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XV

Ahuitzotl met Pelaxilla at their favorite rendezvous point, the gardens behind the royal palace, in as joyful a reunion for two lovers as could be imagined, with smiles, laughter, and even tears of happiness streaming from Pelaxilla’s eyes as she was beside herself with rapture that he had safely returned. They smothered themselves in long affectionate embraces and tender caresses, and for Ahuitzotl these moments reinforced a deep felt yearning for comforts and pleasures only a woman loved could provide, verifying how empty his life was without Pelaxilla.

“How little you men understand,” Pelaxilla said, “what grief you bring to us when you go on your wars—the anxieties we endure over whether we shall ever see you again. Is this what our life together will be like?”

“The requirement exists,” he told her.

“Yes, I’ll have to accept that. At least you’ve come back to me.”

“So let’s enjoy our moments together. They are not that frequent and should be relished to the fullest.”

“The goddess Xochiquetzal will be envious.”

“Of me? You flatterer.”

“No, silly, of me,” Pelaxilla teased, “for the pleasures you give me.”

“See? You are a flatterer.”

They laughed and walked in the delight of each other’s company along the familiar footpath, but the merriment was short-lived as Pelaxilla could not hold back the question burning within her. “Will you do as you promised?” she asked. “Will you speak to Lord Tizoc?”

“I shall, however…”

In her excitement she did not allow him to finish, finding the prospect too stimulating, “It’s so thrilling. You and I together from now on—and this with but an approving nod from Lord Tizoc.”

Pelaxilla’s elation evaporated when she was suddenly saw he did not share it. “What is it?” she inquired, her demeanor turning somber.

“You interrupted me,” Ahuitzotl said, displaying some nervousness. “Lord Tizoc is not in the best of spirits at present. I don’t think he will be amenable to granting me any favors for awhile. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I must wait before speaking to him about you.”

“Oh, no!” Pelaxilla moaned, unrestrained in her disappointment. “No!”

“Please, Pelaxilla,” Ahuitzotl begged, “You know this is as painful to me as it is to you, but it’s unwise to ask him for anything now.”

“I can’t believe this! How long must I wait this time?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps another month.”

“This is incredible!”

“You’re angry with me,” Ahuitzotl reacted to her indignation with some acrimony of his own. “That’s unfair to me, especially when I have our welfare at heart. If I were to ask Tizoc for anything now, he would refuse me out of spite—things did not go well between us at Toluca.”

“What sort of duplicity is this? You are supposed to be the bravest of men, but are afraid to face your brother. Give me evidence of your boldness!”

“I’m doing what is prudent at this time.”

“Allowing a cowardly ruler to deprive us our happiness?”

“Cowardly? Then you know.”

“Everyone in Tenochtitlan knows. The rumors are rampant.”

“What do they say?”

“That your brother, our Revered Speaker Lord Tizoc, if he may still be called that, fled from the enemy to the disgrace of all who saw it.”

“Anything else? About me?”

“Yes, I’ve also heard that you threatened Lord Tizoc.”

At first Ahuitzotl eyed Pelaxilla in utter amazement, then his demeanor turned to anger. “You knew this,” he glowered, “and yet you insisted I should confront him and ask for a favor.”

“Because I thought you had a higher regard for our happiness and deemed the risk worth taking. Evidently I was wrong.”

“I swear there are times I think I hardly know you. Beneath that lovely face of yours lurks a deviousness I find dismaying. All this time I believed you were sincerely distraught, you were merely exercising your pretensions over me. Isn’t that so?”

“Only partly,” she admitted, worried about how he might react. “I was very despondent on hearing of more delays. Those were my true emotions. I could not have feigned the disappointment I felt. How can it be that this weak brother of yours should stand between our being together?”

“This ‘weak brother’ of mine happens to be the Revered Speaker, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“He certainly did not act the part in Toluca, did he?”

Until this moment, Ahuitzotl had no idea that Pelaxilla held Tizoc in such low esteem and this revelation did not please him. Tizoc was still a royal lord and, while it may have been acceptable for him and the ministers to find fault with their monarch, for a mistress, whose dealings with Tizoc were of a personal nature rather than an official one, to declare him in contempt was quite another matter. Ahuitzotl’s own hostility for Tizoc was centered on the ineffective manner in which he ruled the state and a bitterness over not having been bestowed the throne himself, and as far as knew, Cihuacoatl’s animosity was based upon his legitimate concerns over the realm weakening under Tizoc. These were justifiable reasons for despising Tizoc, but to resent him and ridicule him out of mere personal dislike, such as Pelaxilla seemed to do, was distasteful to Ahuitzotl; it had a jaundiced aspect to it which he thought offensive. Tizoc did not deserve this kind of deprecation over his personal qualities, for he was essentially a good man—he was just not a good ruler. It troubled him that the woman he so loved should possess such negative notions.

