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.
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.