Mexico: A Novel Part 9

"Was the arm pointing to the sea the good one?" I asked.

"It led to California Baja," my father said grimly, and I instantly recalled what I had learned about that brutal, barren peninsula of heat and waterless sand. "Centuries later, when the Spaniards explored that desolate land, they found that the Indians who had gone there had degenerated close to the animal level. They lived almost without what we call a culture-no houses, not even clothing. They had no decent food and almost no water, and although the ocean about them was full of fish, they had never learned how to catch them. They were as pathetic as human beings can be and still live."

My father continued: "The other Indians chose the arm leading inland, and ultimately they reached the rich and fertile lands and, later, gold. They built three of the greatest civilizations of ancient times-the Aztecs of Mexico, the Maya of Yucatan and Guatemala and the Incas of Peru."

We stood for some minutes in silence. Then my father concluded his lecture with a statement that haunts me still, forty years after it was uttered: "You say choice means nothing? Norman, if your Indian ancestors had gone west you might now be an idiot. Thank your stars they came down through Toledo, for with the courage and the intelligence you inherited from that crowd you can become anything you wish."

Since my father's death scholars have concluded that the Indians who made the right choice reached the high valley of Toledo about twenty thousand years ago, but, as I said before, some argue it might have been as much as forty thousand years ago. At any rate, from a level thirty feet below the bottom of our pyramid, archaeologists have excavated charcoal remains that radium a.n.a.lysis puts at not less than five thousand years old, while along the edges of the prehistoric lake that once filled the entire valley others have dug up the skeletons of elephants killed by spears at least fifteen thousand years ago.

I have spent many idle hours, on plane trips or when my eyes were too tired to read, trying to visualize these ancient Indians of the primitive period, and at times they have seemed very real to me. Fifteen thousand years before the birth of Christ they had developed some kind of civilization in the high valley. They chipped out rude spear points for hunting and carved dishes for serving food. We know little about them, but they must have feared the G.o.ds, wors.h.i.+ped the sun, and wondered about the accidents of birth and death. From the day of my first talks on this subject with my father I never forgot that where I lived at the Mineral, men had been living for thousands of years, and you could not say that of Richmond, Virginia or Princeton.

Therefore, when in the early years of the seventh century a certain tribe of Indians gained control of the high valley, its members, some of whom we now know by name, seemed to me almost like close relatives, and when the story is told that sometime around the year 600 one of these men became leader of the tribe and began building the great pyramid, he becomes so real that he fairly shouts at me from the distant past, and the fact that the oral traditions of Toledo indicate that he was one of my ancestors gives me great pleasure.

In the year 600 the high valley looked pretty much as it does today. The last volcano had erupted some four thousand years earlier; the fantastically old lake had finally dried up; and the mountains stood exactly as they do today. In the intervening years the great piles of rock have lost possibly an inch and a half in height, due to wind erosion, but probably no more.

Far to the north, still living in caves along jungle rivers, hid the uncivilized tribes who were eventually to develop into the Altomecs and the Aztecs, but in these years they were of no consequence. To the south, living in splendid palaces decorated with silver, gold and jade, were the Mayas, whose gaudily dressed messengers sometimes reached the high valley to arrange treaties of commerce. In the valley itself my ancestors were well established, a tribe of slim, fairly tall, dark-skinned Indians who had no real name but who were known throughout central Mexico simply as the Builders, for they had the capacity to construct finer edifices than any other peoples in the area. They knew how to quarry huge blocks of rock and transport them for miles, and they could make bricks with which to build their lesser structures.

Shortly after the year 600 a leader with a new kind of vision gained control of the tribe. He was Ixmiq, and today in Toledo a statue and a yearly festival honor his name. He had a tightly controlled personality that was ideal for exerting leaders.h.i.+p, so for nearly fifty years he ruled unchallenged, and this gave him time to accomplish many important projects.

Waiting for an auspicious day on the calendar, he announced to his council, "I have in mind to erect a holy place for our G.o.ds ten or twenty times larger than any we have attempted before." Before his advisers could protest he added, "And we shall build it not here in the city but in a special area that shall hereafter be reserved for holy rites."