“That does not change anything,” Ahuitzotl finally replied.

“I think it should,” she countered.

“Of course it should,” Ahuitzotl’s ire mounted, “but Tizoc rules—for life! We are all his subjects. Demean his character all you want—I’ll still have to go to him.”

“But you won’t!”

“Did I say I won’t?”

“You keep putting it off!”

“All right!” Ahuitzotl shouted, “All right! It’s against my better judgment, but if it means so much to you, then—very well!—I’ll see him about this tomorrow.”

“Please don’t be upset with me,” Pelaxilla pleaded. “It’s because of my love for you that I’m unable to wait any longer. I should not be castigated for this.”

“It will be a mistake,” Ahuitzotl said, still feeling uneasy.

Pelaxilla found his recalcitrance exasperating, but she saw that she was coming perilously close to provoking his volatile temperment and instead brooded over her unpromising predicament. She meant nothing to Tizoc; the number of times he had requested sensual pleasures from her she could count on her fingers in spite of all the years he ruled. Yet this man wielded the authority to prevent her from obtaining what she desired above all else. She hated Tizoc for this and, if she had to, by whatever method available, she would press Ahuitzotl to instill a similar loathing in him.

“Why are you so intractable?” she languished. “I thought you loved me.”

“You know I do.”

“Then ease my fears that you will let the matter rest if he refuses to give me to you.”

“What do you suggest I do? Steal you from him?”

“That’s not a bad idea, but I have a far bolder scheme in mind. You were once surprised when I told you I preferred men who had great aspirations. I’ve always believed you to be such a man—indeed, that may even be why I’m so attracted to you.”

“Get to the point, Pelaxilla.”

She decided to risk it all on a most daring proposition, one she had never previously considered and deemed quite horrible yet felt it necessary to put forth in order to force his hand.

“Why should you beg for me and crawl like a dog before Tizoc? You are a better man than he is. If a Revered Speaker cannot be replaced while he lives, then, if you are ever to rule, well, uh, you know what I mean.”

Ahuitzotl was stunned. He could not believe this was Pelaxilla speaking, the darling of the court whom everybody adored, who charmed them all and who possessed not a single disparaging bone in her body. There was a time when he was assured that he was the only person alive to think such thoughts, and now it seemed as though everyone was inferring this. But from sweet Pelaxilla?

“You’re serious,” Ahuitzotl concluded in his astonishment. “How can you hate him so?”

Pelaxilla fretted if she had not overextended herself. The court rumors must have been wrong in their allusion that Ahuitzotl aspired for the throne. But then, why did Tlalalca fear this so much. There had to be something to it—why else would she have been implored by the empress to ascertain what he planned?

“I have you to thank for that. Had we never met, and had I not fallen so in love with you, I should have been happy enough to expend my days in service to him. Because you engendered this desperate anticipation in me—for our being together—you also instilled a loathing for that which prevents this. Yes, you created this abhorrence I bear for Lord Tizoc. And all this since our last meeting in this garden!”

“I did this to you?”

“By promising we would be united after this war. I was so thrilled! What hopes you gave me! And now you tell me it may not be? Oh, you have most severely hurt me! But it is Tizoc who holds our future in horrid abeyance and who stands in our way. Why should it be a surprise I now possess such evil wishes upon him?”

Distressed, Ahuitzotl groped for words which momentarily eluded him. It seemed that every aspect of his life somehow entailed a connection to Tizoc, and he grabbled if he would ever be independent of the monarch’s ever-present predominance over him, viewing this as increasingly oppressive, and irritated that he could not function within its confines. All the pressures directed him towards one incontrovertible conclusion—against Tizoc.

“I didn’t realize you would become so obsessed by what I told you,” he finally answered. “Certainly that was not my intent.”

“Not your intent?” Pelaxilla nearly wept in her despair. “I am a mortal woman—I have frailties.”

“Yes,” Ahuitzotl said, reluctantly making up his mind. “I won’t prolong your anguish by deferring this. It’s best that I face him and get this issue resolved.”

No longer was it possible for him to postpone the inevitable request and so, with the gravest of misgivings, he determined his course: he would talk to Tizoc.