Malinali wound through the throng of noblemen and warriors crowding the palace's great hall, heading for the kitchens. Banners of red, green, blue, and white feathers hung from the white-washed walls, all bearing the emperor's crest: a swooping eagle with outspread talons, snakes writhing in its beak. With the palace musicians playing drums and clay flutes, it was impossible to overhear any conversation, but she didn't miss the leering calls of a group of young noblemen wearing their cotton armor under their colorful feathered xicolli shirts as she passed by them; such tedious behavior was expected of young warriors, and she ignored them and pressed on through the crush of bodies. She paused though when she heard her Lady's voice.
"Don't forget the honey, Malinali!" Lady Tecuichpo called from across the room where she lounged on a pile of pillows in the corner, resting. Despite the male servants cooling her with goose feather fans, sweat streaked the yellow face powder she wore to disguise her pallor.
Nodding, Malinali turned away again, but from the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Cuauhtemoc—huey tlatoani of the Mexica—sitting on his reed-woven icpalli throne, scanning the crowd with intense dark eyes. He looked small in his lavish turquoise robe and the enormous headdress of long, wispy emerald quetzal feathers, but his jaw-line spoke unmistakable strength and confidence. She rarely paid attention to such trivial things—it was particularly foolish for a slave to be taken with pretty noblemen—but when Cuauhtemoc's searching gaze fixed on hers, her breath caught.
She held his stare only for a heartbeat—decorum forbade she look him in the eye or turn her back on him when leaving a room—but in that briefest of moments, she couldn't look away. His eyes smoldered with secret passion, a desire to devour everything he saw, like a jaguar spotting his prey. She ducked through the doorway onto the portico, her heart hammering. After the crush of sweat and flowers in the great hall, she welcomed the cool evening breeze and the rich aroma of roasting meats and chile peppers.
Once in the kitchens, she grabbed a gourd-bowl and let the head cook ladle watery cornmeal mash into it. "Lady Tecuichpo is getting better?" he asked.
"Slowly." Though she suspected her mistress would get sick on the atole, again. Three months earlier, Tecuichpo had come down with a mysterious illness that had turned her body burning hot; but when oozing sores broke out all over her, the emperor ordered all of her slaves put into quarantine and took his young wife away to one of his private estates in Huaxtepec. Malinali spent the next two weeks in isolation, where two of the slaves perished, but her thoughts remained with her mistress; Tecuichpo was still so young, with all of her life ahead of her, and to be cut down so soon was unfair.
But a month later, Cuauhtemoc returned with Tecuichpo at his side. "He alone cared for me," Tecuichpo told Malinali. "He gave me cool baths and put salve on my sores; he even fed me by his own hand when I was too weak to feed myself." She sighed longingly. "I can't wait until I'm old enough to be his wife in more than just ceremony."
The sickness had marred her pretty face with dark red splotches and pockmarks, and though she seemed better for the first month, she soon turned listless and weak again. Some days she never left her bed. She shouldn't have been at tonight's feast, even though it celebrated her sixteenth Name Day—the beginning of adulthood—but she'd insisted. "I must show Cuauhtemoc that I'm strong. If he thinks I'm still sick, he'll never...we'll never...." She broke down crying at that point, and nothing Malinali said could comfort her.
Malinali added honey to the atole, then, after a quick glance around to see if anyone was watching, she sprinkled in some herbs from the maguey-cloth pouch she always carried. She hoped some of the medicinal spells and potions she'd learned in Potonchan would help her mistress recover her strength and health. She had to be careful though. The Mexica thought all magic evil, even the beneficial kind. She tucked the pouch back under her dress then stirred in the powdered herbs as she left the kitchen.
But as she approached the doorway to the great hall, the emperor suddenly loomed over her, blocking her way. She met his grave, dark eyes for a breath before dropping her gaze and bowing. "Revered Speaker."
"Malinali, isn't it?" Cuauhtemoc's voice was liquid heat on her ears. "From Paynala?"
Startled, she stared at him; a dire protocol violation, but he'd ensnared her with his questioning gaze. "I was born there, My Lord," she choked out as she wrestled her wits back. Fluster and confusion heated her cheeks. Who told him where she was from? She never spoke of her childhood to anyone; not even her best friend Xochitli. She preferred to keep her tears and pain to herself.
Cuauhtemoc folded his arms and smiled behind the finger he curled before his lips. "La Malinche," he murmured, bemused. "Working in my palace!"
"La Malinche?" She tried not to sound as though she thought him deranged, but failed.
"Nothing." He leaned forward and looked into the bowl. "For my wife?"
"I tend to her needs, My Lord."
