Chronicles of Tenochtitlan reading Exercise

I was twelve the first time my father let me climb the western causeway arch at dawn. From there, Tenochtitlan seemed to float above Lake Texcoco—four causeways sewing the island to the mainland, aqueducts carrying fresh water from Chapultepec, and chinampas fanning out like emerald quilts. Canoes slipped along the canals beneath us, laden with maize, beans, flowers, and the reed mats that cradle young seedlings.

The priests say our city rose from prophecy: an eagle, a cactus, a serpent. My father says prophecy needs engineers. He points to the dikes that keep brackish water out, to the sluice gates that release storms, and to the piles driven deep into the lakebed that steady our homes. “Remember,” he tells me, “every plank walkway and reed boat is a promise to keep this island alive.”

Six summers later I set up a stall beside my mother's woven baskets in Tlatelolco market. Dawn bells rang and the plaza pulsed with traders—farmers steering chinampa produce, pochteca merchants unloading jade and quetzal plumes, scribes tallying prices on amatl paper. The smell of roasted cacao drifted past piles of obsidian blades and clay cooking pots.

We paid taxes in cloaks and cacao beans, yet the market felt like the heart that kept our canals, warehouses, and barrios alive. Announcement drums boomed from the judges' platform: counterfeit weights meant exile. Beside the tribunal, healers inspected herbal remedies, explaining which infusions cooled fevers or eased childbirth pains.

By the time I joined the calmecac scribes, Emperor Moctezuma's messengers arrived daily with tribute records. City-states pledged cotton mantles, cacao, warriors, or artisans in exchange for protection. The palace courtyard bustled with runners holding glyph-painted shields, stewards weighing jade, and feather workers building shimmering banners for the imperial audience hall.

In the Hall of Eagle Warriors we painted histories onto cotton cloth—battles, alliances, and marriages binding altepetl into an empire. When envoys from Texcoco visited, they brought poet-philosophers who debated astronomy and law beside the emperor's advisors. Tribute kept storehouses full, but discourse kept the empire sharp: engineers proposing new dikes against floods, healers requesting canals for floating apothecaries, merchants recounting coasts beyond the horizon.

In the emperor's fifteenth year, rumors rippled across the lake: strangers with metal skins landing at the eastern coast. Huexotzinco scouts brought reports of thunder-sticks, armored beasts, and sparkling glass. Moctezuma doubled the guards on every causeway and ordered market judges to silence panic.

When the strangers reached the western causeway, the city glittered with banners and incense. Moctezuma, robed in turquoise, greeted Hernán Cortés with flowers and cacao. Yet the plaza fell quiet as Cortés raised a cross and his priests swung incense in the opposite direction. That night in the calmecac we debated their intentions: tribute, alliance, or the lake itself.