He forthwith led his elders from the rude palace, which then occupied the site of today's cathedral, and took them in a northerly direction some distance from the city to where the pyramid now stands. Using piles of stones, he directed his men to lay out what seemed to them a gigantic square, but which -was only about half the size of the pyramid as we now know it. His councilors protested that such a building was impossible to build, but Ixmiq insisted on its construction.

His workmen spent two years sc.r.a.ping away the loose earth until they reached firm earth or solid rock. He then divided the tribe into several units, which were a.s.signed particular duties, and appointed a captain for each. Some went to live at the quarries and remained there for thirty years, pa.s.sing their entire lives chipping rock. Others were the transport teams, who, with constantly increasing skill, mastered the trick of moving twenty-and thirty-ton rocks into position. Most of the men worked at the pyramid itself, inching the great blocks into position and then filling in the central portion of the structure with basketfuls of rubble, so that year by year the structure rose more impressively, and always with a flat top that grew smaller as the pyramid grew in height. These were years of peace in the high valley, nearly six centuries going by without an arrow being shot against an enemy, so that it was not imprudent for Ixmiq to a.s.sign his people to widely scattered areas and to a task that utilized the efforts of the entire community.

When the huge pile had reached the intended height, it was leveled off and its s.p.a.cious flat top was laid in huge blocks that took six years to work into place. Then a beautiful wooden altar was constructed so that when a priest stood at it he faced east. Four G.o.ds shared the altar and their statues lined it, with their faces turned to the west. The most important was the G.o.d of rain, for he was responsible for the flowers and the grain. Next came the sun G.o.d, the G.o.ddess of earth and a mysterious G.o.d who represented flowers, poetry, music, statesmans.h.i.+p and the family, and was carved in the form of a serpent with a bird's head and scales of flowers.

The pyramid of Ixmiq was a monument to peace and in the fortieth year, when it neared completion, the ceremonies that consecrated it were testimonials to peace and to one of the gentlest societies that ever existed in Mexico, or indeed, anywhere else on the American continents. The dedication ceremonies, insofar as we can reconstruct them from old carvings, consisted of prayers, dancing, the offering of hundreds of thousands of flowers, and a gigantic feast that lasted for three days. It is notable that for the first four hundred and fifty years of this pyramid's existence not a single human life was sacrificed on its altar, or lost in any other way, except for the occasional case later on when some drunken priest or reveler accidentally tumbled from its height and broke his neck.

It was a pyramid of joy and beauty, a worthy monument to the benign G.o.ds and to the farsighted man who had built it. In City-of-the-Pyramid, as the area came to be called, irrigation projects brought water from the hills down to the flat land, where flowers and vegetables were grown in abundance. Honey was collected from bees kept among the flowers, and turkeys were raised both in enclosures and in large guarded fields. Fish were available in the rivers and were kept in ponds.

The Builders dressed well in cloth made of cotton, hemp and feathers, while leaders like Ixmiq ornamented themselves with gold and silver carved with religious symbolism, which workmen also applied to some of the finest pottery ever made in the Americas. Many little statues have come down to us, representing one or another of the four major deities, and each seems to be a G.o.d whom a family could have cherished. When I was a boy we had in our home a clay figure of the earth G.o.ddess, and she was a delightful fat little woman smiling and making the land fruitful with her blessing. Whenever we looked at her we felt good, and I can think of no primitive G.o.ds that were gentler than those of Toledo. I know of few civilizations that came so close to providing an ideal life for their people.

Carved hieroglyphics have been recovered outlining Ixmiq's code of laws, and although it is likely that we are misreading some of them, it is not conceivable that we have misunderstood them all. In Toledo, in the year 650, a woman whose husband had died leaving her with children not yet old enough to work was given a share of the produce of land owned by families with grown sons. On the other hand, a woman who committed adultery once was publicly shamed; on the second offense she was killed. It was conspicuous in the law of Ixmiq that priests had nothing to do with the execution of criminals; this was carried out by civil officials. In fact, in the entire history of these six centuries there is no record of priests being other than the spiritual heads of the community. They lived intimately with the G.o.ds and advised the populace of decisions made in heaven.

