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fertile, as if no one had walked inside these woods before and the leaves of years and of generations had been left to fall and rot, gently nurturing the growth of each new season. My beloved, for that was how I saw her now, steered the boat to the side of the canal, stepped out in one movement, and held out her hand for the rope. I threw it to her. Then she reached back into theboat, removed a silver sickle, and cut one of the large pods from the tree. After splitting it in half, she stretched forward and showed me the brown seeds lying in a soft, white veil, like the caul of a child.
    Ignacia then pulled away the white buttery substance, and produced six cacao beans.
    ‘Happie Monie,’ she said, in my own language, as if she had learned such words only for me, and gestured that I follow her.
    I soon found myself in a series of well-shaded gardens, in which we walked on narrow paths bordered with wild flowers, and past ponds of fresh water used to irrigate the plantation. I tried to think of Isabella but found that I could not; nor did I want to, so excited were my emotions, and so voracious was my desire. Excusing myself with the thought of other soldiers, for whom such activities involved no loss of conscience, I steeled myself with the knowledge that in this country, at least, it seemed common that a man should have more than one beloved.
    At last we arrived at a small and private dwelling, hidden in the midst of the plantation. Outside, in a bright space of sunlight, lay wooden trays of cacao beans baking in the sun. Inside, protected against the heat stood a low bed, a table, and storage jars filled with the dried chocolatl . There were red glazed pottery jugs, gourds and bowls, and Ignacia now motioned that I should fetch some water while she prepared the chocolatl .
    I drank from the nearby pond, cooling my neck and forehead, not knowing if it was the heat or my passion which had so raised my temperature.
    When I returned, Ignacia held out each ingredient forme to savour before she included them in her mixture, grinding nutmeg, cinnamon and black pepper, adding chillies, aniseed and honey.
    She stirred the paste by rolling a carved silver whisk between her palms at speed.
    ‘Molinillo,’ she said with a smile, as the mixture began to froth.
    ‘He who drinks one cup,’ she said in Nahuatl, ‘can travel for a whole day without any other refreshment.’
    I drank and felt that I need never taste anything else again.
    ‘I need nothing but this.’
    ‘You seem weary. Rest.’
    Her voice was as dark and as warm as the chocolatl .
    Then she gestured to the bed.
    Sitting beside me she now took off my cotton quilted jacket and began to rub a kind of butter into my skin, a cream that she took from the pods of the cacao tree. She covered my body, in long sweeping gestures, pressing deep into my flesh, and I knew then that I was lost, that there could be no possible escape from the delights of this seduction, and I gave myself freely to her.
    We stayed on the plantation for five days. During this time I drank little but chocolatl ; it was combined with honey, with flowers, with aniseed, with nutmeg and even with achiote , which made the mixture almost red in colour. We always drank from the same gourd. Then we would sleep and play together. All consciousness seemed lost.
    At the back of the dwelling was a hot room in which westeamed our bodies, switching them with twigs and bundles of grass, before swimming in the lake and massaging each other dry. We found ourselves half-sleeping, half-waking, in both night and day, and clung to each other as if our bodies could never be separated.
    We spoke in a mixed language, part Nahuatl, part Castilian. Ignacia told me that her family had travelled from the far south, from Chiapas, and that they would surely return there. I asked if I would be with her, and she laughed, telling me that we came from different worlds, and could only be together if the earth changed, or if we lived for