Aztec Century

One

The November fog was lifting as Mia and Chicomeztli led Adamant and Archimedes out of the stables. I mounted Archimedes while they helped Precious Cloud up into Adamant’s saddle, both taking care not to put pressure on the swell of her belly.

While Mia checked Adamant’s bridle one last time, Chicomeztli scuttled over to me and muttered, ‘Forgive me, but is this wise?’

‘Is what wise?’ I asked.

‘Riding. In her condition.’

‘She’s been riding most days for the last year or so.’

‘She has only a month left of her term.’

I shrugged. ‘It’s what she wants. It raises her spirits.’

‘Extepan is concerned.’

‘So he should be. She hasn’t been happy.’

It was quite unlike Chicomeztli to be so fretful, but he had been mindful of Precious Cloud ever since she became pregnant. During much of her term, Extepan had been away, visiting Channel and North Sea ports both in Britain and on the Continent to ensure that supply convoys departed promptly for the Baltic. The northern group of the Aztec armies had been besieging St Petersburg for the past six months.

I led Archimedes over to Precious Cloud.

‘Are you ready?’ I asked.

She nodded, smiling for the first time that morning.

The mist had risen, leaving the grass drenched with dew. There was a cool, washed smell to the air, and I could see that Adamant was frisky. Precious Cloud touched her heels to his side, and he was off, leaving me to hurry Archimedes after them.

I had no fears for the princess’s safety. Precious Cloud was an even more expert rider than Victoria, and I had readily agreed to exchange Adamant for Archimedes as my mount. She continually spoke to the horse in Dakota and French as we rode, soothing him and making him utterly compliant. When I first suggested the idea of going riding together, she had seized on the opportunity; since her arrival in London, and especially since she became pregnant, she had seemed lonely. I suspected she was homesick.

We rode around the perimeter of the park, jumping low beech hedges, leaping narrow ornamental ponds, and generally treating the place as our own private preserve – which it had in effect become.

We slowed to a trot along the Embankment bridleway. The Thames was filled with motorboats and minesweepers, and the Aztec cruiser Cacama was moored downriver just beyond the complex, its great winter-camouflaged bulk festooned with radar dishes and rocket launchers. Military floaters and jetcopters traversed the sky.

Precious Cloud and I paused near the park gates. Beyond the railings, a gaggle of Mayan tourists were taking photographs of the derelict Big Ben, its hands stopped at seven-twenty-five, an inverted V for victory.

Precious Cloud untied her fur cloak. There was a keen breeze off the river, but she was used to far colder winters in her homeland.

‘It’s so good to ride,’ she remarked. ‘I feel as if I’m escaping everything then.’

She looked painfully unhappy. I remarked on the fact.

‘I feel trapped here,’ she admitted. ‘I’m bored, Catherine. I miss my people.’

It was the first time she had spoken directly about her feelings. She seemed small and young to me then, a child forced to have surrendered the comforts of home too swiftly.

‘Why don’t you suggest to Extepan that you both visit your father?’ I said.

‘I asked him that,’ she replied. ‘But he’s too busy with the war.’

I wasn’t entirely surprised. Though possessing superior equipment and firepower, the Aztecs had found the Russian Empire far from easy to subdue. The climate, terrain and sheer weight of forces which Tsar Mikhail could muster had slowed their advance on the European front so that they had failed to take Moscow and St Petersburg before the onset of winter. Only in the south-east had they made progress, thrusting through the Ukraine towards the Volga, where Chimalcoyotl was hoping to link his armies with those of Ixtlilpopoca, who had invaded from China and Tibet, sweeping through Siberia over the past year. Though I knew Margaret was safe in Moscow, I had received no direct word from her since the invasion began, and I feared greatly for her continuing safety.

Adamant was restless. Precious Cloud tugged on his rein, turning him full circle until she was facing me again.

It’s unfortunate the war is distracting him,’ I said. ‘I know he’s concerned for your welfare.’

‘Is he?’ She almost pouted. ‘I’m not so sure. Can he care so much for me when he still keeps that other woman at his side?’

I peered at her. ‘Do you mean Mia?’

She seemed to shiver. ‘I cannot fathom her. She is so distant and cold.’

She had never referred to Mia before, although she spent more time with her than anyone else. Mia was in attendance wherever she went.

‘She was his consort before he married me, wasn’t she?’

I had always presumed as much, without ever asking anyone. Housekeeper? Companion? Auianime? Mia seemed to combine all these roles.

‘I’m sure there’s nothing between them now,’ I said. ‘Extepan is the kind of man who would take his marriage vows seriously.’

I think I believed this, even though the Aztec nobility in general were quite polygamous, none more so than the tlatoani himself, who had fathered two dozen children by his subsidiary wives. The Papacy had been encouraged to sanctify the status of these wives forty years before; and yet Extepan had made a point of specifying in his marriage ceremony that he eschewed all intimate relations with other women. His mother had always been a strictly orthodox Catholic, I knew, refusing to accept the status of Motecuhzoma’s subsidiary wives after they were married; his own monogamy would be a tribute to her.

‘I feel she watches me all the time,’ Precious Cloud said. ‘She watches me but says nothing.’

‘I’m sure she’s not spying on you. She’s just used to serving in silence.’

‘Did you know they were close as children?’

I nodded.

‘Then there must be things between them that I will never know.’

Her face was drawn with anxiety, and I began to wonder if this was more than a simple case of low spirits. I tried to put myself in her place – young, unused to the pressures of the court, unhappy in a crowded country filled with strangers, attended by an aloof housemaid who had a prior relationship, perhaps even intimacy, with her absentee husband.

‘Try not to worry,’ I said softly. ‘I’ll have a word with Mia—’

‘No! I don’t want her to know any of this. I feel she tries to read my mind enough as it is.’

Ponderously she shifted her position in the saddle. Her bulge was prominent, making the rest of her body look wasted in comparison.

‘Come,’ she said, turning Adamant. ‘Let’s ride.’

Bevan was in his apartment, watching television. On the screen, tanks were rolling across a muddy landscape and a commentator was announcing that Aztec armies under Ixtlilpopoca had just taken Astrakhan on the Volga delta and would soon link up with those in the Western Front, dealing a final crushing blow to their enemies.

‘Looks like it’s all up for the Russians,’ Bevan remarked.

I was angered by the casualness of his tone. Sharply I said, ‘Have you been sitting here all morning?’

Slouched in his armchair, he turned his head in my direction, looking both quizzical and wary.

Immediately I relented. ‘I’m sorry. But I can’t contemplate the war without thinking about Margaret and her children.’

The commentator began a panegyric about the bravery and steadfastness of the Mexican armies and the nobility of their cause. Bevan levelled the remote and blanked the picture.

‘Excuse my manners,’ he said, for once sounding genuinely regretful. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect neither.’

He got up and went off to fetch my lunch.

Over the past year, there had been little friction between us and no hint of skulduggery on his part. Since the war in Russia had begun, security at home had been tightened, and everyone seemed to be lying low. Bevan’s contacts with the underground appeared to have lapsed, and we had made no progress in discovering the purpose of the Quetzalcoatl structure. Bevan claimed to have been as surprised as I by the bomb at the Crystal Palace, and he continued to insist that he had never had any contact with Zacatlatoa or any other pro-English Aztecs at the complex. In the complex itself, everyone was preoccupied with the invasion, and domestic concerns took second place, at least on the surface.

Yet I continued to wonder about the building in the park. Why the religious motifs, when inside it had an obviously technological function? Were they mere ornamentation, or did they have some more sinister meaning? To me, the Aztecs, courteous and correct though they usually were, seemed to retain a secret life which was hidden from outsiders. How much devotion did they retain to their pre-Christian heritage, with all its horrific trappings?

Of course it was hard to imagine diabolic rituals taking place in secret at Richard’s court: there was no evidence of it whatsoever. It was the same in the countryside at large. While there were occasional reports from fearful locals about night-time ceremonies at Aztec garrisons, no specific details ever emerged – or if they did, they proved innocuous: a drunken birthday, the feast of a saint, victory for the Mexican football team in the Columbus Cup. Typically Aztec soldiers held Catholic services in sequestered churches or in chapels at their barracks, so their religious observances were to a large degree private. There was nothing but rumour and hearsay about less Christian behaviour, and informed opinion dismissed such stories as the febrile inventions of popular superstition.

In fact, though it pained me in some ways to admit it, the country was generally tranquil, despite the upheavals elsewhere. Extepan’s governorship continued to be characterized by moderation and restraint. Local civil courts had been re-established, the police force was once again fully operational, and the occupying Aztec armies tended to keep themselves aloof from all affairs that did not involve military or security matters. The province – for that is what it had become – was settled, and people seemed accepting of the new order.

I viewed all these developments with a resigned dismay. I continued to miss Victoria greatly – my friendship with Precious Cloud was an obvious substitute – but I tried to busy myself in what work I could accomplish. That previous summer I had toured Scotland. Deprivation was rife there in the aftermath of Maxixca’s onslaught, but Extepan accepted many of my proposals for emergency action, and even went further than I had expected by agreeing to establish a Scottish Assembly to oversee the reconstruction of the country. Though I knew there was a sense in which my involvement only added further legitimacy to Aztec rule, I felt it was the only thing I could do.

Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea, while the rest of the world was focused on the Aztec invasion of Russia, Maxixca had moved swiftly from Ulster to complete a summer’s conquest of the whole of Ireland, hitherto a neutral power. He was promptly installed as governor, and proceeded to impose his authority with uncompromising force, suppressing all forms of dissent with such violence that the Primate of All Ireland actually appealed to the Pope for clemency. Needless to say, his protests were ignored, enabling Maxixca to boost his reputation as a military leader with an authoritative style of governance which was certain to appeal to conservative opinion in Tenochtitlan. Though the Irish people had my deepest sympathies, I was relieved he was gone from London.

Extepan’s new second-in-command was a Caucasoid Aztec from the Louisiana province of Greater Mexico called Iztacaxayauh. He had British ancestry on his mother’s side and declared himself an anglophile. As acting governor during Extepan’s absences, he proved himself Extepan’s man, continuing the policies of social reform and minimal Aztec interference in domestic affairs of state.

Under any other circumstances, the conquest of Ireland would have dominated the attentions of the media, but it was treated as a mere sideshow to the campaigns in Russia. Tsar Mikhail’s empire, which had once stretched from the Balkans to the Aleutian Islands, was now reduced to the heartland of the Russian peoples west of the Urals. True, this was where most of the empire’s industrial and military power was still concentrated, and the Russian armies had shown great resilience in fighting back after several major defeats; but it was hard to imagine the empire surviving much longer. And if it fell, there was little to stand in the way of global Aztec domination.

That evening there was a formal dinner at the complex to welcome the new Japanese ambassador to Britain. Japan, long a vassal state of the Aztecs, was important strategically and economically as a producer of high-quality electronic equipment for the empire. But I chose to attend the dinner less for diplomatic reasons than for the opportunity to talk informally with Extepan, whom I seldom saw these days.

Richard and Xochinenen were also present at the dinner, though not Precious Cloud, whom Extepan announced was suffering from fatigue and confined to her bed. Richard and Xochinenen continued to give every appearance of being happy together, though rumours persisted that the marriage had not been consummated. Over the past year, Xochinenen had grown from being a girl into a young woman. She favoured European dress, had mastered English and remained popular with the British public, as did Richard, whose lack of pomp and circumstance endeared him to everyone.

I bided my time until the dinner was over and we retired for coffee and cognac. It was Extepan who approached me, complimenting me on my dress and saying it had been too long since we had last spoken.

‘I need to talk to you now,’ I said bluntly.

He allowed me to draw him aside so that no one else could overhear.

‘I’m worried about Precious Cloud,’ I told him.

‘Ah,’ he said, staring into his brandy glass. ‘Everyone seems concerned about her these days.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Of course. I know she’s been unhappy. I think the burden of carrying our child has weighed very heavily on her. Her doctors are monitoring her condition very closely.’

‘Doctors can only do so much. She needs help from you most of all. You’ve got to support her, encourage her, make her feel…’ I searched for a suitable word, ‘… cherished.’

He looked at me. ‘Don’t you think I’ve been trying to do these things, Catherine?’

‘She’s lonely,’ I told him. ‘Homesick. She needs reassurance. She needs to see her family. You should try to take her away for a while after the baby’s born.’

‘I’m well aware of that. I assure you I’ve been doing what I can. But the campaign in Russia – it takes up so much of my time. I wish it were otherwise, but I have obligations which go beyond those of a husband.’

