A Man of Honor, a Man of Passion

by Sam Leo

Xochitl made another turn, caught his eye, and smiled at him richly. Obviously, she was enjoying the dance. Thinking back over the past several months, to the events that had led up to her performance here, he sighed. A year before, a poor season--unusually heavy rains in the tropics--had come close to ruining his business, his usually successful business in marketing the rare plumes used in the nobles' formal costumes and in the ceremonial costumes. Two attempted trips into the lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula had been turned back because of mud, fallen trees, and swollen rivers, forcing him to return home empty-handed. He'd waited, then, until he had word from the South that the way had cleared before planning another, but he had problems, serious ones. For such journeys it was necessary to hire workers or buy slaves to carry goods, and it was also prudent, at the very least, to hire a few mercenary warriors to guard against the possibility of encountering wandering war parties from hostile cities or being set upon and robbed by common brigands.

Quetzalpantli's problem was, of course, that he'd used his available stock of tilmatls--cloaks or mantles, the de facto economic standard among the peoples of the Anahuac--and his jades, his gold, and his gems to finance the previous two trips. Since he'd returned empty-handed, all he had left was his stock of cocoa beans--the general exchange currency for all the peoples of Mesoamerica--which he needed to pay the suppliers for the stock. He had nothing left over, no excess, and thus no way to finance another trip.

Among his people--the Acolhua, the people of Texcoco, the city across the lake from the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan, the city of the famed Aztec "poet-king" Nezhualcoyotl--there were no lending institutions as such, nor were there any among the other peoples of Mesoamerica. Instead, it was usual for a family to sell one of its members--a husband or wife to sell his or her spouse, parents to sell one of their children, or even children to sell a parent--into slavery during times of hardship. This was in effect a secured loan, though, since everywhere in the Anahuac, it was the law that such a person could, at any time, be purchased back by his or her original seller for the same price he'd received for him or her in the first place.

For Quetzalpantli and Xochitl, this seemed to be the only answer. Married only a little over a year and without children as yet, and with their parents still caring for younger siblings in their homes, they had no choice but to consider selling each other into slavery. Very much in love, very close to each other, they'd been slow to come to this discussion and reluctant to consider it, but their situation left them very little choice.

Quetzalpantli had at first proposed that Xochitl sell him, but he understood the absurdity of this even before she'd pointed it out. He'd had the business long before they'd been married, and she had not gone on his buying trips with him; she didn't know the sellers, and, although she often helped him in the marketplace, she didn't know the merchandise well enough yet to run the business by herself.

"No, you have to sell me," she'd told him. "I'll spend six months or a year in slavery and then the business will be back to normal, and you can buy me back."

He'd stared at her sourly as she spoke. Xochitl was an exceptionally beautiful woman. Not a day passed without some friend or customer of Quetzalpantli's telling him how fortunate he was to have such a beautiful wife. "You'll be sold to some noble as a concubine," he'd pointed out. "And it won't take long. You'll fetch a very good price, the trader I sell you to will make a nice profit on you."

She'd smiled. She was aware that she was widely considered to be beautiful, but she always behaved as if she didn't quite believe it. "You think so?"

"I know so!"

"Perhaps not. I am a skilled weaver and I can read the sacred books. Perhaps I'll be bought by a maker of textiles and put to work at a loom. Perhaps a scribe will buy me."

"Every woman in the Anahuac," he'd grumbled, "can weave. Not all as well as you, no. As for a scribe buying you, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I've never seen a scribe's slave who wasn't a lame old man who could be purchased for a handful of green chilis. Scribes cannot afford to buy beautiful women who can be sold as concubines for many mantles!"

"You are not objective, my husband. You love me, and thus I look beautiful to you, as you do to me. Others may not find me that comely."

"Oh, yes they do," he'd countered. "Take my word for it!"

She'd waved a hand dismissively. "Well, a slave does not have a choice about her duties once she's sold, she must do as her master commands. If I were to be sold as a concubine, it won't matter. I'll use the herbs that keep a woman from conceiving. There'll be nothing to prevent you from buying me back whenever you wish, you will not have to wait until after I've borne some other man's child."

"Perhaps," he'd said, "I'd be jealous."

Surprised, she'd stared at him. "Jealous! Why?"

"You," he'd told her, "are the most beautiful woman in our district. Perhaps in the city; everyone says so. Perhaps I don't want to share you." He'd looked away. "It might not be with just one man, either. If a noble buys you, he could offer you as a welcome to his guests from other cities."

She'd nodded. "That's so," she'd agreed. "But Quetzalpantli--you would not share the love I have for you with them. If I am sold as a concubine, if I am offered as a welcome to a visitor, I will please those men with my hands, with my mouth and with my jadestone doll, yes. But my love I keep for you, and you alone. Until you come for me again..."

He'd twisted his mouth. "I wish," she said stiffly, "you wouldn't refer to it as 'jadestone doll.' That's a term that--"

She'd cut him off with laughter, and she'd put a hand between her legs. "You'd rather I called it my chimney?"

"You could use the right word--cihuapilli."

"Too formal," she'd said dismissively. "But enough of this. We have no choice. You must sell me."

They'd argued on for a while, but, finally and reluctantly, he'd agreed--if for no other reason than the fact that he wanted to make love to her, urgently, and he knew this would be their last time together for a while. The next day, he'd taken her to the slave trader in the great marketplace at Tlatelolco, the market that was used by the citizens of Texcoco and Tenochtitlan alike. He'd gotten an excellent price for her--twenty mantles--and, after the sale, he'd thrown himself into his work, intent on rebuilding the business and buying her back as soon as possible. Immediately he scheduled a trip to the tropics, and he was gone for a month--but he made enough to feel he was already on the road to recovery. On his return, he considered going to the slave trader to ask if Xochitl had been sold again, and to whom. It wasn't an unheard of question, but, unless one was prepared to buy the slave back, it annoyed the traders, it was considered rude--and, in the end, he did not do it. That didn't mean he didn't wonder, that he didn't think about her and worry about her.

But Quetzalpantli had other duties besides his occupation as procurer and seller of plumes. He'd been trained at the Calmecac, the school for priests; upon his graduation, as was his right, he'd decided to become a merchant rather than a priest. That did not mean, however, that he did not have duties related to his education. One such duty, of course, was the acquisition of the plumes and feathers used in the various ceremonial costumes; his other role was in the training of those who'd been chosen by the priests and priestesses to play the various roles in the ceremonies. These roles were often complex, it took weeks or even months to teach the chosen ones--the ixiptlas, the ones who would impersonate the gods or goddesses and were believed to actually become that god or goddess at the moment of the sacrifice--and the other performers the dances and songs, the words they were expected to speak, the actions they were expected to take.

It was then the fourth month, the month of Uei Tocoztli. During this time, a young girl representing Chicomecoatl--the goddess of growing crops--was to give her service. In the main, this particular ceremony was without human sacrifice--the center of it was the making of a model of a female body out of cornmeal and amaranth dough, which was richly decorated with jewels and adornment and was then sung to and danced around, and which led directly into the serpentine dances of Toxcatl, the fifth month.

But, away from the main square in Texcoco, the tlamacazques--priests--of the temple of Chicomecoatl and the major growers celebrated a parallel rite, a ritual that mimicked the main one and ended with the sacrifice of a girl who was the ixiplta, the representative, of the goddess. A little more than a month before the time of Uei Tocoztli, the priests of Chicomecoatl sent for Quetzalpantli, letting him know that his services were needed in the training of the girl. Leaving his feather-business in the hands of one of his assistants, he'd gone to the temple and there had been introduced to his student, a charming girl whose name, Nanotzin, marked her as a member of the nobility. For this particular ritual this was normal; the ixiplta of Chicomecoatl was chosen from among the daughters of the most powerful growers, most of whom had been granted entry into the nobility by the tlatoani--the "speaker," the man who was as close to a "king" as these cities had.

In principle, this ixiptla was to be the most physically attractive unmarried girl to be found among the families of the growers. In years passed, Quetzalpantli had often wondered if the more attractive maidens hadn't been swiftly married off as the time approached, but this time there wasn't a reason to doubt that the principle had been adhered to. Nanotzin was very lovely, with especially impressive thick black hair.

She was also, just as obviously, terrified. That, he told himself as he was introduced to her, was going to be his first job--to get her past her fear. Beginning immediately, he'd sent the priests away and started talking to her.

Part of the problem was, her selection as the ixiptla had come as a total surprise to her; she told him it had never even occurred to her that she might be selected. Not because she'd felt in any way exempt--the families of all the growers knew about this ceremony--but because she'd never seen herself in any sense as "comely." One moment, she told him, she was a child, playing with her dolls and learning the womanly arts of weaving, and the next she was a woman and had been selected to die on the altar.

"You perhaps feel," he told her, "as if you have been condemned. As if you're some criminal, as if you've done something terribly wrong and the city demands your life."

"I do and I don't," she answered, fighting back tears. "I am afraid, I cannot help it. And yet I do not want to dishonor my family." She shook her head sadly. "I cannot understand why the tlamacazques--the priests--chose me."

"There's more to it than that," he'd explained. "In the Calmecac, we are taught that the invisible hands and eyes of Tezcatlipoca, patron of our city and our people, guides the hands and eyes of the priests as they choose the performers for the ceremony. And so, you were not chosen by the priests, not really; you were chosen by Tezcatlipoca himself. He is the one who thinks you are the perfect vessel for the goddess. If you surrender to your fear, if you cannot carry out your obligations as the ixiptla, you are rejecting his decision, you are saying that he made a mistake."

The Teteo, the gods and goddesses, were as much a living presence to her as they were to practically all the citizens of the Anahuac. "I'd never say that!" she exclaimed.

He laid his hand on her arm. "Then you must accept that you are the perfect choice to be the vessel of Chicomecoatl. When you accept that, you will be able to dance as she might dance, sing as she would sing. You--"

"And die as she would die?" the girl asked, interrupting.

"No," Quetzalpantli told her with a smile. "That you do not have to do. You have to go to the altar as she would, lie across it as she would. Once the tecpatl--the sacrificial knife--enters your body, she will enter as well; it will be her, not you, who dies."

Nanotzin studied his eyes. "Yes," she agreed. "So I have learned. Does this mean, O teacher, that she will--will--will make sure I do not do anything--wrong then?"

"No," he answered, "it does not mean that. It will be easier for you to do what you must because she will be with you at that moment, but that doesn't mean you do not need to control yourself! On these matters you need to think, you need to focus and dedicate yourself. You should not cry out when the tecpatl enters your chest, you should not struggle against the priests. Ideally, you should give no sign of your pain at all, but few can do that."

She nodded. "I will think on these matters, teacher," she said. "I will think, I will dedicate myself, and when the time comes I hope I can do well..."

He grinned at her and squeezed her arm. "I think," he told her, "that you've made a good start already."

"I don't know... I'm still afraid..."

"You haven't had time yet," he replied, "to accept the ideas. For now, I suggest you concentrate on your lessons, on learning your dance steps."

"I always loved to dance... dancing is fun..."

"Then come," he said with a big smile. "Let's have fun!"

In spite of her fears, Nanotzin was able to throw herself into learning the dance she was expected to do, and, for the rest of that day and for several days to come, she wasn't having a problem with her fate. As the appointed day grew closer, she told Quetzalpantli that she believed she was conquering her fear. She was beginning to believe in herself, he told her, beginning to believe that she would be able to keep herself under control as long as was necessary during the ceremony.

And, at last, the day of the ceremony arrived. With considerable satisfaction Quetzalpantli watched as Nanotzin, carrying in each hand a double ear of maize and dressed all in red. She wore a bright red cueitl and huipilli--blouse and skirt, both of them delicately embroidered in leaf-green. On her head was a red crown, and she carried a shield trimmed with red feathers on her arm as she danced around the spacious courtyard behind the temple. Four warriors danced around her, just as, in the main square, warriors danced around the vegetable model of the goddess that had been made. If she was still fearful, she showed no sign of it at all. Her face was expressionless, as it should have been.

Finally, she laid her double ears of corn on the ground, one in the east, one in the west, and a fourfold note was blown on the conch-shell horns. As if she were an enemy, the four warriors rushed at her; she, as she was supposed to, made a ritual effort to evade them, running off to the south. Before she'd gotten far, though, they caught her, one of them seizing her by her hair and forcing her, though not at all roughly, to the ground. Once she was kneeling, the four men picked her up bodily and carried her back to the north, where a broad, flat stone, rectangular in shape and eight feet long, stood. They placed her on it, and she was smiling as the warriors began stripping off her finery, beginning with her cueitl--her skirt--and leaving her naked below her waist. Methodically, they removed every piece of clothing she was wearing except for her red-painted and red-plumed crown; while they were stripping her, a line of priests, led by the chief priest--the one who was always named "Quetzalcoatl"--slowly circled the ceremonial area clockwise from the east and moved to the stone. The priest Quetzalcoatl carried a small white pillow, and on it lay a freshly-flaked tecpatl--an obsidian sacrificial knife.

Once the girl was totally naked, the warriors placed a large cotton bag filled with cornmeal on the stone. Without being directed to do so, Nanotzin scooted around until she was sitting in front of it; then she laid back, lying with her back on the bag so that the center of her body was arched slightly upwards. Her eyes were open and there appeared to be just a trace of a smile on her lips as she spread her legs slightly and raised her arms above her head. Four of the priests, arraying themselves near the corners of the stone slab, took hold of her wrists and ankles, pulling her arms and legs out taut. Another held her head. A sixth, the priest Quetzalcoatl, stood beside the stone, removed the tecpatl from the little pillow, and showed it to the girl. A flash of fear crossed her features, but, to Quetzalpantli's gratification, it lasted only an instant and she did not act on it in any way. The priest then moved the knife down, holding it so that it was pointing down at her chest; the point wasn't ten inches above her body.

Then he stabbed downward with it, a soft, almost gentle, stroke. It struck her left breast under the nipple, and it was so sharp it sank effortlessly into her body, four inches of it passing into her before it stopped. More than anything else, Nanotzin looked startled, as if she hadn't expected the experience to be what it was. The elliptical knife had pierced her breast very cleanly but it had gone in past its widest point, and her blood was streaming out, flowing over her side and spreading in a pool on the stone.