We have one old stone, dug out of the pyramid in the 1950s, which shows a dignified leader who might have been Ixmiq. He is depicted as a stocky man with . A long, straight nose, high cheekbones, Oriental eyes and powerful arms. He wore a towering headdress, probably ornamented in gold and silver, that must have stood about two feet high and that had feathers and flowers streaming from it in profusion. He carried a scepter topped by an animal's head, a ceremonial robe of cotton and feathers, and a bunch of flowers. He was naked to the waist, but wore a kind of sarong and sandals.

Ixmiq certainly was in touch with the Mayas to the far south and with the nondescript tribes that flourished to the southeast around what is now Mexico City, for he had a zoo in which he kept animals from distant areas and in it were birds from the seacoast areas controlled by the Mayas. But he seems to have been ignorant of the dreadful Altomec and Aztec tribes that were gathering strength in their caves to the north.

It is impossible to guess how large City-of-the-Pyramid was in those early days, but my father once estimated that it would have required no fewer than fifteen hundred men to work constantly for forty years to build the first pyramid, and he guessed that each man would have to be served by three others who quarried and transported the building blocks. This would mean about six thousand men, or a total population of somewhere around twenty thousand people. We know from excavations undertaken at the time of the building of the cathedral and the aqueduct that these people, whatever their number, lived in a sprawling Indian city built of mud and wood and located around the plaza that now serves as the center of modern Toledo.

I stress these matters because throughout my adult life I have been irritated by people who glibly suppose that Spaniards brought civilization to Mexican people who had previously been barbarians, when this was clearly not the case.

In the year 600 the civilizations of Spain and Mexico were roughly comparable, except for the fact that the former had profited from the invention of the wheel, the development of the alphabet and the knowledge of how to smelt hard metals. In any event I choose to measure advances in civilization by noting such things as soundness in the organization of the state, the humaneness of the religion, the care given to the indigent, the protection of trade, the advances in sciences such as astronomy, and the cultivation of music, dancing, poetry and other arts. In these vital respects my ancestors in City-of-the-Pyramid were just about even with my ancestors in Spain and infinitely far ahead of all who s.h.i.+vered in caves in what would become Virginia.

In the matter of astronomy, Ixmiq was incredible. He calculated the orbits of the planets and based his century on the movements of Venus, whose behavior he had calculated within an error of only a few days. Unaided, so far as we know, by a single hint from Europe or Asia, Ixmiq solved most of the major problems of keeping time and had even discovered that in the year of 365 days that he had devised, even if he added four days every thirteen years, at the end of his fifty-two-year cycle he would still be one day short of the world's exact movement, so for that time he added an extra day. It is possible that he may have borrowed his major concepts from the Mayas, but everything he took he perfected.

I have mentioned the portrait believed to be that of Ixmiq; there is another-but some argue that it is not Ixmiq-which shows a man as I like to think he must have been. He is seated in the center of a huge stone carving and about him are flutes, trumpets, drums made of snakeskin, and sh.e.l.l horns; pitch pine from the forest serves as a torch. The ground seems to be covered with woven mats and amba.s.sadors are waiting to talk with him.

Ixmiq had fifteen or twenty wives and from one of these sprang the line that ruled City-of-the-Pyramid for nearly half a millennium. Around the year 900 one of these descendants known as Nopiltzin inherited the kingdom, which was now somewhat changed from the days of Ixmiq. For one thing, the pyramid had been rebuilt twice in the interim and was now approaching its present size. The enlargements had been accomplished by the simple process of resurfacing the entire structure with two or three layers of new rocks quarried from the original site. Just when these resurfacings took place we do not know, but each probably occupied the community for fifteen or twenty years, for with any enlargement the number of blocks required to cover the structure increased considerably. Thus in 900, when Nopiltzin took command, each side of the huge edifice was five hundred feet long with a height of about two hundred feet, producing an enormous flat top for the various wooden temples that now crowded the platform.