It was easier to talk candidly to him now we saw less of one another, now that he had Precious Cloud.

‘She’s also concerned about Mia,’ I said.

A frown.

‘She asked me not to say anything, but I feel I must. She thinks Mia’s spying on her.’ I paused. ‘She thinks there’s still something between you two.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said immediately. ‘I’ve been completely faithful to her.’

Feeling disingenuous, I said, ‘I’m sure you have. But I don’t think she’s comfortable with the fact that you retained Mia in your household.’

He looked perplexed. ‘I’m her patron. Should I tell her to leave because I’ve taken a wife? That isn’t our way, Catherine.’

‘I know that. You don’t have to justify it to me. But perhaps you should try to explain it to Precious Cloud. She’s young, Extepan, insecure. She needs to feel she’s not isolated from you.’

He shook his head somewhat wistfully. ‘Ah, my Chalchi. She’s such a delicate flower.’

‘She also hates that name. She told me today, when we were riding together. It’s a Nahuatl name, not hers. It just makes her feel that her life isn’t her own any longer.’

‘I had no idea. She never spoke of it.’

‘That’s why I’m telling you now.’

He was silent for a while. We were standing alone, and he put his face close to mine and said quietly: ‘Do you know what I wish, Catherine? I wish she had just a little of your spirit.’

With this, he crossed the room to speak to the ambassador’s Mexican wife.

I was conscious of meddling in matters that were strictly no business of mine. But Precious Cloud’s vulnerability reminded me of Victoria, and I was by nature meddlesome. I think also I relished any opportunity to let Extepan know I still intended to make my presence felt. I wanted to continue to make an impression on him.

I stood near the french windows. It was raining outside, and rivulets of water snaked down the glass. If I focused beyond it, I could see London lit up in the wet darkness, a city continuing with its business despite the tide of war in the east; focusing on the glass itself, I saw the reflections of all the people in the room, well groomed and impeccably mannered, engrossed at that moment in their individual social exchanges. Everything descended in the end to the personal and the private: that was what shaped history, and things to come.

Extepan stood near the door, still talking to the ambassador’s wife, serious and handsome, intent on her every word. It was impossible to dislike him, harder still not to admire what he had achieved under the circumstances. I tried to imagine a world in which we had met in a different way, in different roles entirely.

Behind him, a terminal stood in an alcove, its screen blank. I could no longer see one without thinking of ALEX and wondering what had gone wrong. He had been categorical that there was to be no Aztec invasion of Russia, and yet it had happened. Bevan had suggested that the Aztecs may have managed to infiltrate ALEX and plant false information. I couldn’t accept this. It was hard to explain why, but I was sure I would have known somehow if ALEX had been subverted. Something in his manner would have told me.

Mindful of my social obligations, I turned away from the window. To my dismay, I saw Kenneth Parkhouse approaching.

I had managed to avoid him over dinner, but now he seemed intent on engaging me in conversation. But at that moment Chicomeztli arrived, looking positively alarmed. He spoke urgently to Extepan, whose expression grew grave. Immediately I detached myself from Parkhouse and went over to them.

‘Not now, Catherine,’ Extepan said sharply, waving me away.

‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Is it Precious Cloud?’

‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘It’s nothing to do with her. I can’t discuss it at the moment.’

He proceeded to announce his apologies to everyone.

‘A serious situation has arisen which requires my immediate attention,’ he informed us. ‘You must excuse me.’

He exited hurriedly, leaving us all wondering what the emergency could possibly be. Then Kenneth Parkhouse sidled up to me.

‘I believe I know what’s happened,’ he said in a whisper which seemed to imply a ghastly camaraderie between us.

I couldn’t bring myself to express curiosity; but he was determined to be the bearer of the news.

‘It’s most serious,’ he said. ‘The details are rather sparse at present, but I gather Mexican forces have suffered a severe reversal in the east.’

I was forced to look at him. He pursed his lips, apparently in concern. But I was certain he relished being the bearer of grim tidings.

‘Apparently there’s been a massive retaliation by the Russians on the Volga. They appear to have exploded a new kind of bomb.’

His bespectacled eyes twinkled; I had never found him more odious.

‘What sort of bomb?’

‘A bomb powerful enough to obliterate a whole city, by all accounts. Of course, the news is only just trickling in, and the situation is quite confused. It seems to have been dropped on Tsaritsyn, annihilating the Mexican armies there. I understand the Russians timed it to coincide with a victory parade at which both commanders were present.’

‘Chimalcoyotl and Ixtlilpopoca?’

Parkhouse nodded gravely.

‘They’re dead?’

‘If they were in the city, it seems likely they were vaporized.’

Two

The woman was pale, dressed in an olive-green gaberdine that had seen better days. She sat down at the table, murmuring her thanks to me for seeing her, already apologizing for taking up my time.

‘It’s perfectly all right,’ I assured her. ‘That’s why I’m here. To try to help.’

‘It seems trivial, bringing this to a princess.’

I met her faltering gaze. ‘What?’

She began rummaging in her battered leather shoulder bag. ‘It’s my youngest son, you see. Richard. We named him after your brother, the King. My husband was a great royalist—’

‘Was?’

‘He got killed on Salisbury Plain in the fighting. Near Stonehenge, they told me.’

One of the main battles during the invasion had taken place there, the Aztecs annihilating our southern armies.

The woman had a Liverpudlian accent. I wondered if her husband had been in the army but did not ask in case of embarrassment, having posed similar questions on other occasions only to find that the deceased were innocent civilians, conscientious objectors or even collaborators shot by our own people.

I saw from her notes that her name was Cynthia and that she had four children, the youngest twelve years old.

‘Did you come to London today?’

‘Oh, no. We’ve lived in Ealing these last twenty years or more.’

‘Are you managing? Financially, I mean.’

‘We get by.’ She pushed a hand through her straw-blonde hair. ‘John was overage, but he insisted on doing something, so they put him in the medical corps because things were desperate. He was hit by shrapnel, friendly fire they said. The army was very good about it. I got a pension, and my eldest son’s working part-time. But I’m worried about what my youngest’s being taught in school.’

She had produced an exercise book which she opened in front of me. ‘See? This is the sort of thing they’re learning them these days.’

There was a history essay entitled ‘The Decline of the British Empire’, written in a sprawling adolescent hand. I read it through. The boy, obviously under this teacher’s guidance, had enumerated ten reasons for the collapse of British power in the 1930s and 1940s. These ranged from racist policies towards the Boers in South Africa and the Muslims in India to the enlightened support for freedom fighters provided by the Mexican government in areas under British control. Aztec armies had been ‘invited’ into these regions by nationalist movements to supplant the hated British rule.

‘If you ask me,’ Cynthia was saying, ‘it’s a load of old twaddle. They’re indoctrinating him, making out we were rubbish and them like knights on white chargers. That’s not what I learnt in school.’

One of my assistants came up and asked her if she wanted a cup of tea.

‘Please,’ she said eagerly. ‘Milk and two sugars.’

It was hot in the crowded hall, and there were plenty of people still waiting their turn. The central office of the Aid Centre was located in the complex but we had set up a clinic in a defunct cinema near Marble Arch. I visited it twice a week, sitting at a long table on the stage with various advisers and helpers while our petitioners occupied the stalls. Chicomeztli had also set up a soup kitchen in the foyer, and this attracted the most crowds, passers-by often walking in simply to avail themselves of the free fare provided by such commercial outfits as MexTaco, obviously as a public-relations exercise.

On most accounts I felt compromised and ineffectual at the clinic. More people came during my visits, many simply to gawp or talk with ‘a Royal’, relatively few with serious complaints. In addition, security was always very tight when I was present, armed guards and private detectives creating an atmosphere of tension and suspicion by searching people before they were allowed near me. None of my protests had any effect, Extepan insisting that it was essential I be protected from lunatics or zealots. It was plain to me that my attempts to have a normal dialogue with the citizens of the country would be frustrated either by the security forces or by the people themselves. I was a prisoner of my status.

This, however, was a real and serious complaint by a woman who was not prepared to let her awe of me get the better of her. It was not the first example of Aztec interference in the school curriculum I had encountered, the general thrust of the new history syllabus apparently being to eliminate any sort of criticism of their role in world affairs.

‘Even the teachers reckon it’s rubbish,’ Cynthia was saying, ‘but they have to do as they’re told. I don’t think it’s right.’

‘I agree,’ I said, reaching for my pen and notepad. Perhaps you can give me full details, including your name and the address of your son’s school.’

But before she could speak, all the sounds in the hall were drowned by a huge explosion outside.

The stalls swiftly emptied as people hurried towards the exit. Escorted by my guards and murmuring my apologies to Cynthia, I followed them.

It was the Excelsior Hotel at the end of Piccadilly that was ablaze. One half of its baroque façade had collapsed, and people were screaming and fleeing in disorder from the smoke and flames. Policemen and Aztec soldiers were vainly attempting to marshal the surging crowds as traffic began to pile up on both sides of the street.

The Excelsior was a favourite haunt of visiting Aztecs and had recently undergone a refurbishment to suit their tastes, steam-baths and, doubtless, auianime having been installed there. But as the air filled with the sound of fire engine and ambulance sirens, it was shoppers and hotel staff whom I saw being carried dead or maimed from the carnage.

I rushed across and did what I could to help. This mostly entailed giving orders to my escort to help with crowd control or stretcher-bearing while I myself was continually kept away from the more gruesome aspects of the carnage. A princess of the realm cannot be allowed to bloody her hands and muck in with the common folk, even if all her instincts tell her she must.

I managed to arrange for the less seriously wounded to be temporarily housed in the cinema, and I was allowed to linger among the wreckage and blood until the press had arrived and taken suitable photographs of me at the scene. Then I was hurriedly shepherded to safety. As my Rolls was driven away, I glimpsed Cynthia, standing alone and bewildered in the middle of the rubble-strewn street, her son’s exercise book still clutched in her hand.

At breakfast the following morning, Bevan put a batch of newspapers down in front of me. My photograph was on the front page of all the tabloids, and there were headlines such as KATE AT THE CARNAGE, PRINCESS OF PERIL, CATHERINE THE GREAT!

‘This is embarrassing,’ I said, scanning the lurid stories accompanying the pictures.

‘You’re the heroine of the hour,’ Bevan remarked drily.

‘I didn’t do anything much. They wouldn’t let me.’

‘You mean to say you didn’t single-handedly save the day?’

I ignored his sarcasm, my attention already drawn by the weightier reports in the broadsheets.

‘What’s this?’ I remarked. ‘They’re claiming the Excelsior was destroyed by a Russian missile.’

‘Know different, do you?’

Bevan was slurping a mug of tea and leafing through the News Chronicle.

‘It was a bomb, Bevan, I’m sure it was. The whole frontage of the hotel had caved in, but I couldn’t see any damage to the roof. A missile would have hit it from the top, surely?’

‘Sounds reasonable.’

‘Then why pretend otherwise?’

He turned a page. ‘It would suit them, wouldn’t it? Make the Russians into everybody’s enemies, not just theirs.’

I switched on the television. Here the story was even more elaborate. The Russians had launched not one but several long-range missiles at London, the others having been shot down by Aztec defensive systems over the North Sea. It was fortunate the missile that had hit carried only conventional explosives.

‘I don’t believe a word of this,’ I said. ‘It’s propaganda of the basest sort. The Excelsior was destroyed by a bomb that was probably planted by English partisans.’

I was watching Bevan as I spoke, seeing if he knew anything. But, as usual, his face gave nothing away.

‘What do you think?’ I asked him.

‘I think you’d better eat up those crumpets before they go cold.’

Extepan was ensconced with his staff in a briefing room, and I was surprised when he came out to see me.

I began to complain about the media coverage of the Excelsior’s destruction, but I could see he was preoccupied. I had not forgotten that he had lost both his elder brothers at Tsaritsyn – a disaster given only minimal coverage in the press – so I paused.

‘Catherine,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I have more urgent matters to attend to. Shortly, I shall be leaving London.’

I think I had half anticipated this.

‘For Russia?’

He nodded. ‘The Revered Speaker has ordered me to take command of our armies there. I leave at dawn tomorrow.’

Three

Three weeks before Christmas, at ten o’clock in the morning, Precious Cloud went into labour. Chicomeztli arrived in haste at my suite to announce the news and also to ask if I would attend the birth.

‘Me?’ I said. ‘What use would I be? I’m no midwife.’

‘She wants you. She begged me to ask you to come.’

