Free Clash of Star-Kings by Avram Davidson Page B

People shouldn’t have to think about such things when they were grief stricken. Of course, the fact that they were griefstricken didn’t mean that they weren’t
hungry
. People could be griefstricken and hungry at the same time. That was a well-known fact. “I am not sensing myself well today, Lupita. Dost thou-plural thinking of to could tamales prepare whatsoever?”
    “Excellently. How you will taste! Preparing tamales of green chile, tamales of chicken fat, milled meat, and of
mole choco lado
. One little moment, terminating the utensils.”
    “Oh, yummy!” said Sarah, clapping her hands. And went to tell Jacob, who had returned from mailing his manuscript. He agreed it did indeed sound yummy. He went to his studio and stared awhile at the pale yellow walls and the lithograph of Maximilian in its cracked frame. Lupita’s head passed by, en route with the rest of her to get water for the nixtamal dough. He tapped on the window. She squinted, smiled, came to the door.
    “Did I not hear singing last night, Lupita?”
    “Securely, Señor. There was much singing. The feria, you know.”
    “Ah, yes. The feria. I went for a walk, also, last night….”
    “Oh, was that indeed you, Señor? I thought I saw you, but I was unable to pause. I was seeking for the daughter of Don Esteban, she who used to be employed in the infirmary at Ameca, to ask her to come help my mother. Did you enjoy your walk, Señor?”
    He looked at her, and she returned his look with her usual one of docile incomprehension. “Not very.”
    “Ah, no? It is insalubrious to walk much at night. The air of night is most unhealthy. Dispense me, Señor, I must mix the tamale dough in this little moment.”
    He said, gloomily, “Go with God.”
    Lupita went, but not with the God that Jacob had in mind. She mixed her dough and prepared the fillings and put the water on to boil after having made a little steambath in the pot, with a fire of twigs and torn newspapers. She was the servant of the gringos, and if she were not the servant of the gringos she would be the servant of others who were no better. All her life she had been someone’s servant, someone else’s servant, sweeping the dung from their stables and washing their floors and their dishes. Those who gave her orders wore shoes, but she had worn no shoes. Those sat in chairs while she, when she could snatch the time, squatted on the ground. They could read, she could not; they spoke the tongue of the
blanco
as a birthright, she had never fully mastered it. They spoke much of church, scorning the poor Tenochas of the
Barrio Occidental
for paganism, but although many of them had lain with her none would ever marry her in church. And was not the church a thing of the
bianco
, anyway? What were all these others,
mestizos
in blood, but imitation-
blancos?
    And this had gone on for over four hundred years and for four hundred years a little handful among the Tenocha, the true Aztec blood, had preserved their faith that it would go on forever. Now this faith was being vindicated! The old Axteca gods were returning, had already established their base upon the sacred slopes of Ixta — Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, Xiutecuhtli, Ometecuhtli, and Omecihuatl, Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl, Tezcatlipoca, and the others — she recited their potent names which hissed and writhed like serpents and clapped and roared like thunders! They were returning to reclaim their land and redeem their people, to drive out
blanco
and
guerro
and
mestizo
alike, put down the upstart and inferior tribes whose fathers the fathers of the Tenocha-Aztecas had conquered, and restore all things as before…. Resistance? Of course there would be resistance! All the better!
    For resistance meant prisoners, hecatombs and hecatombs of them, and prisoners meant sacrifices, and sacrifices meant infinitely long and blessedly endless lines of bound forms being dragged up the steps of the pyramids and cast upon the altar stones in