He nodded. "She speaks very highly of you."
A lie. Tecuichpo always told her if she said kind things about her to the guards or the head steward. She stiffened her shoulders, standing straighter, but kept her gaze downcast. "My Lady is waiting for her meal, Your Grace."
He finally stepped aside, but she felt his gaze follow her the entire way back to where Tecuichpo reclined on her feather-stuffed pillows. Daring a glance back, she spotted Cuauhtemoc back at his throne, still watching her, tapping his fingers on his knee. She turned back quickly, tamping down the anger. She knew all too well what that kind of look meant, especially from a man of Cuauhtemoc's power and privilege. Gods, let me be wrong, she thought, turning her attention back to Tecuichpo, who was blissfully oblivious. Especially for My Lady's sake.
¤
"I can't believe you're ravaging that slave with your eyes right in front of your wife."
Cuauhtemoc broke his focus away from Malinali to glare at his friend Ixtlil. The other man sat on a black-feathered mat next to Cuauhtemoc's reed throne and grinned at him over his gold-plated cup. He took his title of King of Texcoco very seriously and showed it off with an extravagant collection of silver and gold necklaces, turquoise rings, and a heavy feathered robe that concealed his ample gut. His cheeks were flushed with their usual merriment and mischief.
"I'm not ravaging her," Cuauhtemoc replied, amused.
"Even I'm careful not to stare at other women when my wife is in the room, so what's your excuse?" Ixtlil glanced over at Malinali. "Not that she isn't worth looking at, but that chunky wooden slave collar makes her look as if she has no neck."
For a breath, Cuauhtemoc wondered how Malinali's neck looked under that concealing collar, but he then turned his gaze to Tecuichpo. The girl looked pale but in good spirits, and she smiled shyly when she noticed him watching her. He returned the gesture.
"Besides, why would you want some random slave when your virgin wife awaits your first visit to her bed tonight?" When Cuauhtemoc snorted, Ixtlil held up his hands, a crooked grin on his round face. "I know. You don't talk about such things."
"There are far more important things to talk about."
"Such as your victory over the Spanish?"
Cuauhtemoc shook his head. "That's old news."
"Perhaps, but everyone loves a good war story."
"The people need something new to crow about."
"Like say...Tlaxcala?" Ixtlil raised an eyebrow.
Letting out an exhausted breath, Cuauhtemoc asked, "Don't you ever tire of war?"
"And have to stay home with my wife? No thank you."
"I tire of war." Cuauhtemoc stared into the watery remains of his chocolate then drained the cup in one swig. "It gets us nowhere."
"What if the gods hear you?"
"Who do you think told me so?"
Ixtlil sobered; he always did when Cuauhtemoc alluded to the divine vision that had changed everything; how, while on his death bed, his teyolia had slipped the binding of his body, to go into the underworld, but instead of disappearing, it returned a few days later, with knowledge of a terrifying future, shown to him by the gods themselves. That was an even better story than the battle against Cortés, one that would turn him into a god in the eyes of his people, if he chose to tell them about it.
But he didn't want the pressure of living up to that image, so he'd told only Ixtlil, who would scoff at any notion of his best friend being any kind of god.
"Crushing Tlaxcala would be a nice feather in my headdress," Cuauhtemoc conceded. "But peace with them would be far nicer, for everyone."
Ixtlil gave out a booming laugh. "Don't tell that to our soldiers."
Cuauhtemoc cracked a strained smile. Warfare had been the preferred diplomatic status of the empire since its inception, but the gods had warned him that such conflicts weren't sustainable; the empire dodged fate, but just because Cuauhtemoc had killed Cortés and driven the Spanish off the islands, it didn't mean everyone was safe. More invaders would come, and so long as everyone remained embroiled in petty infighting, the future was vulnerable. Especially if ambitious lords of hostile regions—such as Tlaxcala—started intentionally spreading the smallpox as a weapon.
"Our best defense against future invasions is to make peace with our enemies and turn them into allies," Cuauhtemoc said.
"Yes, but with Tlaxcala?" Ixtlil wrinkled his nose, disgusted. "A whole lot of ignorant dogs, they are, and stinking thieves. They ignore our envoys and they stole my Cihuacoatl's horse from the army camp just last month. We should wipe them out, not try to make friends with them."
"There's two hundred years of bad blood between our nations, so of course it won't be easy," Cuauhtemoc conceded. But if La Malinche—as the gods had called her—was in his court, under his control, that changed everything. If she could be as much use to him as she would have been to Cortés....