I accompanied him to the hospital, which was on a lower floor of the complex. Precious Cloud lay in a large private room, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of modern medicine – ECGs, drips, oxygen cylinders, a contour bed which was supposed to shape itself to her every movement and so provide constant back support. Extepan’s personal physician, a grey-haired Otomi called Yeipanitl, was overseeing her labour, along with three nurses and Mia, who stood at her shoulder, stroking her forehead with slender fingers. The contrast between Precious Cloud’s look of panic and Mia’s total impassiveness made me think that perhaps Precious Cloud was right and that what I had always assumed was a serenity in Mia was simply an absence of feeling.

Precious Cloud, already wide-eyed and frightened even though her contractions had only just begun, gripped me fiercely by the wrist and said, ‘Catherine, I thought you wouldn’t come!’

I took her hand in mine. ‘Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.’

Not surprisingly, my platitudes did nothing to dispel her anxiety. I thought of the baby I had lost – a baby I scarcely knew I was carrying before it was gone for ever. This was not going to be easy for me.

‘Please,’ Precious Cloud said. ‘Ask them all to go.’

‘They can’t,’ I said soothingly. ‘Someone qualified has to be here to help you.’

‘Just for a while. I need to talk with you alone.’

I looked at Yeipanitl.

‘No problem,’ he said in English. ‘You can have a little time together – it’s early days yet. But naturally it’s important we closely monitor her throughout her labour.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

Mia showed no reaction to Precious Cloud’s request. She withdrew with the others, closing the door behind her.

‘They talk as if I’m not here,’ Precious Cloud said. ‘I think the baby is all that matters to them.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ I assured her.

She gripped my wrist again. ‘Make her go away, Catherine. I want you here, not her.’

I knew she meant Mia.

‘I think she’s only trying to help. She doesn’t have to be here.’

‘Then send her away. She’s watching me! All the time she’s watching me. I think she’s hoping something will go wrong. I can’t bear it!’

The bed bulged outwards as she arched her back. I put my arms around her. She had begun to sob, and I waited until she was calmer.

‘It’s all right,’ I said softly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll see to it.’

She cried out as another contraction came. I held both her hands, and she pushed against them. Afterwards, she slumped back and closed her eyes. For the moment, she seemed calmer. I rose and went to the door.

‘You will come back, won’t you?’ she said from the bed.

‘As soon as I can,’ I promised.

Outside, I spoke privately to Yeipanitl. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

‘All the vital signs are normal,’ he replied. ‘She’s young and fit. I don’t anticipate any problems.’

‘She’s asked me to stay with her.’

‘I think that would be a good idea, if it doesn’t inconvenience you.’

‘Not at all. Just get ready to catch me if I pass out when it gets gruesome.’

He smiled at this, then returned to Precious Cloud’s room.

I stopped Mia at the doorway from following the nurses in.

‘Can I have a word with you?’ I said in Nahuatl.

She merely blinked at me; but she allowed me to lead her a short distance along the corridor. Then she surprised me by saying, ‘She doesn’t want me there, does she?’

‘She’s very vulnerable at the moment,’ I replied.

‘Of course,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I have many other duties to attend to.’

She made to move away; I caught her by the arm.

‘Mia…’ I began, unsure what I was going to say. ‘I think perhaps she’s a little bit afraid – or rather, in awe, of you.’

I suppose I was hoping for some sort of real human reaction to this, something which would allow me to gauge her feelings. But again nothing was visible on the surface.

‘I find that hard to imagine,’ she replied in the same flat tone as before. ‘She’s a princess. I’m merely trying to serve her. What reason would she have to fear me?’

I wondered what to say. ‘I think perhaps she needs friends more than servants at the moment.’

I meant to suggest that she herself might try to show a warmer side to Precious Cloud, but she took it quite differently.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I don’t wish to do anything to make her uncomfortable. Perhaps you could inform me when the child is born.’

Again she made to move away. I hastily decided that indiscretion was the better part of valour.

‘Mia, did Extepan ever ask you to marry him?’

She closed her eyes in a slow blink, as if wishing me vanished. Very reluctantly, she said, ‘That would not have been appropriate.’

‘Do you wish he had?’

She turned her head away from me without moving any other part of her body. Obviously she did not want to talk about it, but at the same time she was too dutiful to refuse to answer.

‘It’s always been my role to serve him in whatever way he wishes. I’ve never expected anything more than this.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘As Your Highness wishes. I do not feel it’s correct that we should be discussing this when his wife is soon to give birth to his child.’

‘You’re not his slave. You must have needs and desires of your own.’

She looked through me. ‘My duties have always been honourable ones. They have accorded my family high status.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. But that can’t be the whole of your life, existing merely to attend Extepan. This is the twentieth century. I can’t believe that anyone would willingly devote themselves utterly to another person’s life without thought or feeling for their own.’

Again the slow blink, like that of a teacher who could not credit a child’s stupidity. Of course I was overstating the case, in the hope of breaching the wall of her reserve.

‘Your Highness will excuse the impertinence,’ she said, ‘but possibly that shows how little you understand us.’

Precious Cloud gave birth to a son at two thirty in the afternoon, Yeipanitl having decided to cut short her labour and perform a Caesarean after drugs failed to blunt her agitation. The baby promptly emptied his bladder in the lap of one of the nurses, to the amusement of everyone present. He weighed eight and a half pounds, and looked strong and healthy.

Precious Cloud woke from her drug-induced sleep soon afterwards. The baby, swathed in white linen, was immediately placed in the crook of her arm. She began talking to him in Dakota, and he promptly fell asleep.

Precious Cloud looked exhausted but delighted. I smiled and said, ‘I think it was worth it in the end, don’t you? He’s marvellous. ’

She nodded. ‘I wonder when Extepan will see him.’

Both Extepan and Maxixca had been dispatched to the Russian front soon after the disaster at Tsaritsyn, Maxixca as Extepan’s second-in-command. A total news black-out on the war had prevailed since the disaster, and we had received no word of him.

‘I’m sure they’ll make it a priority to see he gets to hear about it,’ I said. ‘What are you going to call him?’

She drew the child closer to her. ‘Extepan wants Cuauhtemoc.’

It was a popular royal name which meant ‘Descending Eagle’. The first Cuauhtemoc, a tlatoani in the sixteenth century, had been greatly instrumental in establishing the basis of a modern state by defeating the last of the conquistador armies while at the same time giving freedom of entry to missionaries so that his people could profit from European knowledge. The empire owed as much to the civilizing effects of Spanish culture as it did to Aztec prowess at war.

Precious Cloud began to stroke the baby’s cheek with her forefinger.

‘I’m going to give him a name too,’ she said. ‘A secret name, for myself and him alone.’

She was peering rapturously at the baby now, and it seemed as if she wanted to exclude everyone else from their closeness.

Yeipanitl came to my side and said, ‘I think perhaps we should leave them both to sleep.’

I nodded.

‘I have to go,’ I said to Precious Cloud.

She was intent on the baby and did not reply.

I withdrew, and found Chicomeztli waiting for me outside the door.

‘Word has come from Extepan,’ he announced.

‘Oh?’ I said. ‘How is he?’

‘There was no personal news of him. The message was relayed through military channels. He has asked that we evacuate the complex and leave London. In case of enemy attack.’

Four

Each morning the frost-rimed grass looked like peppermint icing as I rode Archimedes or Adamant around the grounds of the estate. Sometimes I was accompanied by Richard and Xochinenen, who stayed with us for a few days before they left to spend Christmas at Balmoral, where Xochinenen was hoping for a festive fall of snow.

The horses were unsettled by the move from London, and Archimedes was still recovering from a swollen tendon, so I rode him gently. We were staying at Ambarrow Cottages on the edge of the Wellington College estate in Berkshire. The ‘cottages’ were actually nothing of the sort, but rather a large rambling modern building, equipped with its own generator and indoor swimming pool. Its design showed obvious Aztec influences in its square-pillared entrance and balconies. It had been built immediately after the invasion as a summer residence for Nauhyotl, the New Lake at its rear created so that the governor could indulge his fondness for tropical fish. Until his assassination, the waters had been constantly heated to a blood-warm temperature; now it was host only to hardy goldfish, dormant under its frozen surface.

I had only agreed to occupy the house because it was urgent we leave London – not only for our own safety but also to give Precious Cloud the chance to recuperate. I wanted to be reasonably close to London in case of emergency but far enough away so that Precious Cloud could benefit from a little rural tranquillity. I visited her every day in her room which looked out over the college, now an Aztec barracks, as was Sandhurst to the south. She was still confined to bed, and the peacefulness of our new surroundings did not seem to help her condition. She continued to be distracted, and there was a haunted look in her eyes. Our conversations grew increasingly strained and strange.

A week after the birth I arrived to find her sitting cross-legged at the centre of her bed with the sheets and pillows arranged in a nest at her side. Cuauhtemoc was asleep in his cot, and Precious Cloud was arranging his soother and fluffy rattlesnake inside her pillows. She did not look up as I entered.

I approached the bed. She continued with her arrangement, swapping objects, then swapping them back again, adjusting and readjusting their positions constantly.

After a while I said softly, ‘What are you doing?’

Only now did she look up. Her eyes were as black as pools of tar.

‘They were wrong,’ she informed me. And then she resumed her ordering of the toys, head bowed, shoulders hunched, as if it were the most important and vital task in the world.

‘Wrong about what?’ I asked.

‘They thought they’d emptied me out. They thought I was hollow.’

Cautiously I drew closer.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The baby, of course!’ she responded sharply. ‘The baby!’

I glanced across at Cuauhtemoc, who was still sleeping soundly. She had not looked at him once since my arrival.

‘What about the baby?’

‘I’m making a cot for her, can’t you see?’

I hesitated before saying, ‘But hasn’t he already got one?’

‘Not him!’ she said, waving an arm in Cuauhtemoc’s direction. ‘This is for the other one.’

‘Other one?’

‘My daughter, of course! The one they didn’t know about. The one that’s still inside me. She’s going to be born soon.’

I swallowed. Casually I asked, ‘Has Yeipanitl seen you?’

‘I sent him away! I sent them all away. This time I’m going to do it myself, on my own.’

The room was a mess, splatters of food on the bedlinen and carpets, clothes spilling out of her wardrobe, the curtains tied in knots at their ends. Precious Cloud looked like a castaway, shipwrecked in a sea of sheets.

‘I haven’t been eating,’ she announced. ‘Mia’s trying to poison my food.’

‘Mia isn’t here,’ I said, as calmly as I was able. ‘She’s gone home to visit her family.’

This had been at my suggestion, Mia departing for Tenochtitlan on the same day we left the complex. But Precious Cloud took no notice of my words.

‘Catherine, do you sleep?’

Now she was picking at her fingernails. Before I could reply, she went on, ‘It would be good to sleep, just for a little while. But the baby has to come first, doesn’t it? We always have to look after the baby.’

I retreated hurriedly to the adjoining room, where a nurse was stationed at a monitor screen. She was middle-aged, English. She rose, bobbed.

‘Where’s Yeipanitl?’ I demanded. ‘Why isn’t someone attending Precious Cloud?’

‘She doesn’t want us in there,’ the nurse replied. ‘But we’re watching her all the time.’

She indicated the screen. Precious Cloud was framed at its centre, looking more a prisoner than the object of everyone’s concern.

‘Can’t you see what a state she’s in?’ I said.

‘We’re aware of her condition, Your Highness. We need to give her a powerful tranquillizer as part of her treatment, to help her sleep. There’ve been problems with supplies, because of the war in Russia. Yeipanitl went to London yesterday evening to fetch them himself.’

‘When will he be back?’

‘He’s due any time now.’

She was obviously embarrassed by my angry tone, and there was no point in badgering her. Returning to Precious Cloud’s room, I sat with her. My presence seemed to do her little good because she remained obsessed with the phantom child in her womb and the evil intentions of Mia towards her; but at least she tolerated me. I tried to get her to relax and sleep, but this was impossible. When Cuauhtemoc woke and began crying for his feed, she continued to ignore him, and this was a final confirmation to me that her condition was critical. The wet-nurse was summoned, and, under my instructions, she took Cuauhtemoc into another room. Precious Cloud did not appear to notice.

I remained as calm as I could, though I felt both desperately anxious and helpless. Then, to my great relief, Yeipanitl arrived. He had succeeded in obtaining sufficient supplies of the tranquillizer to proceed with a course of treatment. Unfortunately, the drug had to be administered intravenously, and when Yeipanitl produced the hypodermic, Precious Cloud began shrieking in terror and refused to let him near her. Nothing I could do would calm her, and eventually I was ushered from the room on the arrival of several nurses whom I knew would have forcibly to hold her down. Her screams followed me along the corridor as I fled in shame.

