“This is going to be beastly hot,” Balthasar predicted in a dire tone, donning his own helmet.

Bao eyed him. “Is it really necessary for the journey?”

Balthasar buckled his chin-strap. “If we want to command respect, unfortunately, yes.”

Bao spun his staff with obnoxious good cheer, looking cool and comfortable in light attire. “Glad I fight better without it, then!”

“No need to gloat,” Balthasar said sourly.

Septimus Rousse, the only other unarmored, bare-headed man in our party, oversaw the matter of unloading one pack-horse and procuring Nahuatl porters in short order, and the horse was saddled and bridled with the mayor’s borrowed tack.

“Lady Moirin.” Porfirio Reyes took my hand and bowed, kissing it. When he straightened, his heavy-lidded eyes were grave. “I would ask you one last time not to do this thing. I do not want your death on my conscience.”

I felt guilty at having conceived a dislike for him, for he had shown us a good deal of courtesy and generosity. I did not think he was a bad fellow—just a man, with any man’s faults and flaws. “I’m sorry, my lord mayor,” I said gently. “But I must try. Please, be assured that this is on no one’s conscience but mine. I am grateful for your assistance.”

He released my hand. “Farewell.”

There was a finality to the word. Like Duc Rogier de Barthelme, the mayor of Orgullo del Sol did not expect to see me alive again. To his credit, at least the latter did not welcome the prospect.

Still, I prayed I might prove them both wrong.

“Moirin?” Bao touched my shoulder. “Ready?” When I nodded, he cupped his hands to give me a boost into the saddle.

Unaccustomed to being ridden, the pack-horse sidled sideways and shook his head, ears flapping in protest at the change in routine. Leaving the reins slack, I touched its thoughts with mine, soothing it. “Be still, brave heart,” I murmured in Alban, reverting to my mother-tongue for the sheer comfort of it. “I do not weigh nearly so much as the burden you were meant to carry, do I? And I am told we must command respect here, you and I.” My mount planted his hooves and shivered; and then its head came up, ears pricked, and I stroked its withers. “Well done.”

“I’d forgotten you talked to animals, Moirin,” Balthasar remarked.

It evoked a long-ago memory of Jehanne, posing me a similar question in a sweet, poisonous voice, long before things had changed forever between us, long before Jehanne had become my unlikely rescuer, when she’d caught me whispering to the long-legged filly that had been Prince Thierry’s gift to me. Do bear-witches speak to animals?

Ah, gods! Even the memories of her early unkindness hurt to remember.

“I do,” I said in D’Angeline, echoing my long-ago reply. “It doesn’t mean they speak back to me.”

Balthasar Shahrizai, my unlikely ally, smiled at me. “Shall we go?”

I inclined my head to him. “By all means.”

Thus began our journey to Tenochtitlan, the heart of the Nahuatl Empire.

For the first two days, we marched through tropical warmth, the men complaining and sweating through the padded gambesons they wore beneath their armor, the Nahuatl porters trudging uncomplaining in simple breech-clouts with packs on their backs and tump-lines bound around their foreheads; me feeling guilty at riding while others walked, feeling guilty at reveling in the palm trees that swayed above us, dreaming their hot, languid dreams. Whether or not Bao and Septimus Rousse felt guilty in their more comfortable attire, I could not say.

At last, the smoking White Mountain of Iztactepetl drew nearer, and we began to pass beneath its shadow, glancing apprehensively at the plume of smoke that trailed from its peak, hoping the volcano rested easy.

For now, it did.

On the third day, another footroad converged with ours, and we saw our first travelling Nahuatl merchant party.

Pochtecas.

The merchants were unassuming; later, I would learn that it was their way to appear modest and conceal their wealth. Indeed, whatever goods they carried would be hidden upon arrival in Tenochtitlan. There was a long line of porters—or more likely, slaves—carrying bundles in the same manner as ours.

But the warriors guarding the expedition—now, they were as resplendent in their own way as our company. They wore curious armor of quilted cotton that had been soaked in saltwater to stiffen it, and carried wooden shields on which devices had been worked with bright feathers. One of them was dressed head to toe in the skin of a spotted beast, and a great headdress of feathers towered above him.

