have heard about her?” asked Ahuitzotl in amazement.
“Only by name. See?—your amorous escapades have reached even my court in Texcoco. She must be quite a woman to have turned your head so. I should like to meet her.”
“She is agreeable, but not extraordinary,” Tizoc noted. “My brother’s tastes are mundane. Dozens of royal princesses wish to be claimed by him, but he has eyes only for my mistress.”
“That’s understandable,” Nezahualpilli concluded. “Cheer up, Ahuitzotl. It should be no barrier to you. I have my wives, and my Tula Woman, who I prefer above any of them. The priests also say I cannot marry her, but if you asked any of my wives, they will tell you I already am.”
The group resounded with hearty laughter, except for Ahuitzotl who deemed his situation serious, and Cihuacoatl who regarded a feast in honor of Tlaloc a more solemn occasion.
“Come now, Ahuitzotl,” Nezahualpilli continued. “No woman is worth all this trouble. In the dark, they are all alike.”
“Is that why you have so many of them?” Tizoc added, bringing on even more laughter.
“At least your Tula Woman is not denied to you,” Ahuitzotl related to Nezahualpilli.
“Pelaxilla is denied to you?”
“She belongs to Tizoc, and he has no inclination to give her to me.”
“What’s this?” Nezahualpilli intuitively recognized that he had stirred up a hornet’s nest. “Tizoc keeps her even though he says she is nothing extraordinary? Does he know you covet her?”
“He does.”
“There’s something unsavory here; you two play a game I want no part of,” Nezahualpilli said. He judiciously avoided additional comments on the subject, having no wish to get embroiled in any personal dispute between Ahuitzotl and Tizoc.
Tizoc was perturbed that Ahuitzotl had taken his denial of Pelaxilla so severely and ruminated if he might not have been unreasonable about it. There always remained the possibility for him to relent, he thought, and it may be wise to do so. His brother’s services were valuable to him and could be easier obtained with more kindness. As he pondered over this, he glanced aside and noticed an irritated look in his minister.
“What! You too are disturbed, Cihuacoatl?” Tizoc remarked.
“This feast is supposed to bestow our gratitude to Tlaloc—a solemn occasion!” Cihuacoatl replied. “Yet none of you have regard for this and engage in merriment.”
“As usual, I have you to remind me of my obligations,” Tizoc said, vexed over the minister’s incessant preoccupation with the monarch’s duty requisites. “You’re quite right of course, and we are properly admonished for it. Don’t worry about displeasing Tlaloc. Tomorrow we shall satisfy him amply when we offer him the Tolucans.”
“Will Zozoltin be among them?” asked Nezahualpilli.
“He shall be the first.”
“So you have not yielded your stand; you will not permit him to fight on the combat stone.”
“No. He is to die on the altar. I shall personally send him on his journey to Paradise. This ought not offend you any—we accord him the highest honors by doing this.”
Nezahualpilli’s objection to having Zozoltin sacrificed was not so much based on it being any less honorable fate as that he felt it undignified for a monarch to be paraded naked before his subjects in the fashion of the offered victims. An exhibition of this sort reflected unfavorably on the kingship in that it debased an office which he believed should reserve a certain sanctity to a commoner’s level. He was mystified why Tizoc, who professed to admire the Tolucan, persisted in this choice of death for him—perhaps he found this a necessary measure in order to put the doomed adversary out of his life.
Nezahualpilli was not the only one thinking of Tizoc; Ahuitzotl likewise had the Revered Speaker on his mind, but with sentiments considerably less favorable towards him. Enjoy this feast, Tizoc, he was thinking; there shall not be many more of them for you. You have scorned me and this love I bear Pelaxilla for the last time. Had you not so basely deprecated my desires for her, things might have gone differently for you, but now it is too late.
Early that following morning, priests probed among the cages of Tolucan prisoners and selected the three hundred who were to be honored this day. These were led into a nearby building for their ceremonial preparation where they were divested of their clothing, bathed, and painted yellow over their entire bodies. Their last sumptuous meal was laced with drugs which numbed the senses, making their movements lethargic and inducing anesthesia to destroy much of the pain felt from the knife. The priests gravely spoke to them, giving them messages they wished carried to Tlaloc, often repeating them until the words were memorized and could be recited back. Sedated, counseled, and otherwise conditioned for their final journey, the Tolucans were next marched to the Temple of Tlaloc in columns of two escorted by sober priests and a few guards.
Crowds had gathered at the base of the structure, standing quietly by as the captives entered the square and listened to repetitive incantations voiced from the numerous votaries accompanying them while a lone drumbeater walked along pounding out a cadence. The occasion was an extremely solemn one, and this was patently evident in the grim countenance of the spectators who viewed the procession with hushed veneration.
Tizoc waited on the temple’s upper tier in front of the techcatl, the altarstone, emplaced directly ahead of Tlaloc’s shrine at the very edge of the steps. On his right was Nezahualpilli and on the opposite side Chimalpopoca—all wore brilliant plumages and colorful attire with the typical copious adornments. Also standing with them were Cihuacoatl and the chief priests of Tlaloc. Gravely, they gazed down on the square to observe the lines of victims approaching them, and when Tizoc noticed the once-proud Zozoltin, tall and naked, heading one of the columns, looking a pitiful spectacle, not at all like the noble king he had been, he blushed, feeling regret that he had not taken Nezahualpilli’s advice.
Soon the Tolucan lines ran up on both sides of the steps and Zozoltin was halted on reaching the uppermost level. He glowered fiercely at Tizoc who avoided looking at him and yet felt his overpowering presence. Next, on taking his cue from the Revered Speaker, the chief priest raised his arms and thereby activated a thunderous roll of the giant panhuehuetl, beaten by many clubs and booming as Tlaloc’s invocation across the square leaving its multitude of spectators awestruck. Then, a short time later, he dropped his hands and, as abruptly as it had begun, the drum was stilled.
The chief priest recited his age-old chants, invoking Tlaloc’s blessings and entreating him into granting abundant rains by which the nation was assured another successful planting season. When he finished and stepped back, his subordinates tossed a powdered substance into the decorated braziers placed at each of the temple’s five tiers which emitted dense clouds of smoke when it struck the fire. Four priests strode up to the techcatl where Tizoc was standing and after they posted themselves, he lifted his hands in the air.
“Oh Tlaloc!” Tizoc shouted out as he peered into a partially clouded sky, “Accept these offerings—warriors honorably taken in battle—we are about to send you! Welcome them into your house and hear their messages from us!”
This completed, he nodded to the four priests and they quickly seized Zozoltin, each grabbing one of his limbs, and dragged him to the altar. He was thrown on his back upon the curved block so that it arched his chest upward, elevating
