Chapultepec. At dawn. To the death." He drained the drink, stood up, and stalked out of the ballroom.

When I returned to the dais, the crowd began its buzz and chatter again behind me, though sounding somewhat subdued and aghast. Zyanya gazed at me with bewildered eyes, but to her credit she asked no question, she made no complaint about my having turned a gladsome occasion into something otherwise. The priest, however, gave me a baleful frown and began:

"Most inauspicious, young—

"Be silent!" snarled the Revered Speaker, and the priest shut his mouth. To me, Ahuítzotl said through his teeth, "Your sudden entry into responsible manhood and espousal has deranged you."

I said, "No, my lord. I am sane and I have sound reason for—"

"Reason!" he interrupted, still without raising his voice, which made him sound more irate than any bellowing could. "Reason for making a public scandal of your own wedding feast? Reason for disrupting a ceremony arranged for you as if you were our own son? Reason for assaulting our personal courtier and invited guest?"

"I am sorry if I have offended my lord," I said, but added obdurately, "My lord would think even less of me if I pretended not to notice an enemy taunting me with his presence."

"Your enemies are your business. Our palace artist is ours. You threaten to kill him. And—look yonder—he has still one whole wall of this room to decorate."

I said, "He may well finish it yet, Lord Speaker. Chimali was a much more accomplished fighter than I when we were together in The House of Building Strength."

"So, instead of losing our palace artist, we lose the counselor on whose advice and the plaintiff on whose behalf we are preparing to march into alien country." Still in that measured, menacing low voice, he said, "Take warning now, and a warning from the Uey-Tlatoani named Water Monster is not to be taken lightly. If either of you dies tomorrow—our valued painter Chimali or the Mixtli who has occasionally given us valuable counsel—it will be Mixtli who is held to blame. It will be Mixtli who pays, even if he is the dead one."