"I know that the Mexica reached their imperial peak with the conquests of Ahuitzotl. He essentially proved the practical limits of Mesoamerican empire. The lands he conquered were so far away that Moctezuma II had to reconquer them, and they still didn't stay conquered."

"And you know why those were the limits?"

"Transportation," she said. "It was just too far, and too hard to supply an army. The greatest feat of Aztec arms was making the connection with Soconusco, far down the Pacific coast. And that only worked because they didn't take sacriftcial victims from Soconusco, they traded with them. It was more of an alliance than a conquest."

"Those were the limits in s.p.a.ce," said Hunahpu. "What about the social and economic limits?"

She felt as if she were being given an examination. But he was right - if he tested her knowledge first, he would know how deeply he could delve into the material that mattered, the new findings that he thought would answer the great question of why the Interveners had given Columbus the mission of sailing west. "Economically, the Mexica cult of sacrifice was counterproductive. As long as they kept conquering new lands, they took enough captives from warfare that the nearby territory could maintain enough of a workforce to provide food. But as soon as they began coming back from war with twenty or thirty captives instead of two or three thousand, they were left with a dilemma. If they took their sacrifices from the surrounding lands they already controlled, food production would go down. But if they left those men on the land, then they would have to cut down on their sacrifices, which would mean even less power in battle, even less favor from, the state G.o.d - what was his name?"

"Huitzilopochtli," said Hunahpu.

"Well, they chose to increase the sacrifices. As a sort of proof of their faith. So production fell and there was hunger. And the people they ruled over were more and more upset at the taking of sacrifices, even though they were all believers in the sacrificial religion, because in the old days, before the Mexica with their cult of Witsil ... Huitzil -"

"Huitzilopochtli."

"There'd be only a few sacrifices at a time, comparatively speaking. After ceremonial war, or even after star war. And after the ball games. The Mexica were new, with their profligate sacrificing. The people hated it. Their families were being torn apart, and because so many people were sacrificed it didn't seem to be such a sacred honor anymore."

"And within the Mexica culture?"

"The state thrived because it provided social mobility. If you distinguished yourself in war, you rose. The merchant cla.s.ses could buy their way into the n.o.bility. You could rise. But that ended immediately after Ahuitzotl, when Moctezuma virtually ended all possibility of buying your way from cla.s.s to cla.s.s, and when failure in war after war meant that there was little chance of rising through valor in battle. Moctezuma was in a holding pattern, and that was disastrous, since the entire Mexica social and economic structure depended on expansion and social mobility."

Hunahpu nodded.

"So," said Diko, "where do you disagree with any of this?"

"I don't disagree with it at all," he said.

"But the conclusion that is drawn from this is that even without Cortes, the Aztec empire would have collapsed within years."

"Within months, actually," said Hunahpu. " Cortes's most valuable Indie allies were the people of Tlaxcala. They were the ones who had already broken the back of the Mexica military machine. Ahuitzotl and Moctezuma threw army after army against them, and they always held on to their territory. It was a humiliation to the Mexica, because Tlaxcala was just to the east of Tenocht.i.tlan, completely surrounded by the Mexica empire. And all the other people, both those who were still resisting the Mexica and those who were being ground to dust under their government, began to look to Tlaxcala as their hope of deliverance."

"Yes, I read your paper on this."

"It's like the Persian Empire after the Chaldean," said Hunahpu. "When the Mexica fell, it wouldn't have meant a collapse of the entire imperial structure. The Tlaxcalans would have moved in and taken over."

"That's one possible outcome," said Diko.

"No," said Hunahpu. "It's the only possible outcome. It was already under way."

"Now we come to the question of evidence, I'm afraid," said Diko.

He nodded. "Watch."

He turned to the TruSite II and began calling up short scenes. He had obviously prepared carefully, for he took her from scene to scene almost as smoothly as in a movie. "Here is Chocla, " he said, and then showed her brief clips of the man meeting with the Tlaxcalan king and then meeting with other men in other contexts; then he named another Tlaxcalan amba.s.sador and showed what he was doing.

