THIRTY-SIX
All told, we were ten days on the road to Tenochtitlan.
We passed—or more accurately, were passed by—one more pochteca expedition on the course of the journey, an encounter even more uneventful than the first one, for which all of us were grateful.
Although the majority of our nights were spent making camp along the roadside, we found several inns catering to travelling merchants on the way, where we were treated with an odd dispassionate curiosity.
Our path ascended subtly into the mountains, tropical warmth giving way to cooler temperatures, palm trees giving way to conifers and oaks.
The men in armor began to breathe easier, and I felt relieved on their behalf.
On the tenth day, we reached our destination. From what Denis had told us, I knew that the city of Tenochtitlan was built on a lake in a vast valley surrounded by mountains, but even so, I wasn’t prepared for the sight of it. We climbed atop the crest of the road and gazed down into the valley.
It was immense, and the city was well and truly built in the middle of the very lake. Ever the scholar, Denis explained how it had been done, expanding on one lone barren isle by creating artificial islands anchored in marshy ground that were built up and increased over many years, but I simply hadn’t imagined it could be so vast.
“Elua have mercy!” Septimus Rousse breathed in awe. “It’s nigh as grand as La Serenissima!” He gave a wry laugh. “I shouldn’t have wasted all those months cooling my heels in Orgullo del Sol the last time.”
“It’s a considerable feat of engineering,” Denis admitted. “Especially for a folk with no access to forged tools.”
Here were the enormous temples I’d heard about so long ago, stepped pyramids rising high into the sky, dominating the city. The city itself was laid out in an orderly manner, looking as though a great deal of thought had gone into it. Reed canoes glided over the lake and through a system of canals, and three huge causeways stretched across the shining water from city to shore to provide access for foot traffic. Even as I watched, a movable bridge in the middle of a causeway was raised to allow a canoe to pass.
“Ingenious,” Balthasar commented.
Denis nodded. “It is, rather. They raise the bridges at night to secure the city.”
“Where is the Aragonian settlement?” I asked.
He pointed to a wooden fortress on the shores of the lake. “There.”
It looked crude in comparison with the splendor of the city, but it was surrounded by high, sturdy walls.
“Well.” Although I was infinitely more curious about the city, there was diplomacy to be considered. Before we sought an audience with the Emperor, the Aragonian commander must be assured that this wasn’t a second attempt to encroach on their trade rights. “Let’s go pay our respects, shall we?”
It took us the better part of three hours to descend into the valley, passing steppe after steppe carved into the sides of the mountain to provide arable fields spread thick with fertile muck dredged from the lake. Nahuatl men and women tending the fields gazed after us with that same odd mix of stoicism and curiosity.
At last, we reached the floor of the valley and made our way to the Aragonian settlement.
The tall oak gates were shut and bolted, but the guards on duty opened them with alacrity after peering through a peep-hole at us. As soon as they ushered our party through the gate and into the open square beyond it, one addressed Denis de Toluard in stern Aragonian, while another hurried away. The remaining dozen or so took up warning poses, hands on the hilts of their swords.
Denis argued in vain with the guard who’d spoken to him, both their voices rising. Not for the first time, I wished the gods had not seen fit to divide humanity with a thousand different tongues. I’d cudgeled my wits into mastering a number of languages, but Aragonian wasn’t one of them.
As I waited for someone to tell me what transpired here, I noticed two things.
One was that the other Aragonian guards were staring at me with open lasciviousness. One of them caught my eye and made a deliberately lewd gesture, licking his lips, grabbing his crotch, and pumping his hips.
The other was that there was a palanquin adorned with gold sitting in the square, with a sturdy Nahuatl at each corner, along with a half dozen warriors with obsidian-studded clubs and another slender fellow in an elaborately embroidered mantle and a feather headdress standing beside it.
“What in the world passes here?” I asked no one in particular.
“I don’t know,” Bao said through gritted teeth, jerking his chin at the Aragonian guard who’d thrust his hips at me. “But I’m ten seconds from teaching that one a lesson.”
I was on the verge of dismounting to seek out Septimus Rousse, whom I knew spoke fluent Aragonian, when the guard who’d left returned with another fellow, a handsome man with a pointed beard who I guessed to be Commander Diego Ortiz y Ramos.
He, too, began railing at Denis in a voluble tone, waving his arms in the air, all the while ignoring Denis’ aggrieved replies. Balthasar attempted to inject himself into the conversation, and was roundly ignored by both of them.
I lost my temper, and loosed a shout at the top of my voice. “Enough!”
