Age of Aztec by James Lovegrove

really matter how he came on, as long he did so in a majestic and magical fashion.
    In this particular production, the actor lucky enough to have been given the role of His Imperial Holiness was lowered from the flies on a harness. Stroboscopic lights flickered all around him. Sound cues mimicked a tropical storm. Huge electric fans stirred up a kind of onstage cyclone. Everything was designed to give the impression of power and might, the crackle of primal energy, the churn of vast creative forces.
    The audience was so dazzled and deafened that, at first, no one noticed that the figure who was supposed to be the Great Speaker didn’t actually resemble the Great Speaker at all.
    Slowly it dawned on them. Where was the extravagant, floor-sweeping robe? Where was the full-head mask – that near-featureless slab of gold?
    Confusion turned to consternation, and then to fear.
    Centre stage, surrounded by a very perplexed-looking quartet of actors portraying Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli and Xipe Totec, stood...
    ...the Conquistador.
    Who fixed the audience with a gimlet stare and shouted, “Bullshit!”
    The barrage of effects stopped abruptly, some backstage technician realising that the show had just been hijacked and leaping to hit the off button.
    “This is a fiction,” the Conquistador went on, addressing the rows of slack-jawed faces in front of him. “A complete fabrication. Revisionist garbage. Don’t believe a word of it. Shakespeare never wrote any such play, no matter what they tell you, and it never became some kind of underground mystery cult kept alive by pro-Aztec secret societies, because there were no such things. Britain stood solidly against the Empire to the last. Anyone who says otherwise is simply being the Empire’s parrot. Our rulers would have us think we wanted to be conquered all along, and only the pigheadedness of our monarchy and parliament kept that from happening. The truth is, we defied the Empire’s encroachment to the bitter end, all of us, the entire British people, and it cost us dear. It brought our country to its knees. It starved us, bankrupted us, nearly destroyed us. But we clung on, with the enemy coming at us on every shore, until it became clear that to continue would be suicide. We were the last nation to fall, the bravest. This play – this travesty – this farce – came into life after the Aztec hordes overran us, not before.”
    Some in the audience dared to boo. Others frowned, wondering whether there might not be something in what the Conquistador said.
    From the priests, there was only stony silence.
    The Conquistador peered imperiously around the amphitheatre. He had the stage, and an audience that was too startled and intimidated to move. He was going to make the most of it while he could.
    “As for the Great Speaker,” he said, “he’s no more Moctezuma than I am. He isn’t immortal. Beneath that ridiculous mask there has been a succession of men – ordinary mortal men – who have played the role just as these actors here play theirs. One after another they assume the mantle of Great Speaker and give out orders and edicts from the Lake Palace at Tenochtitlan, and when each dies the next in line replaces him, and it is all done behind closed doors, amid a conspiracy of silence, and we are none the wiser. You know in your heart of hearts that I’m right. Nothing you’ve seen here tonight is real. What you’ve been watching is a lie. Artful propaganda. Stage managed in every sense. A myth masquerading as legend. And it’s all to help keep that lot” – he jabbed a finger at the priests – “in power. Reinforce their tyranny. Tighten their stranglehold still further.”
    He unsheathed his rapier, to gasps and squeals.
    “Well, you’re looking at a man who will not be strangled. A man who’s sick and tired of living under this regime and wants rid of it. They call me a terrorist. Maybe I am. But the only people who should be terrified of