Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [106]
And in the end, it was a good night after all.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Come morning, Lord Cuixtli returned.
I had to own, I felt a bit foolish climbing into the palanquin after all the formal introductions that had been omitted in yesterday’s confusion had been made. I may have been descended from three royal lines, but at heart, I was still my mother’s daughter, raised in a cave in the Alban wilderness.
But I’d learned the value of appearances in Terre d’Ange, and it was important to command respect here. So I took my seat beneath the ornate feathered canopy, and four strong Nahuatl bearers hoisted the palanquin onto their shoulders.
On Lord Cuixtli’s command, we departed the Aragonian garrison and set out for the city of Tenochtitlan.
The great causeways connecting the city to the mainland were even more impressive than I’d reckoned, broad enough to allow five men to walk abreast in comfort, well nigh half a league in length. Here and there, the shallow lake was dotted with chinampas, artificial islands rooted to its marshy bottom, spread thick with rich soil and planted with crops. Whatever else was true, the Nahuatl were indeed an ingenious folk.
I wondered what the Emperor was like.
I wished I were more fluent in the Nahuatl tongue. Denis de Toluard had done his best to teach us aboard the ship during our long journey, but he was a natural-born scholar, a scion of Blessed Elua’s most learned Companion Shemhazai, and he grew impatient when skills that came easily to him did not come easily to others. But in truth, I was allowing myself to rely too heavily on him here in Terra Nova. I resolved to make a greater effort, knowing I could do far better than I had thus far.
Still, I had chosen Denis to accompany me to the audience with Emperor Achcuatli, along with Bao and Balthasar and Septimus Rousse, rounding out my roster of five companions with Brice de Bretel, who had impressed me with his steadiness aboard the ship. Brice carried our tribute-gift for the Emperor, a large, very fine mirror set in a gilded frame studded with gems, wrapped in ornate brocade and gold braid.
I hoped it would find favor with him, and he would be willing to provide us with aid. One knowledgeable guide could mean the difference between success and failure, mayhap even life or death.
At last our company traversed the length of the great causeway and entered the city proper. We passed many low dwellings, as well as open squares where markets were held, throngs of folk buying and selling goods in a calm manner. Everything in Tenochtitlan seemed very clean and orderly.
It wasn’t until we passed through a gate into the main central square where the great temples loomed that I began to feel uncomfortable.
The largest of the temples was truly immense, with twin staircases stretching up into the blue sky to reach a pair of shrines impossibly high above us. I glanced uneasily at it. All seemed quiet and there was no indication that the stairs had run red with blood anytime recently, but there was no mistaking its purpose. Tall racks of human skulls lined the base, hollow-eyed and grinning. There must have been tens of thousands of them altogether. Some were clearly ancient, long ago picked clean by scavenging birds and bleached by the elements.
Others still bore traces of weathered flesh and skin.
I swallowed hard, trying not to shudder.
Following my gaze, Lord Cuixtli spoke to Denis. I caught the gist of his words, which was that he understood the custom was distasteful to the strangers from beyond the sea, and no sacrifice was scheduled for today.
“When is the next?” I made my first attempt since Orgullo del Sol to hold an actual conversation in Nahuatl. “Soon?”
“Not soon, no.” Lord Cuixtli shook his head. “Only during the high—” He used a word I didn’t know. Seeing my lack of comprehension, he addressed Denis in a spate of rapid language. Denis nodded, listening with a mixture of repressed horror and a scholar’s perennial fascination.
“It’s as I told you before, Moirin,” he said to me when the fellow had finished. “The