For two days, no one but the doctor and his staff was allowed to see her. Early on the morning of the third day, Chicomeztli arrived and said that Precious Cloud had asked for me.

I arrived to find her not only out of bed but dressed in black jeans and a suede waistcoat over a denim shirt. She looked much brighter, her hair washed and plaited, her face made up. The wet-nurse sat in one corner, Cuauhtemoc asleep in her arms. Yeipanitl was also in attendance.

Precious Cloud greeted me with a gentle hug and a kiss on the cheek.

‘You look more rested,’ I observed.

‘I’ve been sleeping at nights,’ she replied with a smile. ‘It was something I thought I’d forgotten how to do.’

‘I’m so glad.’

‘Catherine, can we go riding together this morning?’

I looked at Yeipanitl. It was plain from his face that he did not approve of the idea.

‘Perhaps it would be better to wait a few more days.’

‘Please, Catherine! I’ve been so cooped up. Just for half an hour, just you and me.’

I deliberated, unsure what was best. I could see that Chicomeztli didn’t like the idea either.

‘We don’t have to race the horses. Just a trot. I need to get out.’

‘A walk would be better at this stage,’ Yeipanitl said.

She ignored him. ‘Please, Catherine.’

I smiled at her. ‘All right.’

I went off to see that the horses were readied. Yeipanitl joined me in the stable.

‘I don’t think this is wise.’

‘I’ll take care of her,’ I assured him.

‘She’s still quite weak and far from fully recovered.’

‘I’m aware of that. I’ll keep a close eye on her.’

‘It’s vital she doesn’t do anything too strenuous at this stage.’

‘She needs to be allowed to do something she wants to. I think it’s important we let her.’

It was another cold morning, and Precious Cloud was bundled up in a sheepskin coat and fur hat when we went outside. She mounted Adamant quite effortlessly, as ever disdaining the stirrups. Chicomeztli fussed around as his own mount was made ready. Although Precious Cloud had wanted to ride with me alone, we had agreed a compromise by which he would accompany us.

Precious Cloud tweaked Adamant’s reins, and he trotted off. I spurred Archimedes until we were abreast of her, while Chicomeztli kept pace a few yards behind.

It was a clear, windless morning, the sun casting stark tree shadows on the edges of the grass, smoke rising from a distant field where the last of the autumn leaves was being burned. I could hear Precious Cloud inhaling deeply the sharp air. I assumed she wanted to talk privately with me, but we rode in silence for a while, following the path of the railway line towards Crowthorne station. I watched a hawk hovering high above the embankment.

‘It’s so good to be outside,’ she said at last. ‘I thought I’d never escape.’

Cautiously I said, ‘Escape from what?’

She shrugged. ‘From the attentions of others. Before I came here, I used to ride nearly every day, alone. Sailing the seas of grass, my father used to call it. He always preferred to drive the freeways in his Cadillacs.’

‘He’s not dead, you know. You can still go and visit him.’

‘Sometimes I’d be gone for hours, half a day or more. Prairie or cornfields, it didn’t matter to me – I’d just ride. Often the farmers complained to my father that I was ruining their crops, but he never did anything. I enjoyed being on my own.’

‘It’s very difficult to be alone here,’ I said, with some sympathy.

‘Oh, no. It’s very easy, Catherine. Solitude is what’s difficult.’

She spurred Adamant to a faster trot. He looked frisky, nostrils twitching in the crisp air. We were approaching the railway station when Precious Cloud wheeled him around.

‘Race you back to the house!’ she said suddenly, and with a whack of the reins, galloped off before I could reply.

I turned Archimedes and we hurried off in pursuit, Chicomeztli also following. Precious Cloud was already fifty yards ahead of me, and the gap began to lengthen as she kicked hard against Adamant’s flanks, frost flurries erupting from his hoofs as he raced across the frozen ground.

I could feel Archimedes labouring on his bandaged leg, and I knew we had no chance of catching her. Chicomeztli, on a horse that was little more than a pony, was even further back. I saw Precious Cloud gallop through the gates of the house before she was lost to sight behind its walls.

I was certain she would be quite safe now, but I did not tarry. As fast as I was able, I galloped to the gates.

The stables were in sight, but there was no sign of her there. Then I saw her, still riding hard, disappearing around the rear of the house.

It could only have been a matter of minutes, but by the time I caught sight of Adamant again he was riderless, standing beside the New Lake, twitching his head. And in the lake itself, there was a jagged dark hole in the ice.

If only I had known that we could have saved her even then. But both Chicomeztli and I leapt to the obvious conclusion – as she must have wanted us to – that she had thrown herself into the lake. And so we wasted a precious hour summoning help and smashing the ice and trawling the shallow waters until we realized she was not there at all. Only then did we notice that Adamant’s reins were gone, only then did one of the maids-in-waiting stumble upon the lambskin coat cast off near the edge of the woods beyond the lake.

It was one of the soldiers from the barracks who found her, hanging naked from the bough of a tree, the reins forming a crude noose which had broken her neck when she jumped off. In her waistcoat we found a note, addressed to me, which said, ‘Tell Extepan to forgive me. Please look after my son.’ And that was all.

The next day Bevan arrived from London with the news that there had been a spate of arson attacks on military installations in London and a botched attempt to assassinate Iztacaxayauh by a woman variously described as mad, a feminist anarchist and a member of the New Crusade, a fundamentalist Protestant sect.

I was hardly interested in this, despite having asked Bevan to come so that he could bring me up to date with recent developments. By then I had already reached a decision.

‘Extepan must receive the news personally,’ I told Chicomeztli. ‘I’m going to the front.’

He immediately protested that this was quite impossible, there were no civilian flights to the war zone, any flight at all would be highly dangerous, and he could not possibly allow me to risk it. I refused to brook any objections. He tried to compromise by suggesting that someone else be sent in my stead, but I insisted on going myself.

Finally he could see that I would not be moved. He raised both palms as if surrendering.

‘It would have to be done unofficially. I could never get authorization at the highest level.’

‘I don’t care how you manage it, as long as you do.’

‘It’s madness.’

I merely stared at him. Finally he turned and went out.

Throughout our verbal tussle, I was aware of Bevan watching me dispassionately.

‘I feel responsible,’ I said to him. ‘I took her riding against her doctor’s advice. It’s partly my fault.’

‘You were a friend to her. Without you, she’d have probably done it sooner.’

‘That may be true. But it still doesn’t alter the fact that she managed to kill herself while I was supposed to be looking after her.’

‘So you’re going off to the enemy front line.’

‘I have to, Bevan. It’s a question of honour, duty.’

He smiled, looking unconvinced. ‘Curious, are you? To see what it’s like?’

‘In my position, you often have to do things you might not wish to do.’

He gave this the scorn it deserved. ‘Even when everyone with a bit of sense advises against it?’

In truth, I could not fully explain my compulsion to go to the front. The reasons I had given were sincere but not exactly sufficient.

‘Are you saying I shouldn’t go?’

‘Bit of a gamble, if you ask me. For a woman of your position.’

‘I might pick up some useful intelligence.’

He knew I was vainly striving to find additional justification.

‘I have to find out what’s going on. I hate feeling useless, being on the sidelines.’

‘Want me to come with you?’

The offer surprised me. I was quite touched.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘but no. I need to go alone.’

‘Don’t forget who the enemy is, will you?’

Chicomeztli came to my suite early the following morning.

‘There is a troop carrier leaving Harwich at noon,’ he informed me. ‘That is all we can manage. Otherwise, there will be nothing for several days.’

I think he believed I would refuse. It would be a rush to make the flight, but I had already packed a bag.

‘That will be fine,’ I said.

‘There will not be time to make special arrangements for you. They will just be informed you are joining them.’

‘Fine,’ I said again.

‘We can fly you there by jetcopter. The commander is called Huemac. You will need to report to him.’

‘I can be ready to leave in half an hour.’

‘Pick warm clothing,’ he said.

‘I’ve already done so.’

Unexpectedly, he reached up and hugged me.

‘Please look after yourself,’ he said.

Five

The carrier hold was brightly lit and packed with warm human bodies, but I stared out of the window at a bleak world of white and grey. The swirling snow melted as it hit the glass, turning into a clear slime which gathered at the base of the window. Far below, I could see a frosted surface – a frozen sea.

I turned and said in Nahuatl to Huemac: ‘Is that the Baltic?’

All around me the troopers had removed their snowsuits, but they looked cold, huddled into their padded uniforms. Huemac was adjusting the straps on his boots.

‘I asked you a question,’ I said.

‘Pardon me?’ he replied in English.

‘I said, is that the Baltic?’

He did not get up. ‘If there’s a sea below, then that’s what it is.’

Soon afterwards I saw the coast. The snow had thinned so that it was possible to make out dark clusters of trees among the white fields. Small villages dotted the landscape, ribbons of roads, isolated farm buildings; but we did not pass over any large settlements. The sky remained clear apart from the snow – no escorts, no sign of any enemy craft. We were probably crossing one of the Baltic provinces.

Crew-women in drab green coveralls doled out mugs of steaming chocolatl and rolled tlaxcalli filled with mince and tomatoes. The troopers warmed their hands on the mugs and savoured the rolls like men under siege.

‘Do you find it cold in here?’ I asked Huemac. He looked perfectly at ease himself, and was drinking mineral water rather than chocolatl.

‘They were transferred from Cyrenaica,’ he said, telling me what I wanted to know.

Obviously this was an indication of the seriousness of the situation. To thrust troops from the heat of North Africa into the depths of a Russian winter had to be a measure of desperation, or at least great urgency. Why had there been no word of Extepan or Maxixca for almost a month? I was impatient to find out.

I had no appetite and left my rations uneaten. Darkness began to gather outside the window, and matt-black flaps slid out to cover the wings, blotting out any traces of light. There was no change in the pitch of the engines: they whined on and on, carrying us deeper into the heartland of Mother Russia.

The troopers, true to their Aztec characters, were mostly silent. They played cards or dice, dozed or fingered crucifixes; some puffed on slender clay tubes packed with aromatic tobacco. When they talked, it was quietly, and I could make out none of the words. I sensed Huemac watching me discreetly. I was sure he resented my presence on the flight.

Some time later I was woken from a doze by a change in the sound of the engines. The craft began to tilt and bank.

‘Strap yourself in,’ Huemac said.

‘Are we landing?’

‘Soon.’

He was taller than most Aztecs, with rugged features. His hair was still soot-black, but his face was lined. He was forty, forty-five, an experienced commander.

‘Where are we landing?’ I asked.

‘Velikiye-Luki.’

I had never heard of it.

‘It’s on the road to Moscow,’ he told me.

Ten minutes later the carrier touched down at a military landing strip with a soft bump and a wheeze. The flaps were drawn back, and the dimming golden wings were shrouded with steam. Snow had stopped falling some time before, but it lay heavy on the ground and had been piled high on both sides of the runway. Of Velikiye-Luki – a small city, according to Huemac – I could see nothing except for the prefabricated buildings of the landing strip, black under a clear night sky.

‘Wait here,’ Huemac said. ‘I won’t be long.’

The troopers were struggling into their camouflaged snowsuits, pulling up hoods, tugging on fat mittens and padded overboots: they resembled morose and grubby polar bears. Soon they began disembarking, slinging their heavy packs over their shoulders and carrying their Xiuhmitl automatics in their hands as they went down the central corridor to the hatch at the rear. Freezing air wafted into the hold, and ice crystallized on the outside of my window.

I quickly donned my own protective clothing. A big cater-pillared troop-carrier rolled up, and the soldiers began climbing into its humped back. They were orderly, disciplined, unhurried.

Huemac returned, his suit zipped up and his hood drawn tight over his head. A younger Aztec officer accompanied him, an automatic tucked under his arm.

‘Are you ready?’ Huemac asked.

I nodded, tugging on my mittens.

Huemac led me towards the hatch at the front of the craft. Even before we stepped outside, the cold air assailed us like something palpable. There was a brisk wind, and the stars shone diamond-bright between tattered ribbons of moonlit cloud.

My feet crunched on a layer of brittle snow. The smell of smoke was in the air, and reddish glows lit the horizon. A sleek black glidecar was waiting nearby, its engine thrumming. The driver sat rigid, head swathed in a peaked cap with the ear-flaps buttoned down.