The priest Quetzalcoatl then moved it downward around her side, the fineness of the edge allowing the blade to part the skin and muscle as easily as it might've parted the dough that made up the body of the other image of Chicomecoatl, the one being honored in the main square. Quetzalpantli watched Nanotzin's face; the priest was slicing an opening six inches long and a couple of inches deep in her side, her blood was gushing out in a red river, but her reactions were muted, subdued, as if there was only a little pain involved. This he'd seen before, in other offerings, at other times. The sharpness of the blade, the fact that no force at all was needed to open her chest, meant there was very little pain for her at the moment.

But that was about to change. The priest turned the knife to the side, using its width to spread her ribs apart. A shocked look crossed her features as he did this, and it was replaced almost immediately by a quick grimace of agony when he reached inside and tore her heart free. It didn't last long; even as the priest was pulling her still-beating heart out of her body, her expression had shifted to one of wonder--wonder that might still have been mixed with fear, fear of her own death, now only seconds away.

Carefully, reverentially, the priest Quetzalcoatl dropped the heart into the bluestone bowl that his assistant, the priest named "Cihuacoatl," had waiting for it. As they always did, the heart kept squirming around in there for a few seconds, still trying to beat but now out of sync. In the priest's hands it had looked like it was trying to escape, and Quetzalpantli had certainly been told often enough, during his training at the Calmecac, that you had to hold living hearts tightly or they would escape. He'd even seen it happen once during the rite of Teotl Eco, when a warrior's heart leapt from the priest's hands and bounced around atop the pyramid as if trying to find its former owner. The priests were obligated to chase it down and capture it, and it was a comical scene; a freshly-extracted heart is slippery with blood and very active, grabbing it once it's free is not easy.

Nanotzin's heart looked like it was trying to return to her as well. It kept pushing up against the side of the bowl as if it were about to crawl out of it. On the stone, the girl had already drawn her final breath; Her body had spasmed twice, her bladder had released water onto the stone, and by now her head was shaking without coordination as her pupils began to expand to fill her now-sightless eyes. At last she relaxed, and just as she did her heart pumped one final time and then laid still and lifeless in the bowl. It was over; laborers would now come for the body, which would provide meat for the feast to be held in honor of Chicomecoatl later that evening. He would, as he had many times before, take part in that feast. Like everyone else he was aware that the body he was eating was that of the goddess Chicomecoatl herself, not the body of the girl Nanotzin. He left the ceremonial area feeling pleased with himself. The whole rite had gone perfectly, Nanotzin had in the end given her service in exemplary fashion.

The days slipped by. He made another trip, this time a shorter one to the lowlands around Tepoztlan, and his profits were excellent. Not long after his return from this one, he was notified by an apprentice from the temple of Tlaloc that his services as a teacher were to be required again, this time for the ritual honoring Huixtocihuatl, goddess of the sea, which took place during the seventh month, the month of Tecuilhuitontli--at that time only a few weeks away. That next morning, he'd gone to the ceremonial ground near the Calmecac where the training would take place, where he was supposed to meet the woman who'd been chosen to play the role of Huixtocihuatl and the four girls who would play the roles of her "fundament."

Arriving early, he sat on one of the stone benches chatting with one of his former teachers while he waited for the priests to bring his students in. The four girls who were to play the secondary roles were brought in first, and he looked them over with a critical eye. The choices, he had to admit, were excellent; all four girls were young, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and they looked it, as was appropriate to their roles. They were all attractive, they had open, innocent faces, and fine slim bodies. He greeted them and congratulated them on being among the Chosen. He explained that they had a circle dance to learn, but, although some of the steps were complex, it was a follow-the-leader affair, and the leader was to be the woman who would impersonate Huixtocihuatl herself--this woman had much more to learn.

"And she is here," a voice from behind him, a priest's voice, announced. He turned--and his eyes went wide. The woman standing there, being presented to him, was his wife, Itzacxochitl.

"Hello, husband," she said demurely. "I trust the business is recovering well?"

He sputtered for a moment. "You?" he demanded. "You? You have been chosen to be the ixiptla?" She nodded. He started to say something else, but found himself speechless.

"Is there a problem with the choice, teacher?" the priest who was presenting her asked. He looked concerned.

Xochitl answered for him. "The teacher," she explained, "is my husband. He did not know I was the chosen, nor did I know he was to be my teacher. My Lord, could you give us a moment to speak together?"

"Certainly," the priest said. If anything, he looked more worried than ever. Xochitl nodded an acknowledgment and took Quetzalpantli by his arm, guiding him to a bench across the ceremonial ground. She sat down, then pulled him down beside her. He gazed at her for a long moment. She was dressed in a simple white huipilli--blouse--bearing blue markings like waves, a similarly decorated cueitl--calf-length skirt--and she was barefoot. Her hair was freshly washed and combed, and she wore jade earrings and a jade necklace. She looked even more beautiful than he remembered--if that were possible.

"Quetzalpantli, you knew when you sold me into slavery that it was possible that I would become Chosen," she opened. "Those who are Chosen are often slaves purchased by the priests..."

Looking down at his feet, he nodded. "I did know. I trusted to my patron, Quetzalcoatl, that it would not happen."

"But it has. And now--"

He raised his head and looked at her. "You could have refused!" he said, almost harshly. "It is your right, it still is!"

She might've been shocked by such a question--certainly the majority of the citizens of the Anahuac would've been, and it was certainly not something he'd been taught to even mention to his students, though everyone knew it--but she didn't seem to be, she just nodded. "Yes. And it is your right, as my teacher, to declare me unsuitable. You can say that I dance poorly. If you do, another will be chosen. No one will ask a question of you."

"No. No one will."

She touched his arm lightly, affectionately. "Will you do that, husband?"

"I--"

"Will you do that? Will you deny me my chance to do my service, my chance to be honored? Will you deny me the road to the House of the Sun?"

He looked down at his sandals again. "No," he almost whispered. "But I--I do not want-- Xochitl, I have dreamed of the moment when I could buy you back, when we could be together again!" As he spoke the words he realized how weak they sounded, but he did not, at the moment, know what else to say.

"And now we are," she pointed out. "I know it is not usual, but the teacher has the right of keeping a student with him until the day of the ceremony. Most of the time, anyway." She looked down. "I do still have an owner, you know... I am owned by the priests now..."

"And I will exercise that right," he told her. He glanced at her quickly. "Even though it is not truly necessary, that's usually done only when a performer has difficulty learning her part, and I really don't expect you to have any such troubles..." His voice faded away. "But Xochitl--on the day of that ceremony--"

She nodded again. "Yes. I know. I will walk up the stair of the pyramid of Tlaloc, and there I will give my service, there the priests will end my life. I--"

"I don't want you to die, Xochitl!"

She squeezed his arm. "But this is the best way I could possibly hope for, husband. And I, like all men and women, must die someday."

"I know, I know..."

Sensing that he was weakening, that there wasn't going to be a problem, she leaned over and gave him a quick hug. "Then let the lessons begin, husband. I want to learn my part perfectly, I want my performance to be the best anyone has ever seen!"

"You have," he told her grumpily, "the right attitude, at least. Very well. Let us begin." They rose from the bench, returned to the priest--who was waiting and who was still looking anxious--and assured him that there wasn't a problem. The priest, relieved, departed; Quetzalpantli gathered Xochitl and the four other girls around him. His first step was to use his knife to cut slits in their skirts, from the bottom all the way up to their hips, explaining as he did that their legs needed freedom for the dance steps, freedom the long and narrow cueitls did not allow. Once that was done, he began showing them the steps that would be used in the main dance, the circle dance--the one that would be performed at the end of the ceremony, the one that would be followed by the climb up the pyramid.

For the remainder of the day, he worked with them on their dance steps, concentrating on the circle dance and getting to know the four girls. One of the younger girls, an 18-year-old named Ce Atl, showed considerable aptitude for this. An enthusiastic student, she was also a fun-loving girl, she always had a mischievous grin on her face and she was always quick with a jest whenever she made a mistake.

"I was sold into slavery by my father," she told Quetzalpantli during one of their rest breaks. "He is a grower of cotton, and during a drought year he fell onto hard times, he was forced to sell me, or my brother, or my mother. My brother is a warrior, though, and he was just then going off to fight the Xochiyaoyotl, the 'flower wars,' with the men of Tlaxcala." She glowed with pride. "He brought back three captives!"

Quetzalpantli nodded; like every other citizen of Texcoco, he was familiar with the "flower wars." By agreement among the nobles of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlaxcala, their warriors often met, at scheduled times, on the battlefield. There were no objectives to be met, no goals like taking territory, and, although men were often killed in the fights, no intent to destroy the opposing army. The purpose was simply for the warriors to take captives, captives that would later do service on the sacrificial stone. The battles were often long and hard; there was no better way for a warrior to advance himself in the army that by taking captives, and most of them were more than ready to risk their lives to take one.

"And I suppose you were resold almost immediately?" Quetzalpantli asked. He knew that, like Xochitl, this young and beautiful girl would not have remained in the slave-trader's stable long.

"Yes," she answered. "The priests bought me the next day." She smiled. "I think my father was disappointed. He'd hoped to buy me back, he'd hoped I'd marry another grower." She shrugged. "But the priests bought me, and I was assigned to the Telpuchcalli, and I have been doing my duty there for two years."

Quetzalpantli nodded. He knew what this meant, and he knew why Atl's father had been disappointed. The girls purchased for and assigned to the Telpuchcalli--the school for warriors, the military academy--had the duty of keeping the sexual urges of the young warriors satisfied. As such, they were believed to accumulate, in their bodies, the Power these young men possessed; because of this, such girls were virtually always designated for sacrifice. For the most part they were dedicated to Tlazolteotl, goddess of the moon, goddess of lust; but they could be assigned to other service, as Atl obviously had been.

"I can understand your father's feelings," Quetzalpantli said. "Very well, in fact."

"I can't," she declared. "To serve in the Telpuchcalli is a great honor." She giggled. "It's a lot of fun, too! All those handsome young men, a different one in my bed each night..." Pausing, she looked at Quetzalpantli's face and saw that he was not returning her grin. "You are still not comfortable," she observed, "with your wife being the ixiptla."

He shook his head. "No. I love her, and I will miss her. Badly."

Atl's dark eyes were sympathetic. "And yet," she observed, "you have not declared her to be unsuitable. As you could, in your role as her teacher." She looked up; a short distance away, Xochitl was practicing her steps. "Although she isn't unsuitable, that is very obvious..."

"No, she isn't. She's perfect, in fact. And I should have realized that when I sold her." He sighed, and went on to explain that their circumstances in being forced to sell her into slavery were very similar to Atl's own condition.

"You are a man of honor, teacher," Atl said when he'd finished. "For your own selfish interests you could prevent her sacrifice but you choose not to. That is honorable, that is admirable. I am not sure my father would do the same were he in your position."

"I do not know him," Quetzalpantli countered, "but I think he would. To have raised such a daughter as you, he must be a good man."

"You honor me, teacher." Her eyes flashed with excitement. "Ah, with such performers as these and such a teacher as you, this will be the finest celebration of Tecuilhuitontli in many years!"

Quetzalpantli stood up. "I mean to ensure," he told her, "that it will be. Let's get back to work now."

During the other breaks, he came to know something of the other three girls as well. The eldest, a tall slender girl with unusually long slim legs whose name was Macuilli Mazatl and who was already a trained dancer, had volunteered herself for the sacrifice. Her decision, she told Quetzalpantli, was based on dreams she'd had. In those dreams, she said, she found herself on the battlefield; she'd had the dream over and over and it always ended the same way--she went down with a dart in her left chest. When she had this dream for the fourth time, she'd known it was meaningful, and she'd gone to the priestess-seers at the temple of Tlazolteotl for consultations.

Initially, they'd advised her to go to the Telpuchcalli and begin training as a woman warrior, an avocation that, while not usual among the peoples of the Anahuac, wasn't terribly rare, either. They had accepted her, and for a year she'd trained as a fighter. In many ways she showed considerable aptitude for it; she was graceful, quick, and courageous. Her problems were twofold; she lacked the arm strength to wield the macuahuitls, heavy wood-and-obsidian swords the warriors used, and, though she'd become skilled with dart and atlatl, her range with the weapon was limited for the same reason.

The second reason was that she was a strikingly lovely girl, and, when she stripped down to a male-style maxtlatl--a loincloth--for training, her charms were a distraction. Distracting her opponent certainly worked in her favor, and she told Quetzalpantli with a grin that, in the mock battles with cotton-edged macuahuitls, she'd learned to use it effectively, drawing praise from her teachers. A problem arose because she also distracted the men in her own group, causing them to be less effective than they otherwise might have been. This, her teachers told her, was truly the mens' problem and not hers, but they worried about her inability to use standard weapons.

That had led her to go back to the seers, and they'd told her that while they believed her tonal, her destiny, was death on the battlefield, a death on the altar was much the same thing. Heeding their words, she had, on the spot, volunteered herself and dedicated herself to the sacrifice. That, she told Quetzalpantli, had taken place only two months previously; she'd been living in the house of the priests of Tlazolteotl since then.

The other two girls were war-captives. Matlactli Calli was Tlaxcalan, taken when she'd strayed too close to the battlefield during one of the "flower wars" and had been discovered by a band of Mexica warriors. They'd taken her back to Tenochtitlan where she was offered a position as a concubine in the household of one of the nobles. She'd declined this, insisting instead on her right as a war-captive to be sacrificed, and she'd been purchased by the Texcocan priests for that purpose from the Mexica. She was concerned that the Mexica warrior who'd actually captured her might not be at the ceremony where she was to give her service, but Quetzalpantli assured her that the man would be notified of the event.