I was so fascinated, I forgot to be frightened at first.

Balthasar held up one hand, and we all halted. The Nahuatl party halted too, conferring amongst themselves. Then the spotted warrior and the others strode forward, clearly intending to engage us in some way. At a glance, their numbers looked to be even with ours.

Now my heartbeat accelerated, and I silently cursed Porfirio Reyes for planting seeds of fear in me.

“They look like they’re ready for a masquerade, don’t they?” Clemente DuBois said nervously.

“Shut up, Clemente,” Balthasar said in an absent tone. “All right, let’s see what they want, shall we? Denis, you’re our translator.”

Surreptitiously, I strung my bow.

“No foolish ideas, Moirin,” Bao warned me. “You’re staying behind, and I’m staying right beside you.”

“I’m just being prepared,” I retorted.

The Nahuatl carried throwing spears and club-like weapons set all around the sides with rows of sharp obsidian blades. The good thing about the latter, Denis had told us, was that obsidian was brittle and shattered easily, especially against steel. The bad thing about the former was that the Nahuatl used handheld tools to hurl the spears with exceptional force, which Denis reckoned might be sufficient to pierce brigandine armor.

I made myself breathe through the Five Styles and remain calm.

The two parties met where the roads converged. Balthasar’s men didn’t draw steel, and the Nahuatl didn’t raise their weapons. At one point, the spotted warrior glanced over at me. His expression was stoic, but there was a spark of curiosity in his eyes. He gestured with one arm, making an inquiry.

From atop my mount, I watched Denis reply. I did my best to keep my own face empty of expression.

After a brief exchange, the pochtecas and their porters advanced to join the warriors. Denis de Toluard beckoned to us. “Moirin!” he called. “They wish to meet you.”

“Bad idea,” Bao muttered.

I glanced down at him. “I’ll never command respect if I show myself to be a coward at the outset.”

He sighed. “You have a point.”

I rode forward slowly, Bao walking beside me. Septimus Rousse stayed behind with our porters to keep a hand on the pack-horses’ lines.

The Nahuatl eyed me with interest, but they made no move, threatening or otherwise. When I reached them, I drew rein. Bao moved a few feet away and held his staff in a deceptively casual defensive pose. My former pack-horse stood stock-still beneath me. I met the spotted warrior’s gaze impassively.

“Lady Moirin, this is the Jaguar Knight Temilotzin.” Beneath his steel helmet, rills of sweat streaked Denis de Toluard’s face, but his voice was steady. “He is in command of this expedition.”

I inclined my head a fraction. “Niltze, Temilotzin.”

The spotted warrior gave me a fierce grin and touched his brow and his chest, speaking too rapidly for me to catch more than one word in three.

“Temilotzin says that it is clear the women of Terre d’Ange are braver than the women of Aragonia, who cower on the far shores of their ocean and dare not show their faces in the Nahuatl Empire,” Denis translated for me. “He thanks you for allowing their party to precede us, since our progress is woefully slow. For our courtesy, he will put in a good word for us with the Emperor’s chief advisor.”

“Tlazocamatli, Temilotzin,” I said politely. “Tell him I am honored by his gracious words, and I thank him for his kindness.”

Denis obeyed.

The spotted warrior chuckled and repeated his gesture, touching his brow and chest, then turned to his party and issued a sharp order.

“Fall back to let them pass!” Balthasar called out.

All of us obeyed, clearing the junction. The pochtecas’ party tramped past us at what was indeed a far more efficient pace than our own.

Once the last man had passed, Bao lowered his staff to rest the butt on the ground. “Guess they weren’t hopelessly inflamed after all, huh?”

I gazed after their baggage-train as it began to dwindle in the distance. “So it seems.”

“Be glad of it,” Balthasar said wryly.

I laughed. “Believe me, I am.”

THIRTY-SIX

All told, we were ten days on the road to Tenochtitlan.

We passed—or more accurately, were passed by—one more pochteca expedition on the course of the journey, an encounter even more uneventful than the first one, for which all of us were grateful.