I followed the young Aztec officer into the back of the vehicle, steadying myself as it rocked on its air cushion. Huemac pulled the door shut behind him, and the car promptly sped off across the runway, throwing up plumes of snow from its flanks.

We passed through a checkpoint without delay, the guards waving us on as if eager to get back to the shelter of their sentry cabins. And who could blame them on such a bitter night?

The glidecar thrummed onwards, soon entering a ruined landscape which was lunar-like in the darkness. Snow-covered rubble lined both sides of the road, electric cables dangled from broken posts, and a wrecked Russian missile launcher was lodged in a wide storefront window like a huge beast being swallowed by an enormous black mouth. I could see the imperial eagle on its flank, blistered and charred. Now tall buildings with orderly ranks of windows began to rise around us, many gutted or in ruins. Their concrete façades were decorated with wheatsheafs and electricity pylons in the monumental imperial collectivist style.

Huemac and the young Aztec began a quiet conversation across me. They each spoke Nahuatl with very different accents. We turned into a broad avenue. Foot patrols passed by, the troopers crouched against the wind. Fires flickered and smoked behind skeletal walls, and a burst water-main spread rippled waves of ice across the road. Here and there emergency arc-lights had been mounted on solar platforms, their magnesium glare revealing Aztec soldiers burning wood fires under the engines of captured diesel trucks. A dog sniffed at a snow-covered mound which I was sure comprised frozen corpses. Scouters floated by overhead – artificial moons in purposeful orbit above the shattered city.

‘You two aren’t Mexica,’ I remarked to Huemac in Nahuatl.

‘I’m from Peru,’ the young officer said immediately.

‘Quechua?’

‘Aymara.’

‘And you?’ I asked Huemac.

He had turned away to squint through the window.

‘Apache,’ he replied.

He managed to convey both pride and solidarity in the word. The second Motecuhzoma and his successors as tlatoani had succeeded in uniting the warring tribes of Central Mexico after the Spanish had been repulsed. Later, as the empire extended into the great continental landmasses to the north and south, native peoples from both regions had readily accepted Aztec overlordship in order to repel the European invaders. A true imperial ideal had arisen as a result, and many non-Mexica, like Huemac, adopted Nahuatl names.

The glidecar turned into a tree-lined square which held a statue at its centre. Here the snow was sparse. Ground-cars were parked everywhere.

We drew up outside a small mansion, its colonnaded front painted ochre and white. It was illuminated by arc-lights set in a low hedge. Steps led up to a big front door.

The young officer climbed out and retrieved my travel-bag from the rear compartment. I followed Huemac up the steps. Armed guards flanked the doorway, breath smoking from their noses. The wide door was already open, spilling out warm yellow light. Two more guards and a squat elderly woman in a thick black cardigan stood just inside. The woman kept her eyes lowered as we entered.

Huemac led me through a polished marble hallway into a room crammed with antique furniture and tall bookcases. An open coal fire blazed in a large hearth, and in front of it stood a young Aztec in the buff uniform of a non-combatant officer. His dark hair gleamed with oil.

‘This is Pachtli,’ Huemac said without preamble. ‘Extepan’s adjutant. He can tell you all you need to know.’

My travel-bag was set down just inside the door, and with a nod Huemac dismissed the young officer. He was about to leave himself, but I said, ‘Wait.’

He halted.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him. ‘What is this place?’

‘Extepan’s headquarters.’

‘I thought he was in the Ukraine.’

‘He has requested you wait here for him,’ Pachtli said, giving a white smile. ‘I also speak English, you see.’

He spoke it with a very broad Mexican accent, lisping his r’s and making ‘English’ sound like ‘Eengleesh’.

‘He knows I’ve arrived?’

‘A message has been sent to him,’ Pachtli said, still smiling. ‘You bring good news?’

‘I bring important news.’

‘Will he have cause for celebration?’

I disliked his persistence. ‘There’s good news and bad. Which I intend to give to him. Where is he?’

Pachtli’s gaze flickered to Huemac. Something told me there was little love lost between them.

‘He knows you’re here,’ the Aztec commander said. ‘He’ll come as soon as possible.’

‘The news I bring is most urgent.’

‘We’re aware of that,’ Huemac said. ‘It seems unlikely you would have undertaken this journey if it weren’t. But military considerations take precedence here. This applies whether you are a footsoldier or a princess.’

I accepted the rebuke, feeling a little shamefaced.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Thank you for bringing me safely here.’

‘You must excuse me,’ Huemac said. ‘My men will be waiting.’

This time I did not attempt to detain him.

‘Your flight was a pleasant one?’ Pachtli asked.

‘Hardly,’ I replied, tugging off my mittens and flinging them on a chair. ‘I came in a troop carrier. The important thing is I’m here.’

‘This is a very pleasant house, comfortable for your stay. The mayor lived here.’

‘Did he?’ I struggled out of my suit. ‘And where is he now?’

‘Dead,’ Pachtli replied, as if it should have been obvious. ‘The battle was hard for this city, but now it is ours.’

‘What’s left of it.’

‘Soon we will march into Moscow.’

‘You sound very confident, given what’s happened in Tsaritsyn.’

He took the snowsuit from me. ‘You’ve heard of that?’

‘Of course I have.’ I wasn’t going to admit that I didn’t know exactly what had happened. ‘Why do you assume I wouldn’t have done?’

‘We have a weapon more mighty than theirs. It will strike down all our enemies, wherever they are.’

‘Indeed?’ I warmed my hands at the fire. ‘And what weapon would that be?’

I glanced at him, and his smile faltered. ‘Ah, but I must not speak of these matters. You will be wanting some food and a warm drink, yes? It is cold, this winter Russia. That is one thing I do not like about it.’

He went out, taking the snowsuit with him.

I dragged an armchair up to the fireside, kicked off my boots and warmed my feet. Coals collapsed in the hearth, and sparks fled up the soot-black chimney.

The heat from the fire was very comforting. I stared around the room, at the lace curtains on the long shuttered windows, the crystal chandelier which hung from the ceiling, the massed ranks of books with indecipherable Cyrillic titles on their spines. Above the mantelpiece hung a reproduction of the famous Dali canvas showing the assassination of the right-wing Prime Minister Dzhugashvili in the Duma in 1939, a key event in modern Russian history which had led to the establishment of the collectivist federation under the progressive patronage of Tsar Nikolai II. Now, fifty years of egalitarian progress were threatened by the Aztec onslaught.

Pachtli returned, carrying a silver tray with a crystal-glass decanter and two short-stemmed glasses.

‘Dinner will be soon,’ he said. ‘But first, something to warm us against the cold, yes?’

He set the tray down on a chessboard table which he then placed in front of the fire. Drawing up an armchair opposite me, he filled the glasses with a brownish liquor, then offered me one.

‘What is it?’

‘French brandy,’ he said, swallowing a large mouthful.

I guessed him to be no more than twenty-five. He was handsome but somehow pampered-looking. He reclined expansively in the armchair, soon draining his glass. I sipped at my drink. I had never much cared for brandy, though tonight its warmth was welcome.

‘How long have you been Extepan’s adjutant?’ I asked.

‘Since he came here to Russia. But we have known one another many years.’

‘Oh?’

‘At the calmecac in Tenochtitlan. Both of us studied there. I served him then, as I do now. He can rely on my loyalty and discretion, absolutely.’ He poured himself another brandy. ‘My father, Apanecatl, he is one of Motecuhzoma’s high councillors.’

The name was unfamiliar, and I knew he was not a member of the tlatocan, the emperor’s inner council. Evidently Pachtli was eager to impress. I was surprised to learn that Extepan had been educated in the calmecac, where traditionally the emphasis was on a religious training, rather than the telpochcalli, where the sons of nobles usually received a thorough grounding in military skills.

‘More brandy?’ Pachtli asked.

I shook my head. ‘I’d like a bath before I eat.’

Without meeting my eyes, he said, ‘I do not think that will be possible.’

‘Not possible?’

He shrugged, almost as if an explanation would be too tiresome. I was angered by his insouciance.

‘See to it,’ I said sharply.

Evidently there were problems with the hot water supply, because the old woman had to carry metal buckets of hot water upstairs to the bathroom. She was also cooking us dinner at the same time. Ashamed to have inflicted this extra burden on her, I insisted on carrying the buckets up the stairs myself, which only increased her discomfiture. I settled for a bath that was tepid rather than hot, and I did not linger long in the water.

My bedroom was just across the landing. The bed was broad and sturdily framed with carved posts of dark wood, the mattress piled high with flower-patterned eiderdowns. A balconied window overlooked the square, and I could see that the statue was of a man holding something in his hand. Beyond it stood a white building with a broken tower at its centre. Its long windows were shuttered, and the wall above the arched entrance was blackened where the door had been burnt down.

One of the household guards had placed my travel-bag at the foot of the bed. I unpacked it, hanging up my clothes in a voluminous mahogany wardrobe which smelt of mothballs. After some deliberation, I selected a black gown in fine angora wool, wondering if Extepan would arrive in time for dinner.

We ate in a large room hung with gilt-framed mirrors. Pachtli and I sat at opposite ends of a walnut table, while the old woman silently served us a thick fish and vegetable soup, followed by coarse sausages and black bread. There was even a bowl of oranges at the centre of the table, and I wondered where they had come from. I entertained visions of the ordinary citizens of Velikiye-Luki starving in the snow even as I ate, hidden away from my eyes. The old woman was the only Russian I had seen since my arrival. I tried to indicate my gratitude for the food to her, but she simply nodded vigorously, then hurried back to the kitchen, as if I had given her an order.

‘She’s a Ukrainian,’ Pachtli told me. ‘She was glad to be liberated by us.’

I found this hard to credit, since all the constituent states of the Russian empire had benefited considerably from the Duma’s enlightened regional policies over the past half century.

‘What about the rest of the people in the city?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened to them?’

‘They fled.’ He swallowed a mouthful of sausage. ‘When our armies drew near, they ran away to the east, taking all they could with them. Only soldiers were here to defend the city when we arrived.’

I also doubted that this was true, given that the mayor had apparently stayed behind. The more Pachtli told me, the less I believed; the more he smiled, the less I liked him. There was a bottle of red wine on the table, and he took pleasure in announcing that it had come from a well-stocked cellar in the house. I did not drink any of it, but he quickly emptied the bottle before calling one of the guards to fetch him another.

The old woman served me strong lemon tea. Pachtli announced that his mother was a Zapotec princess, that both his parents had royal blood. I caught my reflection in one of the mirrors as he prattled and swallowed wine. I looked perfectly miserable.

The guard returned with another bottle of wine, already uncorked. Pachtli filled his glass.

‘That is a pretty dress,’ he remarked.

His pupils were dilated, his smile slack. I pushed back my chair and rose. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’

‘But the wine. We have more.’

‘I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty with it. I’d like to be informed the moment Extepan arrives.’

I lay in the darkness, snug but unable to sleep. The wind had dropped, so I had left the curtains open; I could see the arc of the moon outside. Voices muttering in Nahuatl drifted up from downstairs: it sounded as if Pachtli was now entertaining the guards in the dining room. No doubt they were availing themselves of more wine from the cellar. Outside a scouter went by, the thin whine of its engine rapidly fading. Sleep had deserted me.

I rose, donned my nightgown, and went out into the carpeted corridor. It was silent and empty, lined on both sides with doors. I crept along it.

The first door I tried opened on a storeroom piled high with furniture draped in white sheets. The second door was also unlocked, opening on a bedroom.

It was in darkness, unoccupied. A black-and-white robe was draped across a four-poster bed. I recognized it as Extepan’s.

I edged into the room, peering around. Everything was in its place, clean, dusted, the dark-wooded dressers and wardrobes gleaming in the soft light from the corridor. Apart from the gown, there was no other evidence of Extepan’s presence. And no sign that he was sharing the room with anyone else.

A side door led to an adjoining room. It was unfurnished apart from a desk. I switched on the desk-lamp. There were military papers everywhere, a display screen, a leather-bound copy of Cortes’s Advice to the Mexica Nation. More than any other foreigner, the turncoat Spaniard was still revered by the Aztecs.

Above the desk a large map of the Russian Confederation was pinned to the wall. A physical map in greens and browns, its surface was plastered with golden arrows showing Aztec advances and red ones indicating Russian counter-attacks. A dotted line marked the extent of the advance on all fronts.