The picture quickly emerged. The Tlaxcalans were well aware of the restiveness both of the subject peoples and of the merchant and warrior cla.s.ses within the Mexica homeland. The Mexica were ripe for both a coup and a revolution, and whichever one happened first would certainly trigger the other. The Tlaxcalans were meeting with leaders of every group, forging alliances, preparing. "The Tlaxcalans were ready. If Cortes had not come along and thrown a monkey wrench into their plans, they would have slipped in and taken over the entire Mexica empire, whole. They were setting it up to have every subject nation that mattered revolt all at once and throw their might behind Tlaxcala, trusting in the Tlaxcalans because of their enormous prestige. At the same time, they were going to have a coup topple Moctezuma, which would break up the triple alliance as Texcozo and Tacuba abandoned Tenocht.i.tlan and joined in a new ruling alliance with Tlaxcala."

"Yes," said Diko. "I think that's clear. I think you're right. That's what they planned."

"And it would have worked," said Hunahpu. "So all this talk about the Aztec Empire being ready to fall is meaningless. It would have been replaced by a newer, stronger, more vigorous empire. And, I might point out, one that was just as viciously committed to wholesale human sacrifice as the Mexica. The only difference between them was the name of the G.o.d - instead of Huitzilopochtli, the Tlaxcalans committed their butchery in the name of Camaxtli."

"This is all very convincing," said Diko. "But what difference does it make? The same limits that applied to the Mexica would apply to the Tlaxcala people as well. The limits on transportation. The impossibility of maintaining a program of wholesale slaughter and intensive agriculture at the same time."

"The Tlaxcala were not the Mexica," said Hunahpu.

"Meaning?"

"In their desperate struggle for survival against a relentless, powerful enemy - a struggle which the Mexica had never faced, I might add - the Tlaxcala abandoned the fatalistic view of history that had crippled the Mexica and the Toltecs and the Mayas before them. They were looking for change, and it was there to be had."

By now, it was getting late in the workday, and others were gathering around to watch Hunahpu's presentation. Diko saw now that the fear had left Hunahpu, and so he was becoming pa.s.sionate and animated. She wondered if this was how the myth of the stoic Indie had began - the cultural response to fear among the indie looked like impa.s.siveness to Europeans.

Hunahpu began to take her through another round of brief scenes showing messengers from the king of Tlaxcala, but now they were not going to Mexica dissidents or subject nations. "It is well known that the Tarascan people to the west and north of Tenocht.i.tlan had recently developed true bronze and were experimenting heavily with other metals and alloys," said Hunahpu. "What no one seems to have noticed is that the Mexica were completely unaware of this, but Tlaxcala was right on top of it. And they aren't just trying to buy the bronze. They're trying to co-opt it. They're negotiating for an alliance and they're trying to bring Tarascan smiths to Tlaxcala. They will certainly succeed, and that means that they'll have devastating and terrifying weapons unavailable to any other nations in the area."

"Would bronze make that big a difference?" asked one of the onlookers. "I mean, the flint hatchets of the Mexica could behead a horse with one blow, it's not as if they didn't have devastating weapons already."

"A bronze-tipped arrow is lighter and can fly farther and truer than a stone-tipped one. A bronze sword can pierce the padded armor that snagged and turned away flint points and flint blades. It makes a huge difference. And it wouldn't have stopped with bronze. The Tarascans were serious in their work with many different metals. They were starting to work with iron."

"No," said several at once.

"I know what everybody says, but it's true." He brought up a scene with a Tarascan metallurgist working with more-or-less pure iron.

"That won't work," said one onlooker. "It's not hot enough."

"Do you doubt that he'll find a way to make his fire hotter?" asked Hunahpu. "This clip is from a time when Cortes was already marching to Tenocht.i.tlan. That's why the work with iron came to nothing. Because it hadn't succeeded by the time of the Spanish conquest it was not remembered. I found it because I'm the only one who believed that it mattered to try to look for it. But the Tarascans were on the verge of working with iron."

"So the Mesoamerican bronze age would have lasted for ten years?" someone asked.

"There's no law that says bronze has to come before iron, or that iron has to wait centuries after the discovery of bronze," said Hunahpu.

"Iron isn't gunpowder," said Diko. "Or are you going to show us Tarascans working with saltpeter?"

"My point isn't that they caught up with European technology all in a few years - I think that would be impossible. What I'm saying is that by allying themselves with the Tarascans and controlling them, the Tlaxcalans would have had weapons that would give them a devastating advantage over all the surrounding nations. They would cause so much fear that nations, once conquered, might stay conquered longer, might freely send the Tarascans tribute that the Mexica would have had to send an army to bring back. The boundaries would have increased and so would the stability of the empire."

