Human flesh, like almost any other animal flesh, when properly hung, aged, seasoned, and broiled, makes a tasty dish, and it is suitable for sustenance when there is no other meat. However, just as it can be proven that close-kinship marriage among our noble families did not result in superior offspring, but more often the contrary, I think it could be equally demonstrated that humans who feed only on humans must similarly decline. If a family's bloodline is best improved by marriage outside the line, so a man's blood must be best strengthened by the ingestion of other animals. Thus, with the passing of the Hard Times, the practice of eating the slain xochimíque became—for all but the desperate and degenerate poor—only one more religious observance, and a minor one.
But the first War of Flowers was such a success, coincidence or not, that the same six nations continued to wage others at regular intervals, for a safeguard against any future displeasure of the gods and any recurrence of the Hard Times. I daresay we Mexíca had little further need of that stratagem, for Motecuzóma and the Revered Speakers who succeeded him did not again let years elapse between real wars. There was seldom a time thereafter when we did not have an army in the field, extending our tributary dominion. But the Acolhua and the Tecpanéca, having few ambitions of that sort, had to depend on the Wars of Flowers to provide Flowery Deaths for their gods. So, since Tenochtítlan had been the instigator, it continued willingly to participate: The Triple Alliance versus the Texcalteca, the Mixteca, and the Huexotin.
To the warriors it mattered not. Punitive war or Flowery War, a man had as much chance of dying. He had also as much opportunity of being acclaimed a hero or even awarded one of the orders of knighthood, whether he left a notable number of enemies dead on some disputed field or brought home a notable number alive from the plain of Acatzinco.
"For know this, Fogbound," said Master Blood Glutton, on that day of which I have spoken. "No warrior, in a real war or a War of Flowers, must ever expect to be counted among the fallen or the captured. He must expect to live through the war and to come out of it a hero. Oh, I will not dissemble, my boy. He may very well die, yes, while still thrilling to that expectation. But if he goes into battle not expecting victory for his side and glory for himself, die he surety will."
I tried to convey, while trying not to sound pusillanimous, that I was not afraid to die, but neither was I eager to. In whatever kind of war, I was evidently destined for no higher office than Swallower or Swaddler. Such a duty, I pointed out, could as well be assigned to women. Would I not be of more value to the Mexíca nation, to humanity as a whole, if I were allowed to exercise my other talents?
"What other talents?" grunted Blood Glutton.
That stopped me for a moment. But then I suggested that if, for example, I succeeded in mastering the picture writing, I could accompany the army as a battle historian. I could sit apart, on an overlooking hilltop perhaps, and write a description of each battle's strategy and tactics and progress, for the edification of future commanders.
The old soldier regarded me with exasperation. "First you say you cannot see to fight an opponent face to face. Now you say you will encompass the whole confused action of two entire clashing armies. Fogbound, if you are seeking exemption from this school's weapons practice, save your breath. I could not excuse you if I would. In your case, there is a charge upon me."
"A charge?" I said, nonplussed. "A charge from whom, Master?"
He frowned, annoyed, as if caught in a slip of the tongue, and growled, "A charge I impose upon myself. It is my sincere belief that every man should experience one war, or at least one battle, in his lifetime. Because, if he survives, he savors all the rest of his life the more richly and dearly. Now, enough of this. I shall expect to see you on the field as usual at tomorrow's dusk."
So I went away then, and I went on with the combat drills and lessons in the days and months that followed. I knew not what the future held for me, but I did know one thing. If I was destined for some undesirable duty, there were only two ways to evade it: either show myself incapable of it or show myself too good for it. And good scribes were at least not made weeds for the obsidian to mow. That is why, while I uncomplainingly attend both the Houses of Building Strength and Learning Manners, in private I worked ever more intensely and feverishly to puzzle out the secrets of the art of word knowing.
* * *
I would make the gesture of kissing the earth, Your Excellency, if that were a custom still observed. Instead, I simply straighten my old bones upright so that I stand, like your friars, to salute your entrance.
It is an honor to have Your Excellency's presence grace our little group once again, and to hear you say that you have examined the collected pages of my story thus far. But Your Excellency asks searching questions relative to certain events therein, and I must confess that your questions make me lower my eyelids in embarrassment, even in some shame.
Yes, Your Excellency, my sister and I continued to enjoy each other at every opportunity during those growing-up years of which I have recently spoken. And yes, Your Excellency, we knew that we sinned.
Probably Tzitzitlini knew it from the start, but I was younger, so it was only gradually that I became aware that what we were doing was wrong. Over the years I have come to realize that our females always knew more about the mysteries of sex, and knew it earlier, than any males. I suspect the same is true of the females of all races, including your own. For they seem inclined, from their youngest years, to whisper among themselves, and to trade what secrets they learn about their own bodies and the bodies of men, and to consort with old widows and crones who—perhaps because their own juices have long gone dry—are gleefully or maliciously eager to instruct young maidens in womanly wiles and snares and deceptions.
I regret that I am not, even yet, sufficiently knowledgeable of my new Christian religion to know all its rules and strictures on the subject, though I gather that it frowns on every manifestation of sexuality except an occasional copulation between Christian husband and wife for the purpose of producing a Christian child. But even we heathens observed a few laws and a great many traditions regarding accepted sexual behavior.
A maiden was to remain a virgin until she married, and she was encouraged not to marry young, for our religion recognized that our living room and resources would be depleted by more than a moderate harvest of children in each generation. Or a maiden might choose not to marry but to join the auyanime, whose service to our warriors was a legitimate female occupation, if not exactly an exalted one. Or, if she was disqualified for marriage by ugliness or some other deficiency, she might become a maátitl for pay, and go astraddle the road. There were some girls who maintained their maidenhood so that they might win the honor of sacrifice in some ceremony which required a virgin; and others so that they might serve all their lives, like your nuns, as attendants to the temple priests—though there was speculation about the nature of that attendance and the duration of that virginity.
Chastity before marriage was not so demanded of our men, for they had always available the willing maátime and the slave women, willing or unwilling; and anyway, a man's virginity can hardly be proved or disproved. Neither can a woman's, I might confide—as Tzitzi confided to me—if she has time to prepare before her wedding night. There are old women who keep pigeons that they feed with the dark red seeds of some flower known to them, and they sell the eggs of those birds to would-be virgins. A pigeon's egg is small enough to be easily secreted deep inside a woman, and its shell is so fragile that an excited bridegroom will break it without feeling it, and the yolk of that specially bred egg is the exact color of blood. Also, the crones sell to women an astringent ointment made from the berry which you call the buckthorn, which will pucker the most slack and gaping orifice to adolescent tightness...