Cuauhtemoc watched Malinali help Tecuichpo up from her pillows and lead her out. His wife looked ill and weak, gripping onto her handmaiden like an anxious bird. She wasn't getting better with the passing days, and after what she'd asked of him when they were alone in Huaxtepec...he didn't look forward to discussing the tough facts of their future as husband and wife when he visited her tonight. But I owe it to her to be honest.
A slave boy moved to refill his cup but he held up his hand. "Bring a fresh pot to Lady Tecuichpo's quarters, with two cups." The boy nodded then hurried off.
"You're leaving already?" Ixtlil asked when Cuauhtemoc rose. "We haven't even smoked our pipes yet."
"Any nobleman here would enjoy smoking and listening at the feet of the King of Texcoco. I have things I need to do."
Ixtlil grinned. "Things?"
"Things, you lecher. And behave yourself."
"I'm not the one eyeing the slave girls."
Cuauhtemoc rolled his eyes.
"You should take a few as concubines," Ixtlil suggested.
Cuauhtemoc's mother would rupture a vein at that suggestion. She'd lectured him for years about bringing slaves into his household, a concern stemming from when the son of one of her husband's concubines—a former slave—tried to kill Cuauhtemoc when he was only six. Ambitious slaves were hardly the only ones to practice such power plays, but Cuauhtemoc made a habit of not bedding his servants. Or anyone else, for that matter.
"A king should have dozens of concubines, but the huey tlatoani should have hundreds; and you have, what? One virgin wife you haven't even bedded yet? What would your father think?"
Lancing Ixtlil with a glare, Cuauhtemoc growled, "I'm not my father."
"You aren't," Ixtlil agreed, casting him an uneasy nod.
"Keep your paws off my slaves. We'll talk again in the morning." Cuauhtemoc then ducked out the doorway behind the dais, glad to be away from the constant reminders of how he failed miserably at being his father.
¤
Once back in her quarters, Lady Tecuichpo retched all over the floor. She sobbed and tried to clean it up herself, but Malinali led her away to the bed. "Cleaning it up is my job," she reminded her. Luckily the sweet aroma of the copal candles she kept burning in her room—to drive off the smell of sickness—shielded them from the worst of it. Malinali rolled up the red and black striped rug next to the bed, to take it away for cleaning, then she brought a cup of water from the rain jar in the bath yard. She then sat on the bed with her mistress and cleaned the yellow powder off her face.
"I'm going to die, and no one cares!" Tecuichpo cried, adding tears to her sweat-streaked face paint.
Malinali squeezed her elbow. "I care."
"You're the only one who does."
Once Malinali finished, Tecuichpo grabbed her hand to keep her sitting next to her on the luxurious rabbit-skin blanket. "You've been like a mother to me, Malinali. You taught me the things my mother would have if she were still alive, and you comforted me through the death of my last husband and having to marry Cuauhtemoc. You've even told me what to expect when he finally can see me as a woman rather than the child the Council forced him to marry. I've been waiting so many years and now it's finally happening."
Trying to muster some enthusiasm, Malinali nodded, but she really hoped Cuauhtemoc had sense enough to see that his wife—woman though she now was—wasn't in any condition for begetting children. She understood Tecuichpo's eagerness though; Cuauhtemoc was her third husband in her short life. At age eight, her father, Emperor Motecuhzoma the Younger, had married her to one of his cousins, but when that man died in battle around the same time her father perished in a palace fire, the Triple Alliance Council married her to the new huey tlatoani—her uncle Cuitlahuac. He died four years later, after taking an arrow to the throat in a hunting accident, and once again the Council married her off, this time to Cuauhtemoc, who'd won election for his legendary military victories over the Spanish. It didn't matter that he was already married with a child; Tecuichpo's status as a former emperor's daughter gave her precedence, so he'd had to set his marriage to his first wife aside. Lord Death claimed that poor woman later in childbirth, and took the baby as well. Hopefully losing one wife to the childbed would convince him to delay claiming his husbandly rights until Tecuichpo was strong enough to face the dangers that lay ahead on that path; the childbed wasn't called a battlefield for no reason.
But life had taught Malinali that powerful men took what they wanted when they wanted it, regardless of what was best for the woman. That's why every day, along with her morning tortilla, she drank a bitter tea made of the root of the chipahuacxihuitl, to keep from begetting. But feeding Tecuichpo such potent medicine would only make her sicker. The poor girl was at the mercy of the goodness of the man who'd spent all evening leering at her handmaiden.
The concern must have been plain on Malinali's face, for Tecuichpo frowned. "He won't ever visit our marriage bed anyway." Her bottom lip quivered. "Those jade stones and feathers we laid together on this bed will never become the children he promised to give me."