Much of it I already knew. In the north, St Petersburg was still under siege, while the advance of the armies in the centre had stopped just east of Velikiye-Luki itself. Which meant that I was now very close to the front-line, as I had suspected. In the south, the armies under Ixtlilpopoca had swept through the southern Asian states to link up with those of Chimalcoyotl in the Ukraine just south of Tsaritsyn. The two great golden arrows converged but then terminated abruptly in a black sunburst at Tsaritsyn itself.

Hundreds of thousands had died in the explosion, it was rumoured, and the city had been flattened. Clusters of red arrows on the east bank of the Volga seemed to suggest that the Russians were massing for a huge counter-attack.

I thought I heard a sound outside, and I immediately switched off the lamp. I waited in the darkness, listening, listening. Everything was quiet.

I crept to the door and peered out. All was quiet.

Safely back in my bedroom, with the door shut behind me, I cursed the lack of a key for the lock. I felt like a prisoner in the house, but at the same time I was defenceless – against what? Pachtli wouldn’t try anything with me, knowing that Extepan would soon be returning. It was ridiculous. But I didn’t trust him. If he had drunk enough wine, he might be capable of anything.

A sudden noise. Like a distant, muffled scream.

It had come from across the square. I went to the window and peered out. For a moment I could see nothing, but then I noticed a faint flickering light through one of the empty windows of the white building. Presently several snowsuited figures crept out of the doorway. There were six of them. Aztec soldiers. They hurried across the square.

I backed away from the window. Quickly I began dressing, putting on my padded suit and mittens. Opening the door very carefully, I went quietly down the wide stairway.

The doors to the library and dining room were closed, and there were no guards anywhere. Silence and stillness filled the cavernous spaces of the hallway.

The front door was bolted and locked from inside, but a big brass key hung on a hook. Removing my mittens, I eased the bolts out of their brackets, slid the key into the lock. Turned it.

Again the cold air assailed me as I opened the door. There was no sign of the guards who had been on duty outside, no sign of life anywhere. Only the arc-lights still burned under the hedge. Carefully I went down the steps and headed straight across the square.

Of course this was sheer stupidity on my part, venturing out at night in a front-line town. Even now, I can’t justify or explain it except to say that I have always been impetuous and that my insatiable curiosity overcame all caution. We also seek what we most fear.

The statue showed a man, half-crouched but defiant, a sickle in his hand. A noble Russian, defending the soil against the enemy. The sickle as harvester and weapon, exemplifying two of the major themes of Russian history. The figure had been cast in bronze, and on its base were the dates 1198, 1581 and 1611, surrounded by Cyrillic script. Neither the script nor the dates meant anything to me.

I climbed the steps to the gutted door of the white building. Nothing could be seen inside. I hesitated, then went in.

A church, as I had known all along. Moonlight filtered down through a large hole in the ceiling, providing just enough light for me to make out its arches and frescoed walls. Ammunition boxes had been piled against them, and empty cartridge cases littered the mosaic floor. Icons of haloed saints and archbishops hung everywhere, and there was a terrible stench in the air.

I moved towards a screen behind which a light was flickering. Rubble and patches of dirty snow lay on the floor, chairs had been stacked against square pillars, the smell was petrol and burnt meat. Silence, a terrifying silence except for the scrunch of my feet on grit and rubble.

Behind the screen a candle burned in a golden holder, and I gasped. A body had been spread across the ammunition box, its arms and legs splayed out, its chest dark and steaming. The face was slack, mouth and eyes open, dead white eyes which saw nothing, felt nothing. Almond eyes, broad nose, black hair – an Aztec soldier. But no, because the heavy brown greatcoat which hung from the body was that of a Russian Army officer, and the boots were Russian, too. An Asian Russian, bloodied from his neck to his belly.

Buttons were missing from his coat where it had been torn open. His uniform and vests had been slit up the middle, his chest bared. There had been no finesse about the ceremony, a gaping wound curving under his left breast. The blood, now blackened and beginning to freeze, had drained over his shoulders and throat, and tendrils of steam still rose from the warm innards.

The candlelit screen bore an icon of the Virgin. In front of it was a small, crudely carved figurine in soap. It had the hunched head and the squat body characteristic of traditional Aztec religious statuary. Beside it, an upturned Russian Army helmet held the charred remains of the offering. Petrol had been poured on it to make sure it would burn.

I backed out of the church and fled across the square. Near the statue I slipped and fell, but I scrambled up again and hurried on. As I neared the house, several hooded figures seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

‘Keep away from me!’ I screamed. And then I bolted towards the open door of the mansion, scurrying up the steps into the warm light of the hall.

I was leaning against a marble pillar, panting, when Pachtli walked in, the other guards following him.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked, throwing back his hood. ‘We went looking for you. What has happened?’

I was still too breathless and terrified to answer him immediately. He and the other guards were all carrying automatics, and they looked perfectly sober. In the square I had mistaken them for the soldiers who had carried out the sacrifice, but I felt little relief at the sight of them. They waited, standing motionless, watching me.

‘The front door was unlocked,’ Pachtli said. ‘We searched the house and found you gone.’

Had they seen me coming out of the church? I tried to gather my wits, gambling that they hadn’t.

‘I went for a walk,’ I managed to say.

‘A walk?’

‘I couldn’t sleep. I wanted some fresh air.’

He gave a smile to indicate his disbelief. There was a long silence. Then he turned to the other guards and told them in Nahuatl that they were no longer needed.

As soon as we were alone, he said, ‘I was concerned. If something should happen to you, my lord Extepan, he would not forgive me.’

He was smiling and fingering the trigger of his rifle. ‘There is a curfew. You could have been shot.’

‘If I’d known that, then obviously I wouldn’t have gone out.’

‘There are always curfews in a war zone.’

I said nothing.

‘It is a cold night for a walk.’

Only now was I recovering my equilibrium. ‘That’s why I wore boots and mittens.’

‘Something upset you, yes?’

‘I got lost. But, as you saw, I found my way back. You startled me when you came upon me in the square, that’s all.’

Patently he did not believe me. ‘Did you think we might shoot you? It might have happened. In these suits, and in darkness, we all look the same. It is hard to tell friend from enemy.’

I unzipped the front of my suit. ‘You must excuse me. I’m really quite exhausted.’

‘A little brandy will help you sleep.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

I turned and walked up the stairway without looking back. Only when I had closed the door behind me did I let out a breath of sheer relief.

I drew the curtains on the windows, blotting out the night and all its horrors, then removed my snowsuit. Without undressing further, I climbed beneath the eiderdowns and switched on the bedside lamp.

I lay back and tried to calm myself. But my thoughts were racing, and suddenly I began to wonder if I had been wilfully blind and stupid. What if I hadn’t been wrong in my first split-second assumption that the soldiers who had appeared in the square were the same ones who had carried out the sacrifice? I’d imagined that they had melted into the night, but what if they had simply returned to the house? All too easily I could imagine Pachtli acting as the chief priest, wielding the knife and reaching into the chest to twist the palpitating heart from its moorings. That was how it was done, with a deft turn of the wrist. A sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli, or some other unforgiving deity of the old Aztec pantheon.

Had I had my wits about me, I might have checked their snowsuits for splatterings of blood; or I might have registered the stench of petrol and burnt flesh. But I had been in no state to notice anything of the sort. Yet this meant nothing in itself – they might have easily changed their clothing on returning to the house immediately after the sacrifice, and before Pachtli discovered I was gone.

I contemplated trying to wedge the wardrobe or the dresser against my door, but this seemed melodramatic. I would lie there instead and wait until morning, staying awake. Surely they wouldn’t dare try anything with me, even if they knew I had discovered the corpse in the church? Huemac had delivered me safely to the mansion, and he, at least, seemed an honourable man who would be no part of any cover-up should I be disposed of. But what if he secretly worshipped the same Aztec gods as they? What if they all did?

Awake. I would stay awake. Fight the exhaustion I felt. They wouldn’t harm me, I was sure, but I had to remain vigilant. There couldn’t be too many hours left before dawn, so I didn’t have long to wait. If anyone tried to enter, I would jump up, scream, fight them with all the power I possessed. Awake. I would stay awake. That was my protection.

Six

‘Good morning.’

I surfaced abruptly from a deep sleep. Pachtli was standing over me.

‘Here is some tea,’ he said, putting a silver tray down on the bedside table.

I sat up, still groggy with sleep. Pachtli switched off the lamp and threw open the curtains. Bright winter sunlight flooded in through the window.

‘It is a very pleasant morning,’ he remarked.

I kept the bedclothes drawn up to my neck; beneath them I was fully dressed.

‘Is Extepan here?’ I asked.

‘He arrived an hour ago.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me immediately?’

‘I explained to him that you were late in sleeping. He said that it was better to leave you for a while. He has been consulting with his generals.’

I was quietly angry. I wondered just how much he had told Extepan.

‘Where is he now?’

‘In the breakfast room, eating.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Almost ten o’clock.’

He made to pour the tea, but I said, ‘Leave it.’

As soon as he was gone, I rose and washed in the handbasin next to the bed. Changing into a roll-necked lambswool sweater and thick corduroys, I went downstairs.

Two guards were on duty at the breakfast-room door, but they let me through without a word. Extepan sat alone at a table in front of the french windows, his back to me. His rust-coloured uniform had five eagle-heads on the epaulettes. He now held Chimalcoyotl’s former rank of tlacateccatl, ‘he who commands the warriors’.

I approached the table and said quietly in Nahuatl: ‘Good morning.’

He looked up from his omelette.

‘Catherine.’

A somewhat grave smile. He rose and embraced me formally.

‘How good it is to see you,’ he said in English. ‘A civilized face in an uncivilized world.’

A place had been laid opposite him. He motioned, and I sat down in it. A display screen stood in an alcove next to the table, showing bar charts and columns of data, all of a military nature. Extepan had a small control panel on his side plate.

The old woman entered and put an omelette down in front of me. There was a large plate of sliced ham at the centre of the table, garnished with chopped onions and beetroot.

‘I’m pleased you came,’ Extepan said. ‘Do you bring good news?’

Something told me he already knew of his son’s birth and Precious Cloud’s death.

‘You have a healthy baby boy,’ I said. ‘He was born ten days ago – no, eleven now.’

Extepan smiled. ‘And do we know if it was an auspicious day?’

‘Apparently so. According to the tonalamatl he’s destined to become a rich man.’

His smile became wry, and he nodded. ‘That is most encouraging. Even when we profess not to believe in them, good omens are as reassuring as bad ones are troubling.’

He speared a piece of ham and put it on his plate. There was grime under his fingernails, split skin on his knuckles. It was hard to look him in the face, to confront his candid eyes.

I babbled off the details of Cuauhtemoc’s weight, and of how he had announced his arrival in the world by urinating over a nurse. Extepan continued eating, glancing occasionally at the screen; but I knew his attention was fully engaged on what I was saying. I spoke of Precious Cloud’s labour, and of her wish to have me present during it.

I sensed him waiting until I had run dry. I hurried on. ‘Precious Cloud was delighted with Cuauhtemoc. But she wasn’t able to sleep after the birth.’

I allowed a pause. Finally he filled it. ‘And?’

‘She became distraught. She fell ill.’

He put his fork down.

‘Tell me,’ he said.

‘Everyone did what they could. She was tranquillized, and she seemed to improve. I took her riding one morning on Adamant. She galloped off unexpectedly, and I lost her. We found her hanging from a tree.’ I swallowed hard. ‘Your son is safe and well, but Precious Cloud is dead.’

He was silent for a long time. Although his expression did not alter, I knew he felt genuine sorrow. I was also certain he had already received the news.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I said. ‘I took her riding against Yeipanitl’s advice. I feel it’s my fault.’

He shook his head, slowly but emphatically. At the same time, his gaze was distant, as if I had faded out of both his sight and consciousness.

‘Of course you warned me,’ he said at length. ‘I should have taken better care of her. She was never happy in London.’

I made to say something, but he silenced me by raising a hand.

‘It was my responsibility, and I failed her.’ He sighed. ‘I never loved her, you see. But then you knew that, Catherine, didn’t you? My father says the best marriages are arranged on Earth rather than made in heaven, but he married my mother for love as well as diplomacy. Perhaps I would have been a better husband if I had been able to do the same.’

He was staring at the monitor as he spoke. After a silence, he said, ‘Who’s looking after my son?’

‘He’s with a wet-nurse. He’s very healthy.’

‘That’s welcome news, at least.’ He looked forlorn. ‘Thank you, Catherine. Thank you for coming all this way to bring the news personally. I attach no blame to anyone but myself.’

