That same afternoon, Jerónimo de Aguilar is smoking a rough Maya pipe in his quarters when Captain Jazmín Caldera appears and quips that he would like to be in clean clothes if he ends up being sacrificed. Aguilar calmly corrects him: Victims go to the sacrificial stone nearly naked, so laundered clothing is beside the point. Caldera asks Aguilar to have Malinalli teach him the Nahuatl phrase for getting his clothes washed; Aguilar notes that Malinalli is presently occupied with Cortés, and Caldera reads the remark as a warning—their status as guests or prisoners remains uncertain. Aguilar instructs him to leave his dirty clothing on the floor and wear the local dress to avoid Cortés’s and Alvarado’s notice.

None of the captains are professional soldiers; their rank reflects how much money or supplies each contributed to the expedition. Caldera despises Pedro de Alvarado, Cortés’s second-in-command, and believes that the only reason Alvarado has not killed him is that he shares Alvarado’s interest in classical literature.

In his own quarters, Caldera examines the comfortable bed, the fresh mantles and breechcloths, and braziers in the corners—candles, like hinges, are unknown here. He recalls his first view of the Valley of Anáhuac as the finest thing he has ever experienced. He carries his sword to the bath for protection, drops it at the pool’s edge, and enters.

Swimming among densely perfumed floating flowers, Caldera is joined by Aguilar. Caldera notices a butterfly tattooed on Aguilar’s genitals; Aguilar remarks that the design becomes an eagle when he is aroused, then enters the water. Floating on his back, Caldera reflects that the rectangle of sky above the pool would be his final view if he were taken to the sacrificial stone.

His thoughts move back over the campaign’s history. The expedition originally set out to procure enslaved workers for Caribbean plantations. After Aguilar and Malinalli joined on the Gulf Coast, Cortés—backed by most of the captains—converted the mission into a settlement expedition, established the settlement of Vera Cruz, and wrote directly to King Charles to legitimize his own command. The campaign proceeded through improvisation and military successes, drawing an expanding army of Indigenous nations hostile to Mexica rule. Throughout, Moctezuma sent lavish gifts alongside messages of discouragement—claims of contagion, insufficient food, the capital’s unworthiness. Aguilar and Malinalli consistently interpreted these as standard Colhua diplomatic courtesy: elaborate self-deprecation concealing a sincere welcome. Cortés exploited the ambiguity until the expedition ended up inside Tenochtitlan itself. By then, they had all come to believe their own fabrications.

Now Caldera wonders whether Moctezuma has lured them into a trap, noting that the causeways into the city have movable sections capable of blocking his Tlaxcalteca allies from entering.

Shouting and running feet interrupt him. Eight scarred Spanish soldiers pour into the courtyard and launch themselves into the pool with maximum noise. Aguilar watches them and tells Caldera they are fools. Caldera, watching them splash, already regards his companions as a group of ghosts.

Returning from a bath, Cortés finds Malinalli on the floor drying her hair and reading from one of his books. He asks whether she can now read Castilian; she replies that she will soon be able to. Cortés stares at her as though she has become a stranger and asks how long she has understood what the Spanish say. She admits her comprehension is still limited but reports something he needs to know: When Atotoxtli, Moctezuma’s sister and wife, stormed out of the recent shared meal, one of the attending priests indicated a wall and warned that it had eyes.

Cortés dismisses the warning, arguing that all nine captains were present and saw nothing suspicious. Malinalli says she, too, saw nothing but reminds him that priests perceive things others cannot. Cortés counters that if these priests failed to notice her growing command of Castilian, their perception is imperfect. He dresses, mentions that his hip is in pain from waiting on horseback for Moctezuma, and orders Malinalli to keep her knowledge of Castilian concealed from Aguilar. She bows her head in silent agreement.

After the group’s bath, Caldera wakes Aguilar from a nap and asks for a lesson in dressing in Mexica garments before the other captains stir. Aguilar demonstrates how to wrap the maxtlatl, an exceptionally fine, long cotton breechcloth, winding it around the body and finishing with a knotted fringe. Caldera strips and replicates the steps under Aguilar’s impatient guidance.

When he looks down at the result, Caldera is dismayed: Pale where his shirt had covered him, hairy, and bowlegged from years in the saddle, his body is a poor match for the garment. Aguilar, by contrast, is muscular, deeply tanned, and tattooed, and has shaved his chest and abdomen in keeping with local custom.

Aguilar then explains the mantle’s social codes. The yellow cotton mantle Caldera has chosen, embroidered with vegetable motifs, must be tied at the neck, as warriors and young nobles wear it during military training; officials tie it under the left shoulder, priests under the right. Once Caldera has his on, he finds that he looks considerably better he expected to. Aguilar tells him the mantle is fine Totonac workmanship but adds that garments offered to a true equal would be embroidered with feathers rather than thread.

Caldera slides on the sandals—hide inner sole, rubber beneath—and marvels at how comfortable they are. The lace ends in a small carved jade serpent’s head, which he says the fictional knight Amadís de Gaula—titular hero of a popular chivalric romance published in 1508—would have coveted. Aguilar tells him Amadís de Gaula never existed. Caldera insists, in a low voice, that the character must have been real because he read about him in a book. Aguilar laughs and gestures broadly at the room, the palace, and everything around them: When someone eventually puts what is happening to them now into a book, he says, readers will assume it is nothing more than invented chivalric fantasy.

Moctezuma wakes and briefly considers the duties piling up: hearing petitions, meeting with calpulli leaders to address the nervousness among Mexica leadership following the Texcoco uprising, and reviewing military deployments. He promptly abandons this intention. Resuming formal audiences would draw yet another Council emissary pressing him about the Cholula incident, and appearing publicly requires full ceremonial dress, a headdress, jewels, and blood offerings.

He decides to stay in bed and smoke. The one person he genuinely wants to see is Atotoxtli, his sister and wife. He rings the small silver bell to call his newest Little Cousin—a young woman, related to him by blood, who acts as his servant—and instructs her to bring Atotoxtli once she has woken from her own nap, but and only after she has had a chance to smoke, since he cannot stand her when she is in a difficult mood.