"My scouts," said Kévari, tlatocapíli of the village of Yakóreke, "say that all the surviving pípiltin of the court of Tenochtítlan—and the heirs of those lords who did not survive—have been allowed to keep their family estates and property and lordly privileges. They have been most leniently treated by the conquerors."

"However, except for those few who are still accounted lords or nobles," said Teciuápil, chief of Tecuéxe, "there are no more pípiltin. Or working-class macehuáltin or even tlacótin slaves. All our people are now accounted equal. And all work at whatever the white men bid them do. So said my scouts."

"Only one of my scouts returned," said Tototl, headman of Tépiz. "He reports that the City of Mexíco is almost complete, except for a few very grand buildings still under construction. Of course there are no more temples to the old gods. But the marketplaces, he said, are thronged and thriving. That is why my other two scouts, a married couple, Netzlin and Citláli, chose to stay there and seek their fortune."

"I am not surprised," growled my Uncle Mixtzin, to whom the other chiefs had come to report. "Such peasant oafs would never before in their lives have seen any city. No wonder they report favorably on the new rulers. They are too ignorant to make comparisons."

"Ayya!" bleated Kévari. "At least we and our people made an effort to investigate, while you and your Aztéca sit lumpishly here in complacency."

"Kévari is right," said Teciuápil. "It was agreed that all of us leaders would convene, discuss what we have learned and then decide our course of action regarding the Caxtiltéca invaders. But all you do, Mixtzin, is scoff."

"Yes," said Tototl. "If you so disdainfully dismiss the honest efforts of our peasant oafs, Mixtzin, then send some of your educated and refined Aztéca. Or some of your tame Mexíca immigrants. We will postpone any decisions until they return."

"No," my uncle said, after a moment of deep thought. "Like those Mexíca who now live among us, I too once saw the city of Tenochtítlan when it stood in its zenith of might and glory. I shall go myself." He turned to me. "Tenamáxtli, make ready, and tell your mother to make ready. You and she will accompany me."

So that was the sequence of events that took the three of us journeying to the City of Mexíco—where I would get my uncle's reluctant permission to remain and reside for a time, and where I would learn many things, including the speaking of your Spanish tongue. However, I never took the time to learn the reading and writing of your language—which is why I am at this moment recounting my reminiscences to you, mi querida muchacha, mi inteligente y bellísima y adorada Verónica, so that you may set the words down for all my children and all our children's children to read someday.

And the culmination of that sequence of events was that my uncle, my mother and myself arrived in the City of Mexíco in the month of Panquétzalíztli, in the year Thirteen-Reed, what you would call Octubre, of the Año de Cristo one thousand five hundred thirty and one, on the very day—anyone but the prankish and capricious gods would have deemed it coincidence—that the old man Juan Damasceno was burned to death.

I can still see him burning.

  II

To govern Aztlan during his absence, Mixtzin appointed his daughter Améyatl and her consort Káuri as co-regents—with my great-grandfather Canaútli (who must have been nearly two sheaves of years old by then, but who evidently was going to live forever) to be their sage adviser. Then, without further ado, and without ceremonious leave-takings, Mixtzin and Cuicáni and I departed the city, heading southeastward.

It was the first time I had ever gone very far from the place where I had been born. So, although I was well aware of the serious intent of our venture, still, to me, the horizon was a wide and welcoming grin. It beckoned me to all manner of new sights and experiences. For instance, at Aztlan the dawn had always come late and in full-blown radiance, because it had first to clear the mountains inland of us. Now, when I had crossed those mountains into flatter country, I could really see the dawn breaking—or, rather, unfurling, one colored ribbon after another: violet, blue, pink, pearl, gold. Then the birds began to bubble over in greeting of the day, singing a music all of green notes. It was autumn, so there came no rains, but the sky was the color of wind, and through it wafted clouds that were always the same but never the same. The blowing, dancing trees were music visible, and the nodding, bowing flowers were prayers that said themselves. When twilight darkened the land, the flowers closed, but the stars opened in the sky. I have always been glad that those star blooms are out of the reach of men, else they would have been snatched and stolen long ago. At last, at nightfall, there arose the soft dove-colored mists, which I believe are the grateful sighs of the earth going tired to bed.

The journey was long—more than two hundred one-long-runs—because it could not be done in a direct, straight line of march. It was also sometimes arduous and frequently wearisome, but never really hazardous, because Mixtzin had traveled that route before. He had done that about fifteen years before, but he still remembered the shortest way across scorching patches of desert, and the easiest way to skirt around the bases of mountains instead of having to climb over them and the shallow places where we could ford rivers without having to wait and hope for someone to come by in an acáli. Often, though, we had to veer from the paths he remembered, to make a prudent circuit around parts of Michihuácan where, the local folk told us, there were still battles going on between the unrelenting Caxtiltéca and the proudly stubborn Purémpecha.

When, somewhere in the Tecpanéca lands, we did eventually begin to encounter an occasional white man and the animals called horses, and the other animals called cows and the other animals called staghounds, we did our best to assume an air of indifference, as if we had been accustomed to seeing them all our lives long. The white men seemed equally indifferent to our passing by, as if we too were only commonplace animals.

All along our way, Uncle Mixtzin kept pointing out to my mother and myself landmarks he recalled from his earlier journey—curiously shaped mountains; ponds of water too bitter to be drinkable, but so hot that they steamed even in the sun; trees and cactuses of sorts that did not grow where we lived, some of those bearing delicious fruits. He also kept up a commentary (though we had heard it all before, and more than once) on the difficulties of that earlier excursion toward Tenochtítlan:

"As you know, my men and I were rolling the giant carved stone disk representing the moon goddess Coyolxaúqui, taking it to present as a gift to the Revered Speaker Motecuzóma. A disk is round, true, and you might suppose it would roll easily along. But a disk is also flat on both faces. So an unexpected dip in the ground, or an unnoticed unevenness, could cause it to tilt sideways. And, though my men were sturdy and attentive to their labors, they could not always prevent the tilted stone from falling completely on its back or sometimes, grievous to relate, the dear goddess would fall flat on her face. And heavy? To raise that thing up on edge again each time, I swear to Míctlan, required us to beg the aid of every other man we could find in the surrounding area..."

And Mixtzin would recollect, as he had done more than once before: "I might never even have got to meet the Uey-Tlatoáni Motecuzóma, because I was apprehended by his palace guards and very nearly imprisoned as a despoiler of the city. As you can imagine, all of us were filthy and fatigued by the time we arrived there, and our raiment was torn and tattered, so no doubt we did resemble savages who had wandered in from some wilderness. Also, Tenochtítlan was the first and only city we traversed that had fine stone-paved streets and causeways. It did not occur to us that our rolling the massive Moon Stone through those streets would so badly crunch and crush the elegant paving. But then the angry guards swooped down upon us..." and Mixtzin laughed at the memory.