Tlatli was one of the last accomplices called. I have forgotten to mention that, on the night Nezahualpili's guards raided the studio, Chimali was absent on some errand. There had then been no cause for Nezahualpili or his aides to suspect the existence of another artist. Apparently no other of those accused had subsequently thought to mention Chimali, and apparently Tlatli had since been able to pretend that he had worked alone.

Strong Bone said, "Chicuace-Cali Ixtac-Tlatli, you admit that certain of the statues introduced in evidence were of your making."

"Yes, my lords," he said firmly. "I could hardly deny it. You see upon them my signature mark: the incised symbol of a falcon's head and beneath it the slap of my bloodied hand." His eyes sought mine and beseeched silence, as if saying, "Spare my woman," and I kept silent.

Eventually the two examiners retired to a private chamber for their deliberations. Everyone else in the hall of justice thankfully debouched from the big but now stuffy room to enjoy a breath of fresh air or to smoke a poquietl in the gardens outside. We defendants remained, each with an armed guard standing alert at our side, and we carefully avoided meeting each other's eyes.

It was not long before the judges returned and the hall refilled. The Snake Woman, Lord Strong Bone, made the routine prefatory announcement: "We, the examiners, have deliberated solely upon the evidence and testimony presented here, and have come to our decisions without malice or favor, without the intervention of any other persons, with the assistance only of Tonantzin, the gentle goddess of law and mercy and justice."

He produced a sheet of the finest paper and, referring to it, pronounced first, "We find that the accused scribe, Chicome-Xochitl Tlilectic-Mixtli, merits acquittal in that his actions, however culpable, were not ill intentioned, and furthermore were expiated by his bringing others to account. However..." Strong Bone threw a glance at the Revered Speaker, then glared at me. "We recommend that the acquitted one be banished from this realm as an alien who has abused its hospitality."

Well, I will not say I was pleased at that. But Nezahualpili could easily have let the judges deal with me as severely as they dealt with the others. The Snake Woman again referred to the paper and pronounced, "The following persons we find guilty of the several crimes with which they stand charged; actions heinous, perfidious, and detestable in the sight of the gods." He read the list of names: the Lord Joy, the Lady Jadestone Doll, the sculptors Pixquitl and Tlatli, my slave Cozcatl, two guards who had alternated night duty on the palace's eastern gate, Jadestone Doll's maid Pitza and numerous other servants, all the cooks and workers of her kitchen. The judge concluded his drone, "Regarding these persons found guilty, we make no recommendations, either of severity or lenity, and their sentences will be pronounced by the Revered Speaker."

Nezahualpili got slowly to his feet. He stood in deep study for a moment, then said, "As my lords recommend, the scribe Dark Cloud will be banished from Texcóco and all the domains of Acolhua. The convicted slave, Cozcatl, I here pardon in consideration of his tender years, but he will likewise be exiled from these lands. The nobles Pactlitzin and Chilchiunenetzin will be executed in private, and I shall leave their mode of execution to be determined by the noble ladies of the Texcóco court. All others found guilty by the lord justices are sentenced to be publicly executed by means of the icpacxochitl, with no recourse to Tlazolteotl beforehand. Their dead bodies, together with the remains of their victims, will be burned in a common pyre."

I rejoiced that little Cozcatl had been spared, but I felt sympathy for the other slaves and commoners. The icpacxochitl was the flower-enlaced garroting cord, which was bad enough.

But Nezahualpili had also denied them the solace of confessing to a priest of Tlazolteotl. It meant that their sins would not be swallowed by the goddess Filth Eater—and, since they would then be cremated together with their victims, they would bear their guilt all the way to whichever afterworld they went to, and they would continue to suffer unbearable remorse throughout eternity.

Cozcatl and I were escorted by our guards back to my chambers, and there one of the guards growled, "What is this?" On the outside of my apartment door, at the height of my head, was a sign—the slapped print of a bloody hand—silent reminder that I was not the only culprit who had escaped alive that day, a stark warning that Chimali did not intend to let his own bereavement go unavenged.

"Some tasteless prankster," I said, shrugging it off. "I will have my slave wash it clean."

Cozcatl took a sponge and a jar of water into the corridor while I waited, listening, just inside the door. It was not long before I heard Jadestone Doll being also returned to custody. I could not distinguish the sound of her tiny feet among the heavier tread of her escort, but when Cozcatl reentered with his jar of reddened water, he said:

"The lady came weeping, master. And with her guards came a priest of Tlazolteotl."

I mused, "If she is already confessing her sins to be swallowed, that means she has not much time." Indeed, she had very little. It was only shortly afterward that I heard her door open again, when she was taken to the last tryst of her life.

"Master," Cozcatl said timidly, "you and I are both outcasts now."

"Yes," I sighed.

"When we are banished..." He wrung his work-roughened little hands. "Will you take me? As your slave and servant?"

"Yes," I said, after thinking for some moments. "You have served me loyally, and I will not abandon you. But in truth, Cozcatl, I do not have the least idea where we shall be going."

The boy and I, kept in confinement, did not witness any of the executions. But I later learned the details of the punishment inflicted on the Lord Joy and the Lady Jadestone Doll, and those details may be of interest to Your Excellency.

The priest of Filth Eater did not even give the girl the opportunity to purge herself entirely to the goddess. In a pretense of kindness, he offered her a drink of chocolate—"to calm your nerves, my daughter"—in which he had mixed an infusion of the plant toloatzin, which is a powerful sleeping drug. Jadestone Doll was probably unconscious before she had recounted even the misdeeds of her tenth year, so she went to her death still burdened with much guilt.

She was carried to the palace maze of which I have spoken, and there she was stripped of all her clothes. Then the old gardener, who alone knew the secret paths, dragged her to the very center of the maze, where Pactli's corpse already lay.

The Lord Joy had earlier been delivered to the convicted kitchen workers, and they were commanded to do one last task before their own execution. Whether they first mercifully put Pactli to death, I do not know, but I doubt it, since they had little reason to feel kindly toward him. They flayed his whole body, except for his head and genitals, and they gutted him and hacked away the other flesh on his body. When all that remained was a skeleton—not a very clean skeleton, still festooned with shreds of raw meat—they used something, perhaps an inserted rod, to stiffen his tepúli erect. That grisly cadaver was taken to the maze while Jadestone Doll was still closeted with her priest.

The girl woke in the middle of the night, at the middle of the maze, to find herself naked and her tipíli snugly impaled, as in happier times, on a tumescent male organ. But her dilated pupils must quickly have adjusted to the pale moonlight, so that she saw the ghastly thing she was embracing.