The effectiveness of the pyramid as a religious edifice had also been enhanced by a simple improvement. Ixmiq's original structure had resembled an Egyptian pyramid, with straight, unbroken edges running from the ground to the platform above, but in subsequent rebuildings four huge setbacks had been constructed, yielding four s.p.a.cious terraces on which religious celebrations could be held. Furthermore, to provide a series of terraces, the angle of incline between the various terraces varied sharply, with the result that a wors.h.i.+per standing at the base of the pyramid and looking upward could see only so far as the edge of the first terrace; the great temples at the top were no longer visible and the pyramid seemed to soar into the clouds.

Up the southern face led a steep flight of steps, which paused four times at the terraces, and it must have been one of the most exciting experiences in Mexico to climb these steps, not knowing what one was to find at the topmost level; at the apex one came upon a broad platform, now larger than in the days of Ixmiq, containing four temples to the rain G.o.d, the G.o.ds of earth and sun, and the mysterious serpent G.o.d that protected all things of beauty. There had still, in the days of Nopiltzin, been no man sacrificed to these G.o.ds, although turkeys, flowers, musical instruments and cakes were regularly offered at the four altars.

It is difficult for me to write of what happened next, because it shows my Indians in a poor light, and this provides fuel for Christian apologists who preach that when Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico in 1519 he found it occupied by barbarians to whom he brought both civilization and Christianity. Even in 900 Nopiltzm's people were not barbarians, but they became so lax in guarding their marvelous civilization that they allowed real barbarians to overrun them.

The events I am about to discuss are genuinely historic, for they derive from records uncovered by archaeologists. Such records, of course, were written in hieroglyphics and not in words, for our Indians had no alphabet, but they are at least as substantial as many related to Europe's Middle Ages. But in the reign of Nopiltzin, when the building of pyramids had long since stopped, the civilization of the high valley fell into a curious state of apathy. When wars ceased there was nothing to excite the pa.s.sions of the citizens; when building halted, there was nothing to engage their energies.

Some years ago I helped excavate an ancient quarry site that proved, by carbon dating, that no significant activity had occurred there for a period of three hundred years. How did the team of which I was the reporter know this? Because at the site we unearthed much pottery from the early Ixmiq age and each subsequent period down to 900. Then for three hundred years, through the 1100s, we found no local pottery of any kind, and when I asked the leader of our dig what this signified he explained: "We often see this phenomenon in Near East digs. It means the locals had acquired enough wealth that they could stop making things for themselves and import them from other regions in which workmen remained at their kilns." But at the upper edge of this dead period comes a flood of Altomec pottery that can be positively dated to about 1200.

The record was as clear to us as if work sheets had been kept at the site.

Wors.h.i.+p of the old G.o.ds seems also to have diminished and a tradition arose that the flowered serpent had left the area to return at some future date. Because the high valley was not plagued by droughts, the G.o.d of rain was taken more or less for granted. The sun G.o.d lost his fury, and the G.o.ddess of earth grew prettier and less motherly in her pottery representations. Peaceful trade relations to the east, south and west had reached their maximum advantage, and practically every good thing known to Mexico at large was now available in City-of-the-Pyramid.

In the year 900, during the reign of Nopiltzin, life was probably as good in the high valley as it was anywhere on earth, but some of the older priests, led by their superior, Ixbalanque, eighty years old and clothed with wisdom and power, questioned the status quo. Their view was ably voiced by a fiery younger prelate: "Our citizens are growing soft. They pay no attention to the old virtues. The king ought to launch some significant project to enlist his people's energies." When his companions agreed, it fell to High Priest Ixbalanque to present their concern to the king.