"Possibly," said Diko.

"Probably," said Hunahpu. "And there's this, too. The Tlaxcala already dominated Huexotzingo and Cholula - small nearby cities, but it gives us an idea of their idea of empire. And what did they do? They interfered in the internal politics of their client states to a degree that the Mexica never dreamed of. They weren't just extracting tribute and sacrificial victims, they were establishing a centralized government with rigid control over the governments of conquered nations. A true politically unified empire, rather than a loose tribute network. This is the innovation that made the a.s.syrians so powerful, and which was copied by every successful empire after them. The Tlaxcalans have finally made the same discovery two thousand years later. But think what it did for the a.s.syrians, and now imagine what it will do for Tlaxcala."

"All right," said Diko. "Let me call in Mother and Father."

"But I'm not through," said Hunahpu.

"I was looking at your presentation to see if you were worth spending time on. You are. There was obviously a lot more going on in Mesoamerica than anybody thought, because everybody was studying the Mexica and n.o.body was looking for successor states. Your approach is clearly productive, and people with a lot more authority than I have need to see this."

Suddenly Hunahpu's animation and enthusiasm disappeared, and he became calm and stoic-looking again. Diko thought: This means that he's now afraid again.

"Don't worry," she said. "They'll be as excited as I am."

He nodded. "When will we do this, then?"

"Tomorrow, I expect. Go to your room, sleep. The hotel restaurant will feed you, though I doubt they have much in the way of Mexican food so I hope standard international cuisine will do. I'll call you in the morning with our schedule for tomorrow."

"What about Kemal?"

"I don't think he'll want to miss this," said Diko.

"Because I never even got to the transportation issue."

"Tomorrow," said Diko.

The others were already drifting away, though some lingered, obviously hoping to speak to Hunahpu directly. Diko turned to them. "Let this man sleep," she said to them. "You'll all be invited to his presentation tomorrow, so why make him tell things tonight that he'll tell everybody tomorrow?"

She was surprised to hear Hunahpu laugh. She hadn't heard him laugh before, and she turned to him. "What's funny?"

"I thought when you stopped me it was because you didn't believe in me and you were being polite, with promises of meetings with Tagiri and Ha.s.san and Kemal."

"Why would you think that, when I was saying that I thought this was important?" Diko was offended that he thought she was lying.

"Because I never before met someone who would do what you did. Stop a presentation that you thought was important."

She didn't understand.

"Diko," he said. "Most people want nothing more than to know something that people higher up don't know. To know things first. Here you had a chance to hear all of this first, and you stop it? You wait? And not only that, you promise others who are below you in the hierarchy that they can be there too?"

"That's the way it is in Past.w.a.tch, " said Diko. "The truth will still be true tomorrow, and everybody who needs to know it has an equal claim on learning it."

"That's the way it is in Juba," Hunahpu corrected her. "Or maybe that's the way it is in Tagiri's house. But everywhere else in the world, information is a coin, and people are greedy to acquire it and careful how and where they spend it."

"Well, I guess we surprised each other," said Diko.

"Did I surprise you?"

"You're actually quite talkative," she said.

"To my friends," he said.

She accepted the compliment with a smile. His smile in return was warm and all the more valuable because it was so rare.

Santangel knew from the moment that Columbus began to speak that this was not going to be the normal courtier begging for advancement. For one thing, there was no hint of boastfulness, no swagger in the man. His face looked younger than his flowing white hair would imply, giving him an ageless, gnomic look. What captivated, though, was his manner. He spoke quietly, so that all the court had to fall silent to allow the King and Queen to hear him. And even though he looked equally at Ferdinand and Isabella, Santangel could see at once that this man knew who it was that he had to please, and it was not Ferdinand.

Ferdinand had no dreams of crusade; he worked to conquer Granada because it was Spanish soil, and his dream was of a single, united Spain. He knew it could not be achieved in a moment. He laid his plans with patience. He did not have to overwhelm Castile; it was enough to be married to Isabella, knowing that in their children the crowns would be united forever, and in the meantime he gave her great freedom of action in her kingdom as long as their military movements were under his direction alone. He showed the same patience in his war with Granada, never risking his armies in all-or-nothing pitched battles, but rather besieging, feinting, maneuvering, subverting, confusing the enemy, who knew that he meant to destroy them but could never quite find where to commit their forces to stop him. He would drive the Moors from Spain but he would do it without destroying Spain in the process.

