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father did not live in the goldsmiths’ region. “I may have a commission for you. Where can I find you?”
    My father did not give directions to our house. Instead he said, “If you wish it, my lord, I shall be here next market day.”
    â€œI do.” The nobleman turned and departed.
    My father made no comment. He could not. We had to make a pretence of mutual indifference. He talked instead with Popotl: idle chatter concerning the gossip of the market and the court.
    As the trading day drew to a close, and we packed our few unsold wares back into the reed baskets, I felt the assessing eyes of Popotl heavy upon me.
    Not until we were safely back in his workshop did my father speak of what had happened, and then his words were muted. “Well, Itacate. It seems you may bring wealth to your family. And attention.”
    He said no more, and I did not reply. Instead I went to help Mayatl prepare the meal, dull labour soothing my fevered thoughts.
    As I peeled avocado and set slices in an earthen-ware bowl, I considered the whereabouts of our home. It stood alone, several streets away from the marketplace, between the mud-brick huts of the peasant farmers and the larger stone-built dwellings of the potters’ guild. My father had always lived quietly – avoiding contact with others, producing wares that were competently crafted but unremarkable. I had believed he did so because he cared little for his life. But now I detected the reasoning that lay behind his choice. As a goldsmith, he was exempt from paying taxes and thus, until that moment, we had been beneath the notice of the authorities. But now my figurine had brought my father – and his defiance of the conventions of our city – to the attention of one of the elite.
    I trembled at the thought of what my father’s curiosity and my stubbornness might cost us.

B etween that market day and the next came the spring festival which honoured the god Tezcatlipoca: four days of ritual that made the heart ache with sadness even as it sang with joy, for it celebrated the frailty of love, the fleetingness of beauty, the fragility of fame and grandeur. The ill omens of the past months gave the festival a desperate, ardent intensity, for it was through the favour of Tezcatlipoca that our empire had been created; by his grace that Montezuma sat aloft as lord of the world. But all knew that the god who had made Tenochtitlán great could as easily destroy it.
    As was the custom a handsome youth – unblemished and perfect – had been chosen to represent the deity, and for the whole of the past sacred year he had lived removed from the world as though divine. At the start of the festival he would be given four handmaidens – great beauties of the elite – who would share his life and warm his bed on his last days on earth. Carried about the city in a litter, he would have flowers strewn in his path and his glory would match that of the emperor himself. All would bow reverentially before him, and some would kiss the ground and implore him to intercede with the gods on their behalf.
    And on the fourth day, at the very peak of the celebrations, this splendid youth would mount the steps of the principal temple. Breaking the flute that tied him to this world, he would then gladly submit himself for sacrifice. Thus, we hoped, would Tezcatlipoca’s favour be bought for one more year. Thus, we hoped, would Tenochtitlán’s great fame and bountiful good fortune continue.
    Before then there were three days of feasting and dancing.
    For many months now it had seemed as though Mitotiqui and I stood on either side of a broad canal and someone had smashed the bridge between us. He no longer told me about his days at school, and I could tell him nothing of my growing mastery of the goldsmith’s art. When he was released from the calmecac, he did not hurry home to seek my company as he used to, but disappeared with other young men,