The fourth girl, whose name was Xaratanga, wasn't an Aztec at all; she was of the Tarascan people, from Michocan in the west, taken in one of the fights the Mexica and Acolhua had had with those people, fights they were losing with alarming regularity. That she wasn't from one of the Seven Tribes of Aztlan was apparent to Quetzalpantli immediately. Instead of the blouses and calf-length skirts the women of Texcoco and Tenochtitlan normally wore, she wore the traditional dress of the Tarascan women--a very short wrap-around skirt that left her entire upper body, her thighs, and even her buttocks, bare. In the course of her captivity she'd learned enough Nahuatl to understand most of Quetzalpantli's instruction, but her own speech was slow and halting and there were times when something had to be explained in detail or demonstrated. She was, however, an apt pupil, quick and eager to learn--especially after she'd been told she was to be sacrificed to the sea-goddess, a deity even more honored in Michoacan than in the Anahuac.

They worked hard, the day passed quickly, and Quetzalpantli felt the progress the performers were making was more than adequate. As the sun sank toward the hills in the west, he informed the priests in charge of the girls that he'd be taking Xochitl home with him that night. As expected, they did not object or even comment. Once they were home, Quetzalpantli was almost able to forget about what the future held, he was so delighted to have her back.

But Xochitl hadn't forgotten. As soon as they'd eaten, he'd been eager to get her into bed, and she'd seemed just as eager. But, as they caressed each other in foreplay, she got a faraway look in her eyes and began talking.

"Quetzalpantli, you have witnessed the ceremony of Tecuilhuitontli from the top of the pyramid, have you not?"

His hand on her breast, he nodded. "Yes," he answered.

"I have not," she admitted. "I have seen it only from the square below." She was holding his penis in her hand, and she squeezed it slightly as she spoke. 'Tell me," she whispered, "what happens up there. Tell me what's to be done to me..."

"The ixiptla," he told her, "should not know all the details of what's to happen to her when she gives her service."

"Surely you can tell me something!" She looked off to her left. "I have seen," she said, "how the blood spouts upwards, how it spouts high, when the ixiptla of Huixtocihuatl is sacrificed. I do not see that in many other ceremonies..."

He caressed her soft smooth chest over her heart. "Yes... that is so..."

She looked down at his hand. "Is that where they'll... put the knife in me?"

There wasn't a reason not to answer that. "Yes," he acknowledged. He touched a spot below her left nipple, a little to the left of where he'd been touching her originally. "Right here."

She kept looking at the spot. "I've often wondered," she said, "as I watched the ceremonies, how I would feel if I were one of the sacrifices. If I'd be afraid." She glanced up at him. "I find," she said slowly, "that I'm not afraid..."

He bit back the words he wanted to speak. I am, he wanted to tell her. I am. I don't want to see that day come, I don't want to lose you forever... "That's good," he said at last. The voice, the manner, was that of Quetzalpantli the teacher, not of Quetzalpantli her lover. "The ixiptla should not be fearful..."

"I do worry," she went on, laying her hand over his, "about the pain... not about experiencing it but about controlling it... I know I should not cry out, I know I should not struggle..."

Quetzalpantli her lover was near tears, but Quetzalpantli the teacher remained in the foreground and, at the moment, managed to keep him under control. "This is something you must concentrate on," he told her. "Because, for you, there will be pain, yes. The tecpatl, the obsidian sacrificial knife, that they use in the ceremony for Huixtocihuatl is not a fresh new one. They use the same one that has been used in the ceremony of Atlcoualco, in the offering to Tlaloc."

"Why does that matter?"

She would not know this, he told himself, she had no reason to know. She was neither priest nor warrior. "Obsidian," he explained, "is very sharp when first flaked. As it ages it becomes duller, and it dulls quickly each time it's used. The tecpatl used at Tecuilhuitontli is not very sharp, and it is used on the four girls who will be the ixiptla's fundament first. The ixiptla gives her service last, and the priest is required to work hard to get it into her body."

She caught her lower lip with her teeth. "I see," she murmured. "It will be very painful, then."

"Yes, Itzacxochitl. I wouldn't tell you otherwise, you must prepare yourself for it. Sometimes the ixiptla cannot help but cry out in pain, and sometimes they struggle so violently they fall off the stone. Such ceremonies are not among the best."

"I know," she said with a nod. She looked up, into his eyes. "I will not cry out," she declared. "No matter what pain I suffer. I will not cry out and I will not struggle. You will be most proud of me, proud to be my husband and proud to be my teacher." She raised her hands and put them on his cheeks. "You have the right to be atop the pyramid when the ixiptla gives her service," she said. "You have been there before. Will you be there, with me, watching me, when I give my service?"

He stared at her eyes; he could see her, clearly, as he'd seen other men and women in the past, stretched over the altar, the heavy black obsidian knife driven into her chest, the blood flowing. "I--I do not know," he answered unsteadily. "I am not as--I have not come to accept this as you have, Xochitl..."

She nodded and smiled. "I understand," she assured him. "I do. You will see me dying, you will not be able see me becoming sacred. I hope this will change before the day of Tecuilhuitontli. But if it does not, I will understand." Saying no more, she pulled him over on top of herself, and his already-hard penis slid easily into her amazingly wet vagina. But, even as they made love, he was not able to banish the image of her stretched on the stone, the knife in her chest...

Quetzalpantli had planned the next evening to be the same as the first, but things did not quite go according to his script. Not long after they'd returned to their house, a runner from the temple showed up at their door, bearing a message. Ixtlilhuexotl, an older priest, a most respected man who was known as a Nagual--a sorcerer--had requested Xochitl's presence. Receiving the message, Xochitl told the runner to go back and tell Ixtlilhuexotl that she would be there shortly.

"You know him?" Quetzalpantli asked as the runner left.

She nodded. "I may return this evening," she told him, "and I may not. It depends."

"On what?"

"On whether he is trying to see events in the future," she explained, "in which case I may be there all night."

"Or?"

"Or, he may just be depressed. He is subject to such, and it interferes with his work."

Quetzalpantli was sure he understood--understood this second option, anyway. As to what the Naguals did when they were doing scryings, he had no clue. "I see. I will accompany you to the temple, Xochitl. You do not have to walk there alone."

She grinned. "You just want to try to ensure," she suggested, "that Ixtlilhuexotl does not keep me there all night!"

"That's right," he agreed mildly. "Shall we go?"

She looked doubtful. "Husband, you have attended the Calmecac and you have been a teacher for the ceremonies, but you have not been among the Naguals--I have, now, and I do not know if you'll be able to appreciate what might happen there..."

"You cannot know that," he countered, "and neither can I, until I've been there. Now. Let us go, shall we? We do not want to keep Ixtlilhuexotl waiting."

An hour later they arrived at the magnificent palace where the senior priests made their home. A priestess and a pair of warriors assigned to guard the doorway greeted them; they recognized Xochitl, they called her by name and they greeted her warmly. They did look curiously at Quetzalpantli, but his presence wasn't questioned. They were shown into the chamber where Ixtlilhuexotl was waiting for them. Quetzalpantli was somewhat surprised to find that the priest wasn't alone, there were four young apprentice priest-sorcerers in the chamber with him.

Ixtlilhuexotl himself was about fifty years old, a stately-looking man. When they were shown in, he was seated on a dais at one end of the room, dressed in a long black tilmatli--mantle--with gold designs and trim, a garment that marked him as a high-ranking noble. As was the case with all the members of the priesthood his hair was long, but it wasn't unwashed and matted as was always the case with the "working" priests, those who performed the ceremonies atop the pyramids. He had a short sparse beard and mustache, and a very piercing gaze. "I greet you, Quetzalpantli, merchant, teacher," he said in a sonorous voice when Xochitl told him who her companion was--although she introduced him as her ritual teacher, not her husband. "I thank you for bringing Itzacxochitl to us tonight. You may go, if you wish; or, if you'd prefer, we can provide for you a place here, in our home, where you may take your ease; all your needs will be provided for." Quetzalpantli started to respond, but before he could, Ixtlilhuexotl made a third offer: "Of course, you may also remain here if you so desire..."

Quetzalpantli looked over at Xochitl. "What would you prefer I do?" he asked.

Ixtlilhuexotl's eyes widened. "You ask a slave her opinion?"

Quetzalpantli turned his head. "This slave," he said, "is also my wife. I was forced to sell her into slavery some months ago."

"Ah. I see."

"My husband, I would think it best if you accept Lord Ixtlilhuexotl's offer of quarters here in the priests' house," she said. "I--"

"I did not ask," he said, interrupting her, "what you thought best. I asked what you preferred."

She averted her eyes. "Quetzalpantli, I'd of course prefer you stayed, but--"

"Then that is my choice."

"But--"

"It is done, Xochitl."

"It is so," Ixtlilhuexotl said, waving his hand. He gestured toward a feathered mat with backrest provided close to his own dais. "Sit here, Quetzalpantli, merchant, teacher. We will begin." He gestured to the young priests, and three of the four rose. One, going to a sort of small altar across the room, retrieved some object completely covered with a piece of finely-woven black cloth and brought it to the older man. Taking it, he laid in on the dais in front of himself. A second priest simply stood by his seat holding a pottery bowl some sixteen inches in diameter, as if waiting for something. A third crossed to the back of the room and opened a set of doors, revealing waiting musicians, drummers and flutists.

Meanwhile, Xochitl had taken up a position in the center of the open floor, facing the older man. Clearly familiar with this ritual, she quickly pulled her huipilli--her blouse--up over her head and tossed it across the room. After a short pause her cueitl, her skirt, followed it. Completely naked, she struck a pose, one arm upraised, her head thrown slightly back, and one knee bent. With her classic face, her large dark eyes and long black hair, her high conical breasts and her long slim legs, she looked breathtaking. The musicians began to play and she began to dance, a freeform dance, very sensual. Nodding his approval, Ixtlilhuexotl watched her fixedly. After a few moments, he reached down beside his seat and picked up a ball of unspun cotton; sticking in it were four large and heavy thorns from the tips of the leaves of the maguey plant. Quetzalpantli took a deep breath; he'd been a student in the Calmecac, he well knew what these were used for.

While Xochitl continued her dance, the third man who'd stood up walked slowly to the dais and took the cotton ball from the older man. Still moving slowly, he turned away and walked around behind the dancing woman, who'd now come up quite close to Ixtlilhuexotl's dais. She stopped moving about and began dancing in place, her knees slightly bent and her arms high above her head.

Moving up close behind her, the young priest took two of the big thorns--each one was three inches long and about a quarter of an inch in diameter at the base, tapering quickly to a needle-sharp point--out of the cotton ball. Pressing himself against Xochitl's hips, he reached around her body and pushed the points into the exact center of her nipples. She trembled slightly, caught her lower lip with her teeth, and frowned a little, but she kept her arms up and allowed him to push the thorns far into her nipples. Leaving them there, the man stepped back and drew out the other pair of thorns. These were shorter than the first pair but just as thick.

Keeping her arms where they were, Xochitl dropped to a crouching position, her knees spread far apart. The man dropped to one knee behind her and reached around her again; this time he pushed the points of the thorns into her groin, just outside her labial lips. While she chewed her lip and closed her eyes, he pushed them steadily in, getting them in deep. Her acceptance of the ritual piercings, Quetzalpantli thought, was perfectly done. She was fully cooperative, but she showed with her expression and her body that she felt the pain--and she did not react to it excessively.

Rising again, Xochitl came closer to Ixtlilhuexotl's dais, followed closely by the man who'd pierced her. The man bearing the bowl came over and stood close beside her. Xochitl threw Quetzalpantli a quick glance, then fixed her gaze on the older priest's face. Watching his eyes, she reached up and pulled the thorn piercing her left nipple straight out.

Quickly, the man holding the bowl placed it under her breast. Blood welled out, dripping steadily into the bowl; while it was still dripping the man who'd pierced her held the cotton ball out to her, and she stuck the thorn back into it. After waiting until the bleeding stopped, she drew out the one piercing her other nipple; at long intervals, the ones piercing her groin followed. In each case the man holding the bowl caught the dripping blood in it, but, even so, when she was finished, red lines decorated each of her breasts and both of her inner thighs. The priest who'd done the piercing then retrieved more cotton balls from the dais, these moistened with aloe. With a delicate touch, he used these to clean every trace of blood from her breasts and legs. This part of the ritual, Quetzalpantli knew, was over; she'd been "purified" by the spilling of her blood.

As soon as he was finished, she began to dance again, as graceful and sensual as ever. Moving away from the older man's dais, she danced toward the fourth of the younger priests, the one who hadn't yet moved. As she went, she threw several glances at Quetzalpantli; she looked concerned, worried.

When he looked toward the third man he understood why. The young priest had pushed his green and white tilmatli aside, and he wasn't wearing a maxtlatl--a loincloth--or anything else, under it. His erection stood straight up, waiting for her.

In spite of her concern, she danced on toward the man, covering the distance slowly. Quetzalpantli knew in general what was about to happen. He felt a cool knot in his stomach, some peculiar mixture of excitement, anticipation, and jealousy. He tried to push away the last, knowing that it was much too late for either of them to call a halt to this, and knowing as well that this certainly wasn't the first time Xochitl had done this, it was merely the first time he'd witnessed it. It wouldn't go, but he did manage to prevent it from showing in his expression. When Xochitl caught his eye again, he nodded to her, almost imperceptibly. She looked immensely relieved, even grateful.

Finally, she stood dancing in front of the man; her movements were very sensual now. She moved within his reach and he responded by caressing her breasts, thighs, and lower belly gently. After a few moments she dropped to her knees. With a glance back at Quetzalpantli and then another toward Ixtlilhuexotl, she leaned over the young man's lap and began licking the tip of his penis. Pushing her hair aside so it didn't interfere with the older man's view--and, incidentally, with Quetzalpantli's--she lowered her head slowly on his erection, taking it fully into her mouth.

With an expertise suggesting that she'd done this quite a bit during her days in slavery, she slipped his erection in and out of her mouth, pausing at times to tease it with her tongue. The man sat still for the most part, but he did stroke her hair with apparent affection, and he reached down to tease her nipples. She took her time with him, sometimes taking his erection out of her mouth and licking it, only to take it back in again a moment later. At other intervals she moved her body up across his in serpentine fashion, letting her breasts press against his penis, teasing his nipples with her tongue, and finally kissing him--but always she returned to take his erection back into her mouth again. Eventually--to Quetzalpantli it seemed like quite a long time--the young man began to squirm in his seat, and his expression suggested that his orgasm was immanent. At the last moment she drew her head back just slightly, her lips parted and the tip of the man's penis just inside them, allowing the older priest to see the jets of hot semen squirting into her mouth. Patiently, she waited until he was almost finished; then she slipped his erection back in, cleaning all traces of semen from it.