Isabella, however, was more Christian than Spanish. She joined in the war against Granada because she wanted the land under Christian rule. She had long pressed for the purification of Spain by removing all non-Christians; it made her impatient that Ferdinand refused to let her expel the Jews until after the Moors were broken. "One infidel at a time," he said, and she consented, but she chafed under the delay, feeling the presence of any non-Christian in Spain like a stone in her shoe.

So when this Columbus began to speak of great kingdoms and empires in the east, where the name of Christ had never been spoken aloud, but lived only as a dream in the hearts of those who hungered for righteousness, Santangel knew that these words would burn like flame in Isabella's heart even as they put Ferdinand to sleep. When Columbus began to tell that these heathen nations were the special responsibility of Spain, "for we are nearer to them than any other Christian nation except Portugal, and they have set out on the longest possible voyage instead of the shortest, around Africa instead of due west into the narrow ocean that divides us from millions of souls who will flock to the banners of Christian Spain," her gaze on him became rapt, unblinking.

Santangel was not surprised when Ferdinand excused himself and left his wife to continue the interview alone. He knew that Ferdinand would immediately a.s.sign advisers to examine Columbus for him, and the process would not be an easy one. But this Columbus - hearing him, Santangel could not help but believe that if anyone could succeed at such a mad enterprise, it was this man. It was an insane time to try to put together an exploratory expedition. Spain was at war; every resource of the kingdom was committed to driving the Moors from Andalusia. How could the Queen possibly finance such a voyage? Santangel remembered well the fury in the King's eyes when he heard the letters from Don Enrique, the Duke of Sidonia, and from Don Luis de la Cerda, the Duke of Medina. "If they have such money they can afford to sink it in the Atlantic on pointless voyages, then why haven't they already given it to us to drive the Moor from their own doorstep?" he asked.

Isabella was also a practical sovereign, who never let her personal wishes interfere with the needs of her kingdom or overtax its resources. Nevertheless, she saw this matter differently. She saw that these two lords had become believers in this Genovese who had already failed at the court of the King of Portugal. She had the letter from Father Juan Perez, her confessor, attesting that Columbus was an honest man who asked for nothing more than the opportunity to prove his beliefs, with his own life if necessary. So she had invited him to Cordoba, a decision that Ferdinand patiently indulged, and she listened to him now.

Santangel now watched, staying as the agent of the King, to report to him all that Columbus said. Santangel already knew half of his report: We can spare no funds for such an expedition at this time. As King Ferdinand's treasurer and chief tax collector, Santangel knew that his duty required him to be absolutely honest and accurate, letting the king know exactly what Spain could afford and what it could not. Santangel was the one who had explained to the king why he should not be angry at the dukes of Medina and Sidonia. "They are paying all the tax they can afford to pay year in and year out. This expedition would happen but the once, and it would be a great sacrifice for them. We should see this, not as proof that they are cheating the Crown, but as proof that they truly believe in this Columbus. As it is, they pay as much toward the war out of their estates as any other lords, and to use this as a pretext to try to extract more from them would only make enemies out of them and make many other lords uneasy as well." King Ferdinand dropped the idea, of course, because he trusted Santangel's judgment on matters fiscal.

Now Santangel watched and listened as Columbus poured out his dreams and hopes to the Queen. What are you actually asking for? he asked silently. It wasn't until three hours into the interview that Columbus finally touched on that point. "No more than three or four ships - they could be mere caravels, for that matter," he said. "This is not a military expedition. We go only to mark the path. When we return with the gold and jewels and spices of the east, then the priests can go in great fleets, with soldiers to protect them from the jealous infidels. They can spread forth through c.i.p.angu and Cathay, the Spice Islands and India, where millions will hear the sweet name of Jesus Christ and beg for baptism. They will become your subjects, and will look to you forever as the one who brought them the glad news of the resurrection, who taught them of their sins so they can repent. And with the gold and silver, with the wealth of the East at your command, there'll be no more struggling to finance a small war against the Moors of Spain. You can a.s.semble great armies and liberate Constantinople. You can make the Mediterranean a Christian sea again. You can stand in the tomb where the Savior's body lay, you can kneel and pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, you can raise the cross once more above the holy city of Jerusalem, over Bethlehem, the city of David, over Nazareth, where Jesus grew under the care of the carpenter and the Holy Virgin."