Malinali put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her tight. Personal contact between slaves and their noble masters was frowned upon—and, in the case of the emperor, completely forbidden—but Tecuichpo leaned eagerly into Malinali's embrace. "There will be time enough, My Lady. You need to get well first."
"What if I never recover?" Tecuichpo sobbed.
"You will get better."
"When we were in Huaxtepec, I asked him to forget all those silly laws and...." She squeezed her eyes shut. "It was foolishness, and the fever speaking. He, of course, refused."
"As he should have."
"But now he'll never visit my bed, even when I recover."
"Why not?"
She pointed to her tear-stained, pockmarked face, more sobs breaking free.
"You are still stunningly elegant," Malinali assured her.
Tecuichpo shook her head. "He used to smile at me, but now he won't even look at me. Have you any idea how painful it is to be your father's joy but end up another man's annoyance?"
Malinali flinched at Tecuichpo's unthinking words, and the memories they set free: her father's laughing face as he whirled her in the air while she giggled, exhilarated, his long black hair flowing so freely around him as he spun; that grey, rainy day when her mother sat crying before the hearth, surrounded by sodden warriors informing her that they'd found her husband's body floating in one of the city's canals; and of those loathsome glares her mother's new husband gave her every time she spoke. Looking at him was like staring into the eyes of an indifferent god. I know exactly how painful it is. A choke rose in her throat.
"I'll die never knowing the warmth of a man's loving embrace," Tecuichpo muttered.
That makes two of us. "Consider yourself lucky. It hurts dreadfully the first time, and there are plenty of men who don't care if it's unpleasant every time after." When her mistress frowned, horrified, she cursed herself. "Never mind me, My Lady. Things will work out, and you and Cuauhtemoc will have a palace full of beautiful children."
Tecuichpo smiled. "He is so very handsome, isn't he?"
"Extremely." Not a lie, but Malinali was careful to keep such thoughts locked away, where they couldn't render her foolish, as they used to not all that long ago. "Now get your rest."
¤
Malinali was still in Tecuichpo's quarters, and with her scornful response to his questions earlier, Cuauhtemoc decided he'd rather avoid her right now. Besides, his heavy, formal clothing wore on his nerves—especially the enormous headdress that kept slipping down every time he moved his head. He needed to be dressed comfortably before he spoke with his wife, so he continued down the hall, to the doorway at the end, the one with the crimson curtain emblazoned with his royal crest. The two guards standing watch outside stood straighter as he approached. "Inform me when Lady Tecuichpo's servant leaves," he said as he passed between them.
The fire burning in the anteroom hearth cast heat and orange light into the darkness of his quarters. It was one very large room divided into four smaller sections, each separated by folding screens painted with images of the gods. A long blue curtain could be pulled across the bedroom area for privacy.
His three male body servants relieved him of his crown of quetzal feathers and his bulky gold and silver necklaces. He stood perfectly still while they worked, his arms out at his sides, to facilitate speed. They worked without a word, taking expert care to not touch his bare skin as they removed his robe and slid off the jade arm and calf bands. They took his discarded clothing to the large dressing room off his sleeping quarters, but he shook his head when one of them returned with his night shirt. "Get my xicolli with the egrets. I have business before bed."
With a wordless nod, the servant disappeared behind the maguey-cloth screen and reappeared a moment later with the shirt. With another servant's help, they pulled it over his head and straightened it while the third held up a polished obsidian mirror so Cuauhtemoc could approve his appearance. One of them then held out his gold and turquoise diadem, which he wore for daily use, but he shook his head. He wanted to speak to Tecuichpo as her husband, not her king.
He dismissed his body servants, then retreated to the back of his sleeping quarters to stare out into the moonlit garden below. His thoughts wandered to his former wife Cuicatl—dead three years now—and the last time they'd spoken. He'd made her cry after they argued about Tecuichpo; they always argued about her, about how he'd been too cowardly to stand up to those ridiculous rules made by old men that supplanted his first wife in favor of a child already twice married. He'd left to stay in his father's old palace on the other side of the sacred precinct, to get peace from her. He even turned away messengers—a decision he'd regretted every day since. By morning she was dead and he'd had no chance to make better with her, no chance to tell her one last time that he loved her. And he only got to hold his newborn son after Lord Death had claimed him as well. The boy was so tiny and fragile; he fit in Cuauhtemoc's outspread hand.
"Lady Tecuichpo is alone now, My Lord," the guard announced, and Cuauhtemoc choked back the sting rising in his chest. With a nod, he left his quarters and went down the hall.
