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The tlatoani looked up at the sound of rustling in the garden. He wondered for a moment if one of the animals from his zoo had got loose.

Then the three fugitives appeared, as if from nowhere. The two groups stared at one another for a moment, in absolute surprise. The knights brandished their weapons.

The history books do not record what happened next, and this is not very surprising. After all, it was the wise and mighty Tlacaelel who rewrote the Aztecs’ past, so that the people might not believe they were descended from barbarians. And Tlacaelel would have made certain that the records omitted the sight of the powerful Ahuitzotl, eighth tlatoani of the Aztecs, on his knees before a short white man, a woman, and a slave.

* * *

‘The god Quetzalcoatl,’ said the Doctor, ‘is not due to return until the year One Reed.’

Ce Xochitl inclined his head. ‘Perhaps the emperor thought you had arrived early.’

‘But you don’t think I’m a god, do you, Ce Xochitl?’

The aged judge sat back in his wooden chair, regarding his pale‐skinned visitors. ‘I think you are the man who saved my son’s life.’

The Doctor smiled graciously, and Ace resisted the urge to kick him under the table. He hadn’t rescued Iccauhtli entirely out of humanitarian motives. Humanitarian, ha! He’d made himself an ally. And quite a powerful one.

Ce Xochitl had been one of the emperor’s group when they’d come crashing out of the trees. He and the slave had gazed at one another, unable to speak or move. The other nobles had gasped or put their hands to their faces, looking to the knights to protect them.

And then the emperor had knelt down. It was an ego‐boost, all right, having a king kneel in front of you. And a relief. When the knights had lifted their swords, she had thought this is the end of the line, all change.

The Doctor, of course, had taken charge of the situation – after all, he was the one everyone thought was Quetzalwhosis. God knew he probably was. He had turned out to be weirder people.

So now they had a friend; a friend who owned an enormous mansion with a garden in the middle and a flock of slaves. Like all the men, Ce Xochitl wore a breech‐cloth and a robe; Ace had worked out that the more elaborate the robe, the more important the wearer. When he sat down at the table, he had turned the cloak around to the front, so that he looked as though he were wrapped in a blanket. His hair was just beginning to turn grey, bound neatly back from a striking face with large, dark eyes. She could see the resemblance between him and Iccauhtli.

The ex‐slave had been hungry and exhausted; the judge’s slaves had brought him wildfowl and tortillas, and then he’d curled up on one of those flat little mattresses and started to snore. She’d realized he was sixteen, perhaps seventeen. The Aztecs grew up fast.

She thought it was a little strange that Ce Xochitl had slaves of his own.

What she had not seen, in the emperor’s garden with its exotic snakes and its scented flowers, was the wise and mighty Tlacaelel watching them as they departed, his dark eyes reflecting the deepening blue of the sky. ‘Otiquihiyohuih,’ he whispered into the evening.

* * *

The sun had gone down, leaving the canals and the flowers steaming with the heat they’d soaked up in the day. The air was sluggish and humid, but at least there was no smell of petrol, no fumes to hide the burning stars. The Plough hung over the Great Temple.

Ce Xochitl walked with the Doctor. The crowds had retired to their houses for the night; but the chisels were not still, ringing out over the market. Their metallic rhythm joined the beating of drums and the chanting of songs in the temples. None of them were as tall as the Great Temple.

The temples might have been buried under Mexico City, but the market‐place had survived. Somewhere around here, hundreds of years in the future, Cristián Alvarez would sense the temple’s re‐emergence – and find himself caught up in the nightmares of the Hallowe’en man.