It was like music, listening to him. And whenever Santangel began to think that this was nothing more than flattery, that this man, like most men, was out only for his own benefit, he remembered: Columbus intended to put his own life on the line, sailing with the fleet. Columbus asked for no t.i.tles, no preferment, no wealth until and unless he returned successfully from his voyage. It gave his impa.s.sioned arguments a ring of sincerity that was largely unfamiliar at court. He may be mad, thought Santangel, but he is honest. Honest and clever. He never raises his voice, noted Santangel. He never lectures, never harangues. Instead he speaks as if this were a conversation between a brother and sister. He is always respectful, but also intimate. He speaks with manly strength, yet never sounds as if he thinks her his inferior in matters of thought or understanding - a fatal mistake which many men had made over the years when speaking to Isabella.

At long last the interview ended. Isabella, always careful, promised nothing, but Santangel could see how her eyes shone. "We will speak again," she said.

I think not, thought Santangel. I think Ferdinand will want to keep direct contact between his wife and this Genovese to a minimum. But she will not forget him, and even though at this moment the treasury can afford nothing beyond the war, if Columbus is patient enough and does nothing stupid, I think Isabella will find a way to give him a chance.

A chance for what? To die at sea, lost with three caravels and all their crews, starving or dying of thirst or broken up in some storm or swallowed up in a maelstrom?

Columbus was dismissed. Isabella, weary but happy, sank back in her throne, then beckoned to Quintanilla and Cardinal Mendoza, both of whom had also waited through the interview. To Santangel's surprise, she also beckoned to him.

"What do you think of this man?" she asked.

Quintanilla, always the ftrst to speak and the last to have anything valuable to say, merely shrugged. "Who can tell whether his plan has merit?"

Cardinal Mendoza, the man that some called "the third king," smiled. "He speaks well, Your Majesty, and he has sailed with the Portuguese and met with their king," he said. "But it will take much examination before we know whether his ideas have merit. I think his idea of the distance between Spain and Cathay, sailing west, is grossly wrong."

Then she looked at Santangel. This terrified him. He had not won his position of trust because he spoke up in the presence of others. He was not a speaker. Rather he acted. The King trusted him because when he promised he could raise a sum of money, he produced it; when he promised they could afford to carry out a campaign, the funds were there.

"What do I know of such matters, Your Majesty?" he asked. "Sailing west - what do I know of that?"

"What will you tell my husband?" she asked - teasingly, for of course he was an open observer, not a spy.

"That Columbus's plan is not as expensive as a siege, but more expensive than anything we can afford at present."

She turned to Quintanilla. "And can Castile not afford it, either?"

"At present, Your Majesty, " said Quintanilla, "it would be difficult. Not impossible, but if it failed it would make Castile look foolish in the eyes of others."

No need to say that the "others" he referred to were Ferdinand and his advisers. Santangel knew that Isabella was always careful to retain the respect of her husband and the men he listened to, for if she gained a reputation for foolishness, it would be an easy matter for him to step in and take over more and more of her power in Castile with little resistance from the Castilian lords. Only her reputation for "manlike" wisdom allowed her to remain a strong rallying point for the Castilians, which in turn gave her a measure of independence from her husband.

"And yet," she said, "why did G.o.d make us queen, if not to bring his children to the Cross?"

Cardinal Mendoza nodded. "If his ideas have merit, then pursuing them would be worth any sacrifice, Your Majesty," he said.

"So let us keep him here with the court, so he can be examined, so his ideas can be discussed and compared to the knowledge we have from the ancients. There's no hurry, I think. Cathay will still be there in a month or two, or a year."

Isabella thought for a few moments. "The man has no estate," she said. "If we keep him here, then we must attach him to the court." She looked at Quintanilla. "He must be allowed to live as a gentleman."

He nodded. "I already gave him a small sum to keep him while he waited for this audience."

"Fifteen thousand maravedis out of my own purse," said the Queen.

"That is for the year, Your Majesty?"