“This morning I was in the garden, culling flowers. I met Mualox. He seemed sad. I saluted him, and gave him the sweetest of my collection, and said something about them as a cure for ills of the mind. ‘Thank you, daughter,’ he said, ‘the ills I mourn are your father’s. If you can get him to forego his thoughts of war against Malinche, do so at any price. If flowers influence him, come yourself, and bring your maidens, and gather them all for him. Leave not a bud in the garden.’ ‘Is he so bent on war?’ I asked. ‘That is he. In the temples every hand is making ready.’ ‘But my father counsels otherwise.’ The old man shook his head. ‘I know every purpose of his soul.’”
“And is that all?” asked Nenetzin.
“No. Have you not heard what took place in the tianguez this morning?”
And Tula told of the appearance of the horse and the stranger’s head; how nobody knew who placed them there; how they were thought to have come from Huitzil’, and with what design; and how the wish for war was spread, until the beggars in the street were clamoring. “War there will be, O my sister, right around us. Our father will lead the companies against Malinche. The ’tzin, Cuitlahua, Io’, and all we love best of our countrymen will take part. O Nenetzin, of the children of the Sun, will you alone side with the strangers? Tonatiah may slay our great father.”
“And yet I would go with him,” the girl said, slowly, and with sobs.
“Then you are not an Aztec,” cried Tula, pushing her away.
Nenetzin stepped back speechless, and throwing her scarf over her head, turned to go.
The elder sister sprang up, conscience-struck, and caught her. “Pardon, Nenetzin. I did not know what I was saying. Stay—”
“Not now. I cannot help loving the stranger.”
“The love shall not divide us; we are sisters!” And Tula clung to her passionately.