It's not easy, at this distance from the year 900, to define the relations.h.i.+p between the old priest Ixbalanque and the young king Nopiltzin, but it is possible to gain some idea of the story from what the old murals show and what the archaeologists have been able to uncover. Power and responsibility among the Builders was cunningly divided: the king controlled short-term decisions, the high priest those on which the long-term welfare of the people depended. The king could declare war and prosecute it; the high priest determined the terms of peace, but since no wars occurred for long periods, these powers remained in limbo. The king could collect taxes, but the priest decided how the money should be spent for the welfare of the people. And underlying all was the tacit understanding that the king could never depose the high priest, while the latter could and sometimes did depose a king who had become ineffective or corrupt.

Nevertheless, it was traditional for the high priest always to defer in private speech and in public display to the king, using Builder words which were equivalents of our "Sire" and "Majesty." Thus the illusion was maintained that the king ruled and the high priest merely counseled, and for centuries the system worked. It was on the basis of this understanding that High Priest Ixbalanque asked for a private session with King Nopiltzin.

Ixbalanque: My Ruler, I feel it is imperative that we resurface the pyramid.

Nopiltzin: Ridiculous. It's as big as it ever need be.

Ixbalanque: For a pyramid dedicated to the G.o.ds it can never be said that it is high enough.

Nopiltzin: There is, however, a limit to how we can waste men's work.

Ixbalanque: Would you consider building a new pyramid altogether?

Nopiltzin: Equally foolish.

Ixbalanque: Powerful One, I've studied the crest of a small hill off to the northeast, and it occurs to me that with no more effort than it would take to resurface our present pyramid we could build one there that could be seen for miles. Whoever entered the valley would know that we served the G.o.ds.

Nopiltzin: I cannot sentence my people to the folly of building useless pyramids. Why do you argue this way?

Ixbalanque: Because I have the concern of our people at heart.

Nopiltzin: And do pyramids in any way increase the welfare of our city?

Ixbalanque: No, but engagement upon projects of enormous size does. It binds our society together and keeps all parts strong.

Nopiltzin: Now, exactly what is it you want to do?

Ixbalanque: I want to engage our city in some project so stupendous that those who come in later years will say, 'They were crazy to try so much." Because then I know we will all grow stronger. We'll have something to work for.

Nopiltzin: Why do you keep saying the people need something to work for? Our people have enough food. They have many celebrations with music and flowers. What more do they need?

Ixbalanque: I want the spirit of the G.o.ds to motivate this place as it used to. I want our people to dedicate themselves to something.

Nopiltzin: I don't understand a word you're saying.

Ixbalanque: Great One, let me tell you what I mean. Last month, when our scouts captured that stranger who said he came from the north I was present when we interrogated him. I watched the blaze of wonder that came into his eyes when he saw our ca.n.a.ls and our abundance and our pyramid, and I could sense that he wanted similar things for his people. I can imagine him now, telling his savage tribe about the majesty of our city.

Nopiltzin: I don't follow you at all.

Ixbalanque: It was the look in his eyes that I'm talking about. That look of inspiration and wonder. Go out into your city, Powerful One, and see if you can any longer find that look in the eyes of your people.

Nopiltzin: There will be no new pyramid. This discussion is over.

What the king did, in lieu of building a pyramid, is remembered as one of the turning points in the history of Mexico, and certainly in the history of the Builder Indians. He had for some time been experimenting with the maguey bushes that grew luxuriantly along the edges of his palace grounds. He loved the dark green plants that threw twisting arms into the air and he suspected that the poetic joyousness of the maguey sprang from some secret hidden in its heart, and this secret he proposed to uncover.

After he had dissected several dozen plants, he found that each held a certain amount of honey water, a fact that had been known to the Indians for several thousand years. It occurred to King Nopiltzin that this honey water must contain the secret of the maguey, and he tried putting it to many different uses, such as medication for a cut finger or fertilizer for other plants, but his experiments led nowhere. In disgust he abandoned the project, forgetting a small store of the honey water that he had put into a clay jar wrapped in cotton cloth.

Some three weeks later he wanted to reuse the clay jar and found that the honey water had turned into an opaque whitish substance thicker than water. He threw this out, but in so doing some of it got on his fingers and out of curiosity he tasted it. He found to his surprise that the whitish fluid made his gums tingle slightly and had a wholly pleasing taste. Tilting the jar to his lips, he drained the few remaining drops, which he found more than palatable.