A young slave woman sat outside his wife's door, keeping watch in case Tecuichpo needed anything in the middle of the night. The servant boy came up the stairs too, balancing a tray filled with a fired-clay kettle and two gilded cups. "I'll take that," Cuauhtemoc told him and the boy nodded, keeping his eyes downcast. Another of those pointless rules meant to make him feel like a god, but it only isolated him. He preferred that people look him in the eye, so he could ascertain their true character. He pressed his way past the yellow door curtain, taking care not to rattle the copper bells sewn into the hem.
Tecuichpo's quarters were a smaller version of his own, with nature scenes painted on the maguey screens. The curtain partitioning off her sleeping quarters was open wide, and she lay with her back to the door, seemingly asleep. But then she turned and blinked at him. "My Lord." She pushed herself to a sitting position.
Cuauhtemoc set the tray on the floor next to the bed of thin mats before sitting down. "I hope I didn't wake you."
"I wasn't asleep." She wiped her eyes, reminding him of his own daughter when he woke her in the middle of the night. "I was hoping you'd come to see me."
The breathless way she said this formed a knot in his gut. "It is a special day." He focused on pouring the chocolate, so he didn’t have to see the longing in her eyes. Still, she simpered when he handed her a cup.
After losing not only her first two husbands but her father as well, she'd needed someone to look up to as a parent, and he'd taken up that task—he owed it to her to be fatherly, since the gods had demanded he remove her father from this life, for the good of the empire—but that decision had now created a whole new set of problems. She was a grown woman, old enough to bear his children, but he didn't see her that way. To him she was still a scared little girl who'd knelt next to him in the great hall, confused as the high priest of the Feathered Serpent tied her dress to yet another man's cape. Would that ever change?
Well, you better at least try, for her, for the empire. He drained his own cup, hoping to unclench his gut. "How are you feeling today?"
"Strong," she said, her voice eager. "Best I've felt in months."
"That's good." He stared into his cup, trying to think of something else to say.
Tecuichpo spoke first though. "I've been looking forward to tonight for a very long time, My Lord." She moved closer; not enough to touch him, but so very close. "We don't have to wait anymore."
Too close. And too soon. He stood, getting as much distance between them as he could without looking as if he was running away. "I'm not going to bed you tonight, Tecuichpo." He took a deep, calming breath once he'd said it.
Tears wetted her eyes. "But why not?"
Ayya! You made her cry...just as you made Cuicatl cry. Sitting again, he took her hands in his, holding them together. "You're still sick. It takes time to recover from the Spanish Plague—"
"I feel fine."
"That may be, but if you became with child...it would kill you. We must wait until you're fully recovered."
"But what if I never recover?"
He squeezed her hands. "You will."
But she tore her hands away from him. "It's because I'm so ugly and deformed, isn't it?"
"You're not ugly—"
"Then you must still think me a child." When he hesitated, she gave a hollow laugh and glared at the ceiling. "So I am a child to you."
"That's not true." He couldn't meet her gaze though. "I need time. For the last three years, you've been like a daughter to me—"
"I'm not your daughter! I'm your wife!" She moved away to pace in front of the hearth. She looked so tiny in front of it. "I didn't ask to be your wife, Your Grace."
Cuauhtemoc shot to his feet too. "And I didn't ask for you either. I already had a wife, but sometimes we must do things we don't want to."
She turned her smoldering glare on him. "Indeed we do."
He glared back at her until the insinuation sank in. "No, this discussion is over. I've given my reasons why we will wait and you will respect that. Which of us is the huey tlatoani?"
She snorted then turned away, stewing.
Annoyed with himself, Cuauhtemoc shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I need time to get to know you better, and you need that time to fully recover. I lost one wife to childbirth, and I won't risk losing you too."
Tears in her voice, she asked, "Why did you even come tonight then?"
"I wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten about you."
She only sniffled louder.
He sighed. "We'll talk more tomorrow." He turned to leave.
"I saw you gawking at my handmaiden," she fired at him.
Cuauhtemoc froze with the door curtain half open. She made it sound so tawdry.
"If you touch her—"
"I’m not interested in her, Tecuichpo—"
But she whirled on him like a furious goddess, fists clenched. "If you touch her, I will see that the Black Dog visits you in your own bed!" She snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide, aghast at what she'd said.
Cuauhtemoc stared back at her, equally incredulous, until one of his guards poked his head past the curtain. "Are you all right, My Lord?" The guard made his spear clearly visible.
Tecuichpo blanched, making her look sicker than usual.
"I'm fine." Cuauhtemoc waved the guard off, and once the man moved away, he turned his hot stare back to Tecuichpo, his jaw set tight. "I'll speak to you tomorrow."
"My Lord—"
"Good night." He let the curtain fall behind him as he left, the copper bells drowning out her objections.