I would have put the newcomer’s age at about three. He was naked apart from a short cloak that barely covered his loins. He took no notice of Handy but looked curiously up at me and sucked nervously on a finger. ‘What did you do to your face?’ he mumbled.
I opened my mouth and then shut it again when I found myself unable to think of a sensible answer. I looked hopefully at Handy, who was standing up. ‘He fell over,’ he said.
For some reason this struck the child as funny He started giggling.
‘Well, he seems to like you,’ the commoner said. ‘One of your nephews?’
‘Possibly. Or a great-nephew, even.’
‘His name,’ said an icy female voice, ‘is Quiauhtli. Quiauhtli, this is your great-uncle Yaotl. What are you doing here?’ she asked me. ‘It’s no use scrounging for food, you know — the fast doesn’t end till tomorrow!’ In a slightly milder tone she added, ‘And who’s your friend?’
My elder sister Quetzalchalchihuitl, ‘Precious Jade’, had come looking for her child. I noted with some amusement that she had obviously run out of the courtyard in a hurry, and in the middle of washing her hair, since it was still plastered wetly to the back and sides of her head and her blouse was sodden where she had pulled it hastily back on.
‘Hello, Jade,’ I said wearily. ‘Meet my friend Handy He’s working for my master. Aren’t you supposed to be fasting before the festival? How come you washed your hair?’
Those households that had the means and the inclination to set up a pole and make offerings for the festival of the Coming Down of Water also committed themselves to a fast over the four days preceding it. During the fast it was permitted towash your face and neck but nothing else, and no soap was allowed.
My sister looked at me as if I had just asked her why tortoises could not fly ‘Because obviously there won’t be time tomorrow before everyone gets here,’ she said shortly, before turning her attention to my companion. The modest angle of her head belied the blush that darkened her face and the hint of a sparkle in her eyes as she greeted him formally: ‘You have come a long way, you are tired. Please come and rest. I am sorry we can’t offer you anything to eat …’
I felt a grin creeping unbidden across my face as I stepped carefully around my sister and the child who was now clinging to her skirt. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ I said, knowing they would be quite safe. Jade did her best not to act her age, but she would not be able to keep the pretence up for long with her own grandson by her side. Besides, Jade’s husband, Amaxtli, would be in the house somewhere. And I felt sure Handy would jump in the canal rather than have to endure whatever Citlalli would have to say to him if he misbehaved.
‘That can’t be the musicians already? It’s too early! The Sun hasn’t set yet, we’re not ready, where’s Jade got to? One of you … Tlacazolli, stop staring at that pole like a cretin, go and fetch your father! Are those paper streamers ready? Neuctli, the streamers, I said … Oh.’ The old woman’s head had been swinging sharply from side to side as she rapped out orders to her children as if they were eight-year-olds. When it finally came to rest, with her clear eyes narrowing as they finally took in the appearance of the man standing in front of her, the squawking tailed off into a kind of nasal drone comprised of disappointment, chagrin and something like resignation. ‘It’s you.’
‘Hello, Mother.’
‘What are you doing back here?’
My mother’s piety ran deeper than my elder sister’s: either that, or she had not had time to wash yet. She was dressed in a plain blouse and skirt of coarse, undyed maguey cloth, and although her grey hair was bound in the manner of a respectable Aztec matron, swept up and gathered into two long tufts that projected over her forehead like horns, it had a greasy, frayed look that told me it had not been washed for a while.
‘I am your son, you know,’ I said, reproachfully.
‘I suppose so.’ She sighed heavily. ‘But I wasn’t expecting you. I thought you were from the House of Song. Oh well. What with it being a fast, it’s not as if you’re another mouth to feed. What your father will say, I’ve no idea.’ She glanced over her shoulder at my brother Tlacazolli, or ‘Glutton’, who had been shambling across the courtyard in response to her order. For a moment I thought she was going to call him back before he reached the room where my father evidently was, but she was just too late. My parents had named the elder of my two younger brothers Glutton for a reason, and his speed matched his bulk. On a good day he could just about beat a snail, provided he stayed awake long enough to finish the race, but he had managed to cover the distance and was disappearing through the doorway to deliver my mother’s summons.
I followed my mother’s glance nervously. ‘How is my father?’
‘Same as ever,’ she said shortly. ‘I take it you are here for the vigil?’
‘Um, yes.’
I took the opportunity to survey the courtyard. Piled up beside the pole that dominated it was the wood and kindling that would keep the household warm during the long winter’s night to come, and in front of the bonfire, sitting in a circle ontiny reed mats, were the dolls that would be the focus of the vigil and the next day’s festivities.
‘You’ve made a real effort,’ I said. ‘That looks like the full set.’
‘It is.’ My mother could not keep the note of pride out of her voice as she recounted their names: ‘Popocatepetl, Iztaccihuatl, Tlaloc, Yoaltecatl, Quauhtepetl, Cocotl, Yiauhqueme, Tepetzintli, Huixachtecail — that’s all the mountains, then there’s Xiuhtecuhtli, Chicomecoatl, Chalchihuitlicue and Ehecatl.’ I imagined the labour that she and my sisters would have lavished on these figurines, these images of the mountains that surrounded the city and the gods that protected it, fashioning each one out of amaranth seed dough and giving it beans for eyes and pumpkin seeds for teeth. Of course, it was a wonderful excuse for them to sit around and gossip and it made a pleasant change from weaving, making tortillas and beating bark into paper, but I could still admire their handiwork.
One of the workers came up to me now.
‘Yaotl?’
I stared dumbly at a slim, lively-looking young woman, trying to work out who she was. She would be about twenty, I thought, but I could not remember any female relative of mine who was that age. Jade was a year older than I, and my other sister so much younger that when I had last seen her she was still too young for the House of Youth, still at home, being taught by her mother to cook and spin maguey fibre into thread.
I stared from her to our mother.
‘Neuctli?’ I said, incredulously.
‘Honey’ was her name, and as far as I remembered it reflected the little girl’s nature. She smiled sweetly at me now. ‘You didn’t recognize me, did you?’
I continued staring stupidly at her. ‘You, er, you weren’t here last time I came,’ was all I could manage to say.
‘Why should she have been?’ snapped my mother. ‘You chose to drop in unannounced for the first time in I don’t know how many years, so what did you expect? The whole family lined up to greet you? You were lucky any of us remembered your name!’
‘But I’m back again now,’ I replied defensively. I looked around once more, concentrating this time on my family. I recognized Jade’s husband Amaxtli, a short, wiry man in a one-captive warrior’s multi-coloured breechcloth and a cloak embroidered with scorpions, squatting against the wall with his sons around him; and kneeling near by, Glutton’s wife, Elehuiloni, a plain-looking woman with a weeping infant on her knee and a harassed look. Other children of varying ages milled about, filling the courtyard with their voices, but I could not have said whom any of them belonged to because I could not remember having seen any of them before. I saw no sign of my youngest brother, Copactecolotl, or ‘Sparrowhawk’, but that was no surprise. I would never have looked for him in a household that was fasting. Fasting included abstaining from women, and from what I remembered, that would not suit Sparrowhawk at all.