She did not swallow it, though. The man holding the bowl came to her, and she, leaning her head over it, allowed the white fluid to drain into the bowl, where it mixed with her blood. Standing up again, she moved back to the center of the room and resumed her dancing. As she did, the other two men had taken their seats and the man who'd been carrying the bowl handed it to the one who'd just had his orgasm, after which they exchanged places.

Taking her time about it, Xochitl danced to one of the other young priests. The scene was repeated almost exactly, differing only in the most minor details, and then repeated with each of the remaining two men, until at last all four had contributed to the contents of the bowl. Xochitl then turned her attention to the older man, dancing toward him this time.

Just as the younger men had done, he pulled his tilmatli aside. Like the younger men he wasn't wearing anything under it, but unlike them his penis was not yet erect. Even at a glance Quetzalpantli could see that it was covered with scars, scars resulting from repeated ritual piercings. Xochitl moved up close to him, knelt, and used her fingers to lift his soft, limp penis to her mouth. She drew it in between her lips and began teasing it with her tongue. Slowly, over several minutes, he became erect.

She continued to stimulate him with her tongue and lips for several minutes more, but then, in contrast to what she'd done with the younger men, she stood up. Ixtlilhuexotl slipped back on his seat until he was in a reclining position, and she turned around, facing away from him, and straddled his thighs. Bending her knees, she used her hands to guide his erection to her vagina, and she slowly settled down on him.

For a moment or two she remained still, his erection deep inside her vagina. Then she began moving on him; as she lifted her hips and let them fall again, Quetzalpantli could clearly see the older man's penis sliding in and out of her, he could clearly see the slick wetness of it. Xochitl looked up at him, catching his eye. Her own sexual arousal was obvious in the slight swelling of her lips and eyelids. Again, Quetzalpantli gave her a slight nod; she smiled at him this time, and he returned her smile in kind.

Watching her having sex with these other men was exciting for him; Quetzalpantli had accepted that now. Certainly, he told himself, not every man would've felt the same. But he had known since the day he'd taken her to the slave-dealer that she would, during her slavery, have sex with other men. His original objections, his statements that he would feel jealous, weren't false; there was a component of that, but all it did was add to his excitement. He had not, until this moment, been willing to acknowledge that he'd been having fantasies about her sexual exploits during the months she'd been away.

Xochitl seemed to sense something of this; her smile became brighter, freer. As Ixtlilhuexotl reached around her to tease her nipples, she spread her legs a little more, giving him an even better view. They went on having sex for quite a long time, but eventually the older priest's body began to jerk and twitch slightly. As he stiffened in orgasm, Xochitl slid down on him as far as possible, forcing his erection as deeply inside herself as she could.

She remained still then, and several more seconds slipped by. The younger priest bearing the bowl came over to the dais and held it between her legs; she stood up quickly, letting Ixtlilhuexotl's penis fall back, and allowed him to position the bowl under her vagina. The older priest's semen, liberally mixed with her lubricants, dripped into it.

Finally, she stepped aside, although she remained on the dais, kneeling down beside the older priest. Using a slender piece of obsidian, the younger priest stirred the ingredients in the bowl, while at the same time Ixtlilhuexotl began unwrapping the object in the black cloth. When it was finally revealed Quetzalpantli could see that it was a Tezeat, a scrying-mirror made from obsidian. He put the edge of it in the bowl, then used a cotton ball to smear the pinkish mixture of fluids all over the surface, being careful to cover both sides. Once it was completely covered he held it vertically, allowing the excess to run off. He shook it and blew on it as if to dry it. For a very long time--close to an hour--he continued to manipulate it. It looked as if he was trying to ensure that there was an even coating of the fluid on both sides. Once he'd finished this task he began rubbing the surface with a cotton ball, now removing the mixture from the stone, and again took a long time doing it.

At last he seemed satisfied. He set the piece of stone up in a holder in front of himself, then made a gesture; the younger priests made a circle of the room, clockwise, and extinguished all the fires except for one oil-lamp which rested on a little stand behind the older priest, the angle arranged so that the light fell over his shoulder and onto the stone. While Xochitl remained in a kneeling position beside him, he bent over the mirror, staring fixedly into it.

After a while, the air in the room seemed to become thick and heavy; Quetzalpantli began catching whiffs of a familiar odor. Looking around, he saw that one of the younger priests had placed some copalli incense and some herbs on a charcoal brazier. He'd offered it to the Four Directions, as was traditional; the East, the South, the West, and finally the North, and then he'd placed it in the center of the room. It didn't take long before the fumes began to have an effect on him, the room's ceiling seemed to be pushing upwards and he himself felt as if he were seated somewhere midway between the floor and ceiling, as if it were quite far to the floor--when in fact the distance was a mere six inches or so.

Turning back, he gazed at Xochitl again. She was still seated beside the older priest; he was resting his hand on her thigh as he gazed into the mirror. She looked incredibly beautiful; her body seemed to be glowing slightly. He could see a sort of a blue-green halo surrounding it; from the vicinity of her navel little fine hairlike tentacles of light seemed to flow, and they were reaching out to the older priest, merging with bright yellow fibers that seemed to flow from his body. One of them, somewhat thicker than the others and tinged with orange, flowed off the dais and across the floor. He followed it with his gaze and was amazed to see that it terminated near his own navel, where it was intertwined with a bright blue fiber that emerged from his own body.

"I see a battle," Ixtlilhuexotl said suddenly and loudly, distracting him. "I see the men of Tenochtitlan and the men of Cholula on the battlefield." He shook his head. "Strange that the men of Tenochtitlan and the men of Cholula are fighting each other. They are allies, they do not fight each other.. The Cholultecs are winning, they are victorious, they are taking many captives... the Mexica fight valiantly and many are left dead or dying on the field... ah, there will be weeping in the houses of the Mexica, many are left dead or dying on the field... " He started naming names of the dead, a long litany, delivered in a chant.

One of the younger priests frowned and pursed his lips. After a moment, a hiatus during which he seemed to be gathering his courage, he spoke. "My Lord," he said, loudly and firmly.

Ixtlilhuexotl's head jerked up. "What! What?"

The young priest gazed at the floor. "My Lord, that fight took place a month ago. The Mexica wished to practice their battle skills and the lords of Tenochtitlan challenged the lords of Cholula to a battle for sport, believing that the Cholultecs, whose men had not been to war for more than a year, would be simple to defeat. Instead, the Mexica were the ones easily defeated. There has been weeping in the houses of Tenochtitlan since."

Ixtlilhuexotl frowned deeply. "What?" he repeated. Then he looked back down at his obsidian mirror. After a moment he snatched it up, turned it around, and stared at the other side. "Pah!" he cried. "Yah, how could I have made such an error!" He raised his arm as if he was about to hurl the mirror down and shatter it, but he reconsidered and laid it down carefully on the black cloth instead.

"The ritual is over," he said testily, waving his hands in the air. "Over. Everyone go home, leave me." The younger priests quickly rose; one went about re-lighting the fires in the room, the others scurried around to gather up the various paraphernalia they'd been using. The musicians, who'd been sitting quietly and waiting, picked up their instruments and hurried out. Xochitl rose as well and started across the room to retrieve her clothes.

"I am sure," Ixtlilhuexotl said to her, "that this error, this waste, will depress me. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the next day, I will be depressed."

She glanced back over her shoulder. "Yes, my Lord," she answered with a grin. "I understand."

He waved a hand at her. "I will send a messenger," he told her.

Still grinning, she picked up her clothes, slipped them on, and returned to Quetzalpantli, who by then was waiting near the door.

"Well?" she asked him as they walked into the streets, headed back to their own house. "Did it bother you much, husband, to witness the ceremony?"

He gave her a sidelong glance. "Not too much," he told her.

She sighed. "I am very tired," she murmured.

Quetzalpantli grunted. "You have satisfied five men," he noted. "It is not a surprise that you're tired. But." He slipped an arm around her waist. "You still have one more man to satisfy this night!"

The next day, the lessons continued; nothing was said by either of them about the ritual the night before. As expected, Ixtlilhuexotl, undoubtedly experiencing the depression he'd mentioned, sent for her two days later. Again, he accompanied her to the priests' quarters, but this time, since the sorcerer's needs were personal, he'd accepted Ixtlilhuexotl's offer of separate accommodations, leaving her to minister to the priest-sorcerer in private. She stayed with him for almost three hours, after which she'd returned to Quetzalpantli.

"You have not yet told me," he said as she curled up beside him on the sleeping mat, "of your adventures after I sold you to the slave-dealer."

"It was as you said it might be, husband," she told him. "The slave-dealer said I was very beautiful, and he sent for several nobles to come and meet me. When they arrived he presented me to them naked, and they began bidding for me; I was sold for forty-five mantles." She smiled. "As you said he might, he made an excellent profit on me."

Quetzalpantli grunted. "More than excellent. I took too little for you." He sighed. "But I am a dealer in plumes, not slaves..."

"Yes... perhaps you should have shopped me around to several dealers before selling me."

"I surely should have. Who was it who bought you?"

"His name was Tzezomoc, the same name as the famous tlatoani of the Tecpanecs. A noble captain in the army, a good man. He's past his fighting days, he says, unless the city itself is attacked; he still sits on the war councils, though, and takes part in diplomatic affairs. He took me to his home, which is very large, overlooking the Lake. There I was surprised; he is a very wealthy lord, and I'd expected he'd have many concubines, many slave girls, but he didn't. He had four wives, whom I met, no concubines at all, and he only owned a few slaves."

"I suppose," Quetzalpantli speculated, "that he wanted to have sex with you immediately."

"No, he didn't, though I'd expected that too," she answered. "No, he showed me to my quarters, which were small but very clean and comfortable, and for the remainder of the day I did not see him. I spoke with one of the other slave girls there that evening, and she told me I was very fortunate to have been purchased by Tzezomoc, that he was very good to his slaves.

"The next day, he called me to his chambers, saying he wanted to talk to me. When I arrived, I found a beautiful chamber filled with fresh flowers, lovely woven tapestries, fine featherwork, and wonderful carvings. When I came in he asked me to remove my clothes, and of course I did as he bade me. I was wondering then why this man had no concubines, or if perhaps I was to be the first.

"But that was not so. He showed me to a lovely feather-mat and told me to sit there; he paid me compliments, he said my beauty matched that of his flowers and tapestries, and he said that in his opinion beauty such as mine should not be hidden under clothing."

"Did you ask him what your duties were to be?" Quetzalpantli asked her.

She shook her head. "I had never been a slave before, husband. I did not know if such a question was appropriate. But it wasn't necessary, as I sat there he began to explain. He was, as I have said, a diplomat. Part of his duty was to entertain visiting dignitaries from other cities. He said the main reason he'd bought me was so that I could provide entertainment for them."

"By having sex with them."

"Yes, that too, but in large part my duty was simply to sit in his chambers while he was having his meetings. He explained that he'd been asking the slave-dealers to be alert for a woman of exceptional beauty, a woman so beautiful she could be considered a work of art, like those that were then surrounding me. I will admit that I laughed then, I said I was not that beautiful; but he assured me that I was. He also told me then that some of the diplomats who visited him would, indeed, ask to share a mat with me. He did tell me, though, that I was to have a choice about which of the diplomats I would so entertain. He showed me a signal he would give me if a visitor asked for my favors, and gave me two signals in return, one if I was willing and another if I was not."

"Choices not usually given a slave," Quetzalpantli noted. "You were indeed fortunate to have been purchased by this man."

"Yes, I was," she agreed. "I had little to do otherwise, I was to have an easy and comfortable life. Tzezomoc asked me what my avocations were, and I told him I enjoyed weaving ribbons and studying the sacred Tonalamatls, the books of the gods, the days, and the rites. He had a Tonalamatl brought to me and provided me with spinning materials as well, and I spent much of the next day simply sitting in his chambers, studying the folded book." She giggled. "It was odd, though, studying the book while sitting there naked. I had never done that before..."

"He had you sitting naked in his chamber all the time?"

She nodded. "Yes. He said my body was an artwork and should not be concealed. During the time he owned me I seldom wore any clothes."

"Did you ever--uh--entertain any diplomats?"

She nodded again. "Two days after I arrived, Tzezomoc greeted several visitors from Cuahtitlan. As I had been told, I was sitting in the room, naked, spinning thread to make my ribbons. Several of the men were looking at me as they discussed matters of state, and, when the servants brought in refreshments, Tzezomoc gave me the signal that one of them was asking about me." She'd been looking away, but now she looked up at Quetzalpantli's face. "The man who was asking looked like a good man, husband. And yet, even so, I remembered your words, that you might be jealous. I wondered then if I could pass my entire time in slavery and avoid lying with another man; it seemed that Tzezomoc would allow it if that was my choice."

"But that isn't what you did in the end."

She shook her head. "No. I gave my Master the signal that this man was acceptable to me. To have done otherwise wouldn't have been fair to Tzezomoc. He did not even know, then, that I was married, he knew only that I was a slave that he'd bought in the marketplace, and he'd bought me for the purpose of entertaining his diplomatic guests, he'd paid a very high price for me. Even so, he'd already shown me that he meant to treat me with respect, he'd given me choices few slaves have, he was trying to be good to me." She studied his face keenly. "Do you understand this, my husband?"

Quetzalpantli hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded. "I do," he told her. "This I had prepared myself for when I sold you, Xochitl. I did not imagine you'd pass your period in slavery without ever lying with another man."

"I'm glad you do understand," she said. "You should know, my husband, that that man of Cuahtitlan was the first man I have been with since the day of our marriage."

"I have no problem believing that, I have always trusted you and I still do," he said, touching her arm as she spoke. "Tell me, Xochitl--did you enjoy lying with that man of Cuahtitlan?"