Nopiltzin, realizing that he had found something that might prove to be of interest, recalled the various steps he had followed and extracted a new supply of honey water from the maguey, stored it in the same clay jar, wrapped it in the same cloth and set it aside, planning to open the jar at the end of three weeks. When the time came, however, he found himself preoccupied with further proposals being made by the priest Ixbalanque, who was insisting upon further discussion of the pyramid project. It was Ixbalanque's contention, after protracted consideration of the king's objections, that the people of the high valley would continue to find themselves in growing confusion unless their energies were directed toward some significant community undertaking, but now the elderly priest had an entirely new plan.

Ixbalanque: Powerful One, if the rebuilding of the pyramid is impractical, why not introduce some new G.o.d, or elevate one of the old ones to a position of preeminence?

Nopiltzin: What good would this serve? Our present G.o.ds have proved more than adequate.

Ixbalanque: I sometimes think that you do not appreciate the great loss our community has suffered with the flight of the flowered serpent.

Nopiltzin: We have other G.o.ds. The loss of one is of no significance.

Ixbalanque: I believe you might be overlooking two important points. The G.o.d who has fled protected those elements of our life that gave mystery and meaning to the people, and for such a deity to depart is a sad loss. But I suspect that even more significant, in the long run, is the fact that a G.o.d has been lost without another of equal importance arising to take his place.

Nopiltzin: Now how can that be of any worry to the people?

Ixbalanque: They're not worried about it. Apparently they don't even realize that the flowered serpent has really fled. And you're not worried about it. But the spirit of this great valley is worried.

Nopiltzin: How can you claim that?

Ixbalanque: Because when a G.o.d departs an emptiness is left, whether at the moment we appreciate the fact or not. In time a restlessness sets in. The people become apprehensive. Life has lost a little of its meaning and the city is in danger.

Nopiltzin: What are you driving at, Ixbalanque?

Ixbalanque: Revered Ruler, I've spent much time thinking about your objections to the pyramid, and although I am as sure as ever that I am right in this matter, I do see why you don't want to disturb the city and launch a project that might take thirty or forty years to complete. The people don't want it. You don't want it. And some of the other priests don't want it. All right. The pyramid idea is dead.

Nopiltzin: I'm glad you've come to your senses.

Ixbalanque: I surrender that idea on the ground of expense. What I now propose will cost nothing. I propose that the empty place in our circle of G.o.ds be filled by the veneration of your ancestor Ixmiq, whose spirit broods over this valley.

Nopiltzin: Ixmiq? In some quarters he's remembered only as the mad builder who drove his people to construct useless buildings throughout the valley.

Ixbalanque: He is remembered elsewhere as the man who gave this city character.

Nopiltzin: Ixmiq? I find no affinity in my heart for Ixmiq. I would feel no pleasure in elevating Ixmiq to the top of the pyramid. None at all. Ixmiq stands for nothing that I stand for.

Ixbalanque: If Ixmiq is unacceptable, we could establish a new G.o.d.

Nopiltzin: What would this accomplish?

Ixbalanque: There would be a sense of vitality in the air. Women would grow more flowers with which to decorate the temple of the new G.o.d. There would be a fresh spirit at the top of the pyramid.

Nopiltzin: I was thinking just the other night that at last you priests have the temples atop the pyramid nicely arranged. To add another would cause confusion.

Ixbalanque: I see we're getting nowhere. You fail to understand a thing I'm talking about.

Nopiltzin: I'm afraid that's right. But I will listen to this extent. Suppose we were to create a new G.o.d-but no buildings, mind you. What kind of G.o.d would it be?

Ixbalanque: I have given great thought to this, and I wish to speak without being interrupted, for it is important to this valley that what I have to say be fully understood by the king.

Nopiltzin: I will be most attentive, for up to now I haven't understood anything.