It rang loud enough that it startled them into silence.
I took a deep breath. “Thank you. Now, will someone please tell me what in the seven hells this is all about?”
The Aragonian commander spat on the ground. “Have you no shame?” he demanded in a thick accent. “And you!” He glared at Denis. “To use a woman thusly! I did not think even D’Angelines would fall so low!”
“Commander Ortiz y Ramos is under the mistaken impression that you’re a gift for the Emperor, Moirin,” Denis said wearily.
“What?” I stared at him in shock. “No!”
Diego Ortiz y Ramos pointed at the palanquin and the waiting Nahuatl. “Then why have they come to take you to him?”
“I don’t know!” I said helplessly.
“Why don’t we ask them?” Denis said in an acidic tone. “As I recall, your grasp of the Nahuatl tongue was uncertain, messire.”
Once tempers had cooled, the matter was sorted out. It seemed our spotted warrior friend Temilotzin had indeed spoken favorably of our encounter to the Emperor’s chief advisor, who in turn had reported it to Emperor Achcuatli himself. The tale of a D’Angeline noblewoman in Terra Nova had piqued the Emperor’s curiosity. Without bothering to wait for a request, he’d sent Lord Cuixtli—that was the slender fellow waiting beside the palanquin, who explained the matter to Denis with an air of bored patience—to invite us to the palace for an audience.
“And the Emperor understands that I’m not a—a tribute-gift of some kind?” I was anxious to make that point perfectly clear.
Denis conferred with Lord Cuixtli. “Yes, of course,” he reported. “That’s why he sent the palanquin as a gesture of honor.”
I sighed with relief, and offered a slight bow to the Nahuatl lord. “Tlazocamatli, Cuixtli.”
He inclined his head in reply.
Grateful though I was, after ten days on the road, I’d vastly prefer to meet the Emperor after a bath and a good night’s rest. Not trusting my tentative skills in the Nahuatl tongue, I asked Denis to ask Lord Cuixtli if it would give offense if I asked for a day’s grace, adding assurances that I would hasten to accept the Emperor’s generous offer if it would.
The Nahuatl lord considered the request, his face impassive, at length giving his reply.
“He says it would not give offense,” Denis translated. He gave Diego Ortiz y Ramos an uneasy glance. “If anyone has given offense here today, it is the Aragonians. Lord Cuixtli will return tomorrow two hours after dawn to escort you and five men of your choosing to the palace.”
I thanked him again, and he gave me a faint smile, flicking his fingers toward his brow and chest in a casual approximation of the salute the spotted warrior Temilotzin had offered me. At a gesture, the warriors fell in line and bearers picked up the empty palanquin and began trotting toward the gates after him.
“Well, then,” Balthasar Shahrizai drawled. “Now that that’s over, may I present Lady Moirin mac Fainche to you, Messire Ortiz y Ramos? As well as her husband, the esteemed Messire Bao?”
The Aragonian commander had the decency to look abashed. “Forgive me, Doña Moirin, Don Bao.” He offered a courtly bow. “It was a misunderstanding. But may I ask why a D’Angeline noblewoman would choose to come to Terra Nova?”
“You may,” I said. “If you’re inclined to make amends with an offer of hospitality, I’d prefer to answer it over the course of a meal.”
His chagrin deepened. “Yes, yes, of course! I will see that your men are lodged and fed, and you and your chosen companions must join me.”
It was an awkward dinner. Although Diego Ortiz y Ramos did his best to make up for the misunderstanding with generous hospitality and courteous manners, the matter lay unspoken between us. He’d been quick to think the worst of me, quick to think the worst of Terre d’Ange—as though we would so profane Naamah’s gifts in exchange for easy commerce. And, too, I could not forget that the commander had deliberately withheld advice that would have benefited Prince Thierry. While he was relieved to find that our intention was to trace the Dauphin’s path rather than seek to establish trade with the Nahuatl Empire, it was clear he thought it madness.
Unlike Porfirio Reyes, he did not try to dissuade us.
I liked him less for it.
When the meal ended, it was a relief. I was grateful to retreat to a private chamber with Bao.
“Moirin.” Bao whispered my name.
I buried my face against the firm curve of his throat. “Aye?”
“Nothing,” he murmured against my hair. “Only that I love you.” I felt his lips turn upward in a smile. “You cannot blame the man for thinking what he did.”
“No?” I glanced up at him, uncertain.
Bao kissed me. “No. But only for all the best reasons.”
“Tell me.”
One by one, he did.
And in the end, it was a good night after all.