She flushed a little. "I will not lie to you, husband. I did, yes. He was sensual and tender with me. He pleasured me, and I him."

"And you've been with many men since then, haven't you?"

She didn't hesitate. "Yes, I have."

"And you've enjoyed them all."

For the first time, she started to look a little worried. "Not all, no. Most of them, yes."

He paused for just a moment before he spoke. "Good," he said.

"Good?"

"Yes, good." He touched her cheek. "I would not have wanted," he told her, "your time in slavery to be a torment to you. I am happy, Xochitl, truly, that you found pleasure in your duties."

She almost lunged at him, and she hugged him hard. "I am so happy," she said. "I was afraid you'd be hurt--I do not want to see you hurt, Quetzalpantli. I was concerned tonight, concerned that you'd be unhappy waiting here alone while I was with Ixtlilhuexotl, knowing that you knew quite well what we were doing."

He smiled and stroked her cheek. "Yes, I knew, of course. Remember, I was there for the ritual! How did you come to be purchased by the priesthood, Xochitl?"

"I was not owned by Tzezomoc for long," she answered. "Three or four days after the visit from the diplomats from Cuahtitlan, some men came from Cholula to visit with him. Two of the men from Cholula asked for my favors, and I found them acceptable, I was willing to pleasure them. They were full of high praise for me, or so Tzezomoc told me after they'd left. Then some Otomis came, and some men from Huextozinco, and some Tlaxcalans, and it was the same, and after just a few weeks--or so I was told by Tzezomoc--diplomats from other cities were specifically asking for conferences with him."

"Because of you."

"Because of me, yes, or so Tzezomoc said."

"I cannot doubt it, Xochitl. Not if you were as free, as full of delight and joy, as you are with me. As you were with those priests the other night."

"I only know one way to make love," she said defensively.

He laughed. "Yes, the best way!"

She flushed again. "I was telling you," she went on, "how I came to be owned by the priests. Just a day or two after Tzezomoc told me about the diplomats asking for conferences with him, he was visited by priests from the temple of Tlaloc, and I was called in--they had come to see me, they had heard of me--from the diplomats, I suppose. After I met them, they offered to buy me from him."

"And one does not say no when the priests ask to purchase a slave..."

She shook her head. "No. To say that is to say that one's own needs for the slave are greater than the needs of the Teteo, the gods. Of course, Tzezomoc did not say no. The priests had to reimburse him the same price he'd paid for me, and they were very upset when he told them he'd paid forty-five mantles. But they paid it, and I left Tzezomoc's house for the house of the priests of the temple of Tlaloc. It wasn't very long after that that I was told I had been chosen to be the ixiptla of Huixtocihuatl."

This wasn't a subject he wanted to discuss at the moment. "So, you never did end up sleeping with Tzezomoc?"

She shook her head. "No, I didn't. I do not know why not. Of course, he was my master and I would not have said no to him. But he did not ask me; he did not ask me to have sex with him, I mean."

"Sounds like he asked you for something else..."

"Well, yes, he did. Several times. The first time was right after the men from Cuahtitlan had left, after I had chosen to entertain that diplomat. The next day, Tzezomoc asked me if I would be willing to entertain him."

"But I thought you just said..."

"Yes, that's what I thought, and of course, I told Tzezomoc that I was his, however he wished. But then he explained that he did not want to make love with me himself; he told me that he had some slaves and hired servants in his household who had not been with a woman in a long time, and he wished me to lie with them. More, he explained, he wished to watch."

"Ah, I see... and did you agree?"

She shrugged. "He was my master, I belonged to him, it was not my place to refuse. And yet, as before, he told me I should choose, and so I agreed to do that, as well. He sent for a young man, a man named Ce Tochtli, who was then twenty years old but whom he'd purchased years before, when he was a mere boy. While we were waiting for him to come Tzezomoc told me that, although Tochtli was his slave, his feelings for the young man were more like those he might have for a son, and I decided the moment he said that that I would not refuse Ce Tochtli."

"And so you didn't."

"No, I didn't. Nor would I have even if that had not been said. Tochtli was fine young man, he had kind eyes and he loved flowers, he worked as a flower-grower for his master."

"So what happened?"

She glanced at him. "Ce Tochtli came in and Tzezomoc told him he should make love with me, I gave Tzezomoc the signal that he was acceptable to me, and we did."

"Well, I'm sure that wasn't quite all there was to it!"

She smiled. "Are you saying you want to hear the details, husband?"

Now it was his turn to flush. "Well, perhaps..."

Her smile widened; she took Quetzalpantli's hand and squeezed it. "Well," she said, "when Ce Tochtli came in, I was sitting as I usually sat, on a feather mat surrounded by the flowers he'd grown and picked, naked. He had never seen me before; as he walked forward to hear his master's bidding he kept glancing at me--I am quite sure he was surprised to see a naked woman sitting in his master's quarters! I smiled at him warmly. Then Tzezomoc told him what he wished him to do, and he turned to stare at me, his eyes very wide with surprise. Of course, he did not refuse; he came to me immediately. He sat down on the mat beside me, but at first he seemed afraid to touch me, so I took his hands and laid them on my chichihuallis, my breasts. At first his touch was very tentative, but then he began to tease my chichihualyacatls, my nipples. My chichihualyacahuitzlis, the tips of my nipples, became very hard as he touched them."

He began to stroke her upper arm as she spoke, and she snuggled close to him. Pausing in her story, she lifted his hands and placed them on her bare breasts. He teased her nipples and they quickly hardened under his touch. "Yes, just like that," she said with a little giggle.

"Ce Tochtli seemed unsure of what to do," she went on. "He still had his maxtlatl, his loincloth--which was, of course, all he was wearing--on. So I began to untie it, and as I removed it I found that he already 'had a horn on'--he had an erection."

"Not a surprise, a young and inexperienced man like that."

She reached around herself and her hand found its way to his groin. "An older and more experienced man might react the same," she noted.

"Possibly," he agreed. "What happened next?"

"Tzezomoc had come over, sitting on a mat beside us, and he was watching us very closely. Ce Tochtli didn't even seem to notice. While I played with his acayotl, his penis, he kissed me, and then he started touching my legs, and then, suddenly, his hands were all over me, it seemed to me he had more than two of them. I bent down and I started licking his tepolcuaitl, the head of his penis, and then I took it deep in my mouth and ran my nenepilli, my tongue, all around it. I had done that for the man from Cuahtitlan, too, and it truly seemed to delight him..."

"Not every woman," he reminded her, "is willing to do that."

She shrugged. "So I have been told. As you well know, husband, I have always liked doing it, it's very sensual. I especially like to tease the little opening at the tip, the tepulcamatl." She squeezed Quetzalpantli's erection with her hand and went on. "So I had his acayotl in my mouth, and he was touching my zacapilli, my clitoris, with his fingers, and I was becoming very excited myself--and then I realized that he still had a hand on each of my chichihuallis and one on one of my metzlis, my thighs. It was only then that I understood that two of the hands were Tzezomoc's. In truth, husband, I could not tell whose hands were whose."

He laughed. "So Tzezomoc wasn't just interested in looking," he said.

"No. Still, he remained fully dressed the whole time, all he ever did was caress my body. I could see him from the corner of my eye, he was watching very closely as I slipped Ce Tochtli's horn in and out of my mouth. I suppose it distracted me, because I had forgotten about what Tzezomoc had said about Ce Tochtli not having had a woman for a long time, and the next thing I knew, his omicetl, his semen, was flowing into my mouth. I knew Tzezomoc was watching and I didn't think he even knew what had happened, so I let some of it run out, down Ce Tochtli's tepulacayotl, the shaft of his penis. Then, after I was sure he'd seen it, I licked it all back in and I swallowed it."

She'd painted such a vivid picture Quetzalpantli felt almost as if he'd been seeing it through Tzezomoc's eyes, and his own penis, nestled in her hand and pressing against her rear end, was itself very hard. "And that was the end of it?"

"Well, no. As I've said, it had been a long time since Ce Tochtli had had a woman, and he was a young man, strong and healthy. He and Tzezomoc kept caressing my body and I his, and his acayotl hadn't even become completely soft again. It wasn't too long before his acayotl was fully hard again. When it was, I laid down on my back and spread my legs, and he came over me and he put his horn in my chimney."

"You do love the crude terms, don't you?"

She giggled. "Yes. At least I'm not calling it my dolly, am I?" She sighed. "He went on for a very long time then, husband. Several times we changed position; I stood on my hands and knees and he came into me from behind, he laid down and I came down on him from above. Over and over, at least three times, he stimulated my zacapilli until I shuddered and died--had an orgasm. Then, finally, he shot his omicetl up into my chimney, he washed my walls well. He seemed very weak then, and he rested, he fell asleep on the mat beside me, his head on my thigh. Tzezomoc stayed for a while, touching my face, and telling me what a delightful time he'd had and how warmly he felt toward me. Then, after a while, he went off to visit one of his wives. I do not know why he did not want me physically, but he did not."

"I'm sure," Quetzalpantli said, "that there's more to it than him 'not wanting you.' I can't say what, but something. Perhaps some oath he took at some time, to lie only with his wives."

"Perhaps."

"So it was over then?"

"Well, no," she repeated. "After a short while, Ce Tochtli awoke, and he was going to get dressed and return to his duties in Tzezomoc's flower gardens. Remembering that Tzezomoc said he looked upon him almost as a son, I took it upon myself to urge him to stay for a while longer. He said that this had been only for his master's pleasure, but I assured him that Tzezomoc was concerned with his pleasure as well. He was enormously pleased, and he thanked me over and over; never before, he told me, had a woman taken his acayotl into her mouth, he'd never even heard of such a thing before. And so, after a while, I took his acayotl back into my mouth again and I kept teasing it until he'd sprayed his omicetl onto my nenepilli yet again. Then he left; then it was over."

His hands, which had remained on her breasts while she was telling her story, strayed down her belly to her groin. "I'd guess," he ventured, "that you've managed to get quite a reputation for taking men's acayotls into your mouth."

Yet again, she giggled. "I suppose I have," she admitted. "After a while, that's what all the diplomats visiting Tzezomoc wanted me to do. Many of them have told me as you have, that not all women will do this and that not all who do enjoy it. And so I did this, for the Otomis, the Huextozincans, the Tlaxcalans, the Cholulans... several times after that first day with Ce Tochtli, Tzezomoc brought him or some other young man to me and had me pleasure him while he watched. He liked watching a man put his acayotl in my chimney, but he seemed to take special pleasure in watching me take them in my mouth. Later, I was told that it was being said that I could raise a man from the dead with the power of my mouth, and some believed I was a sorceress."

"I think that you are," he said jokingly. "I've been under your spell since the day I first met you." He touched her chin, turned her head toward his. "But I have a question for you, Xochitl."

Her eyes were wide. "What?"

"If you so enjoy taking a man's hard acayotl into your mouth, why are you wasting the one that's here for you, right now?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "I did not," she answered, "mean to waste it, husband! But it is difficult to tell a story when a man's acayotl is in your mouth." She turned herself around quickly, laying her head on his thigh. "This one," she said, as she pulled it toward her face, "is my favorite in all the world!"

With that she slipped it between her lips. He sighed with pleasure. She was a sorceress, he decided, it was true. What she was doing to him was surely magic.

The evening with Xochitl might have been magical, but the next day the lessons continued, and reality returned. Calli, the Tlaxcalan captive, was having some trouble with one of the more complex dance steps, a spin pivot that was supposed to be executed with arms upraised; she kept losing her balance and losing the move in order to regain it. Taking her aside, Quetzalpantli drilled her on it, but she continued to have difficulties.

"Perhaps I'm just not suitable for this," she said sadly after another failure. "Being chosen for this ceremony was a great honor, but I just don't think I'm a good enough dancer. Maybe I should give my service in some other ritual, one where I'm not required to dance..."

"No, you're aren't giving yourself enough credit," he told her. "You can do this, I'm sure of it." Hearing this conversation, Xochitl and the other three girls moved in close, adding their voices to his.

"We are a team, we are one," Atl told her. "We'll all help you get it. You shouldn't fault yourself, it's a difficult move, but I too know you can learn it." She demonstrated the move, showing the other girl where and how to place her left foot after spinning on her right. Xochitl joined her, spinning around gracefully and coming out of the move with perfection. Responding to their encouragement, Calli tried it again. Though she failed, she seemed much less discouraged; she watched Xochitl execute the move again, and Quetzalpantli, willing to allow the women to handle this problem, stepped back and gave them their way. It was not a mistake; within the hour a delighted Calli was performing the move as well as any of the others. From there, it was just a matter of polishing the dance. The girls were to echo Xochitl's moves, and their movements needed to be synchronized. All of them were willing to work and they worked hard, and, as the days slipped on by, Quetzalpantli could not help being proud of them all--seldom had he ever had such a talented and hard-working group under his tutelage.

More days passed, and, sooner than he imagined it might, the week of the ceremony arrived. On the last two days, Quetzalpantli's duty wasn't one he relished, not with Xochitl among his students. He had to teach them what to do when the dance was over, what to do atop the pyramid; he had to teach them what to do in the last moments of their lives, how they were to behave as they were dying. When the ceremony was only two days away, he opened his morning lesson by telling them that he was, at last, going to tell them about their final duties. While the girls listened attentively, he began his talk, a talk he'd given before and knew from memory.

"You all know the circle dance now," he opened. "You will know that it's about to end when you hear the blasts from the conch-shell horns. Four of these there will be, and after that the dance will end, as we have learned the ending. None can say where you will be in the circle when it ends, but you will stop, where you are, and wait. Five warriors will be assigned to you, and they will escort you up the steps of the pyramid. They will touch your arm when it's time for you to go, starting with whoever is standing most closely to the east, followed by whoever is at the south, then the west, and finally the north." He looked at his wife. "The ixiptla," he said, struggling to keep his voice steady, "will be last."

"The warriors will guide us up the stair?" Mazatl asked.

