As the ceremony drew to a close, I felt more strongly than ever the absence of Alex and my father, both pillars of my old life. What would my father have made of it all? I was certain he would have been ashamed.
The ceremonial banquet was held that evening in the Louisiana Chamber at Windsor Castle. There we assembled, English and Aztec nobility alike, surrounded by burgundy and gold furnishings and the portraits of monarchs, statesmen and generals once glorious but long dead. I had agreed to attend the banquet in order to avoid insulting our eminent visitor from Tenochtitlan.
Richard occupied my father’s old seat at the centre of the table. Extepan was seated between us, with Maxixca and Chimalcoyotl directly opposite. The tlatoani’s eldest son was a powerfully built man with dark penetrating eyes and a commanding physical presence. Though the Turquoise Throne could be inherited by the brothers or younger sons of the former emperor, Chimalcoyotl was widely expected to become tlatoani when his father’s long reign finally came to an end. Like all the sons of Motecuhzoma, he had been fully blooded in war and had a distinguished military career, having successfully led Aztec armies in Malaya, North Africa and Palestine.
Extepan had arranged what he doubtless considered traditional English Christmas fare of pheasant and brandied puddings. The meal was accompanied by Peruvian wines and bourbons from the north-eastern provinces of Greater Mexico. The Aztecs, normally abstemious, drank freely.
Richard was allowed only mineral water on my advice; he had no tolerance for alcohol and did not need it to enjoy himself. Already he was talking happily to Xochinenen, Chimalcoyotl’s sixteen-year-old daughter, who had presumably been seated next to him to keep him company should the adult conversation around the table prove too taxing. Poor Richard: his life had never been his own.
‘I am surprised there is no snow,’ Extepan presently remarked to me. ‘I always imagined that Christmas in England would be white, as in the days of Charles Dickens. Are you familiar with his works?’
I nodded. ‘Of course. I think he was recalling his own childhood, when winters were colder. Once upon a time, the Thames froze in winter and Londoners went skating on it.’
‘Your soft weather comes from us,’ Chimalcoyotl said. ‘What is it you name it – the Gulf Stream, yes?’
I nodded again, noticing that the septum of his nose had once been pierced, evidence of a very traditional Mexican upbringing. He spoke English haltingly but understood it well enough.
‘There’s nothing here but rain and cloud,’ Maxixca murmured to him in Nahuatl. ‘The English like the cold and damp. They shrivel in the sun.’
If this was meant as a joke, it fell flat, because neither Chimalcoyotl nor Extepan smiled.
‘The heat saps their spirits,’ Maxixca went on, grinning a little slackly. ‘We have evidence of it over and over again, in Egypt and India and Palestine. We overwhelmed their armies.’
I wondered if he was drunk. The wine bottle in front of him was almost empty.
‘The same might be said of us in our response to the cold,’ Extepan retorted diplomatically.
‘I hardly think so,’ Maxixca said. ‘Look at how well our troops performed in Alaska and Scandinavia. We took Berlin in the middle of February. The white races have no stomach for battle, though I will admit that they’re industrious when firmly controlled.’ He lifted the bottle and poured the last of the wine into his glass. ‘Where would our Californian vineyards be without them?’
It seemed to me that Maxixca was trying to impress Chimalcoyotl, whose blocky face remained unreadable to me.
‘You’ll soon have the opportunity to test your mettle under colder conditions,’ Extepan remarked.
‘Scotland will pose no problem,’ Maxixca said. ‘I anticipate the campaign—’
‘I think you’ve said quite enough,’ Extepan said firmly. ‘The dinner table isn’t a fitting place to discuss the future conduct of our armies or to insult our hosts – especially when Princess Catherine can understand your every word.’
Both Chimalcoyotl and Maxixca registered surprise.
‘Is this true?’ Chimalcoyotl said to me. ‘You understand Nahuatl?’
‘Perfectly true,’ I replied in the same tongue.
For an instant Maxixca looked shocked, but his face quickly took on an expression of sullen anger.
‘I hope you will forgive my half-brother,’ Chimalcoyotl said in Nahuatl. The wine has made him boastful and ill-mannered. Even if you had not understood him, his slurs on the character of your people would remain. Please accept my apologies on his behalf.’
Chimalcoyotl had begun talking as if Maxixca were no longer present, and Maxixca reacted swiftly to his change of tone, rising to his feet. He had been shamed, and now his only recourse was to withdraw. He practically fled from the hall.
On either side of the long table, numerous conversations continued unabated. Defying protocol, both Richard and Victoria had moved to other seats, and no one else seemed to have noticed our little drama. I wondered how long Extepan had known that I could understand and speak Nahuatl. It was a matter of public record that I had studied the language while at Cambridge, but he had never referred to it until now. Had he deliberately contrived Maxixca’s embarrassment by letting him compromise himself in front of Chimalcoyotl?
‘I’m very sorry,’ Extepan said to me with apparent sincerity. ‘I don’t believe he really meant it—’
‘Is it true?’ I interrupted. ‘You’re sending Maxixca into Scotland?’
There was the briefest exchange of glances between Extepan and Chimalcoyotl before Extepan said, ‘There has been a growing number of raids across the border on garrisons and towns in northern England. Civilians – English civilians – are suffering far more than our troops. Towns have been burnt, women and children killed. It’s become necessary to put an end to the threat.’
This confirmed what I knew from ALEX, and I only hoped that Bevan’s ‘creative counterfeiting’ would give Maxixca a suitably nasty surprise.
‘Maxixca has strict orders to move swiftly but do everything to minimize casualties,’ Extepan said.
‘I’m sure that will be a great comfort to all those who are going to be killed,’ I replied.
I noticed a smile on Chimalcoyotl’s face.
‘Does something amuse you?’ I asked in Nahuatl.
He shook his head slowly, but then said, ‘Perhaps it does. You understandably object to our activities in your country, yet here we sit, surrounded by all the evidence of your own glorious military past.’
I wondered if he was being sarcastic, then decided not. Of course the Louisiana Chamber, with its portraits of Wellington, Napoleon and Andrew Jackson, was a monument to the great victory of the colonial Anglo-French armies over the forces of the tlatoani Cozcatezcatl at New Orleans in 1815 which had halted Aztec expansion into the Mississippi Valley for over half a century. No one but Chimalcoyotl appeared to have appreciated the significance of the room until now.
Chimalcoyotl indicated a painting which showed the three generals surveying from a ridge the carnage of their great victory.
‘As I recall,’ he said, ‘the weather was unseasonably hot during the battle.’
I had to admire his aplomb, the graceful way he was repudiating Maxixca’s insults.
‘It was Princess Catherine who proposed the use of the room for the banquet,’ Extepan observed.
He spoke a little uncertainly, as if he feared Chimalcoyotl might be privately offended by the reminder of a famous Aztec defeat.
‘We’re always prepared to honour the past greatness of other nations,’ Chimalcoyotl said lightly.