Unexpectedly, he put his hand on mine across the table. I almost flinched. I had been looking forward to seeing him until last night. Finding the corpse had changed everything.

The french windows looked out on a walled garden with fruit trees standing in ranks and an ice-locked ornamental pool.

‘Cherry trees,’ Extepan said. ‘Do you know Chekhov? I imagine the garden looks pretty when they flower. We tried to save as much of the city as possible, but it wasn’t easy.’

He was talking to cover his feelings, I knew.

Was the fighting fierce here?’

‘It’s been fierce everywhere. The Russians have proved formidable enemies. I’m beginning to understand what Wellington felt like during his march on Moscow.’

‘London’s rife with rumours. Particularly about Tsaritsyn What does a black star mean?’

He gave me a questioning look.

‘I found your rooms last night,’ I admitted. ‘There was a map With a black star over Tsaritsyn.’

He gazed out of the window. ‘Indeed. A black star, indeed.’

‘It’s common knowledge that something terrible happened there. But what?’

‘The Russians deployed a new weapon on the city.’

‘That’s also common knowledge. But what sort of weapon?’

He sighed. ‘A weapon of enormous destructive power. Two of our armies were wiped out at a stroke.’

The old woman approached. Extepan waved her away.

‘We tested a similar weapon ourselves many years ago,’ he went on. ‘Would you like to see the results?’

He pressed a sequence of buttons on the control panel. The screen went blank, then came alive again. It showed a grainy picture of a scrubby desert with a settlement of low whitewashed buildings at its centre. Extepan told me that the desert lay in the Cochimi Peninsula, whose long arm stretched down the Pacific Coast of north-west Mexico. A mock-up of a small city had been built there for the express purpose of testing the weapon and recording the results.

‘What sort of weapon is it?’ I asked again.

‘A bomb,’ he said simply. ‘Watch.’

Nothing happened on the screen at first. Only a long-winged bird drifted by overhead: there was no other movement. Then the whole desert erupted. The landscape bulged as if the earth had shrugged its sun-baked back, and a ball of fire and smoke blossomed outwards and upwards, swallowing the buildings. There was a roar unlike any I had ever heard before.

The camera had been placed some distance from the explosion, but distance only emphasized its scale. The dome-shaped fireball swiftly rose upwards into a column which opened out so that it took on the appearance of a monstrous flat-topped tree. Massive dust clouds surrounded it, streaks of lightning flashed above it in the blue sky, and the whole picture flickered and rippled, as if the very fabric of landscape and sky was about to warp into something else. The settlement had been consumed within seconds by the fireball, and the terrible roaring went on and on like the rage of an awesome god who was the very apotheosis of destruction.

Abruptly Extepan blanked the screen. Everything went silent, but I could still hear the roar. I looked down at my untouched breakfast. For long moments the very idea of eating – of anything remotely involving the everyday behaviour of ordinary individuals – seemed fatuous in the face of what I had seen on the screen.

‘Tsaritsyn was destroyed by such a bomb,’ Extepan said softly. ‘Its power comes from the breakdown of unstable atoms. As you have seen, enormous amounts of energy are released as a result. The Russians used a small missile to carry their bomb to its target. Our armies had just taken the city, and they were annihilated – over three hundred thousand men. My brothers Chimalcoyotl and Ixtlilpopoca were among them.’

I wanted to say something, but nothing seemed adequate.

‘Not everyone died immediately in the blast,’ he went on. ‘It is a particular feature of such bombs that they release radiation which is invisible to the eye but lethal to the body. It rots the internal organs, causing a more lingering death, hours, days or even months later, and it can poison the earth for years.’

Everything about the bomb was already beyond my power to imagine. The sacrifice in the church seemed like a minor breach of etiquette by comparison.

‘The Russians have made it clear that they intend to use several more such bombs on cities in Western Europe unless we accept an immediate ceasefire on their terms. They have long-range missiles which could reach London.’

‘But you’ve tested similar bombs yourselves.’

‘As long ago as 1945.’

‘Then why haven’t you ever used them?’

‘Motecuhzoma forbade it. He and the tlatocan agreed that they were a dishonourable means of waging war, allowing the enemy no opportunity to display his valour and making territory uninhabitable.’

This was typically Aztec. Though they were technologically the most advanced nation on earth, their codes of conduct for warfare bordered on the quaint, harking back to the ritual imperatives of pre-Christian days.

‘Then surely the war in Russia is lost,’ I said. ‘Your armies can’t hope to prevail against weapons of that magnitude.’

‘That presumes we don’t have a weapon of similar effectiveness.’

In the garden, birds were hopping among the cherry trees. Drab brown sparrows, but the sight of them pleased me enormously.

‘We haven’t been idle in the intervening years,’ Extepan said. ‘Motecuhzoma anticipated the eventual development of the bomb by other nations, and he was concerned to see a weapon developed which could counter it. A weapon of similar destructive power, but without any lingering after-effects. Something that would kill quickly but cleanly. We’ve had such a weapon for several years.’

Evidently this was the ‘weapon more mighty than theirs’ to which Pachtli had referred. But I still didn’t understand.

‘Then why haven’t you used it before now?’

‘For the same reasons we didn’t use the bomb. It’s always been our principle to match ourselves with our enemies as equally as possible. What virtue is there in using a mountain to crush an ant? But the Russians have shown no reluctance to use their most powerful weapon, so now we may do the same.’

‘I can’t imagine anything as terrible.’

‘That’s because you can only think in terms of a bomb. Our weapon is equally effective but more accurate.’

‘Can it destroy a city at a stroke?’

He nodded. ‘But cleanly, and just as swiftly. Instant death, or none at all. For the moment, I can’t tell you any more about it.’

‘And you’ll be giving the order to use it?’

‘I have no choice. The tlatoani appointed me to lead our armies here. The order has come directly from his palace.’

His new rank of tlacateccatl meant that he was now answerable only to Motecuhzoma or Tetzahuitl for his actions. Yet it seemed as if he was asking my approval. I couldn’t possibly give it.

‘The alternative,’ he said, ‘is to allow the Russians to destroy other cities with their bomb. In the end, they might turn the whole of Europe into a wasteland where nothing could live.’

‘When? When are you going to use it?’

‘This very day. Soon I shall be leaving for the front line.’

Despite what he had told me, I suspected the Aztecs had only recently readied their weapon and were making a last-ditch attempt to save the situation.

‘I want to come with you.’

I didn’t know what made me say this. It seemed like madness, a wilful desire to become an accomplice to an enormous crime.

Extepan wiped his mouth with his napkin and rose.

‘You will need to be ready within an hour,’ he said.

A glidecar escorted by four low-flying scouters took us through the ruined city until we came to a turreted grey stone building with a wide entranceway. Snowsuited soldiers were everywhere – crack troops, Extepan informed me, from the Alaska province of Greater Mexico.

The building was a railway station, tracks converging from many directions. Pigeons fluttered under the red-roofed platforms, their droppings streaking ornate iron pillars. Several burnt-out carriages sat in a siding, but the station itself looked undamaged. Soldiers milled about on the main platform, some guarding men in charcoal overalls, whom I guessed were Russian mechanics.

Faintly at first, then more loudly, I heard a regular, rhythmic hissing. Gouts of thick white steam came rolling down the platform and spiralled up towards the roof. They brought with them the smell of soot. Everyone stepped back from the edge of the platform.

It was an old steam train, the engine gleaming black and bottle-green, a vision from another age. It came grinding to a halt with a metallic screech and a great exhalation.

I waited for the steam to clear. The matching carriages were trimmed with gold, their windows hung with embroidered curtains. The engine had a big black snow-plough at its front and cattle-catchers on its flanks. The driver – a Russian, by the look of him – was guarded by two Aztec soldiers, all of them bundled up against the cold.

‘We found it in a shed,’ Extepan remarked to me. ‘It’s been quite excellently maintained.’

‘We’re travelling to the front in it?’

‘Of course. Let’s get aboard.’

Pachtli accompanied us into the front carriage. Various Aztec generals and other high-ranking officers were also boarding. I thought they looked disgruntled, as if they deemed it absurd to travel in such an antique when a fast-flying transporter would take them to the front in a fraction of the time. But Extepan’s insistence on using the train was typical of the whimsical side of his character.

The carriages were carpeted, with upholstered seats, and tables draped with white cloths. It was easier to imagine we were going on a sightseeing tour rather than to use a weapon of unimaginable destructive power.

Soon afterwards the train jolted and began moving out of the station. It quickly gathered speed, steam billowing past my window, wheels settling into a steady trocketa-trocketa rhythm on the rails. Extepan began explaining some of the difficulties involved in keeping a steam engine operational in such bitter weather: he had obviously been talking to the driver or his mechanics. Meanwhile Velikiye-Luki slid by the carriage windows. By day, the snow which had covered the city since the battle had softened its shattered appearance, ruined towers and gutted apartment blocks rising like amorphous sculptures and lattices out of a frozen white sea.

A waiter appeared and asked if we wanted drinks. He was a European, though his accented Nahuatl was fluent. A Pole, perhaps, or a German. Extepan and I requested orange juice, Pachtli a glass of red wine.

Presently Extepan departed to check on the comfort of his generals. I had avoided speaking to Pachtli since rising, and I felt uneasy in his company. Now we faced one another across the table, alone. His reflection in the window was smiling at me.

‘This is a good way to travel, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have never been on such a train before. Did you sleep well last night?’

I looked at him. There was nothing in his face to indicate that the question was anything other than a pleasantry.

The waiter arrived with our drinks. He had no sooner set them down on the table than Extepan returned, much to my relief.

‘You will require lunch soon?’ the waiter asked.

‘Whenever it’s ready,’ Extepan told him.

I suddenly realized how hungry I was. I had eaten nothing since dinner the night before.

The train was now passing through open countryside, a flat white landscape broken by lines of bare trees and dark stands of pine. A road ran in parallel to the railway, posts holding electric cables marching beside it. The sky had clouded over to a uniform grey, and a pale haze dimmed the horizon.

‘Are you going to use the weapon on Moscow?’ I asked in English.

Extepan looked surprised. He shook his head. ‘We wouldn’t destroy any capital unless it was unavoidable. No, a smaller demonstration may suffice. Yesterday a message was sent to the commander of the Russian forces in the city of Rzhev, which lies in the direct route of our advance on Moscow. The message advised him to evacuate the city and all his troops before dawn today. We have clearly indicated that we intend to unleash a major new weapon there and that thousands of lives will be lost unless it’s evacuated. Let’s hope he sees fit to heed the warning.’

‘What if the Russians decide to strike first with another of their bombs?’

‘Information received from our quimichtin suggests that they won’t have further bombs ready for launch for some days. By then we will have destroyed a dozen Russian cities, if necessary.’

The literal meaning of quimichtin was ‘mice’, but it had long been applied to undercover agents and spies.

I glanced down at the pistol in Extepan’s belt. It would be a simple matter to snatch it out and shoot him through the heart.

But it would make no difference, I knew that. Someone worse like Maxixca would take command of the empire’s armies, and the weapon would be used as planned. What sort of weapon could be as deadly as the bomb – that enormous thunderhead of fire and smoke with its cataclysmic power? It still defeated my imagination. But I knew Extepan better than to imagine he would make empty threats.

The train sped on through a town of wooden houses and drab prefabricated huts. It looked undamaged by the war, but it was deserted, no smoke rising from the chimneys, many doors open to the snow and wind.

We were served pancakes with smoked salmon, followed by thick slices of gâteau. The meal seemed an obscene luxury, but I ate every morsel of it. Pachtli drank his way through a whole bottle of wine. I caught Extepan glancing at him with unmistakable disapproval. He asked Pachtli to leave us, and the adjutant lurched off down the corridor.

‘I didn’t choose him,’ Extepan remarked to me in English.

‘Pachtli?’

‘His father once saved my brother Ixtlilpopoca from falling into a ravine when he was a small boy. Motecuhzoma was thus bound by a debt of honour to his family. Pachtli is the least worthy of his sons – a mamiqui. But he has the protection and patronage of the tlatoani.’

Mamiqui meant ‘idler’. I watched Extepan’s reflection in the window, preferring not to look directly at him. ‘He told me you both went to the same calmecac in Tenochtitlan.’

‘That’s true.’

‘You were trained to be a priest?’

He gave me an incredulous look. ‘No more than you would be trained to be a nun if you went to a convent school.’

‘So you didn’t have any formal religious training?’