"No. They will merely escort you, they'll walk by your side. You yourself will determine your pace. Remember, you are not in a hurry; this is a solemn procession." Walking across the grounds, he demonstrated the speed. "About like that. Remain about four steps apart as you ascend. Then, when whoever is first reaches the top, the second in line should stand about two steps down and remain there while the first gives her service." He went on, explaining the sequence of events in detail, telling them how the priests would remove their ritual costumes and how they were expected to stand naked at the edge of the pyramid to receive the homage of the assembled crowd.

Atl had the next question. "And then the priests will take us to the altar?"

"No. They will simply come and stand beside you when it's time. You must turn of your own volition and walk to the techcatl, the sacrificial stone, freely. Again, do not hurry--but do not tarry, either. When you reach the stone, you are to sit down on it, keeping your right side to the onlookers below. The priest assistants will then take your wrists and ankles and lay you back; as they do keep your back and your legs straight, it will help them a lot."

"And then they will cut open our chests..." Mazatl noted.

"And take out our living hearts." Calli finished for her.

Quetzalpantli bit his lip. Xochitl hadn't asked a question, nor was there one in her eyes. He remembered when he'd given Nanotzin this talk, she'd shown more than a trace of her earlier fear when he'd started talking about the moment of the sacrifice. None of these girls, Xochitl included, showed any such. All five of them remained attentive and serious, intent on learning their lessons, committed to doing things right.

"And there is one more thing I must tell you," he continued. "It is the will of the Teteo that the tecpatls that are to be used in this ceremony be the same ones that have been used in the rite of Tlaloc in the first month. That means--"

"It means they will not be sharp," Mazatl, the girl who'd once been in training as a warrior, interrupted. "They will not be sharp, and that means it won't be easy to get them into our chests. It means we will suffer much pain..."

"Yes," Quetzalpantli answered simply. "It does mean that. Even so, I doubt if I have to tell you that you should do all that you can to endure it. It is not good if you cry out or if you struggle against the priests who're holding you."

"To me, it does not matter at all," Mazatl said with a shrug. "I believed I was destined for death on the field of battle, and giving one's service on the altar is the same as dying in battle. A warrior's death in battle is seldom easy or painless. I welcome whatever comes to me."

"As do I," Atl added quickly, emphasizing her comment with her quick and charming grin. The others two young girls chimed in with agreement; Xochitl, who already knew this, nodded quietly. Quetzalpantli's eyes wandered from one face to another. He didn't see any fear there, didn't see any hesitation. A part of his job was to get them comfortable with their oncoming fate, and in the case of this group, that hadn't been hard; they'd all accepted it well from the outset. That they would walk quietly to the stone and present their breasts to the knife willingly wasn't in question.

It wasn't mysterious to him, not at all. If he himself had been the one sold into slavery and had been selected by the priests for sacrifice, his attitude would've been the same. If invaders came into Texcoco with the intent of sacking and burning the city, every able-bodied man and woman would join the resistance, fighting furiously. Few would hesitate to give their lives if doing so meant victory for their people over the invader. For them, for all the peoples of the Anahuac and the surrounding country, the sacrifice was the same. Sacrifice strengthened the Teteo, and the Teteo maintained ollin, movement, they kept the world running--without them it would sink into cold dark death, death for everyone and everything. In this eternal cosmic battle, men of different nations were not enemies; the Aztecs and the Tarascans might fight furiously on the battlefield, the Acolhua and the Tlaxcalans might fight their flowery wars, but in the greater fight against entropy all men and women were allies and all were allied with the Teteo. These girls saw themselves as warriors, and they were willing to suffer great pain, willing to give their very lives, to ensure that the Teteo had the strength to carry their great fight onward.

But for Quetzalpantli, the analogy broke down when it came to Xochitl. If invaders came into the city, she would pick up a weapon and fight them, certainly; but, just as certainly, he'd stand between her and any enemy warrior who meant to harm her, and he would not move so long as he lived. Now, it was as if he not only had to step aside and watch while that enemy killed his beloved wife, he had to instruct her to stand still and receive the killing blow, he even had to point out to the enemy where to strike her to ensure her death.

And now he had to explain her part to her, as was his duty. Controlling himself with great effort, he turned to her. "Your service--" he started to say. In spite of his efforts his voice cracked, and he coughed deliberately to cover it. "Your service--"

"Teacher," Xaratanga, the Tarascan girl, said, interrupting.

He turned to her. "Yes?"

"All of us here," she answered in her accented Nahuatl, "know well that Itzacxochitl is your wife. All of us understand how deeply you love her, we have seen it in your eyes whenever you look at her. We have spoken of it among ourselves, honored Teacher. Know that each of us would gladly die on the altar four times over if we had a man to teach us, to guide us, who felt about us as deeply as you do about her. We can see, too, how hard this is for you, this part of our lessons especially. If your emotions are seen by us, honorable Teacher, know that we will not think the less of you for it. Whether it is truly proper for you to let us see them does not matter. We understand." He stared at her for a moment, then turned his gaze back to Xochitl. Her eyes were wet, and there was a fine trickle of moisture below each one. "I do not," she said, "fear the pain of the tecpatl. And my only regret in waking from the dream of my life is in leaving you, my husband. But your pain, seeing it in your eyes, is torment for me..."

He closed his own eyes for a moment. He did not want tears to appear, that certainly wasn't proper, but he could not stop them. He stepped forward and pulled Xochitl into his arms. As he embraced her, he felt the other four girls gathering around, touching his arms and shoulders lightly.

Finally, he felt under control enough to finish his explanation. But first, he arrayed the five before him. "Many times," he told them, "I have been called upon to teach those who will give their service atop the pyramid, and I have had many good students. But never have I had such a group as this, never. You are the best, the best I have ever had the privilege of teaching. You honor me." He named them, one at a time, looking at each one in turn. "Itzacxochitzin," he said, adding the "-tzin" honorific form, "My Lady," at the end. "Macuilli Mazatzin. Ce Atzin. Matlactli Callitzin." The last one he stumbled over a little, since the Tarascan girl's name-form didn't fit the rules. "Xaratanga-tzin," he finished, and everyone smiled.

Then, finally, he finished the day's instruction by telling Xochitl what she was to expect. "You will be the last," he told her. "There are things done with the ixiptla that she is not supposed to expect, so there are a few matters I cannot speak of, but you should show no surprise about anything."

"I will not, my teacher," she answered. She put a little stress on the final word, as if to remind him that she was hearing this from her teacher, not her husband.

"There is a point," he said, "during your service, when the priest Quetzalcoatl will stop, he will do nothing for a few moments." He paused and took a deep breath, then rushed on: "At that point the tecpatl will be deep in your breast. He will let it go, and when he does, you should try to breathe hard. :Let your chest rise and fall as the waves on the sea might." He paused. "If you can. Not every ixiplta can do this. But you should try."

"I will. If I am able, I will breathe hard. I will do my best."

He sighed. "Yes, you will," he agreed. "I know you will. I know you all will. I have no doubts about any of you, none whatsoever. Absolutely none."

Xochitl spent the night before the ceremony in her home with Quetzalpantli; although it was allowed, it did raise some eyebrows when he'd announced his plans. Neither of them slept except for very brief periods; they made love almost all night, slowly and softly and tenderly, both of them acutely aware that it was their last time.

For Quetzalpantli, the night passed very swiftly; it seemed like mere minutes before the dawn began turning the eastern sky violet. Dressed now in a plain light brown huipilli and cueitl, all her jewelry laid aside, Xochitl sat on their sleeping mat, watching the dawn arrive.

"We must go now," Quetzalpantli told her at last. He couldn't help remembering that she'd said the same words to him the morning he'd taken her to the slave-trader. She looked up at him; she was utterly calm, she seemed completely at peace.

"Yes," she agreed. "It is. I was just watching the sunrise--the last sunrise these eyes will ever see..." She rose, and she took his hand. "Know that I love you, Quetzalpantli," she said. "And that I always will." His eyes misted, he told her he loved her too, and he folded her in his arms.

But he hadn't lied, it was time, he'd delayed as long as he possibly could. He had to take her to the temple, he had to turn her over to the priests, he had to give her to them so they could kill her...

Wild ideas raced through his mind. Now, it was too late for him to declare her unsuitable, if he were going to do that he would've had to do it much sooner, soon enough that a replacement could be found. She still had the right to refuse the sacrifice; almost anyone--anyone other than a war captive whose captor demanded his service--had that right, up until the moment the knife fell. That he knew she would not do, however. She wasn't afraid, that was obvious, and if she'd ever had a thought of doing that then she, too, would've done it sooner, soon enough that it wouldn't spell disaster for the ceremony--as a refusal now would certainly do.

But at this particular moment he didn't care about the ceremony, didn't care about Huixtocihuatl or about any of the Teteo. He didn't want to see her die, and he began to spin elaborate fantasies about fleeing from the city with her, about traveling South to the land of the Maya where he had friends, or perhaps even further; fantasies of living out his life with her, watching her bear his children, watching them grow, celebrating the birth of grandchildren...

But, in the end, he held her hand tightly and led her out the door, out into the street, and to the ceremonial square, where the priests and priestesses were waiting for them, waiting to bathe her and get her into her costume. The other four girls were already there; stopping near the entrance, he continued to hold her hand as he guided her toward the waiting priests.

Then he released her, breaking contact with her. His hand felt cold; he would never touch her living body again, and he knew it. He watched her walk to the priests, and he watched her throw him one single backward glance, her eyes full of love. He returned her gaze, he saw her turn away--and he left. There was still an hour or so to be spent before the ceremony began; from there he went to the temple of Xochiquetzal, goddess of love and flowers, and there, for that entire hour, he begged for some sort of solace. He did not get it. Eventually, feeling cold and numb, he made his way back to the square where the ceremony would take place.

And now, at last, that ceremony was under way. Xochitl not only knew her role perfectly but she looked splendid, better than any impersonator of Huixtocihuatl he'd ever seen. Standing just at the edge of the ceremonial square, as close to the dancers as he could get, Quetzalpantli watched the entire dance, as Xochitl had known he would. Several times he caught her eye, and he was rewarded each time with her brilliant smile.

Finally, their dance was done. They stopped; Xochitl faced him, looking into his eyes until one of the young warriors assigned to escort them up the steps of the pyramid touched her arm. When he did she turned away and she began her long walk, following the four girls up the steep steps. Each of the girls was dressed in a cotton shirt that did not quite reach the middle of her thighs, a shirt that was decorated with marine motifs. Like Xochitl, they wore paper caps with plumes, but theirs were red and blue parrot feathers.

Slowly and majestically they ascended, toward the tlamacazques--the priests--who awaited them at the top. Quetzalpantli had already made his decision; as the women and their warrior escorts walked slowly up, he ran around the back of the structure and, almost at a run, ascended the other set of stairs there.

He was in place, waiting, standing less than a yard away from the techcatl--the altar stone--when the first girl, Mazatl, reached the top of the truncated pyramid. As she stepped onto it, the others stopped where they were. Xochitl was still ten steps down from the top, at the end of the procession, and she wasn't, he knew, aware he was there. Atl, who was next in line and now standing on the second step down, could see him, and she flashed him her trademark smile. Mazatl saw him too, and she smiled briefly as well.

Playing her role to perfection, Mazatl turned, stepped to the edge of the pyramid, and faced the assembled people. Behind her, one of the wild-haired and black-painted priests laid his hands on her shoulders. With great ceremony, he removed her paper hat and laid it on the stone alongside her. Then he untied the strings at each of her shoulders, strings that held her cotton shirt on. Again slowly, he lifted the cloth off her body, leaving her completely naked before the crowd. With slow and deliberate movements, she spread her arms, reaching them up toward the sky. The onlookers below responded with a warbling cry.

When two of the priests came to stand beside her, she dropped her arms. Taking her time, she turned and walked the short distance back to the techcatl. It was shaped into a truncated cone, waist-high, the top of it only six inches in diameter. She seated herself on it, then leaned backwards slightly. Two of the priests took her ankles, and two others took her wrists; she kept her body stiff as they laid her back on the stone, arranging her so that the top of it was pushing up into the center of her back. A fifth priest held her head gently in his hands. The priest Quetzalcoatl then stepped up alongside her, holding in his hands a six-inch tecpatl, and he held it poised over her bare chest. Mazatl looked up at him, her eyes wide open. Having come to the moment she believed was her destiny, the fate she'd chosen for herself, she didn't seem in the least afraid.

After a moment's pause the priest hammered down on her left breast with the knife, striking her just under her large, dark nipple. She grunted involuntarily and her limbs jerked; as Quetzalpantli had warned them, this well-used knife wasn't sharp, and it only dug into her skin a half-inch or so. Holding it down, he paused for a moment, glancing down at the girl's face. Her jaw worked, but after a few seconds the expression of pain was gone; once again she gazed back at the priest with calm eyes.

He began working the knife back and forth, pressing hard, forcing the blade into her. Mazatl closed her eyes and opened her full lips. She grunted and trembled a little as he worked, and, though her arms and legs jerked, she seemed to be trying not to struggle as the knife began opening a hole in her beautiful chest. Her blood was flowing freely, following the gentle curve of her full, rounded breast as it ran across her coppery skin and dripped onto the stone floor. As soon as the knife was about three or four inches deep, the priest started cutting downward with it, opening a gash in her chest that extended down her side. She panted and chewed her lower lip as he continued to work the blade around in the bleeding wound, opening it wider, cutting it deeper. Everyone could hear the sound when the blade scraped on her ribs.

The priest Quetzalcoatl, panting from his exertions, stopped for a moment. Mazatl opened her eyes, glanced at her ruined chest, then threw her head back again. She raised the middle of her body as if exhorting him to hurry. Responding, he pushed the blade back into the wound, letting it sink in until the widest part was even with her ribs; then he began turning it counter-clockwise. Her eyes flew wide open as her ribs were spread apart, but the priest kept twisting relentlessly. He paused, examined the wound with a critical eye, then bent the blade over a little to the side. She was lashing her head around a little now, and she was obviously fighting not to move her arms or legs. Her fists clenched and opened, her toes were curled stiffly back, and blood had begun to run from the corner of her mouth.

