Word of my returning to Tenochtítlan must have preceded me by several days, and Motecuzóma must certainly have been simmering with impatience to know what news—or what visitors—I might be bringing. But he was the same old Motecuzóma, and I was not ushered immediately into his presence. I had to stop in the corridor outside his throne room, and change from my Eagle Knight costume into the sackcloth of a supplicant, and then do the ordained adulatory ritual of kissing the earth all the way across the chamber to where he sat between the gold and silver gongs. Despite his cool and unhurried reception of me, though, he was obviously determined to be the first to hear my report—perhaps the only one to hear—for the other members of his Speaking Council were not present. He did allow me to dispense with the formality of speaking only when queried, and I told him all that I have thus far told you, reverend friars, and a few other things I had learned from your two countrymen:

"As best I can calculate, Lord Speaker, it was about twenty years ago that the first floating houses, called ships, set out from that distant land of Spain to explore the ocean to the west of it. They did not then reach our coast because it seems there are a great many islands, large and small, between here and Spain. There were people already resident on those islands and, from the description, I take them to have been something like the barbaric Chichimeca of our northern lands. Some of those islanders fought to repel the white men, some of them meekly allowed the incursion, but all by now have been made subject to those Spaniards and their King. During the past twenty years, then, the white men have been occupied with settling colonies on those islands, and plundering their resources, and trading between the islands and their Spanish homeland. Only a few of their ships, moving from one island to another, or idly exploring, or blown astray by the wind, have until now even glimpsed these lands. We might hope that the islands will keep the white men busy for many more years, but I beg leave to doubt it. Even the biggest island is only an island, therefore limited in riches worth taking and land worth populating. Also, the Spaniards seem insatiable both in their curiosity and in their rapacity. They are already seeking beyond the islands for new discoveries and new opportunities. Soon or later, their seeking will bring them to these lands. It will be as the Revered Speaker Nezahualpili foretold: an invasion, for which we had best prepare."

"Prepare!" snorted Motecuzóma, probably stung by the memory of Nezahualpili's having supported that prophecy by winning the tlachtli contest. "That aged fool prepares by sitting down and sitting still. He will not even help me war against the insufferable Texcalteca."

I did not remind him of what else Nezahualpili had said: that all our peoples should cease the perpetuation of old enmities and unite against that impending invasion.

"Invasion, you said," Motecuzóma went on. "You also said that those two outlanders came without weapons and totally defenseless. It would imply an unusually peaceable invasion, if any."

I said, "What weapons might have gone down with their flooded ship, they did not confide. They may need no weapons at all—not weapons of the sort we know—if they can inflict a killing disease to which they themselves are casually indifferent."

"Yes, that would be a potent weapon indeed," Motecuzóma said. "A weapon heretofore reserved to the gods. And yet you insist they are not gods." Meditatively he regarded the little box and its contents. "They carry with them a god-given food." He fingered some of the blue beads. "They carry with them prayers made palpable, and made of a mysterious stone. Yet you insist they are not gods."

"I do, my lord. They get drunk as men do, they lie with women as men do—"

"Ayyo!" he interrupted triumphantly. "Exactly the reasons why the god Quetzalcoatl went away from here where he did. According to all the tales, he once succumbed to intoxication and committed some sexual misdeed, and in shame he abdicated his rule of the Toltéca."

"Also according to all the tales," I said drily, "in the days of Quetzalcoatl these lands were everywhere perfumed by flowers, and every wind blew a sweet fragrance. The aroma of the two men I met would suffocate the wind god." I patiently insisted, "The Spaniards are but men, my lord. They differ from us only in being white of skin, and hairy, and perhaps larger in their average size."

"The statues of the Toltéca at Tolan are much larger than any of us," Motecuzóma said stubbornly, "and whatever colors they were painted are no longer perceptible. For all we know, the Toltéca were white of skin." I exhaled a sigh of exasperation, but he paid it no heed. "I will set our historians to a close scrutiny of every ancient archive. We will find out what the Toltéca did look like. Meanwhile, I will have our highest priests put this god food in a finely made container and bear it reverently to Tolan and set it within reach of those sculptured Toltéca...."

"Lord Speaker," I said. "In conversation with those two white men, I several times mentioned the name of the Toltéca. It meant nothing at all to them."

He snapped his gaze up from the god bread and the beads, and he smiled a really victorious smile. "There you are, then! The name would not mean anything to a genuine Toltecatl. We call them the Master Artisans because we do not know what they called themselves!"

He was right, of course, and I was embarrassed. I could think of no retort except to mumble, "I doubt that they called themselves Spaniards. That word—their whole language—has no relation to any languages I have encountered anywhere in these lands."

"Eagle Knight Mixtli," he said, "those white men could be as you say—human beings, mere men—and still be Toltéca, descendants of those who vanished so long ago. That King of whom they told you could be the self-exiled god Quetzalcoatl. He could be ready now to return as he promised, waiting beyond the sea only until his Toltéca subjects tell him that we are amenable to his return."

"Are we amenable, my lord?" I asked impudently. "Are you amenable? The return of Quetzalcoatl would unseat every ruler now ruling, from Revered Speakers to the lowliest tribal chiefs. He would rule supreme."

Motecuzóma put on an expression of pious humility. "A returned god will no doubt be grateful to those who have preserved and even improved his dominions, and he will no doubt make evident his gratitude. If he should grant only that I be a voice among his Speaking Council, I would be more highly honored than any other mortal ever has been."

I said, "Lord Speaker, I have erred before. I may err now in supposing the white men to be no gods or forerunners of any god. But might you not err more gravely in supposing that they are?"

"Suppose? I do not suppose!" he said sternly. "I do not say yes a god comes, or no he does not, as you so impertinently presume to do!" He stood erect and almost shouted, "I am the Revered Speaker of the One World, and I do not say this or that, yes or no, gods or men, until I have pondered and observed and waited to make certain!"

I took his standing up as my dismissal. I backed away from the throne, repeatedly kissing the earth as prescribed, and I left the chamber, and I tore off the sackcloth robe, and I went home.

As to the question—gods or men?—Motecuzóma had said he would wait until he was certain, and that is what he did. He waited, and he waited too long, and even when it could no longer matter, he was still not really certain. And because he waited in uncertainty, he died at last in disgrace, and the last command he tried to give his people began uncertainly, "Mixchia—!" I know; I was there; and I heard that last word Motecuzóma ever spoke in his life: "Wait—!"