Jaguar Princess

The Aztec Empire covered a vast expanse of land, annexing its neighbors and dominating its subjects with fear of the wrath of their god, Hummingbird-on-the-Left. Mixcatl, slave to Aztec priests since her youth, never questioned the orthodoxy of Aztec beliefs, but she was, by her very existence, a thorn in the Aztecs’ side, representing a different religious tradition, a gentler, more ancient tradition.

Neither Mixcatl nor her Aztec masters suspected that she was about to foment a rebellion that would shake the foundations of the sacred temple itself.

“Clare Bell has written a fascinating fantasy. The pre-conquest Central Mexico setting is well realized, and Mixcatl and Wise Coyote have complex personalities. Wise Coyote’s inner struggles over the choices he makes are more interesting than a dozen battles could ever be.”

—
Starlog

“Filled with rich details, both vividly real and wonderfully imaginary. A fantasy of a completely different stripe.”

—Kevin J. Anderson, author of
Star Wars: Jedi Search

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dorothy Bradley, whose travels and interest in ancient Mexico gave me the idea. (She also loaned me a ton of reference books.)

To Francis Gillmore, whose books,
The Flute of the Smoking Mirror and The King Danced in the Marketplace
inspired me.

To Jane Yolen, who said this was not a short story.

To members of the Wordshop 1991; Kevin Anderson, Michael Berch, Dan’l Danehy-Oakes, Avis Minger, Gary Shockley and Lori Ann White.

And to M. Coleman Easton, who knew I had to write this, and made me do it.

IN THE AZTEC
year Three Reed, in the age of the Earthquake Sun, a six-year-old girl named Mixcatl sat in a barge threading its way through the waterways of Tenochtitlan. She glowered at the passing reflections and tugged angrily at the slave yoke about her neck. Leather thongs hobbled her ankles and wrists. Her hands had been tied in front, where she could chew on the length between her wrists when the overseer wasn’t looking. She was making little progress in freeing herself; the leather was tough.

Scowling and wincing with pain, she felt the sides of her neck above the wooden yoke, where the flesh was raw and full of splinters. A crude and clumsy thing, the collar was made of two Y-forked pieces, lashed together to form a tight diamond-shaped opening for her neck and two handles that stuck out over her shoulders.

Mixcatl knew well what those handles were used for. She had been dragged from the jobbing lot where slaves were collected for transport to market. The collar handles made it easier for the slave traders to seize slaves and shove them into the market boat.

Reaching up awkwardly with her bound hands, the girl touched one side of her neck and remembered. She had resisted being put in the boat, fighting, struggling, screaming. Finally two strong men lifted her by the handles on her collar and let her hang with her toes barely touching the ground while others loaded the remaining slaves.

When she was finally let down, the slave traders put her in the only place available, a small space up front by a ragged old man. Ignoring him, she hugged her dirty knees and stared out at the peaks that rose above the thatched and tiled roofs of the island city.

She didn’t want to think about what lay ahead for her. Aztec warriors had overrun her eastern jungle village when she was barely three. Tears of rage burned her eyes when she remembered how she was torn from the arms of her grandmother by an Aztec soldier, forced to march with a gang of other captured children and sold as booty in a squalid town. Each time she was bought, her owner found her unsatisfactory and sold her again. Each time, her life had gotten worse.

Now she was here, along with other unwanted slaves that the merchant was getting rid of in Tenochtitlan. From her experience in being sold, she knew that these sorts of slaves were useless for anything except being killed as offerings at a temple.

Her gloomy thoughts were interrupted when the ragged old man beside her spoke a few words of the eastern tongue used in her village. This startled the girl out of her sullen retreat, though at first she continued to ignore him. He kept speaking to her until at last she looked at him.

He was elderly and fragile, probably too sickly to labor, the girl thought, staring away again. If he was not bought as an offering, he would probably die soon anyway. His collar hung loosely about his wrinkled neck and his bony wrists were bound in front of him. His head was bald, he had only a few peglike teeth and a dirty-yellow beard that straggled down onto his sunken chest, but there was a kind expression in his watery eyes.

The journey was long and slow, for the barge had to be poled through the canals. Often the slave boat had to wait for other craft to pass or for a logjam of barges and canoes to clear. At first,
there was nothing to look at except adobe houses that lined the muddy banks of the canal and the floating crop-gardens of the outskirts. Finding no interest in these, the girl stared at waterweed swirling past the square prow of the barge and nursed her hurt.

