Naamah's Blessing

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

    A ll 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