MOTECUHZOMA
If, past this moment, you persist in lies,
Know I shall bury you beneath my halls,
Pull down your house till sludge seeps through the planks,
And wipe your family name from off the earth,
Yea, to the unborn fragments in the womb.
Now, wouldn’t you recant this little fib?
FISHERMAN
Forgive me lord, but what I tell is truth.
TLACAELEL
Most like it is.
MOTECUHZOMA Then know, you brave, bold slave,
These spectral archipelagos you saw,
Were giantlike canoes, with alien crew.
He gestures to a servant, who produces a trunk.
One year ago, the waves cast up this trunk
Of jewels, foreign frocks, and silver swords:
Most like, the precious jetsam of this launch.
FISHERMAN
May my aviso aid your eminence.
MOTECUHZOMA
One see him nobly boarded in our suites.
Exit Servant with the Fisherman.
Enter a Majordomo.
TLACAELEL
Well, watch, where are your hocus-pocus wards?
MAJORDOMO My lord, command that I be cut to pieces or whatever you wish, for you should know that when I reached the cell, there was no one there. I had my best sentries there, trustworthy men I’ve known for years, but none of them heard the sorcerers escape.
TLACAELEL
Then how, pray tell me, have they flown the coop?
MAJORDOMO
Perhaps they flapped away.
TLACAELEL What, gallows-meat?
MAJORDOMO They can sprinkle themselves with fern-spores, and
shimmer into invisibility.
TLACAELEL
Buzz, buzz! These twice-told tales upend my trust.
Rope’s end-
MOTECUHZOMA No. Suffer him.
TLACAELEL As you see fit.
MOTECUHZOMA
Some say such wizards take wing every night,
And soar unto the fringes of the earth.
TLACAELEL
His majesty’s broad magnanimity
Has spared you this time, turnkey, but repair.
Not all wards will be such skilled hide-and-seeks.
MOTECUHZOMA
Now: Torch the hovels of their families,
And witness if those new lighthouses’ beacons
Will call their wandering rooks home to re-roost.
Exit Majordomo.
TLACAELEL
And what of these vast dugouts?
MOTECUHZOMA Time will tell.
Our steward Teuhtlilli eastward creeps,
To see what tricks are offered from the deeps. They exit.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 1:21 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
If, past this moment, you persist in lies,
Know I shall bury you beneath my halls,
Pull down your house till sludge seeps through the planks,
And wipe your family name from off the earth,
Yea, to the unborn fragments in the womb.
Now, wouldn’t you recant this little fib?
FISHERMAN
Forgive me lord, but what I tell is truth.
TLACAELEL
Most like it is.
MOTECUHZOMA Then know, you brave, bold slave,
These spectral archipelagos you saw,
Were giantlike canoes, with alien crew.
He gestures to a servant, who produces a trunk.
One year ago, the waves cast up this trunk
Of jewels, foreign frocks, and silver swords:
Most like, the precious jetsam of this launch.
FISHERMAN
May my aviso aid your eminence.
MOTECUHZOMA
One see him nobly boarded in our suites.
Exit Servant with the Fisherman.
Enter a Majordomo.
TLACAELEL
Well, watch, where are your hocus-pocus wards?
MAJORDOMO My lord, command that I be cut to pieces or whatever you wish, for you should know that when I reached the cell, there was no one there. I had my best sentries there, trustworthy men I’ve known for years, but none of them heard the sorcerers escape.
TLACAELEL
Then how, pray tell me, have they flown the coop?
MAJORDOMO
Perhaps they flapped away.
TLACAELEL What, gallows-meat?
MAJORDOMO They can sprinkle themselves with fern-spores, and
shimmer into invisibility.
TLACAELEL
Buzz, buzz! These twice-told tales upend my trust.
Rope’s end-
MOTECUHZOMA No. Suffer him.
TLACAELEL As you see fit.
MOTECUHZOMA
Some say such wizards take wing every night,
And soar unto the fringes of the earth.
TLACAELEL
His majesty’s broad magnanimity
Has spared you this time, turnkey, but repair.
Not all wards will be such skilled hide-and-seeks.
MOTECUHZOMA
Now: Torch the hovels of their families,
And witness if those new lighthouses’ beacons
Will call their wandering rooks home to re-roost.
Exit Majordomo.
TLACAELEL
And what of these vast dugouts?
MOTECUHZOMA Time will tell.
Our steward Teuhtlilli eastward creeps,
To see what tricks are offered from the deeps. They exit.
From my play in verse, thefloralwar.com