Ixbalanque: The G.o.d who left us, the serpent with flowery scales, represented the joyous things of life but also those that are most difficult to comprehend. Who has seen the spirit of beauty? Who has ever touched music, or the genesis of a clay bowl? Who knows what makes one man an artist and another completely unskilled? With the flight of the serpent we have lost our G.o.d of beauty. Now I see no reason to try to create another in his place, but it does occur to me that there is a real and dangerous emptiness in our life, and this must be remedied, or I honestly fear that our great city will begin to fall apart. I have therefore come to the conclusion that we should have a G.o.d who goes far beyond what the flowery serpent represented. I would propose a G.o.d who represented nothing of substance, perhaps a G.o.d of the nether sky, or of the darkness that comes when lightning has vanished, or of this valley, or of what you and I might think about the day after tomorrow. I believe that such a G.o.d might capture the imagination of our people, and at times I suspect that it might accomplish more even than the rebuilding of the pyramid.

Nopiltzin: I find all this talk extremely vague.

Ixbalanque: May I give you this ill.u.s.tration to ponder? Do you remember when we had the last visit from the amba.s.sadors of Tenayuca-by-the-Lake? They spoke of their great G.o.d Tezcatlipoca, and when we tried to identify who he was they said simply, "The G.o.d of the smoking mirror." I remember that you smiled, for who has ever heard of a mirror that smoked? When I asked further, they said, "The G.o.d of the hall where G.o.ds live." I did not understand this, so I pressed them, and they replied, 'The G.o.d of good things done by the sun." I pointed out that they already had a G.o.d of the sun, but they replied, 'Tezcatlipoca is the G.o.d of redness but also the G.o.d of blueness. He is the G.o.d of sun, but also the G.o.d of night. He is the G.o.d of the warm south but also of the cold north. And it is improper to speak of Tezcatlipoca as he at all, for Tezcatlipoca is simply Tezcatlipoca."

Nopiltzin: I was bewildered by what they said.

Ixbalanque: Is it not possible that the greatness of Tenayuca-by-the-Lake derives from such a G.o.d?

Nopiltzin: Have you ever seen Ten^yuca? Who says it's great?

Ixbalanque: Its amba.s.sadors.

Nopiltzin: Who believes amba.s.sadors? I've seen our city and I've seen our simple, honest G.o.ds: rain, earth, sun. Do you know what I think, Ixbalanque? I think it was a good thing when the flowered serpent left us. He was far too difficult for our people to understand.

Ixbalanque: I warn you, Nopiltzin, if you do not restore something like him our people will perish.

It was following a week of such argument, for the high priest was so deeply disturbed about the future of his city that he was determined to challenge the king, that Nopiltzin happened to remember the long-forgotten clay jar and its contents of honey water. With some excitement he hurried to the dark corner where he had placed it, unwound the damp cotton cloth and smelled the contents. There was the same tempting pungency. Then he tasted, and there was the same tingling in the mouth. It never occurred to the king that any by-product of the maguey could be harmful to men of the high valley, so without fear he took a substantial amount of the liquid into his mouth, and to his delight the large drink was even more satisfying than the small. He allowed the new liquid to remain in his mouth for a moment, then swallowed it. Down into his stomach the tickling stuff pa.s.sed, and its course was totally pleasing, but exactly how joyous it was going to be the king did not then appreciate.

Gratified by the tastiness of his converted honey water, Nopiltzin took four or five additional gulps, and now the magic of the maguey began to work. The small room in which Nopiltzin had hidden his clay jar became larger, and the mean floors acquired a certain sheen. The walls became appreciably more ornate than those of the royal room, which were covered with cotton-and-silver cloth. The wind, which had been blowing from the north a few moments before, now swung around to the south and changed to a soft breeze that induced a feeling of languor.

The king looked out a window to see what had caused this sudden s.h.i.+ft in the wind and he saw walking along the palace grounds the older sister of one of his queens. For the first time he realized how beautiful this girl was.

"Greetings, c.o.xlal!" the king called.

The woman turned in surprise and bowed to Nopiltzin.

"Where are you going?" he shouted rather more loudly than the distance required.

"I'm to pick some flowers for the queen," she explained.