The rest of us tramped wearily off toward our several palaces or guest lodgings or homes or barracks, grateful that we would not have to dress up and endure another day-long ceremony until Motecuzóma emerged from his retreat.

I dragged my heavy, taloned sandals up my front steps and, if I had not been so fatigued, I would have evinced some surprise when Ticklish, not Turquoise, opened the door to me. A solitary wick lamp burned in the entry hall.

I said, "It is very late. Surely Cocóton has long been safely tucked in bed. Why have you and Cozcatl not gone home?"

"Cozcatl has gone to Texcóco on school business. As soon as there was an acáli free after the funeral, he engaged it to take him over there. So I was glad of the opportunity to spend the extra time with my—with your daughter. Turquoise is preparing your steam room and bath."

"Good," I said. "Well, let me call Star Singer to light your way home, and I will hurry to bed, so the servants can lay out their own pallets."

"Wait," she said nervously. "I do not want to go." Her normally light-copper face had flushed to a very ruddy copper, as if the hall's wick lamp were not behind her but inside her. "Cozcatl cannot be home again before tomorrow night at the earliest. Tonight I would like you to take me into your bed, Mixtli."

"What is this?" I said, pretending not to comprehend. "Is something wrong at home, Ticklish?"

"Yes, and you know what it is!" Her color heightened still more. "I am twenty and six years old, I have been married for more than five years, and I have yet to know a man!"

I said, "Cozcatl is as much a man as any I have ever met."

"Please, Mixtli, do not be deliberately dense," she entreated. "You know very well what it is I have not had."

I said, "If it will ease your sense of deprivation, I have reason to believe that our new Revered Speaker is almost as badly impaired in that respect as is your husband Cozcatl."

"That is hard to believe," she said. "As soon as Motecuzóma was appointed to the regency, he took two wives."

"Then presumably they are almost as unsatisfied as you seem to be."

Ticklish impatiently shook her head. "Obviously he is adequate enough to make his wives pregnant. They each have an infant child. And that is more than I can hope for! If I were the Revered Speaker's woman, I could at least bear a child. But I did not come here on behalf of Motecuzóma's wives. I do not give a little finger for Motecuzóma's wives!"

I snapped, "Neither do I! But I commend them for staying in their own connubial beds and not besieging mine!"

"Do not be cruel, Mixtli," she said. "If only you knew what this has cost me. Five years, Mixtli! Five years of submitting and pretending to be satisfied. I have prayed and made offerings to Xochiquetzal, begging that she help me to be content with the attentions of my husband. It does no good. All the time I suffer the curiosity. What is it really like, for a real man and woman? The wondering and the temptation and the indecision, and finally this abasement of asking for it."

"So you ask me, of all men, to betray my best friend. To put myself and my best friend's wife at risk of the garrotte."

"I ask you because you are his friend. You will never drop sly hints, as another man might do. Even if Cozcatl should somehow find out, he loves both you and me too much to denounce us." She paused, then added, "If Cozcatl's best friend will not do this, then he does Cozcatl a terrible disservice. I tell you true. If you refuse me, I will not humiliate myself further by approaching anyone else of our acquaintance. I will hire a man for a night. I will solicit some stranger in a hostel. Think what that would do to Cozcatl."

I thought. And I remembered his saying once that if this woman would not have him, he would somehow make an end to his own life. I believed him then, and I believed also that he would do the same if ever he learned of her betraying him.

I said, "All other considerations aside, Ticklish, I am so fatigued at this moment that I would be of no use to any woman. You have waited five years. You can wait until I have bathed and slept. And you say we have all day tomorrow. Go to your home now, and think further on this matter. If then you are still determined..."

"I will be, Mixtli. And I will come here again tomorrow."

I summoned Star Singer, and he lit a torch, and he and Ticklish went off into the night. I was undressed and had steamed myself and was in my bathing basin when I heard him come back to the house. I could easily have fallen asleep in the bath, but the water got so chilly as to force me out. I lurched into my chamber, fell onto the bed and dragged the top quilt over me, and fell asleep without even bothering to blow out the wick lamp Turquoise had lighted.

But, even in my heavy sleep, I must have been half anticipating and half dreading the impetuous return of the impatient Ticklish, for my eyes opened when the bedroom door did. The lamp had burned low and feeble, but there was a grayness of first dawn at the window, and what I saw made my hair prickle on my head.

I had heard no noise from downstairs to give me warning of the unexpected and unbelievable apparition—and surely Turquoise or Star Singer would have uttered a shriek if either of them had glimpsed that particular wraith. Though she was dressed for traveling, in a head shawl and a heavy over-mantle of rabbit skins, though the light was dim, though my hand shook when I raised the topaz to my eye... it was Zyanya I saw standing there!

"Záa," she breathed in a whisper but with audible delight, and it was Zyanya's voice. "You are not asleep, Záa."

But I was sure I must be. I was seeing the impossible, and I had never done that before, except in my dreams.

"I only meant to look in. I did not wish to disturb you," she said, still whispering; keeping her voice low to lessen the shock for me, I supposed.

I tried to speak and could not, an experience I had also had in dreams.

"I will go to the other chamber," she said. She began to unwind the shawl, and she did it slowly, as if she were tired from having traveled an unimaginably long, long way. I thought of the barriers—the mountains gnashing together, the black river in black night—and I shuddered.

"When you got the message of my coming," she said, "I hope you did not wait sleepless for my arrival." Her words made no sense, until the cowl of shawl came off, disclosing black hair without the distinctive white streak. Béu Ribé went on, "Of course, I would be flattered to think that the word of my coming excited you to sleeplessness. I would be pleased if you were that eager to see me."

I found my voice at last, and it was harsh. "I received no message! How dare you come stealthily into my house like this? How dare you pretend—?" But I choked there; I could not fairly accuse her of resembling her late sister on purpose.

She seemed genuinely taken aback, and she stammered as she tried to explain. "But I sent a boy... I gave him a cacao bean to bring the word. Did he not, then? But downstairs... Star Singer greeted me cordially. And I find you awake, Záa..."

I growled, "Star Singer once before invited me to beat him. This time I shall oblige."

There was a short silence. I was waiting for my heart to abate its wild beating of mingled astonishment, alarm, and joy. Béu seemed overcome with embarrassment and self-reproach at her intrusion. At last she said, almost meekly for her, "I will go and sleep in the room I occupied before. Perhaps tomorrow... you will be less angry that I am here...." And she was gone from the room before I could say anything in rejoinder.