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Now, wasn’t that an interesting pair of coincidences.

‘You must have come very far for the festivities,’ said the judge. He walked in slow, sedate steps, his every move elegant with the programmed grace of the nobles. ‘I have dealt with traders from hundreds of miles away, and yet I’ve never seen your likeness.’

‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor vaguely. ‘I’ve come quite a distance.’

‘Surely not merely for the good deed of rescuing my son.’

The Doctor looked at the Aztec, smiling a tight smile. Ce Xochitl was not missing anything. ‘I’m curious,’ he said. ‘About the festivities. About tlaxcaliliztli.’

‘The nourishment of the gods? You must speak to my other son. Achtli is a novice priest – soon to serve at the new temple, to his honour. I have some little knowledge of the Lord of the Close and Near, but my son can tell you of his many manifestations.’

‘The new temple,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s not so much new as improved, is it?’

‘It is the same site of worship that the Mexica founded when they settled here. Then it was a modest hut of straw. Each emperor in turn has added improvements to the temple. In four days we will dedicate the newest structures to Huitzilopochtli.’

‘Your chief god?’

The judge paused. ‘Your knowledge of our religion is imperfect,’ he said gently. ‘The left‐handed hummingbird is the patron of our nation. It was he who led the Mexica to this place, who caused the first temple to be built. It is he who leads us into war. Who makes us strong, glorious.’

‘And who needs nourishment.’

‘Yes.’

‘More and more every year.’

‘Yes.’

‘His appetite increases every year.’

‘If we do not feed the gods, they will die, as any man might die if food is withheld from him. Huitzilopochtli is the sun. Without the precious liquid, there will be nothing but night.’

‘And who fed the sun before the Aztecs? And who will feed it after you’re gone?’

Ce Xochitl breathed a long sigh into the perfumed night. ‘These are not questions which concern me. You must speak to my son – or one of the older priests.’

‘I spoke to an Aztec priest once,’ said the Doctor. ‘He believed that the sun would shine and the rain would fall without the shedding of blood. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason the sacrifices are made is to dispose of foreign warriors taken captive in battle – and to cause more and more battles to be fought?’

‘I cannot speak of such matters,’ insisted Ce Xochitl.

‘In four days, the Aztecs will kill twenty thousand people,’ said the Doctor. ‘Twenty thousand warriors and slaves. Their hearts will be torn out on the altar at the top of those stairs. Their blood will be smeared on the mouths of the statues, and what’s left of their bodies will be thrown down the stairs.’ He grabbed the judge’s wrist, and pressed the man’s palm against his own heart. ‘Feel that? It’s no different to any of those twenty thousand hearts.’

Ce Xochitl said, ‘The gods exchange their stores of food for human blood. That is their covenant. If we starve them, we shall surely starve ourselves.’

‘What will happen when you run out of foreigners?’ said the Doctor. His blue eyes burned into Ce Xochitl. ‘Can your glory, your conquests go on forever?’

The old man opened his mouth, as though to say yes, to say no, to bless the Doctor for his insight, to curse him for his blasphemy. At last, the judge said, ‘I do not understand.’

The Time Lord sighed. He was fighting against a lifetime of conditioning, fighting against an entire way of life. He would have no more success in making this man understand him than Barbara had in swaying the entire Aztec people.

‘Forgive me,’ he said firmly. ‘I was speaking out of turn.’

Ce Xochitl nodded graciously and stepped past him. The old man had already put the discussion out of his mind.

The Doctor looked up at the Great Temple. It was a massive pyramid‐shaped shadow against the night sky, blocking out the stars behind it. Here and there red flames licked the blackness where the sculptors continued their work.

Four days. Twenty thousand sacrifices.

That was a lot of tlaxcaliliztli.

If Ce Xochitl had looked