Although the majority of our nights were spent making camp along the roadside, we found several inns catering to travelling merchants on the way, where we were treated with an odd dispassionate curiosity.

Our path ascended subtly into the mountains, tropical warmth giving way to cooler temperatures, palm trees giving way to conifers and oaks.

The men in armor began to breathe easier, and I felt relieved on their behalf.

On the tenth day, we reached our destination. From what Denis had told us, I knew that the city of Tenochtitlan was built on a lake in a vast valley surrounded by mountains, but even so, I wasn’t prepared for the sight of it. We climbed atop the crest of the road and gazed down into the valley.

It was immense, and the city was well and truly built in the middle of the very lake. Ever the scholar, Denis explained how it had been done, expanding on one lone barren isle by creating artificial islands anchored in marshy ground that were built up and increased over many years, but I simply hadn’t imagined it could be so vast.

“Elua have mercy!” Septimus Rousse breathed in awe. “It’s nigh as grand as La Serenissima!” He gave a wry laugh. “I shouldn’t have wasted all those months cooling my heels in Orgullo del Sol the last time.”

“It’s a considerable feat of engineering,” Denis admitted. “Especially for a folk with no access to forged tools.”

Here were the enormous temples I’d heard about so long ago, stepped pyramids rising high into the sky, dominating the city. The city itself was laid out in an orderly manner, looking as though a great deal of thought had gone into it. Reed canoes glided over the lake and through a system of canals, and three huge causeways stretched across the shining water from city to shore to provide access for foot traffic. Even as I watched, a movable bridge in the middle of a causeway was raised to allow a canoe to pass.

“Ingenious,” Balthasar commented.

Denis nodded. “It is, rather. They raise the bridges at night to secure the city.”

“Where is the Aragonian settlement?” I asked.

He pointed to a wooden fortress on the shores of the lake. “There.”

It looked crude in comparison with the splendor of the city, but it was surrounded by high, sturdy walls.

“Well.” Although I was infinitely more curious about the city, there was diplomacy to be considered. Before we sought an audience with the Emperor, the Aragonian commander must be assured that this wasn’t a second attempt to encroach on their trade rights. “Let’s go pay our respects, shall we?”

It took us the better part of three hours to descend into the valley, passing steppe after steppe carved into the sides of the mountain to provide arable fields spread thick with fertile muck dredged from the lake. Nahuatl men and women tending the fields gazed after us with that same odd mix of stoicism and curiosity.

At last, we reached the floor of the valley and made our way to the Aragonian settlement.

The tall oak gates were shut and bolted, but the guards on duty opened them with alacrity after peering through a peep-hole at us. As soon as they ushered our party through the gate and into the open square beyond it, one addressed Denis de Toluard in stern Aragonian, while another hurried away. The remaining dozen or so took up warning poses, hands on the hilts of their swords.

Denis argued in vain with the guard who’d spoken to him, both their voices rising. Not for the first time, I wished the gods had not seen fit to divide humanity with a thousand different tongues. I’d cudgeled my wits into mastering a number of languages, but Aragonian wasn’t one of them.

As I waited for someone to tell me what transpired here, I noticed two things.

One was that the other Aragonian guards were staring at me with open lasciviousness. One of them caught my eye and made a deliberately lewd gesture, licking his lips, grabbing his crotch, and pumping his hips.

The other was that there was a palanquin adorned with gold sitting in the square, with a sturdy Nahuatl at each corner, along with a half dozen warriors with obsidian-studded clubs and another slender fellow in an elaborately embroidered mantle and a feather headdress standing beside it.

“What in the world passes here?” I asked no one in particular.

“I don’t know,” Bao said through gritted teeth, jerking his chin at the Aragonian guard who’d thrust his hips at me. “But I’m ten seconds from teaching that one a lesson.”

I was on the verge of dismounting to seek out Septimus Rousse, whom I knew spoke fluent Aragonian, when the guard who’d left returned with another fellow, a handsome man with a pointed beard who I guessed to be Commander Diego Ortiz y Ramos.