‘I thought you had once been a student of our culture.’ He waited until I looked directly at him. ‘I think, Catherine, that too often people persist in thinking of we Mexica and our world as it was centuries ago.’

‘So what happens at the calmecac?’ I persisted.

‘You know quite well what happens. We are educated there, in all areas of knowledge, not just the religion of our Revered Mother. It’s hundreds of years since the calmecac were schools for the instruction of priests. They educate the sons and daughters of the ruling ranks, as the telpochcalli serve the children of all other citizens.’

The train rushed on, over culverts and bridges, through woodland and bare white plain. It was hard to believe that a ferocious war had been raging over these very lands. It was hard to believe that human beings lived here at all.

‘There’s still a stone in your mouth,’ Extepan said. ‘Spit it out.’

His shadowy reflection in the window highlighted the angular, un-Mexica aspect of his features. He was less reserved, more approachable than most Aztecs I knew. And yet… Was there an unbridgeable gulf between us? The only way to find out was to speak the truth.

‘Did Pachtli tell you I went out last night?’ I said.

‘He mentioned it. That was foolish of you, Catherine.’

‘Did he say any more?’

‘Only that he had gone searching for you and found you in the square.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘What is it you wish to say?’

He was impatient, perhaps angry with me, but still restraining himself. He always spoke calmly, was always ready to listen. This had once been reassuring; now it was unnerving.

‘I went into the church across the square,’ I said.

As plainly and as bluntly as possible, I told him about the steaming corpse and the unmistakable evidence of a ritual sacrifice according to the old Aztec customs. Extepan listened intently, his face giving nothing away. The only thing I held back from him was my suspicion that the six soldiers who had carried out the sacrifice were Pachtli and the household guard.

‘Pachtli thought you were trying to escape but were deterred by the snow,’ Extepan said.

‘Escape? To where? And why should I want to escape?’

‘Why indeed?’

‘Are you saying you don’t believe me?’

Not at all. I’m rather relieved to learn that it was curiosity rather than a desire to join our enemies that made you leave the house.’

For a moment I was dumbfounded. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying? Your soldiers are performing human sacrifices. Am I to take it that this is something you condone?’

It was Extepan’s turn to gaze out of the window. The train hurried on, trocketa-trocketa, passing through the deserted station of yet another ghost-town. I felt as if I had done something irrevocable, as if I had forced him into the position of having to admit that, yes, it was true what the enemies of the Aztecs had always claimed: the old gods were still secretly worshipped under the veneer of Christianity, and that the bloodthirsty rituals designed to appease them were still practised.

‘As a boy,’ Extepan remarked, ‘I was always asking my father to tell me stories about his military exploits. I remember the first one he told. As a young man he served in India. In 1930 our forces suffered a defeat at Karachi, and he led the counter-attack. When the city was taken, the bodies of over three thousand Mexica officers were found. They had been buried up to their necks, then had their heads smashed to pulp with cudgels. The commanding officer in the city was British.’

The waiter appeared with a jug of black coffee. Extepan waited until he was gone.

‘During the invasion of Japan,’ he went on, ‘captured Mexica were staked to the ground and had boiling oil poured over them. In Cape Colony their limbs and genitals were cut off and they were left to be eaten by scavengers. During the fighting in the Midlands of England, Mexica prisoners were executed by slow disembowelment. This took the form of slashing a crucifix in their abdomens, then tearing back the skin—’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Under the extremes of war, every atrocity is possible, and any race may be the perpetrators. Many killings are supposedly done in the name of religion, but usually that’s simply a rationalization for barbarity. Do you think the British soldiers who disembowelled their prisoners with the sign of the cross were true Christians?’

I was silent.

‘I’m not condoning what those soldiers did in the church, and I’ll see to it that an investigation is carried out to try to discover who was responsible. But I’m not surprised that it happened. The war has been bitter here, and atrocities have been committed by both sides.’

‘They tore his heart out and burnt it in a helmet. It was a sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli.’

Extepan sighed, his patience threadbare. ‘I’m very well aware that most of our enemies believe that we still practise human sacrifice, cannibalism and doubtless other barbaric rites that I have no inkling of. It’s the nature of war to see one’s enemies as devils, and rational argument is powerless against such superstitions. We aren’t devils, Catherine. We’re human beings like any other.’

‘Yours is the only nation that’s made a religion of war. It’s obvious to everyone that the Aztecs are intent on swallowing up the whole world.’

For once he did not take me to task for using the blanket term ‘Aztec’ rather than ‘Mexica’. Instead he simply said, ‘We are no more belligerent than you British were when your empire was expanding. We fight to protect our interests, as you did. There’s not so much to choose between us, except that we are the victors and you’re the losers. I can’t say I care for your hypocrisy.’

I decided to match his anger with my own insistence.

‘I want to know,’ I said. ‘Are such sacrifices commonplace?’

‘No,’ he snapped. ‘They’re not.’

‘Will you give me your word of honour?’

For a moment I thought he might erupt with rage. He rose.

‘If it’s necessary, then I give it. You will excuse me. There is much to be done before we reach the front line.’

He went off to join his generals.

Pachtli returned soon afterwards, and I steeled myself for the worst. But he looked sullen, and I wondered if Extepan had said anything to him about the sacrifice. He slumped in the seat opposite me, and, to my relief, folded his arms across his chest and went to sleep.

Onwards, deeper and deeper into Russia. I had never seen such flatness, such wildness and desolation. Despite the ample evidence of human habitation – the fields, grain silos like fat rockets, huddled villages and towns, distant apartment blocks of community-farm workers – despite all this, the landscape seemed raw and empty, the works of humans dwarfed by the scale of the natural world, the immense snow-laden sky, the wind gusting down from the polar regions, the massed ranks of black pines like Nature’s armies awaiting mobilization.

At length I began to notice moving dots in the sky – aircraft – and then fields whose snow had been churned by caterpillar treads or blown into telltale arcs by hovership skirts. I saw a bare plain littered with the black hulks of Russian tanks, too many to count. There were hundreds of smaller dark mounds in the snow. The train veered away, rushing through another town. Here, many of the buildings had been destroyed. There was a lurch, and the sound of the wheels on the rails changed subtly. The train turned down a siding which looked newly constructed. In the near distance was a dense stand of bare trees and numerous vehicles and men.

Extepan returned. He had donned his snowsuit. Shaking Pachtli awake, he ordered him to fetch my luggage.

‘We’ll soon be there,’ he said to me. ‘Please get dressed.’

He was stiff, formal, not deigning to look at me. I reached for my jacket.

‘I’m glad I decided to bring you with me,’ he said. ‘It’s one thing to talk about war, quite another to see it for yourself.’

An hour later I stood surrounded by a cluster of snowsuited Aztec generals on a low rise at the edge of the stand of trees.

We were looking east, and I could just make out the road and railway line crossing one another in the distance. Rzhev, apparently less than ten miles away, was just over the horizon. No one was able – or willing – to tell me whether or not the Russians had evacuated it.

Dusk was beginning to gather, and the clouds had started to empty their burden of snow. The fat flakes gusted down, coating the heads and shoulders of the military élite. They stamped their feet in the snow, slapped their mittened hands together, but mostly they were still and silent, awaiting the activation of the weapon without impatience.

I had expected to find a giant missile launcher or cannon pointing east, but there was nothing on the ridge except for a long cylindrical trailer, a single gold sunburst on its flank. Extepan had taken me inside the trailer after we disembarked from the train. It was packed with flickering viewscreens, bristling with electronics. Aztec technicians attended the equipment, supervised by none other than Maxixca, his squat figure buttoned up in the uniform of the tlacochcalcatl.

On seeing me, Maxixca made no effort to hide his surprise and irritation. But he recovered sufficiently to salute his half-brother. Evidently Extepan remained in overall command of the campaign, though Maxixca now technically equalled him in rank, a development which I found ominous. Both would have seats on the tlatocan and a vote in the most important decisions affecting the empire.

‘All is ready,’ Maxixca said briskly in Nahuatl.

‘Is the target in range?’ Extepan asked.

Maxixca nodded. ‘We’ve been ready to fire for the past half-hour, awaiting only your arrival. We have another twenty minutes, perhaps. No more.’

‘Any reports of troop movements in the area?’

‘None. Our intelligence suggests that defensive units have been withdrawn from the outskirts of the town.’

‘And the town itself? Has it been evacuated?’

‘We have no information on that.’

‘And still no response to our ultimatum?’

‘None.’

‘What about your spy satellites?’ I said. ‘I thought they were supposed to see all.’

Maxixca glared at me.

‘What is she doing here?’ he said angrily to Extepan. ‘She’s a civilian.’

‘She brought me good news from London,’ Extepan said evenly. ‘I have a son.’

Maxixca remembered the formalities of rank and etiquette. He gave a deep bow, then straightened.

‘My congratulations. May he grow strong and brave. Do we proceed with the activation of the beam?’

‘When I give the order.’

Without further ado, he led me back outside.

‘Beam?’ I said. ‘What sort of beam?’

‘You’ll soon see for yourself,’ he told me.

Now I stood beside him as he scanned the horizon with night-seeing binoculars. I thought it unlikely that he could make out anything in the snow-thick dusk; perhaps it was just a ploy to keep Maxixca waiting.

At length he looked back towards the trailer. It was back-dropped by the silver-and-black trunks of birches, and the whole scene was like a study in monochrome except for the golden sunburst in the trailer’s flank and the illuminated wedge-shaped screen at its front. Maxixca was framed in it.

Extepan gave an emphatic nod. Maxixca scuttled from sight.

All eyes turned upwards rather than to the east. Nothing could be seen except the snow swirling down out of the darkening grey sky. Long seconds passed, filled only with the sound of the wind and the soft battering of snowflakes on my face.

I was about to look away when the sky flashed alight. Seamless and sinuous, a rippling bolt of orange-red light split the gloom like a fiery rope held between heaven and earth and shaken by an invisible hand. Wavering and dancing, a brilliant blood-orange, it was the only colour and brightness in a world of grey, the only thing that seemed alive. Yes, it was a living thing, a celestial snake striking down at the earth with all the ferocity it could muster. I became aware of a distant fierce crackling, then a low rumble, as of thunder.

The beam flashed out as abruptly as it had come, leaving a golden after-image in my eyes. The crackling sound had also ceased, but I could still hear the rumbling, and I knew it meant utter destruction.

Even through the snow and the darkness I could see a red glow lighting up the eastern horizon.

Moments later, Maxixca emerged from the trailer.

He marched over to Extepan and saluted.

‘Direct hit,’ he announced proudly. ‘Rzhev no longer exists.’

Seven

On Christmas Day, I entered Moscow with Extepan at the head of a column which crossed a wide bridge over the frozen Moscow river. I was appropriately dressed in black.

Extepan had originally hoped to receive the surrender from Tsar Mikhail himself, but there was only an assemblage of grim-faced generals and a few representatives of the Duma waiting for us in Red Square. The Aztec ultimatum had been rejected after the destruction of Rzhev, and Extepan’s attempts to arrange a temporary truce so that negotiations could continue were thwarted because of the threat that the Russians might launch their bombs on targets in Western Europe. Apparently Maxixca, who favoured further action, had appealed directly to Tenochtitlan, and orders were received from the imperial palace that the war should continue until there was an unconditional surrender. And so the beam weapon, fired from an orbiting satellite, had been used on a second Russian city, Ekaterinberg in the Urals, to which the Tsar and his government had removed some weeks before. My cousin Margaret and their three children were also with him.

The weapon was capable of delivering a concentrated burst of solar energy over a radius of several miles for up to twenty seconds. Nothing – bricks, concrete or metal – could withstand the blast, and deep craters were all that remained afterwards, the bedrock fused to a magma which would take months to cool. Margaret and her family were annihilated in an instant.

It was a grey, bitter day, and even the gaudy onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral could do nothing to dispel the bleakness of the occasion. I remember wondering if what I had seen inside the Quetzalcoatl structure was in any way connected with the beam weapon. Perhaps the obsidian mirror had been a prototype, perhaps some sort of lens to focus the sun’s rays – a thing of utter blackness to turn light into fiery death. The grim symmetry seemed appropriate.

I found it impossible to blame Extepan for what had happened; on the contrary, I felt a curious kinship with him. We were both united in grief at the loss of someone close to us, Precious Cloud and Margaret, both dead before their time. Only Maxixca looked properly triumphant, as well he might. Moscow, and the rest of Russia, had surrendered without further resistance after the destruction of Ekaterinberg, and now the Aztecs controlled Eurasia from Portugal to the Alaskan Strait.