The priest held the knife up to the sky, then sank it deeply back into the wound, provoking an even greater flow of bright red blood, the previous stream turning to a river. Taking it out and laying it on her stomach, he dug his whole hand into her chest. Her eyes rolled back, her body jerked and twitched uncontrollably. A moment later, his hand came back out; in it he held her heart, the torn connections spouting blood. Mazatl, still alive, raised her head and shoulders to watch the priest hold her still-beating heart up to the sky. Quetzalpantli could see the pride in her expression; she'd done her service very well, and she knew it. This was her moment, she was now a sacred being, Teotl herself, a part of the living presence of Huixtocihuatl. She was, clearly, reveling in it, for as long as she could.

But, after only a brief instant, she fell back. Her eyes glazed, her body stretched out in a long shuddering spasm, and became still. The priest Quetzalcoatl looked down at her for a moment, watching the blood and fluid drain from her chest. Then, at his signal, the other five carefully removed her body from the altar stone and laid it gently in front of it. Her heart was deposited in the green jadestone bowl the priest Cihuacoatl was holding.

All this time, Xochitl and the other three girls waited on the steps below. As soon as Mazatl's corpse was laid in place in front of the stone, Atl stepped to the top of the pyramid. Moving quickly, looking intensely excited, she presented herself to the priests, and, just a few minutes later, she too was nude. Without the slightest hesitation, she walked to the stone and sat down on it--if anything, a little too quickly. She grinned mischievously at the priests; she even waved her hands and feet in the air, encouraging the four men to take hold of them. She was still grinning when they laid her back, but her grin vanished when the priest Quetzalcoatl struck her breast with the dull knife. Her body went rigid and her mouth flew open wide when he bore down on it, his hands shaking with effort, pushing it just a little further into her chest. But, as soon as the man paused, her face cleared; she looked like she was trying to grin again, but she didn't manage it. Even so, she pushed her chest up into it as the priest worked the blade down and across, slicing open her breast. Again she went rigid when he twisted the blade, but she was still and relaxed as he pushed his hand into her chest and moved it around inside her, searching for her heart. Her body spasmed once, violently, when he found it and twisted it loose inside her. She did smile again--briefly--as he held it up to the sky. By the time he'd dropped it into the bowl with the first one, though, her eyes had glazed and stared sightlessly, unseeing.

In succession, the remaining two girls followed the first two to their deaths, in similar fashion. Except for the thud of the knife and an occasional grunt, the whole operation was conducted in silence. And finally, only Xochitl was left standing on the stairs.

Without hesitation, but slowly and deliberately, she mounted the top of the platform. She looked very serious, very solemn; but, once she was on top and she saw Quetzalpantli standing there waiting for her, an expression of relief washed over her features, and she offered him her brilliant smile. Her lips silently mouthed the words, "Thank you..." Then, turning away from him, she walked to the edge of the pyramid and waited until the priests stepped up to her and removed her elaborate costume piece by piece. They did not stop until she was nude, and she stood before the crowd with her arms raised for several minutes, listening to their warbling cries. Finally, the priests came to stand beside her. She lowered her arms slowly and turned toward the altar stone, which was surrounded by the bodies of the four previous victims. With her eyes fixed on Quetzalpantli's face, she walked deliberately to the stone and sat down on it. She looked terribly excited and incredibly beautiful; her eyes were bright, almost glowing.

Watching, standing very close, Quetzalpantli felt like he was choking; he could hear his own heart pounding in his ears as Xochitl's final moment drew close. He could not do it, he decided, he just couldn't, he couldn't stand here and watch her die, he loved her far too much and he did not feel like he could live without her. He began to formulate a wild plan, a plan so audacious it probably would work perfectly. Taking his eyes off her for just a moment, he looked around. There were seven priests up here; besides those there were four assistants and two others who, like himself, participated in the preparations for the ceremony and had the right to be here. Arrayed along the edge of the pyramid on both sides of the stair were warriors, a total of twenty including the five who'd escorted the girls to the top, all of them heavily armed. Their function was to keep order, but, as far as Quetzalpantli knew, they virtually never had to do much of anything. Once in a while, when young children were sacrificed to Tlaloc, a distraught parent would try to rush up the stair before his or her son or daughter was sacrificed. At such times the warriors stopped them, restraining them gently. At no time had he ever seen anyone try to interfere with a ceremony to the extent that the warriors were obligated to use their weapons.

No one, he told himself, would be expecting anything like what he was planning. Before they laid her back, he'd lunge forward, knocking the priests out of his way with his shoulders, seize her hand, and together they'd run down the stairs. He knew what would happen; there'd be utter confusion among the priests and warriors atop the pyramid, such a thing was so totally unheard of that none would know what was happening. The priests, each believing that some other must know more about this, would consult among themselves; the assistants and the warriors would stand waiting for the priests to tell them what to do. Down at the bottom, in the square, the assembled crowd would assume that this was somehow part of the ceremony, and they'd part to let them through as they ran. They would not stop; they'd keep running, right out of the city and into the fastness of the mountains surrounding the lake. They could be far away by the time a response had been decided upon by the priests, and in any case, their first response would be to quickly acquire another slave and complete the ritual. To be sure, the warriors would come looking for them, if for no other reason than to demand that he stand before the council and the tlatoani and explain himself.

But by then, they'd be gone. To Tlaxcala, perhaps, or to Huextozinco, or to some other town not currently on friendly terms with Texcoco but where he had, as a trader, friends. Once safe, they could decide where they'd live. They could never return to the Anahuac, but Xochitl would be alive...

While he was still formulating this outrageous plan, the priests started laying her back. Fully cooperative, she stretched her arms out to the sides, she spread her legs a little and locked her knees; two of the men took hold of her wrists and two others took her ankles, and they moved her backwards until her body was horizontal. She turned her head slightly and looked at Quetzalpantli; she had an almost ecstatic expression on her face. It didn't matter, he told himself wildly. The plan would still work. She hadn't been harmed, not yet; as long as she hadn't been harmed the element of surprise would still work, he could still save her.

Nothing of this showed in his face. Xochitl, turning her head back, looked up at the fifth priest, who stood behind her head. In his hands he held a special weapon, one made from the snout of a sawfish. Two feet long with a carved wood handle at each end, it was studded with short, thick, spines, spines that had been manually worked to needlelike points. This was a part of the ceremony she hadn't known anything about, but she betrayed no surprise, no fear. He tucked the weapon under her chin and, positioning them carefully, placed the spines against her throat. Quetzalpantli, knowing what was coming from past experience, willed himself to move. It was more complicated now but not much more, he had to yank the sawfish-weapon away without cutting her throat, but he was sure he could do that...

But Xochitl glanced at him again and he did not move. Then, with a sudden pressure that carried her head far back, the priest pushed the spines into her smooth slender throat.

Only two of the spines sank in, one on either side of her windpipe, while two others pressed into her skin. Blood welled up instantly, tricking down the sides of her neck. Her body jerked slightly, but then she became still again.

Still pushing down firmly, the priest rocked the weapon back and forth, forcing additional spines into the side of neck. After piercing her slender neck at least five times on each side, he brought the weapon back to a horizontal position, leaving the two original spines buried in her throat. Blood flowed freely even though the points were not long. He pulled hard on her neck, stretching her body tight. Meanwhile, the sixth man, the priest Quetzalcoatl, raised the bloodied stone knife high over her taut chest, and the seventh, the priest Cihuacoatl, held the jadestone bowl ready. Quetzalpantli felt his own chest was as tight as Xochitl's; his breath was catching in his throat. Now! He screamed at himself silently. Now! It isn't too late, those wounds in her neck are mere pinpricks, they won't be fatal!

But again, even though she could not now turn her head to look at him, he caught a glimpse of her face. Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted; she looked peaceful, she looked like she was ready for what was to come, and he had never seen her looking more beautiful. There was a radiance about her, a seemingly tangible presence. Quetzalpantli bit back a choking sob and tears blurred his vision. He could not move; he could not interfere, he could not stop this. In that instant, he understood that it never had been possible, and more, that he'd never really intended to try to stop it, he'd merely been using the fantasies to help him get through the days and the hours. At his core, he believed what he'd told Nanotzin, what seemed like years ago. Xochitl had been chosen by Tezcatlipoca for this, and she'd been chosen long before the priests found her in Tzezomoc's house. Tezcatlipoca had decided that she was the perfect living vessel for Huixtocihuatl, and he'd probably decided that long ago. Tezcatlipoca had caused his business problems, Tezcatlipoca had set up the situation that had caused him to sell her into slavery, thus making her available to the priests.

Quetzalpantli felt no resentment toward the great god of the Smoking Mirror. Thousands of times over the gods and goddesses had given their lives for the world, for humanity, and they deserved nothing but the best in return, the best vessels. Blinking away his tears, he stared at Xochitl, her nude body arched high over the sacrificial stone, the afternoon sunlight caressing her smooth bronze skin, her bright red blood running down into her coal-black hair. Her calm face, her wide-open deep brown eyes, the fullness of her parted lips... no, there was no way Tezcatlipoca had made an error. She was perfect, absolutely perfect. Never had the sea-goddess had such a perfect vessel, Quetzalpantli was certain of that. Finally having accepted this, he was sure he could physically feel the presence of Tezcatlipoca and Huixtocihuatl, almost as if they were congratulating him on a job well done. Thinking only that Xochitl deserved far more credit than he, he waited, waited for the climactic moment.

It came just a moment later; the priest Quetzalcoatl brought the knife down hard, striking Xochitl's high, conical breast just below the nipple. It didn't go in far, only an inch or so. The priest held it against her chest tightly, pressing down as hard as he could, forcing it deeper. In a sudden gush, blood boiled up from around it and started flowing off her chest. Quetzalpantli's breath, which he hadn't been aware he was holding, left him in a rush.

The sacrificer kept grinding the blade straight down; he did not cut down her side as he had with the others, he just kept pressing and jamming it deeper and deeper into her breast. Her hands clenched and opened spasmodically as he forced the blade on into her, but she didn't try to jerk them free. The pain must've been incredibly intense for her, but she betrayed it only by periodic grunts, her sharply curled-back toes, and her deep frown. Working as quickly as he could, the priest Quetzalcoatl rocked the knife, struggling with it, and, gradually, inch by inch, it disappeared into her body. When all that could be seen was the handle, he stopped and dropped his hands. She lived still, and, not only did she remember his instruction, she was able to comply; her chest moved up and down steadily, carrying the imbedded knife with it, as if it were a boat riding on the waves. Blood ran from her mouth, and urine wetted the stone beneath her hips. The priest holding the sawfish-weapon looked down at her face, studying it. While he did, the priest Quetzalcoatl waited.

Then the man at her head lifted his eyes, signaling to the others that she would not last much longer. With a sudden and dramatic gesture, the priest Quetzalcoatl jerked the blade out of her chest. A fountain of blood perhaps two feet high followed it, showering her and the men--including Quetzalpantli--with red.

Xochitl's body began trembling, and her arms and legs twitched. The priest began hacking open a larger hole in her chest, and Xochitl was unable to restrain her grunts and gasps as he repeatedly pounded the stone blade into her already ravaged body, tearing her flesh and causing blood to spatter all over. When the hole was large enough, he reached in, grabbed her heart, and, with a quick wrenching motion, tore it free. As he lifted it aloft--it was still beating, if a little weakly--the man at her head slipped the spines out of her throat and raised her head so she could see it.

Quetzalpantli didn't know if she saw it or not. Her eyes were already glazing; she gave a sort of soft little sigh and didn't draw another breath. A rippling tremor ran through her body as she relaxed in death.

The priests let go of her wrists and ankles; the ceremony had ended. The priests' helpers arrayed the corpses of the four young girls at the head of the stairs and sent them rolling down, tumbling end over end, finally ending up in a tangled heap of arms and legs at the bottom. Lifting Xochitl's body off the stone, the workers carried it down respectfully; Quetzalpantli followed at a distance, and he was just exiting the stair as other workers, men who'd been waiting below, were laying the five bodies out in a neat row.

These men, working in pairs on each of the bodies, began by using their long slender stone knives to slit the five bodies open from the base of the sternum to the groin. Quetzalpantli couldn't restrain a little gasp as he watched a worker cut through Xochitl's flat satiny belly, even though he knew she was far beyond feeling it. Once the bodies had been opened the men reached inside, and, with practiced skill, pulled out all the internal organs. Several large pottery vats were waiting; the girls' entrails were sorted into them, one getting the lungs, another receiving the livers, kidneys, spleens, and uteruses, while the intestines, stomach, and bladder were dumped into a third. Once the bodies were emptied, water was poured from a third vat through them and they were scrubbed, removing almost all the blood and any foreign material remaining.

One of the workers then lifted Atl's head and shoulders by her hair. Another man, using his knife, quickly severed her head, allowing her body to fall back In quick succession the other three girls were beheaded, and again Quetzalpantli could not control his reaction when he watched them lift Xochitl's body by her hair and slice quickly through her neck, cutting her head free. The five heads were set upright against the stone base of the pyramid, as if they themselves were watching the procedure. There they would remain until the priests took them to the tzompantli, the skull rack, where they'd be mounted. All of them except for Matlactli Calli had died with their eyes wide open, and they remained so now; their faces looked relaxed, peaceful, expressionless. Continuing their work, the butchers proceeded to first cut off the hands and feet, then to sever the girls' arms at the shoulders and their legs at the hips. The arms were then again subdivided at the elbow joints and the legs at the knees; all were laid out in neat rows, all the thigh pieces together, all the calf pieces together.

While the butchers were busily dividing the torsos into rib sections, neck sections, lower back sections, and hip sections, the priest Quetzalcoatl, who had descended the pyramid a little later, walked past Quetzalpantli and picked up both of Xochitl's thighs.

"The thigh," he said to the teacher, "is the choicest of the parts. These are yours if you desire them..."

Quetzalpantli gazed at him impassively. This wasn't usual. The offering of the thighs was made to a warrior who brought in a captive; peripherally, Quetzalpantli saw that the priest Cihuacoatl and another priest were, at the same time, offering the thigh pieces from Matlactli Calli and Xaratanga to warriors, certainly the warriors who'd originally captured them and brought them back to the city. In being offered the thighs, Quetzalpantli was being treated as if he were a warrior who'd captured Xochitl, evidently in deference to his unusual status as both her husband and her ritual teacher.

