Ahuitzotl said drily, "We doubt that they would long remain obdurate toward a candidate proposed by their Uey-Tlatoani. Is that all you ask, then? That we sponsor you as a pochteatl?"

"If it pleases my lord, I should like to take two companions. I ask that I be assigned not a troop of soldiers, but the Cuachic Extli-Quani, as our military support. Just the one man, but I know him of old, and I believe he will be adequate. I ask also that I may take the boy Cozcatl. He should be ready to travel when I am."

Ahuitzotl shrugged. "The cuachic we shall order detached from active army duty. He is overage for anything more useful than nursemaiding, anyway. As for the slave, he is already yours, and yours to command."

"I would rather he were not, my lord. I should like to offer him his freedom as a small restitution for the accident he suffered yesterday. I ask that the Revered Speaker officially elevate him from the status of tlacotli to that of a free macehuali. He will accompany me not as a slave, but with a free partner's share in the enterprise."

"We will have a scribe prepare the paper of manumission," said Ahuitzotl. "Meanwhile, we cannot refrain from remarking that this will be the most quaintly composed trading expedition ever to set out from Tenochtitlan. Whither are you bound on your first journey?"

"All the way to the Maya lands, Lord Speaker, and back again, if the gods allow. Extli-Quani has been there before, which is one reason I want him along. I hope we will return with a considerable profit to be shared with my lord's treasury. I am certain we will return with much information of interest and value to my lord."

What I did not say was that I fervently hoped also to return with my vision restored. The reputation of the Maya physicians was my overriding reason for choosing the Maya country as our destination.

"Your requests are granted," said Ahuitzotl. "You will await a summons to appear at The House of Pochtea for examination." He stood up from his grizzled-bear throne, to indicate that the interview was terminated. "We shall be interested to talk to you again, Pochteatl Mixtli, when you return. If you return."

I went upstairs again, to my apartment, to find Cozcatl awake, sitting up in the bed, hands over his face, crying as if his life were finished. Well, a good part of it was. But when I entered and he looked up and saw me, his face showed first bewildered shock, then delighted recognition, then a radiant smile beaming through his tears.

"I thought you were dead!" he wailed, scrambling out from the quilts and hobbling painfully toward me.

"Get back in that bed!" I commanded, scooping him up and carrying him there, while he insisted on telling me:

"Someone seized me from behind, before I could flee or cry out. When I woke later, and the doctor said you had not returned to the palace, I supposed you must be dead. I thought I had been wounded only so I could not warn you. And then, when I woke in your bed a little while ago, and you still were not here, I knew you must—"

"Hush, boy," I said, as I tucked him back under the quilt.

"But I failed you, master," he whimpered. "I let your enemy get past me."

"No, you did not. Chimali was satisfied to injure you instead of me, this time. I owe you much, and I will see that the debt is paid. This I promise: when the time comes that I again have Chimali in my power, you will decide the fitting punishment for him. Now," I said uncomfortably, "are you aware—in what manner he wounded you?"

"Yes," said the boy, biting his lip to stop its quivering. "When it happened, I knew only that I was in frightful pain, and I fainted. The good doctor let me stay in my faint while he—while he did what he could. But then he held something of a piercing smell under my nose, and I woke up sneezing. And I saw—where he had sewn me together."

"I am sorry," I said. It was all I could think to say.

Cozcatl ran a hand down the quilt, cautiously feeling himself, and he asked shyly, "Does this mean I am a girl now, master?"

"What a ridiculous idea!" I said. "Of course not."

"I must be," he said sniffling. "I have seen between the legs of only one female undressed, the lady who was late our mistress in Texcoco. When I saw myself—down there—before the doctor put on the bandage—it looked just the way her private parts looked."

"You are not a girl," I said firmly. "You are far less so than the scoundrel Chimali, who knifes from behind, in the way only a woman would fight. Why, there have been many warriors who have suffered that same wound in combat, Cozcatl, and they have gone on being warriors of manly strength and ferocity. Some have become more mighty and famous heroes afterward than they were before."

He persisted, "Then why did the doctor—and why do you, master—look so long-faced about it?"

"Well," I said, "it does mean that you will never father any children."

"Oh?" he said, and, to my surprise, seemed to brighten. "That is no great matter. I have never liked being a child myself. I hardly care to make any others. But... does it also mean that I can never be a husband?"

"No... not necessarily," I said hesitantly. "You will just have to seek the proper sort of wife. An understanding woman. One who will accept what kind of husbandly pleasure you can give. And you did give pleasure to that unmentionable lady in Texcoco, did you not?"

"She said I did." He began to smile again. "Thank you for your reassuring me, master. Since I am a slave, and therefore cannot own a slave, I would like to have a wife someday."

"From this moment, Cozcatl, you are not a slave, and I am no longer your master."

The smile went, and alarm came into his face. "What has happened?"

"Nothing, except that now you are my friend and I am yours."

He said, his voice tremulous, "But a slave without a master is a poor thing, master. A rootless and a helpless thing."

I said, "Not when he has a friend whose life and fortunes he shares. I do have some small fortune now, Cozcatl. You have seen it. And I have plans for increasing it, as soon as you are fit to travel. We are going south, into the alien lands, as pochtea. What do you think of that? We will prosper together, and you will never be poor or rootless or helpless. I have just come from asking the Revered Speaker's sanction of the enterprise. I have also asked him for the official paper which says that Cozcatl is no longer my slave but my partner and friend."

Again there were tears and a smile on his face at the same time. He laid one of his small hands on my arm, the first time he had ever touched me without command or permission, and he said. "Friends do not need papers to tell them they are friends."

* * *

Tenochtitlan's community of merchants had, not many years before, erected its own building to serve as a combined warehouse for the trading stock of all the members, as their meeting hall, accounting offices, archival libraries, and the like. The House of Pochtea was situated not far from The Heart of the One World and, though smaller than a palace, it was quite palatial in its appointments. There was a kitchen and a dining room for the serving of refreshments to members and visiting tradesmen, and sleeping apartments upstairs for those visitors who came from afar and stayed overnight or longer. There were many servants, one of whom, rather superciliously, admitted me on the day of my appointment and led me to the luxurious chamber where three elderly pochtea sat waiting to interview me.