“It was a mistake.”

“The priests do not make mistakes or beat a boy for a mistake.”

“They did this time. I was climbing the cliff…”

“Then it was no mistake that they beat you — it is forbidden to climb the cliff.”

“No, mother,” he said patiently, “it is not forbidden to climb the cliff — it is forbidden to climb the cliff to attempt to leave the valley, that is the law as Tezcatlipoca said it. But it is also permitted to climb the cliffs to the height of three men to take birds’ eggs, or for other important reasons. I was only two men high on the cliff and I was after birds’ eggs. That is the law.”

“If — that is the law, why were you beaten?” She sat back on her heels, frowning in concentration.

“They did not remember the law and did not agree with me and they had to look it up in the book which took a long tune — and when they did they found I was right and they were wrong.” He smiled, coldly. It was not a boy’s smile at all. “So then they beat me because I had argued with priests and set myself above them.”

“As so they should have.” She rose and poured some water from the jug to rinse her hands. “You must learn your place. You must not argue with priests.”

For almost all of his life Chimal had been hearing this, or words like it, and had long since learned that the best answer was no answer. Even when he worked hard to explain his thoughts and feelings his mother never understood. It was far better to keep these thoughts to himself.

Particularly since he had lied to everyone. He had been trying to climb the cliff; the birds’ eggs were just a ready excuse in case he were discovered.

“Stay here and eat,” Quiauh said, putting a child’s evening portion of two tortillas before him, dry, flat corn-cakes over a foot wide. “I will make atolli while you eat these.”

Chimal sprinkled salt on the tortilla and tore off a piece which he chewed on slowly, watching his mother through the open door of the house as she bent over the fire stones and stirred the pot. She was at ease now, the fear and the beating finished and forgotten, her typical Aztec features relaxed, with the firelight glinting from her golden hair and blue eyes. He felt very close to her; they had been alone in this house since his father had died when Chimal had been very young. Yet at the same time he felt so distant He could explain nothing to her about the things that troubled him.

He sat up to eat the atolli when his mother brought it to him, spooning up the corn gruel with a piece of tortilla. It was rich and filling, deliciously flavored with honey and hot chillies. His back was feeling better as were his arms: the bleeding had stopped where the skin had been broken by the whipping stick. He drank cool water from the small pot and looked up at the darkening sky. Above the cliffs, to the west, the sky was red as fire and against it soared the zopilote vultures, black silhouettes that vanished and reappeared. He watched until the light faded from the sky and they were gone. That was the spot where he started to climb the cliff; they were the reason he had climbed it.

The stars were out, sharp and sparkling in the clear air, while inside the house the familiar work noises had ceased. There was just a rustle as his mother unrolled her petlatl on the sleeping platform, then she called to him.

“It is time to sleep.”

“I’ll sleep here for awhile, the air is cool on my back.”

Her voice was troubled. “It is not right to sleep outside, everyone sleeps inside.”

“Just for a little while, no one can see me, then I will come in.”

She was silent after that but he lay on his side and watched the stars rise and wheel overhead and sleep would not come. The village was quiet and everyone was asleep and he thought again about the vultures.

He went over his plan once more, step by step, and could find no fault in it. Or rather one fault only — that a priest had happened to pass and had seen him. The rest of the plan had been perfect, even the law which permitted him to climb the wall had been as he remembered it. And the vultures did fly to the same spot on the cuff above. Day after day, and for as long as he remembered this had interested him and he had wanted to know why. It had bothered and annoyed him that he did not know the reason, until finally he had made his plan. After all — was not the vulture the totem of his clan? He had a right to know all that there was to know about them. No one else cared about it, that was certain. He had asked different people and most of them had not bothered to answer, just pushing him away when he persisted. Or if they had answered they had just shrugged or laughed and said that was the way vultures were and forgotten about it at once. They didn’t care, none of them cared at all. Not the children, especially the children, nor the adults or even the priests. But he cared.

He had had other questions, but he had stopped asking questions about things many years ago. Because unless the questions had simple answers that the people knew, or there were answers from the holy books that the priests knew, asking just made people angry. Then they would shout at him or even hit him, even though children were rarely struck, and it did not take Chimal long to discover that this was because they themselves did not know. Therefore he had to look for answers in his own way, like this matter with the vultures.

It had bothered him because although much was known about the vultures, there was one thing that was not known — or even thought about. Vultures ate carrion, everyone knew that, and he himself had seen them tearing at the carcasses of armadillos and birds. They nested in the sand, laid their eggs, raised their scruffy chicks here. That was all they did, there was nothing else to know about them.

Except — why did they always fly to that one certain spot on the cliff? His anger at not knowing, and at the people who would not help him or even listen to him, was rubbed raw by the pain of his recent whipping. He could not sleep or even sit still. He stood up, invisible in the darkness, opening and closing his fists. Then, almost without volition, he moved silently away from his home, threading his way through the sleeping houses of the village of Quilapa. Even though people did not walk about at night. It was not a taboo, just something that was not done. He did not care and felt bold in doing it. At the edge of the open desert he stopped, looked at the dark barrier of the cliffs and shivered. Should he go there now — and climb? Did he dare to do at night what he had been prevented from doing during the day? His feet answered for him, carrying him forward. It would certainly be easy enough since he had marked a fissure that seemed to run most of the way up to the ledge where the vultures sat. The mesquite tore at his legs when he left the path and made his way through the clumps of tall cacti. When he reached the field of maguey plants the going was easier, and he walked straight forward between their even rows until he reached the base of the cliff.

Only when he was there did he admit how afraid he was. He looked around carefully, but there was no one else to be seen and he had not been followed. The night air was cool on his body and he shivered: his arms and back still hurt. There would be bigger trouble if he were found climbing the cliff again, worse than a beating this time. He shivered harder and wrapped his arms about himself and was ashamed of his weakness. Quickly, before he could worry anymore and find a reason to turn back, he leaped against the rock until his fingers caught in the horizontal crack, then pulled himself up.

Once he was moving it was easier, he had to concentrate on finding the hand and toe holds he had used that morning and there was little time for thought. He passed the bird’s nest that he had raided and felt his only qualm. Now he was certainly higher than three men above the ground — but he was not trying to climb to the top of the cliff, so he could not really be said to be breaking the law… A piece of rock gave way under his fingers and he almost fell, his worries were instantly forgotten in the spurt of fear as he scrabbled for a new hold. He climbed higher.