"Go sometime to the city of Teotihuacan, Head Nodder, and look at what is left of the wall paintings there. Only one of them shows a Toltecatl warrior, and he is merely playing at war. His spear has no blade, but a tuft of feathers at its point, and his arrows are tipped with óli gum, like those employed in teaching archery to boys."

"Yes, my lady, I have used such arrows in practicing the war games."

"From other murals, we can deduce that the Toltéca never gave human sacrifices to their gods, but only butterflies, flowers, quail, and such offerings. The Master Artisans were a peaceable people because their gods were gentle gods. One of them was that Quetzalcoatl still worshiped by all nations far and wide. And the Toltéca concept of that Feathered Serpent tells us much about them. Who but a wise and kindly people could have bequeathed to us a god that so harmoniously blends lordliness and lovingness? The most awesome but most graceful of all creatures, the snake, clad not in hard scales but in the soft and beautiful plumage of the quetzal tototl bird."

I said, "I was taught that the Feathered Serpent once really lived in these lands, and will someday come back again."

"Yes, Head Nodder, from what we can understand of the remains of Toltéca writing, Quetzalcoatl did indeed once live. He was a long-ago Uey-Tlatoani, or whatever the Toltéca called their rulers, and he must have been a good one. It is said that he himself devised the writing, the calendars, the star charts, the numbers we use today. It is even said that he left us the recipe for ahuacamoli and all the other moli sauces, though I am sure I cannot see Quetzalcoatl doing cook's work in a kitchen."

She smiled and shook her head, then was serious again. "It is said that during his reign the farmers' fields grew not just white cotton but cotton of all colors, as if already dyed, and that a single ear of maize was as much as a man could carry. It is said that there were no deserts in his time, but fruit and flowers growing everywhere in abundance, and the air was perfumed with all their mingled fragrances...."

I asked, "Is it possible that he could come again, my lady?"

"Well, according to the legends, Quetzalcoatl somehow unintentionally committed some sin so awful—or did something which so violated his own high standards of behavior—that he voluntarily abdicated his throne. He went to the shore of the eastern ocean and built a raft—of interwoven feathers, some say, or of intertwined live snakes. In his last words to the grieving Toltéca he vowed to return again someday. And he rowed away, and he vanished beyond the ocean's eastern horizon. Since then, the Feathered Serpent has become the one god recognized by every nation and every people known to us. But all the Toltéca have also disappeared since then, and Quetzalcóatl has yet to return."

"But he could have, he may have," I said. "The priests say that the gods often walk among us unrecognized."

"Like my Lord Father," said Black Flower, laughing. "But I believe the Feathered Serpent would be rather harder to overlook. The reappearance of such a distinctive god should certainly make a stir. Be assured, Head Nodder, if ever Quetzalcdatl comes again, with or without his retinue of Toltéca, we will know him."

I had left Xaltócan toward the close of the rainy season in the year Five Knife and, except for my frequent yearnings for the presence of Tzitzitlini, I had been so engrossed in my studies and my enjoyments of palace life that I had scarcely noticed the swift passing of time. I was frankly surprised when my schoolmate Prince Willow informed me that the day after tomorrow would be the first of the forthcoming nemontemtin, the five lifeless days. I had to count on my fingers to believe that I had been away from home for more than the round of a whole year, and that this one was coming to a close.

"All activities are suspended during the five hollow days," said the young prince. "So this year we will take the opportunity to pack and move the entire court to our Texcóco palace, to be ready to celebrate the month of Cuhhuitl Ehua there."

That was the first month of our solar year. Its name means The Tree Is Raised and refers to the many elaborate ceremonies during which the people of all nations were accustomed to beseech the rain god Tlaloc that the forthcoming summer's wet season would be an abundantly wet one.

"And you will want to be with your family for the occasion," Willow went on. "So I ask you to accept the loan of my personal acáli to carry you thither. I will send it again at the close of Cuahuitl Ehua, and you will rejoin the court at Texcóco."

This was all very sudden, but I accepted, expressing my gratitude for his thoughtfulness.

"Just one thing," he said. "Can you be ready to leave tomorrow morning? You understand, Head Nodder, my oarsmen will want to be safely back on their home shore before the lifeless days begin."

* * *

Ah, the Señor Bishop! Once more I am pleased and honored to have Your Excellency join our little gathering. And once more, my lord, your unworthy servant makes bold to give you worshipful greeting and welcome.

...Yes, I understand, Your Excellency. You say that I have not hitherto spoken sufficiently of my people's religious rites; that you especially want to hear in person about our superstitious dread of the hollow days; that you wish to hear at first hand my account of the ensuing month's heathen rituals of petition to the rain god. I understand, my lord, and I shall cause your reverend ears to hear all. Should my old brain wander in its recollection, or should my old tongue skip too lightly over any details of relevance, please do not hesitate, Your Excellency, to interrupt with questions or demands for elucidation.

Know, then, that it was on the sixth-to-last day of the year Six House that Prince Willow's carved and bannered and canopied acáli put me ashore on a Xaltócan jetty again. My splendid borrowed craft of six oarsmen rather put to shame the uncovered, two-oared canoe of the Lord Red Heron which was, that same day, likewise bringing his son home from school for the ceremonial month of Cuahuitl Ehua. I was even noticeably better dressed than that provincial princeling, and Pactli involuntarily gave me an ingratiating nod before he recognized me and his face froze.

At my house, I was welcomed like a hero home from some war. My father clapped his hands on my shoulders, which now nearly matched his in height and breadth. Tzitzitlini wrapped both arms around me in a squeeze that would have looked merely sisterly to anyone who did not see her fingernails digging softly But suggestively into my back. Even my mother was admiring, if mainly of my costume. I had deliberately chosen to wear my most wonderfully embroidered mantle, with the bloodstone clasp at the shoulder, and my gilt sandals which laced almost to the knee.

Friends and relations and neighbors came crowding in to gawk at the rover returned. Among them, I was happy to see, were Chimali and Tlatli, who had each begged a ride home from Tenochtítlan on limestone freight acaltin returning to the island to ride out the lifeless days at their moorings. My family's three rooms and dooryard, which now appeared to me to have curiously shrunken, were quite overflowing with visitors. I do not attribute that to my personal popularity, but to the fact that midnight would bring the beginning of the hollow days, during which there could be no social mingling.

Not many of the gathered people, except my father and some other quarriers, had ever been off our island, and were naturally eager to hear of the outside world. But they asked few questions; they seemed content to listen to me and Chimali and Tlatli trading tales of our experiences in our separate schools.