But this was a rhetorical offering, and all three men, Quetzalpantli and the two warriors, reacted the same way--the way they were expected to react. As if he could not bear to look at them--which wasn't far from the truth--Quetzalpantli turned his head away and held out a hand, palm out.

"Shall I then," he said in a tone laced with formal contempt, "eat of the flesh of my own beloved daughter?" The other men spoke the same lines, and the priests, with an approving nod at having received the correct responses, turned away and replaced the thighs on the ground.

Quetzalpantli did not stay for the remainder of the ceremony, the feast. Certainly, it would have been possible for him to take part and still not consume any of the foods containing the sacred flesh of the sacrificed girls--there was also fish and other seafood in abundance at this feast--but he hardly had an appetite. He tried to go home, but everything that caught his eye reminded him of Xochitl; she used to sit there, he told himself, she used to lie here. Her clothes, the spindle she'd used for spinning thread, her small mirror, her combs and brushes, the necklace and earrings she'd so treasured, all of these remained where she'd left them. The knowledge that she wasn't there and wasn't coming back, not ever, was too painful, he could not remain; at the sight of the bright green ribbons she'd woven herself and that she sometimes used to tie her hair back, he broke down, sobs wracking his body.

He went to Tlatelolco, to his stall in the marketplace, but her ghost was there, too, standing by the stall as she'd stood there so many times in the past, helping him make his sales, helping him sort the feathers, giving her ready smile to all his customers. For him, Texcoco was full of her, she was everywhere in the city. In the end, he went out to the lake and he sat on the bank, just staring blankly into the blue water. Eventually he fell asleep there on the bank, but his sleep was not restful, he was tortured with dreams of her. On waking the next day, stiff and cold, he made a decision--he could not remain in Texcoco. He would have to go elsewhere.

Having determined this, he wasted no time. Returning to the marketplace, he sold his business; he also sold his house and practically all of his possessions, keeping only his clothes, his weapons for self-defense when traveling, and a small carved wood box in which he kept Xochitl's jewelry and her ribbons, precious mementos for the years to come. At the temple he informed the priests of his plans, telling them that he was leaving the city for good and would no longer be available as a teacher. They were sympathetic but they also tried to dissuade him--they urged him to present his troubles to Xochiquetzal, goddess of love. As he'd already done that--without receiving any succor or indeed, anything at all that he could interpret as a response--he didn't take their advice. Instead, the next day, he left Texcoco, alone, traveling eastward toward the land of the Totonacs.

His journey was long and hard, but it was uneventful, and, several weeks later, he arrived in the Totonac country. There he was known, and he was welcomed; one of his former colleges in the plume business offered him lodging until he decided what he would do next, and he accepted gratefully.

As the days passed, though, he didn't find that decision an easy one. He spent part of his time helping his friend with his plume business, but he kept finding himself thinking about going home, going back to Texcoco, where Xochitl would be waiting. There were times he had to be firm with himself, had to convince himself that Xochitl was not there and that he'd sold everything, he'd broken his ties with the lake city.

It was on the fourth day of his stay with the Totonacs that the smoky-eyed girl came to his friend's stall in the marketplace.

He noticed her; everyone noticed her. She was, as he heard a chili-seller in the next stall say, beautiful beyond all reason. Objectively, she was more beautiful than Xochitl, although Quetzalpantli wouldn't have admitted that even to himself. More, although she had the bronze skin and ebony hair common to the people of the area, her eyes were unique; they were large, luminous, and smoky blue-gray in color. As Quetzalpantli looked into them, he felt they were smoking, he thought he could see the smoke from some fire that burned somewhere inside her. Glancing at him occasionally and smiling, she examined the plumes for sale at the stall. He watched as she picked up a blue-green macaw feather, one that was long and wide but was a little ragged along its edges.

"This one," she said in a voice that sounded like the dulcet tones of a flute, "seems nice."

"That's not one of the best we have, my Lady," he told her honestly. "There are some finer ones, if not quite so large."

She glanced at him again, freezing his eyes with hers, and ran her small delicate fingers along the length of the plume. "It appears," she said, "to be perfect to me. A plume worth a very high price."

He looked at it again. The edges were, as she'd said, perfect. There wasn't a flaw in it; it was perhaps the finest plume he'd ever seen of that size. He blinked. "It seems I was mistaken, my Lady," he said. "That is indeed a very fine plume..."

"It is. I believe I will purchase it." From the little bag she was wearing attached to her belt, she took a piece of jade an inch in diameter and laid it on the counter. "Is that sufficient?"

He laughed. "My Lady! That chalchihuitl, that piece of jade, is worth half the stock of this stall! Maybe more!"

"Then it is sufficient," she said mildly. Leaving the jade there, she fitted the plume into her headband so it arched up over her head. "You do not," she said as she adjusted it, "look like a seller of plumes to me."

He laughed again. "My Lady, it is what I've always done."

"Still. To me you look like a sailor. A fisherman, perhaps. Or a merchant seaman."

He pointed to his chest. "Me? A sailor? My Lady, I know nothing of the ways of the boatmen! I do well to pilot a canoe through the canals of Tenochtitlan!"

"I think not," she said flatly. "Come with me, Quetzalpantli."

He stared. "What?"

"Come with me."

"Uh--I cannot, my Lady, I cannot leave my friend's stall unattended, I--"

"Close it down. All will be well. Your friend will return within the hour. When he finds that chalchihuitl he'll be more than pleased."

Confused, he continued to stare at her. Only then did it occur to him that she'd called him "Quetzalpantli;" somehow she'd known his name. More than that--possibly simply because she was so intoxicatingly lovely--he didn't seem to be able to say no to her. Moving like he was sleepwalking, he put the jade away behind the counter and walked out from behind it. She turned away, moving through the streets, turning all heads as she went, and he followed her as if he were being led by a chain.

"How did you know my name, my Lady?" he asked as they walked. "Are you--?"

"I knew it," she answered, "and that's all that matters."

"Might I ask your name, my Lady?"

"Yes. I am called Xochiquetzal."

That stopped him for a moment. But "Xochiquetzal," "Flower-plume," really wasn't an uncommon name for a woman in the Anahuac. "It fits you, my Lady," he answered after a moment.

She laughed musically. "I think so," she said, without a trace of arrogance. "But I thank you, Quetzalpantli, for the compliment." She walked on, and, with a start, he realized she'd led him out of the city, out onto the beach. He glanced up at the ocean, watched a wave come rolling in.

"Here," Xochiquetzal said, finally stopping. She pointed.

He looked. There was a boat there, a rather fine boat, a large catamaran fitted with two furled sails. On board were nets such as the fishermen used.

"Push it out to the water," she instructed. "Get on board, unfurl the sails, guide it out onto the sea."

He laughed. "My Lady! First of all, that would be stealing; this is a fine boat, someone owns it! And second, I do not know a sail from a rudder!"

"The man who owned this boat," she told him, "drowned at sea a week ago. He'd netted a large swordfish, his foot became entangled in the net, and the fish pulled him over. He is in Tlalocan now, he has no further use for a boat. He had no sons, no nephews; his friends, other sailors, pulled the boat in and left it for whosoever might need it." She gazed at him steadily with those fantastic eyes. "You need it, Quetzalpantli, plume-merchant, teacher, loyal husband, man of passion, man of honor. So I say--I, myself, in person. You should take it, you should sail it on the sea."

He stared at her, his eyes becoming wider. His heart felt like it had stopped. That was a formal statement--"I, myself, in person." He knew what it meant. In the Anahuac, no one other than a sorcerer such as Ixtlilhuexotl would dare use it. He blinked again, and now he saw the smoky-eyed woman nude, flowers in her hair, a large yellow rattlesnake wound around her waist and between her legs. Another blink and she was as she had been.

"You with a serpent girt round your loins..." he whispered, speaking one of the honorific names for Xochiquetzal the goddess.

"Take the boat, Quetzalpantli, you who are beloved and honored by those who come spiraling down from Tamoanchan, Land of the Mist and Rain."

He felt like falling to his knees. But he did not; mechanically, he moved to the boat, pushed it to the water, pushed it out, and climbed aboard. When he looked back, there was no one on the beach. That did not surprise him at all, not at all.

Nor was he surprised when he discovered that. somehow, his hands seemed to know what to do in terms of operating the boat. At first, he wasn't thinking of building a career as a merchant seaman or as a fisherman, he was just sailing the boat across the blue waters of the Gulf, enjoying the sea air and the roll of the waves--enjoying himself for the first time since the ceremony. What had happened, the way he'd gotten this boat, he was trying not to think about at the moment. An interpretation was blindingly clear, but he couldn't quite accept that, not yet.

An hour out, he'd lost sight of the land, but he seemed to know which way it was, it didn't worry him. Sitting on the lashed-log deck, leaning against the mast, he listened to the play of the wind and the waves around the vessel, the soft rushing noises... he began to feel almost as if he could hear voices in them...

"I am glad you came, Quetzalpantli," the voice seemed to say. "Glad you came back to me quickly, I've been lonely without you..."

He smiled; the voice seemed familiar, but he was sure he was imagining it and he didn't open his eyes.

"You won't speak to me?" the voice asked. He still didn't respond. After a moment, a sudden wave swept up over the bow of his boat, breaking on the deck and splashing his face with water. He jumped up, sputtering, and the voice--the voice that, whether he was hearing it with his ears or not, was now very clear in his head--laughed.

His eyes flew wide open. That laugh, that very familiar laugh, wasn't mistakable. Wildly, he looked around. "Xochitl?" he called aloud, even though he felt foolish doing it.

The waves splashed around the beams of the boat, and, in the sound they made, he heard the voice again, much more clearly now. "Yes, my husband, my love. I am here. I am one with Huixtocihuatl now, and I am here, with you."

The strength went out of his knees and he sank to the deck. In an instant he was lying prone, his head over the side, gazing down into the blue water. A small wave rose up and caressed his cheek. "Xochitl," he cried. "Xochitl, is it real? Is it real, or am I mad?"

Down in the depths, far away, he was sure he could see her eyes. "It's real," she whispered in her wave-voice. "It's real, and we are together now, again. For all our days, my love, my heart."

He put his hand in the water, and he was certain he could feel hers gripping it, feeling just as it had the day he'd led her across the city to present her to the priests. Once again, he broke down, weeping freely, his tears falling into the water. Again, the waves reached up to touch his face. Her presence was unmistakable now. To assure himself he was not mad, he jumped up, retrieved the box of mementos he'd brought with him, and, taking out the green ribbon, dropped it into the water. When it wound itself up--just as she'd wound it with her fingers, so many times before-- and persistently floated within his reach, he broke down yet again, all doubts finally gone.

The days passed, they assembled themselves into weeks; Quetzalpantli continued to ply his new trade, now as a merchant seaman, carrying trade goods between the Totonacs, the Huaxtecs to the north, and the Mayas to the south. Everywhere he was welcomed; his life was comfortable, although he always endeavored to remain ashore as little as possible. At sea he experienced storms, he saw days when the wind died momentarily, becalming him; but he did, indeed, feel he was favored by the Teteo. On calm days Ehecatl, god of the wind, sent a breeze to move his boat; if it rained Tlaloc, god of rain, kept the worst of the storms away from him. At times he'd see a hurricane in the distance, he'd see the thrashing waves, the driving wind, and the bright lightning associated with those storms. But always the breezes and the currents kept him away, kept him safe.

But there was something missing, even so. Xochitl, ever present in the lapping waves around his boat, sensed it, too.

"I do understand, husband," he said in her wave-voice. "I do. I feel the same; I long for your physical presence, I long to feel your arms about me again..."

Lying on the deck as he commonly did, his face near the water, he smiled. "Yes, my love, I do miss those things. But we have been given so much, so much more than most men and women--we should not mourn those things we cannot have..."

To his surprise, rather than agreeing with him, she laughed. Almost instantly, a strong current developed in the waters around his boat, and at the same time the wind died down. His sails drooped; the felt the boat change direction and begin moving rapidly to the south.

"Xochitl, what is happening?" he asked. "I was not going south, I was headed north, to the land of the Huaxtecs..."

"And you will be a few days late arriving there," she answered. "A few days I do not think you'll regret, husband!"

He looked up. On the horizon a small island had appeared, and it seemed the boat was headed straight for it. Standing on the deck, he watched it grow closer. As far as he could tell it was uninhabited, he saw no buildings or huts that might suggest a village to town here.

But then, as the boat began rolling in through the surf toward the beach, he did see someone. He squinted against the sunlight; there was indeed someone there, someone who'd clearly seen him. The person was waving vigorously, even bouncing up and down--giving him an enthusiastic greeting. Grabbing his rudder, he steered the boat in that direction.

And then, as he drew a little closer yet, he could make out the person's features, and his eyes nearly started out of his head. There wasn't a question; it was the smoky-eyed woman, the one who'd given him the boat--the one he was now convinced was, truly, Xochiquetzal herself, in person. She even had the macaw plume he'd sold her, waving over her head. Frozen, barely able to manage a wave in response, he continued to stare as the boat surged in atop a low rolling wave.

She smiled at him, brilliantly, and waved again. Then she raised her arms to the skies and her form began to change; she became somewhat taller, her eyes darkened, her hair became a little shorter and her legs grew proportionately longer. The macaw plume vanished and was replaced by a bright green ribbon...

Quetzalpantli shrieked, an unintelligible cry of pure joy. The boat struck bottom and, unable to wait, he leapt from the bow and ran splashing through the surf. Leaving the beach, she ran to meet him as well, and they collided, almost violently, twenty yards from the shore. He folded her into his arms, feeling her solidity, feeling her body pressed against his, her lips on his, warm, vibrant, alive, alive...

He did not forget, even as he and Xochitl made their way back to the beach, to offer up thanks to the Teteo. What he'd said before, about having been given much more than most men, was merely a hollow shadow of what he felt now...