"But, my lord," said Xococ, stricken. "Do you not wish my report on the Texcala battle?"

"What do you know about it? Except that you marched from here to there and home again? We will hear it from the Tequiua Mixtli, who fought in it. We said you are dismissed, Xococ. Go."

The knight gave me a hateful look and slithered backward from the room. I paid little notice, being myself in something of a daze. After having served in the army less than a month, I had already been promoted to a level that most men might have to fight many wars to attain. The rank of Tequiua, which means "beast of prey," was ordinarily awarded only to those who had slain or captured at least four enemies in battle.

I had approached that interview with Ahuítzotl rather less than eagerly—not knowing what to expect—since I had been so closely associated with the Uey-Tlatoani's late daughter and her downfall. But it seemed that he had not connected me with that scandal; there was some advantage in having a common name like Mixtli. I was relieved that he regarded me as benignly as his severe countenance would allow. Also, I was intrigued by his manner of speech. It was the first time I had ever heard a man alone refer to himself as "we" and "us."

"Nezahualpili's letter," he said, when he had perused it, "is considerably more flattering to you, young soldier, than it is to us. He sarcastically suggests that, next time, we send him some companies of belligerent scribblers like yourself, instead of blunt arrows like Xococ." Ahuítzotl smiled as well as he could, even more resembling the bear's head over his throne. "He also suggests that, with sufficient forces, this war could finally have subdued that obstreperous land of the Texcalteca. Do you agree?"

"I can hardly disagree, my lord, with an experienced commander like the Revered Speaker Nezahualpili. I know only that his tactics defeated one entire army in Texcala. If we could have pushed the siege, any subsequent defenses must have been weaker and weaker."

"You are a word knower," said Ahuítzotl. "Can you write out for us a detailed account of the dispositions and movements of the various forces engaged? With comprehensible maps?"

"Yes, my Lord Speaker. I can do that."

"Do it. You have six days before the temple dedication ceremonies get under way, when all work will cease and you will have the privilege of presenting your illustrious prisoner for his Flowery Death. Page, have the palace steward provide a suitable suite of rooms for this man, and all the working materials he requires. You are dismissed, Tequiua Mixtli."

My chambers were as commodious and comfortable as those I had enjoyed at Texcóco, and, since they were on the second floor, I had the advantage of skylight for my work. The palace steward offered me a servant, but I sent the page to find Cozcatl instead, and then sent Cozcatl to find us each a change of clothes, while I bathed and steamed myself, several times over.

First I drew the map. It occupied many folded pages and opened to considerable length. I began it with the city symbol of Texcóco, then put the little black footprints showing the route of our journey eastward from there, with the stylized drawings of mountains and such to mark each of our overnight stops, and finally put the symbol for river, where the battle had been joined. There I placed the universally recognized symbol of overwhelming victory: the drawing of a burning temple—though in actuality we had not seen or destroyed any teocali—and the symbol of our taking prisoners: a drawing of one warrior clutching another by the hair. Then I drew the footprints, alternately black and red, to indicate captors and captives, tracing our westward march to Tenochtítlan.

Never leaving my chambers, taking all my meals there, I completed the map in two days. Then I started on the more complex account of the Texcalteca and Acolhua strategy and tactics, at least insofar as I had observed and understood them. One midday Cozcatl came into my sunny workroom and asked leave to interrupt me.

He said, "Master, a large canoe has arrived from Texcóco and is moored in the courtyard garden. The steersman says it brings belongings of yours."

I was happy to hear it. When I left Nezahualpili's palace to join the muster of troops, I had not felt it would be right to take with me any of the fine clothes and other gifts bestowed on me in the time before my banishment. In any case, I could hardly have carried them to war. So, although Cozcatl had borrowed garments for us to wear, neither he nor I actually possessed anything but the now extremely disreputable loincloths, sandals, and heavy tlamaitin we had worn to war and back again. I told the boy:

"It is a thoughtful gesture, and we probably have the Lady of Tolan to thank for it. I hope she sent your own wardrobe as well. Get a palace tamémi to help you bring the bundle here."

When he came back upstairs, accompanied by the boat's steersman and a whole train of laboring tamémime, I was so surprised that I forgot my work utterly. I had never owned the quantity of goods that the porters brought and stacked in my chambers. One large and one small bundle, neatly bound in protective matting, were recognizable. My clothes and other belongings were in the larger, even including my memento of my late sister, her little figurine of the goddess Xochiquetzal. Cozcatl's clothes were in the smaller bundle. But the other bales and packages I could not account for, and I protested that there must have been some mistake in the delivery.

The steersman said, "My lord, every one is tagged. Is not that your name?"

It was so. Each separate bundle carried a securely attached piece of bark paper on which was inscribed my name. There were many Mixtlis in these parts, and more than a few Tlilectic-Mixtlis. But those tags bore my full name: Chicome-Xochitl Tlilectic-Mixtli. I asked everyone present to help open the wrappings, so that, if the contents did prove to have been misaddressed, the workers could help repack them for return. And if I had been bewildered before, I was soon astounded.

One bale of fiber matting opened to reveal a neat stack of forty men's mantles of the finest cotton, richly embroidered. Another contained the same number of women's skirts, colored crimson with that costly dye extracted from insects. Another bale yielded the same number of women's blouses, intricately hand worked in an open filigree so that they were all but transparent. Still another bundle contained a bolt of woven cotton which, if we had unfolded it, would have been a cloth two-arms-spread wide and perhaps two hundred paces long. Though the cotton was an unadorned white, it was seamless and therefore priceless, just for the work—possibly years of work—some dedicated weaver had put into the weaving of it. The heaviest bale proved to contain chunks of itztetl, rough and unworked obsidian rocks.

The three lightest bundles were the most valuable of all, for they contained not tradeable goods but trade currency. One was a sack of two or three thousand cacao beans. Another was a sack of two or three hundred of the pieces of tin and copper, shaped like miniature hatchet blades, each of which was worth eight hundred cacao beans. The third was a cluster of four feather quills, each translucent quill stoppered with a dab of óli gum and filled with gleaming pure gold dust.

I said to the boatman, "I wish it was not a mistake, but it clearly is. Take it back. This fortune must belong to Nezahualpili's treasury."

"It does not," he said stubbornly. "It was the Revered Speaker himself who bade me bring this, and he saw it loaded in my craft. All I am to take back is a message saying it was safely delivered. With your signature symbols, my lord, if you please."