As the old slave spoke to her in a mix of the village language and the Aztec tongue, Nahuatl, she understood, even though she refused to answer. He was trying to cheer her up by telling her what he knew of the city.

Soon the sights he was pointing out became more interesting. Rows of adobe huts gradually gave way to more massive buildings and open plazas. Where there had been only the drab clothing of farmers and laborers, now she saw brilliant flashes of color from the costumes of people gathering in the plazas.

“And that is the Snake Wall, and beyond, the Temple of the Sun,” said the old slave in his raspy voice, pointing to a gleaming stepped pyramid that looked to Mixcatl like a mountain. The boat slowed as it rounded a sharp comer and another building came into view on the opposite bank. It seemed to lie along the canal for a great distance, dazzling the slaves with its white walls. Brightly hued banners hung between its square columns, and painted carvings decorated panels at the comers. Though in height the building was no match for the Temple of the Sun or any other of the stepped pyramids in the temple precinct, it made an impressive sight.

“That is the king’s palace,” said the old slave to Mixcatl. “Our ruler lives there. He has beautiful gardens and surrounds himself with animals and rare birds. Listen, you can hear them if you are quiet.”

But Mixcatl was already silent, leaning forward to catch the sounds. She heard the noises of her homeland, the raucous cries of jungle birds and the screeching of parrots. They made her feel tense and excited. She dug her nails into the wooden side of the boat. She could smell animals as well as birds. Monkeys, coatis, ocelots. And even from this distance, over the stone walls, she caught the sharp scent of a jaguar, trapped and pacing within the walls.

She leaned over the side of the boat, trembling with dread and longing. It was always so when she caught the smells of jungle animals, especially the big cat. She had known them from the time she had lain in her cradle as an infant. The scents drifted in through the windows and doors of her grandmother’s hut. And her grandmother had shown her the different animals that made those smells. She glanced back at the old slave. No. He couldn’t smell them. He was like all the other people, even the ones in her village. They couldn’t smell anything except food cooking.

The boat glided down the canal and the animal odors faded out. The old man was talking again and Mixcatl only half heard him. But some shift in his voice caught and held her attention.

“This is but a rumor among slaves,” he said, his voice quieter than before. “The king’s palace lies not far from the market where we are being taken. It is said that if you are about to be bought and you run away, the king will give you protection if you can touch the walls of his house. Do you understand me, child?”

Mixcatl stared at him, clawed the yoke around her neck. “Not a slave?” she croaked out in the words of her own tongue. The old man nodded, then winced as he was poked from behind by an overseer. He did not point but instead fixed his eyes on the walls of the palace that were starting
to slip away behind the boat.

“If I were not so old, I would try it,” he whispered.

Mixcatl sat beside him, looking straight ahead. If she concentrated, she could still catch the lingering scent of the king’s menagerie. If she escaped, the odors could guide her.

To be away from these hard hands and loud voices. Could she ever find a life without them?

So far her life had been short and harsh. She had worked first in a brickyard, scooping adobe clay into molds in the hot sun. Several decorative and rebellious handprints on the top of a brick had earned her a severe beating and a change of ownership.

Then came the turkey farm, where she lugged grain and water to the gabbling flock and cleaned manure from pens. She still remembered how noisy the birds were, especially when she was around them. They seemed to hate her smell, for they would chase her and try to peck her. One day, cornered and frightened, she had lashed out, belting a pullet with a half-full grain sack and breaking its neck.

If she managed to get free, where would she go? Back to her village and her grandmother? She had been taken so far away that she could never find the way back. And even if she found the village again, would her grandmother still be alive?

A burning sob pushed up her throat past her collar. Awkwardly, because his wrists were tied, the old man laid a hand on her shoulder. They sat together as the boat swung around the last corner, turning into the stone quays of the market.

Mixcatl stood on the edge of the market plaza, her back to the canal, the leather hobbles stretched between her ankles. The stone of the plaza swayed beneath her as though she were still on the market boat. The swirl of noise, color and sound added to her disorientation. As the other slaves were unloaded, she became lost in a forest of legs and feet. She jumped in fright as a macaw screamed from its cage in a stall near the quay.

She felt a touch on her shoulder and looked up into the eyes of the old man. Despite his bound wrists, he managed to guide her out of the milling mass of slaves, then stooped down beside her. His voice was a raspy whisper, but she found it soothing. While the slave merchants were distracted with the task of unloading their merchandise, the old man talked to Mixcatl in a mixture of Nahuatl and her own tongue, helping her make sense of the rioting colors and shapes about her.

His voice and his gentle manner calmed her. Across from the quay stood small mounds in colors of red, green and orange. When Mixcatl blinked away the tears that blurred her vision, she could see that the hills were mountains of fruit and vegetables, more than she had ever seen in her life. There were smooth-skinned melons and pebble-skinned squashes, mounds of yams, cassava and other root crops, along with stacked baskets of tomatoes and beans.

A spicy tang tickled her nose and she saw the dried, wine-red shapes of peppers tied in bunches hanging from the awning of a nearby stall. A muddy wet odor drew her gaze to squat, clay-sealed baskets filled with live fish from the lake. Saliva filled her mouth at the hot-griddle smell
of baking tortillas.

A warning touch drew her back from her fascination with the marketplace. The slave merchants were assembling the captives in several ragged lines before marching them across the market plaza. Mixcatl stepped into place, but her eyes still roved the market and the old man’s voice droned on above her head.

Mountains of pots were piled opposite the produce, stacked so high that the weight had broken some of those underneath. Mantles made of cloth so white that it seemed to gleam lay atop colorful tapestries and sashes. Carved jade flashed in the sunlight as it was turned in eager hands. Shimmering quetzal plumes escaped their bundles and fluttered over the edges of woven baskets.

“Do you see that man?” the old slave asked, extending his bound hands toward a richly dressed figure who stood on a red stone block. Mixcatl stared, squinting. She thought at first that the figure was a statue, for he stood so still in his richly dyed blue mantle. Then she saw his head turn and sunlight flashed on his chestpiece of beaten gold.

“He is the Lord of the Market,” the old slave said. “He enforces fair trading. If a seller cheats or makes false measures, he judges and punishes.”

Mixcatl looked at the Lord of the Market, who stood like a statue guarding the plaza. He held a carved staff with a fan of feathers bound to the top and had a stern hook-nosed face. Would he judge slaves, Mixcatl wondered. If she tried to run, would she be dragged before him and then be beaten to death?

With hoarse shouts, the slave merchants prodded the captives into a slow shuffle across the plaza. They straggled past piles of rolled mats that gave off” a dry reedy odor, past stacks of thick paper made from the beaten bark of fig trees and covered with fine white clay. In the stall next to the paper-seller, a scribe dipped a brush into a paintpot and started to make the first stroke of color on a page. Mixcatl was fascinated, but she had to move along with the other slaves.

Glancing at the old man, she recalled what he had said to her on the market boat, about the king’s palace and how escaped slaves could gain their freedom once they touched its walls. She remembered the scents of the king’s animals and grew frightened because she could no longer find them amid the many odors of the marketplace.

The slaves passed a group of people doing a festival dance, men in embroidered loincloths with elaborate knots and tailpieces, women in gaily patterned skirts. The drum pattered, a flute skirled a piping melody and the dancers’ feet tripped a light step while the slaves shuffled by.

Beyond the dancers was another stone block, this one larger and shaped in the form of a pyramid base. On the platform sat six men in white mantles, all with the stern expression Mixcatl had seen on the face of the Market Lord. The old slave told her that these men were lawgivers and judges. Before the six judges stood three warriors with spears who guarded a man whose hands were bound together before him with thongs. He pleaded, shouted and covered his face with his bound hands, but the judges paid him no heed. They spoke only briefly and the man was hauled away by the three spearbearers. Mixcatl averted her eyes. What had he done, she wondered. Was he a thief or an escaped slave?

Again she thought about the king’s palace. What would those dazzling walls feel like beneath her palm? They would be warm with sunlight and the feeling of freedom. But she had lost the scent that might guide her there. Her spirits started a plunge into despair, but halted as she caught another smell.

An animal smell. Her nostrils flared, her head came up. Images of ocelots and monkeys leaped about in her mind. But the odor had a deadness and dryness to it. There was only the scent of skin and hair, nothing of the live creature within.

The odor came from beneath a large canopy, raised on poles. In the warm shade beneath the tent lay a mound of stiff flattened animal hides. The group of slaves halted, waiting for another gang to catch up. Mixcatl took advantage of the opportunity to study the stall and its contents. The empty feet of the hides still bore claws and the snarling heads had lost their eyes.

Apart from the large pile of varied animal skins lay a smaller stack of softer furs. On top of these finer pelts lay a yellow-gold one with black spots in a rosette pattern. A man in the embroidered mantle and feathered headpiece of a noble was handling the skin, feeling the fur. A strange rage seized Mixcatl. She bared her teeth, would have flung herself at the purchaser but for the old slave’s bound hands that held her collar. She twisted herself sideways but could not escape his grip.